Our series is on not only the Passover but the importance of Passover. And I would tell you at this time of the year, it's always impressed upon me how important it is for us to remember the painstaking way, the tedious, meticulous way the Lord God prepared the steps of Jesus to walk. to that place of torment and crucifixion, and how he did it on a time schedule already laid out anciently in the features of the Passover. Back from the time of Abraham, when he went up onto the mountain in Zion, where eventually the first temple of Solomon would be built, and he was told by God to sacrifice his firstborn son. And all the while, he knew God would provide a sacrifice. He kept saying it to Isaac, God will provide a sacrifice. And indeed, he provided a ram caught in the thicket, the Bible tells us. And he sacrificed the ram, and the angel stopped him from fulfilling what he fully intended to do for the sake of God. And then some 500 years later, when the Israelites were slaves in Egypt, And the Lord gave Moses the prescription for the Passover that on the 10th of Nisan, which was a blessed month that he got so radically changed their focus on this that he changed the 7th month to the 1st. He wanted it to be among the first things they did and remembered when they counted the years. And so on the 10th of the 1st month, they would pick a lamb, the firstborn of its mother, the firstborn male of its mother. No blemish could be on that lamb. He had to appear as the perfect one of the flock. And they would examine him for five days in Hebrew reckoning, counting the tenth, and on the fourteenth of Nisan, they would all kill together, the Bible tells us. They would take blood of that lamb, and they would display it before heaven. In this case, on their doorposts, on their lintels. And the angel of death would see those who were covered by the blood of that blessed lamb, and no one in their houses would die but the firstborn of all of the other houses that did not display the blood would give up their firstborn. And all down through the centuries, 1500 years, counting from Moses to the time when Jesus walked those steps into Herod's newly built temple in Jerusalem. And he came in on the first of the week, which we know is the 10th of Nisan. And He came in to the praises of the pilgrims who were there for the Passover. And He came in to hails of praises. Hosanna in the highest. The Son of David is among us. And He was recognized for who He was. And for the next four days in the temple, He preached and He taught. He was examined. He was scrutinized as the Lamb of God must be. And in the end, He was pronounced faultless. We find no fault in Him by His judges. And then the lamb was killed. What a glorious history we have. And I take these moments, these Sunday mornings leading up to the advent of the resurrection, just to remind us, because there's so many other traditions that come in that crowd out this beautiful history. Someone told me this morning, I'm in my purple, told me I look like an Easter egg. I hope you know that's just another of my lifelong goals fulfilled. Thank you, Mrs. T. You are that woman. But as all of these things come together, we think of Easter eggs and rabbits and all of these things. I want you to know these are signs of spring and fertility cults that go back to all a varied grouping of ancient pagan festivals, but this Hebrew festival It's the one we have to keep our eyes on in the midst of this morass of all these other symbols. We have just a wonderful history here, and I want to make sure that as you color Easter eggs with your children or your grandchildren or do all those things that people do, that you do put before their eyes the true meaning of the Passover. I want you to know something, Christian. Passover is the gospel. And Christ is the Passover. And if you take anything away from these teachings, take that with you. Passover is the Gospel. And Christ, our Passover, is sacrificed for us, Paul wrote to the Corinthians. So I'm going to ask you this morning, turn to Luke chapter 23, and I will read to you verses 50 through 2412. Chapter 23 verses 50 through 2412. And so Luke writes, Now behold, there was a man named Joseph, a council member, a good and just man, and he had not consented to their decision and deed. He was from Arimathea, a city of the Jews, who himself was also waiting for the kingdom of God. This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus, and he took it down, wrapped it in a linen, laid it in a tomb that was shewn out of the rock where no one had ever lain before. That was the preparation day, and the Sabbath drew near. And the women who had come with him from Galilee followed after. And they observed the tomb and how his body was laid. And they returned and prepared spices and fragrant oils and they rested on the Sabbath according to the command. Now on the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they and certain other women with them came to the tomb, bringing the spices which they had prepared, but they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, and they went in and did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. And it happened, as they were greatly perplexed about this, that behold, two men stood by them in shining garments. And then, as they were afraid and bowed their faces to the earth, they said to him, Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but he is risen. Remember how he spoke to you when he was still in Galilee, saying, The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again. And they remembered his words. They returned from the tomb and told all these things to the eleven and to the rest. And it was Mary Magdalene. Joanna, Mary, the mother of James, and the other women with them, who told these things to the apostles, and their words seemed to them like idle tales, and they did not believe them. But Peter arose and ran to the tomb, and stooping down, he saw the linen cloths lying by themselves, and he departed, marveling to himself at what had happened. Father, we ask this morning that your people would praise you, O Lord, for the written record of your resurrection. Indeed, Father, for four reliable testimonies of the time that assure us that indeed Christ Jesus did rise according to his word and also according to his word, Father, he has gone to prepare a place for those who love him. And if he goes to prepare a place, he will return that where he is, we may be with him also. the very presence of beloved God forevermore. We praise you for preserving this gospel for our hearing. We praise you in Jesus' name. Amen. Alright, if you turn to your notes, we'll begin with verse 1 of chapter 24. And we read, Now on the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they and certain other women with them came to the tomb bringing the spices which they had prepared. Now I want you to know, I have prepared these messages as a series, but I try to craft each message in such a way to bring everybody back up to date with where we are and the points of interest that we really ought to glean from this gospel record. So we have here a clear marker of the time of day and the time of week. It's the first day of the week. We know that Christ rose on the first day of the week, what we call Sunday. He rose very early. As soon as it was dawn, it was still a little dark, it says, and they ran out to the tomb. Luke might as well have said, however, they went at the first opportunity. As we have noted from the previous verse, the women were preparing to anoint a dead body. Remember, they were preparing to anoint a dead body. They brought out spices. In fact, we can calculate those spices to be about 100 pounds, and by tradition we can calculate that the weight of the Lord Jesus was about 200 pounds, because they always brought about half the weight of the person in anointing fragrances and herbs. But Jesus' body was hurried into the tomb to be there by sundown. That was very important. And why is that? Because there was a high Sabbath that week of Friday. And I want to bring people up to date on this. Jesus rode into Jerusalem on the donkey's coat on the first day of the week. That's very clear. No one disputes that. He was examined in the temple for four days. Five by Jewish reckoning. He ate the Last Supper, according to my understanding, and the understanding that I'm trying to bring out as a coalition, if you will, of the four Gospels, bringing all the information of all four of them together. It seems to me he delivered to them the Last Supper on a Wednesday evening, what we would call Wednesday. It was not a Passover meal, but another ritual Jewish meal. If you go to the Gospel of John and you follow it along in the series, you'll see that John takes great pains to teach that to us. And then on that next morning, remember evening starts the day in Jewish reckoning. On that next morning, Jesus has already been tried by 9 a.m. and hung on the cross. He hangs there for 6 hours, till 3 in the afternoon. He commits his spirit to the Lord, he is taken down, and before that day ends and night comes on, he must be put in the tomb. Just as the passion lamb is being killed at 3pm in the temple, and the priest is turning with the blood on his hands and saying that the passion lamb is dead, his blood is now on us, and we are now safe from God's wrath. And only the priests would eat that lamb, and that lamb they had to destroy the rest of it, the entrails and the inedible parts, burning it with fire before sundown. And so Jesus is following the path of the lamb, if you will, all this time. The next day, the day after Passover, the 15th day, I showed last week that comes from the from the time of Moses begins the great feast, the seven-day feast of unleavened bread, which as the Passover celebrates God's atonement, the feast of unleavened bread celebrates the actual exodus from Egypt. And so they come out and for seven days they celebrate and memorialize the time in the wilderness. coming out at the time of Exodus. And so that day, that Friday, according to the Mosaic Law, was to be treated as any other weekly Sabbath. There was no work served by labor that could be done. You were to rest on that day and there was no travel outside the city. So Friday is a Sabbath day. And John makes that very clear in his Gospel. That that was a high day. Saturday is the weekly Sabbath. Alright now, one thing we know from what we just read is the apostles did not believe that he rose from the dead. They still did not believe. Peter ran out to check. But no, they couldn't go out until Sunday morning. Why? Because they couldn't anoint the body Friday because they couldn't travel outside the city. They couldn't anoint him again on Saturday for the same reason. Two weekly Sabbaths. or a weekly Sabbath and a yearly Sabbath were consecutive in that year and on Sunday the first opportunity they ran to the tomb and that brings us up to date as to where we are except for one other feature. That next day, that Sunday, is called the Feast of First Fruits. And just as Paul identifies Jesus Christ with the Passover lamb, he identifies him with the first fruit sacrifice. Meaning that he would be waved as a grain offering, the produce of the land, waved before the Lord. in order to bless the future harvest which was 50 days out on another great Jewish festival called Pentecost. 50 days later. So the real first fruits rose up, was offered before God as a tithe, if you will, or an offering that would be the first fruits of the field that would bless the harvest which we all know came at that Pentecost service some 50 days later. And a great ancient appointment had been kept. And so we're operating on what we see as the Hebrew timetable of events. If the prior Sunday was the triumphal entry, and if Jesus is keeping the ancient appointment set for him in order that he may be identified with the Paschal Lamb, then that day was the 10th of Nisan. The Paschal Lamb was selected and presented on that date regardless of the day upon which it falls. The Lamb is always sacrificed on the eve of the 14th, which is Passover. We read that day, the day Jesus was crucified and entombed, was the preparation day, and the Sabbath drew near. You see, Passover itself is the preparation day. It is not treated as a Sabbath. The next day, the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, is treated as a Sabbath day. In our calculations, that had to be Friday. that always occurs five days later by jewish reckoning which includes the tenth as one day. Jews count differently than we do. If Jesus was crucified on schedule with the Lamb, he was bound to the cross on Thursday morning at 9 a.m. Remember, for the Jews, night precedes day. He expired at 3 p.m. and there are several time designations which confirm this in the Gospels. We know from John 19.31 that Friday was a high Sabbath, the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. It was regarded with the same restrictions concerning work and travel as the weekly Sabbath. Saturday was, of course, the weekly Sabbath. So it's our contention that in the year that Jesus was killed there were effectively two consecutive Sabbath observances which would have restricted the women from traveling to Golgotha for two days. Sunday, in fact, very early on Sunday, was their first opportunity to come there. But be aware of a number of other important facts from the text. First, we have Joseph of Arimathea. He sits on the council of the Sanhedrin. Now the Sanhedrin is that great Jewish body in Jerusalem. There were other Sanhedrins in other communities, but this is the great Sanhedrin, which really acted, so far as the Jews had autonomy in the Roman Empire, this acted as their ruling body. And they made decisions and judgments autonomously in cases like Jesus had been accused of. And so Joseph is one of those great men that sits on the council of the Sanhedrin, the ruling body of priests. Even in the face of the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, and the indigenous tetrarch of Galilee, Herod Antipas, each of whom said explicitly of Jesus that, I find no fault in this man, and I find in him nothing worthy of death. I will chastise him and let him go. Even in the face of all that testimony, the priests insist on moving for conviction and the death penalty. Now why would they go before Pilate at all if they're the ruling body? Because the one area that the chief priests did not have autonomy in was in capital punishment. They were not allowed to kill Jesus. Now, it seems, if they decided to stone Jesus, they might have been within their legal purview to do so, as they did so in other cases, like with Stephen and others. But in Jesus' case, they pushed for the ridicule of Roman crucifixion, you see. They were trying, really, to ridicule this man, and all the while not recognizing that God is moving them. Jesus could not be stoned according to prophecy. David wrote in Psalm 22, my hands and my feet are pierced, a thousand years before they crucified him. King David had already prophesied his death by crucifixion. So they pushed for crucifixion, which adds to the Jewish curse of hanging. the personal agony of torture, the public spectacle of ridicule, and prolonged agony of spikes and thorns and repeated scourging. So the priests sell themselves out completely in order to see him killed in the Roman way, saying, among other foolish things, they say, we have no king but Caesar. So consider this perfect storm of politics of the moment. So many things are coming together and politicians are working together for their own gain and really it's moving towards this point that had long been prophesied and that Christ was willfully walking toward. Pilate is under pressure by Rome to keep the peace in Palestine. He doesn't need to judge a prophet as guilty and have him executed. He's trying to quell any civil unrest that may occur there. He's been chastised already by his superiors for harsh treatment of the Jews and a couple of other instances, you see. For desecrating their holy places and for coming very close to committing genocide in Caesarea from an event that occurred some years earlier. We find Pilate in our story a politician that's trying to soften his image. He doesn't want to make a harsh judgment in this case. Consider also, he's thought of by the Jews as a man who does not care about their particular religious sensibilities. The blasphemy they convict Jesus of will not be an issue for this Roman ruler. He doesn't care about blaspheming the Jewish God. So they trump up the charge of treason. to get his attention. You see, as the governor of Rome, he has to be concerned about treason. He doesn't have to be concerned that Jesus blasphemes the Jewish God. So they have to make this political move of trumping up the charge of treason, you see. And they say Jesus called himself a king on the order of Caesar. Consider the charge. They said, we found this fellow perverting the nation. Imagine saying that of the Lord. We found this fellow perverting the nation. I can't imagine standing before the judge of history at my own judgment of my life and having that on tape somewhere. With my voice saying that. We found this fellow perverting the nation and forbidding to pay taxes to Caesar, which we know is a blatant lie. Alright? Saying that he himself is Christ, the King. Pilate, striving to be politically neutral, so that, in his words, the blood of this just man is not on his hands, and the brutality called for is not on his record, finds what he believes to be a totally politically correct move. What does he do? Well, just by chance, the Jewish governor, or tetrach of Galilee, is in town. Herod is there. So he sends him to be tried by Herod. If Herod convicts them, then the situation has been solved in-house, as it were, by their own king, and he's off the hook. So you see this perfect storm of politics coming together that is bringing Jesus to the point of the cross, the point where He knows He must go. And Jesus is alone now. Nobody really understands how intent He is to get to that cross and fulfill the will of His Father. So if Herod does not convict, then the whole matter is resolved for the better. For it seems that Pilate really believes that Jesus is innocent. Now think about a couple things here. We know a little bit about the profile of Herod. Number one, I want to just give you a little background on the Herodian dynasty, if you will. The name Herod appears in the scriptures a couple of times and in six different instances it refers to different people. At the time when Jesus was born there was a Herod. You remember he was there, the wise men from the east came to him and told him the Messiah would be born under that star and committed the infanticide in Bethlehem and wiped out all the babies from two years old and under. You remember that terrible period of history. Well that was Herod the Great. That was the first. the dynasty who built the great temple in the aqueducts he really was a great man not a great theologian in fact it seems the Herodian dynasty had their own Messiah complex and they thought the Messiah would arise out of their dynasty that Herod died right around the time Jesus was born this is one of his sons Antipas all right now he had several sons One of them that he killed because he thought he might, because he was under two years old at the time the Messiah was rising up. But he had, Herod Antipas is is granted by Rome to be king of a fourth of Herod's kingdom. So he's the tetrarch, the leader of a fourth of Palestine at the time. He inherits a fourth of his father's kingdom, and some of the other sons inherit the other fourths. Well, Herod Antipas is the effective governor of the land where Jesus is from, which is Galilee. So he calls him in to get his opinion on this. Now Herod Antipas is a bit of a superstitious man, and he's already a little concerned because his wife caused him to kill John the Baptist. He didn't want to do that either. Alright? Not the least of reasons why is that I want you to know something. Jews never celebrate their birthday. They just would never celebrate the day they came into the world. Herod, of course, is an Edomite. He's a half Jew, if you will. It goes back to the sons of Noah. And he works for Rome. And he has this great birthday party, as you know. And now there's a great curse that this super-substitious man believes. Not only is having the birthday party bad enough, but killing a prophet of God on the very day you came into the world adds a great curse to you. And he was cursed by this all the rest of his life. He was far more in fear of his wife Herodias than he was of hell, it seems to me. What's interesting, ever thought of her name Herodias? I know I digress from the notes here, but I thought a little background here might be useful. Her name was Herodias because she was already a Herod. She was the daughter of another Herod brother. So he effectively married his niece. But before she was his wife, she was the wife of another Herod brother, Philip. And of course, John the Baptist, a Jew, comes out and he proclaims the immorality that's going on in the Herod clan. And so Herodias wants him killed and commits that great subterfuge at the birthday party, if you remember. And John the Baptist is summarily beheaded. and disgraced by putting his head on a platter. So this is the type of man that we have here, Herod. He does not want the death of another prophet on his hands any more than Pilate does. It's just amazing to me that all of these events come to the place where these men have to declare that they find no fault in the Passion Lamb, which makes him the worthy substitute for our sins. and identifies him with that lamb. This perfect storm of politics and lineage all come together for this one moment. And so Herod takes the opportunity to ridicule and to beat Jesus, all to appease the priests who stand about like jackals accusing him, but according to proper protocol, he sends them back to Pilate for final judgment. Pilate notes that even Herod found no fault in him. The priests continue to complain and to demand justice for blasphemy, for treason, and false prophecy. So Pilate tries one more political expedient. He's really trying to get Jesus off. Right? So in order to deal with the problem, and to distance himself from the outcome, he tries one more tool in his tool belt, if you will, he delivers Jesus into the hands of the mob for justice. And the, what I call the ugly specter of democracy condemns truth, perverts justice, and eagerly establishes policy on wrong, uninformed conclusions. Democracy works when people are informed. When they're not informed, the innocent die. It could hardly be supposed by anyone familiar with the crimes of Jesus and the crimes of Barabbas that any just person would call for the acquittal of Barabbas and death to Jesus. However, there are at least two more disturbing elements of the story that may explain the outcome, notwithstanding the providence of God. Just remember one thing, Jesus' crimes were against Israel. The crimes of Barabbas were against Rome. And so far as can be determined, and there's very little written about this character Barabbas, but I do want you to know that according to some sources, Barabbas was sort of a Robin Hood character among the Jews. He was a revolutionary against Rome. He might have even been considered a hero to some of them. But remember, God and His Son are determined that His Son would be on time for the sacrifice, which has been scheduled and prefigured by every major prophet up to John the Baptist, who labeled the Christ the Lamb of God. So first, the harassment of Pilate of the Jewish people in the matter of the Golden Shields was still fresh in their minds. What happened? Some years earlier, Pilate marched in with armies into Jerusalem with insignias of Caesar on their standards. And the Jews saw that as a pagan infiltration desecrating the temple. They formed a huge protest in Caesarea up the coast which was the headquarters of Pilate. Some estimates of 100,000 people protesting and Pilate had to do one thing. He had to either wipe out 100,000 Jews or he had to take down the shields. He took down the shields. So the Jews won that little skirmish. But you see Pilate is now being told by Rome, you know, Palestine wasn't an important colony to Rome. They just wanted peace there. And they put Pilate there to keep the peace. So at this point in time he's doing what he has to do to placate his superiors. Alright? But the Jews already have a great hatred of this man. We also read from Luke that Pilate mingled the blood of Galileans with their sacrifices. We can see from Luke that Pilate and Herod are not on friendly terms. In fact, Luke says that day they became friends for the first time. So it's unlikely, though Pilate does not seem to recognize the fact, that the Jews would accept his verdict over the verdict of their own priests. He's saying Jesus is innocent. The priests say he's guilty and deserving of death. So we can hardly presume that every person who called out for Barabbas that day even knew Jesus. Or were they present at the triumphal entry four days ago? Maybe they never heard people calling out that the Son of God, the Messiah, the Christ is entering into Jerusalem. They may never have heard Him speak on the matters for which He was charged. They may have never witnessed the multitude of healing miracles He performed in the temple complex area for the last four days. Many would simply have trusted the priest's suggestions and spurned Pilate's suggestion. You see, they had They trusted their own priests and they didn't trust Pilate. And they may not have even known who Jesus was. But there was a second problem. Equally significant, perhaps more so. And that would of course be the similarity of the names. Now everyone knows what I'm talking about, right? Pilate wants one more political tool to try to release Jesus. So there was a custom where on certain days that were important in the Jewish calendar he would release to them the criminal of their choice. And so Barabbas was the man and Jesus was the man. They were the choices that you had for that day. But there was a second problem. There was a great similarity between the names. We know from certain other manuscripts, in fact you can take a moment right now if you want and turn to Matthew 27.16. I'm not going to read it but you can go there and see if there's not a footnote there that says Barabbas is literally translated Son of the Father. Alright? Now, whenever you're reading in the scriptures and you come upon a person's name, and the name begins with the prefix B-A-R, bar, that refers to son of. Alright? Bartimaeus, the blind man, was the son of Timaeus. Bartholomew was the son of Talmai. You remember Jesus turned around to Peter one time and called him Simon bar Jonah. Right? Simon, son of Jonah. Now, some people believe that that means that Peter's father's name was Jonah. I really don't believe that. I think what Jesus was doing was mildly rebuking Peter for acting like Jonah. a reluctant prophet, someone who ran away from God. I think he was calling him son of Jonah, or a reluctant prophet, saying you're just like your father Jonah. Just like he said to the Pharisees, you're like your father the devil. You do the things your father wants you to do. He called another man the son of trouble at one time. I just think it was an epithet of the day. But the word Bar usually refers to, always refers to, son of. The word Abba, we know that when we pray in the spirit, from the teachings of Paul, that our spirit cries out, Abba, Father. Barabbas means literally, son of the Father. And what makes the choice all the more confusing, and you'll see this in that footnote if you haven't in Matthew 27.16, it says, Jesus Barabbas. You see, Barabbas' first name was Jesus. So when Pilate gave the choice to the people, it may have sounded something like this. Who do you want me to release to you? Yeshua, the carpenter's son from Nazareth, who calls himself king of the Jews, or Yeshua, the son of the father? In fact, it may have even confused the people who were calling out. What do you call out? If you call out Jesus, it could mean either them. If you call out son of the father, it could mean either them. So I read this from the New International Commentary on the New Testament by R.T. France, who comments on Matthew. He writes this, knowing that the amnesty was due, that Jerusalem priests had their own candidate already selected, and presumably Pilate had been informed of this, the only name under consideration is that of Jesus Barabbas. until Pilate, under the impression that Jesus of Nazareth was also a popular leader, decides to try offering them a different Jesus. And I wonder if that's not what Paul refers to the Galatians when he says, some come preaching another Jesus. It's even possible R.T. France writes, that he heard shouts in favor of Jesus and assumed it was for the other Jesus they were shouting for. At any rate, the coincidence of names gives sharper point to Pilate's question, which Jesus do you want? The son of Abba, or the one who is known as Messiah? Interesting point of history that the Lord brought all these things together to make certain that Jesus was not only on the cross, but he was declared innocent as he went to the cross. So it's not difficult to see the problem of clarity here. Jesus was standing there already beaten and bloodied. Barabbas was taken, presumably from resting in a cell. Even those who may have thought to be doing the right thing were not given enough information to make the right choice, and hence the gruesome specter of democracy in action. Jesus left to the will of an ill-informed and ignorant public, was doomed from the start. Remember, Jesus had already asserted to Pilate the sovereignty of God in the matter. Pilate had said to him, don't you know I have the power to release you? And at that moment, Jesus turned to him and said, you would have no power at all if it had not been granted to you by my father. And he said to him, though Caiaphas and Judas, he was referring to, he said, though you will condemn me, he said, those that delivered me to you have the greater guilt. And he was, of course, referring to those who betrayed him. So, he goes to the cross, Joseph offers the tomb. It's significant that no other body had ever been laid there. Joseph had this tomb prepared, but he'd never used it. It's significant that that was the case, because if there had been another body there, it would have been impossible to substantiate the resurrection, you see. What we should know also is that as the priests still had the cooperation of Pilate, that Roman soldiers were put there to keep anyone from tampering with the grave. The Romans ensured no one tampered with the grave. And they were, of course, anticipating a resurrection conspiracy arising among the close followers of Jesus. You know, it's almost as if in this one point the priests got it about the resurrection and the apostles missed it. And so they were trying to make sure that they kept it in there and that no one tampered with the grave. The priests were in more trouble with a dead Jesus than they ever were with a living one. It's likely that the tomb was sealed with a soft wax and stamped with the seal of Rome. The penalty for tampering with such a thing was death. Verses 2 through 5, we read this. But they found the stone rolled away from the tomb. And they went in and did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. And it happened, as they were greatly perplexed about this, that, behold, two men stood by in shining garments. Then, as they were afraid and bowed their faces to the earth, they said to them, Why do you seek the living among the dead? The angels say to the apostles, Why do you seek the living among the dead? Now it seems to me that angels have little to no understanding about human unbelief. They don't understand why if Jesus said something to them, they just didn't believe it. It's either that, or angels like to ask us questions to make us feel stupid. Jesus could not have been plainer about the fact that he was going to rise from the dead, and yet we just read they didn't believe it. He compared himself publicly to Jonah. Once again, Jonah rises. He said that the sign of Jonah would be his sign. He said that he would emerge from the bowels of the earth after three days and three nights just as Jonah emerged from the belly of the great fish. You know what's interesting that's not written in the Gospels here, it is difficult to corroborate, but there was an oral tradition at the time that Jonah was the risen son of the widow of Zarephath and that Elijah had raised up Jonah as their dead son from the same era. And a number of people may have believed that at the time. We have no way to corroborate that. I've read several commentaries on each side of the matter. But it's interesting that Jesus compared himself to someone who there was a tradition of having risen from the dead. He also compared himself to someone who was out of sight, if you will, for three days and three nights. And what's also interesting about Jonah, you remember when the Pharisees said, no prophet has ever risen out of Galilee? Because Jesus was a Galilean prophet. But the fact is, they were wrong. There was only one other prophet that arose out of Galilee. You see, Jonah was from Nazareth. A little town three miles from Nazareth called Beth-Gath-Hepper. So Jonah was really a perfect person for Jesus to compare himself to. And I almost believe that if Jesus didn't compare himself to Jonah, that the Reformation fathers would have had a hard time including Jonah in the canon. They might actually have excluded it, but you know, the easiest way to be considered a holy book of the Old Testament is that Jesus quotes from that book. So all of these things, this perfect storm, are coming together. After the transfiguration, Mark writes this about Jesus. As they came down from the mountain, He commanded them that they should tell no one the things they had seen till the Son of Man had risen from the dead. They saw Him in His glorified state. He told them He'd rise from the dead, and still were so plagued with doubt. He compared, or rather before Lazarus walked out of the tomb, he said, I am the resurrection and the life, he who believes in me. So he may die, he shall live, and whoever believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?" he said. He asked Martha in the company of many witnesses. He said, a little while and you'll not see me, and again a little while and you'll see me because I go to my father. He spoke repeatedly about his death and resurrection. Suffice it to say that Jesus taught of his own death and resurrection many times, though it seems no one believed. Some suspected. But no one seemed to hold on to the timing and the purpose of his death and resurrection. Even among the eleven apostles, after seeing him and speaking with him in the resurrected state at a pre-appointed time and place, Matthew could write this, The eleven disciples went away into Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had appointed for them. And when they saw him, they worshipped him, but some doubted. They worshipped him. but some doubted. You know something friends, it occurs to me that Easter Sunday morning there are more people worshiping God and doubting Him at the same time than perhaps any other day of the calendar. How many people do you suppose worship Him and doubt Him at the same time? It's remarkable that even among the surviving eleven apostles that unbelief persisted among them. And this is why Luke can say in this verse that they were greatly perplexed about this. They listened to the angel's explanation. And reminder to them, He said, Remember how He spoke to you when He was still in Galilee, saying, The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified, and the third day rise again. And then we read this, And they remembered His words. In the final analysis, His word on any subject is all that we have. And we come together at least weekly to be reminded of what he said. And it's my hope and belief that in our moment of crisis, that that is all any person of faith will seek to remember are the words of Jesus. There are many who will try to teach you that your faith is useless, that it is blind. that it will fail you and disappoint you. And there will be many who will conspire together against the Lord to dismantle your faith, to distort the facts as you know them to be. We're also willfully blind sometimes to the truth of things. We're also so ignored to the so-called realities of life. We're also conditioned to ignore the miraculous. to presume that the natural dictates to the supernatural and that the physical vetoes the spiritual. Yet the physical resurrection of Christ stands as one of history's most provable facts. You know, there are a number of ways you can corroborate that that event of history happened. And using those objective means work very well for the physical resurrection of Christ. And just as a point of doctrine, I want you to remember, when Jesus rose up, he wasn't a ghost. He was a man. He said, feel me. And remember Thomas very famously, I won't believe until I feel the wounds in Christ. He arose again in his own body and the wounds had not yet healed and he said, feel them, put your finger in my side. He was a physical Christ. So much so that in the first letter of John, John said, we saw him, we felt him, we walked with him, we heard him speak. Jesus' resurrection is a very physical thing. and so will ours be. And it has been shown that using purely objective means for determining the historical truth of anything or any event that validating the resurrection of Jesus Christ is as readily demonstrable as determining that George Washington was the first president of the United States or that the Eiffel Tower is in France. Four testimonies That's what we have, four testimonies by reliable eyewitnesses. Matthew, Mark, and John, a fourth testimony, those are the Jewish testimonies, Matthew, Mark, and John, a fourth testimony from the same era by a Roman, namely Luke, who compiled his narrative based on the testimonies of a whole regiment of eyewitnesses and close associates of the Lord. There are also equally impressive corroborations from substantially secular, objective historians of this early period in Palestine, most notably Josephus. Not to mention the determined group of believers who, through preaching these Gospels, saw an immediate exponential swelling of their numbers, even in the face of severe personal persecution over the next three centuries. and a world religion that persisted throughout history and continues to base their faith on these same accounts even some 2,000 years later. Unlike other world religions, such as Islam or Mormonism, these are based on the writings of their founders. Christianity has no record of anything ever being written by Jesus. We have only the written endorsement of those who had nothing material to gain and everything to lose by espousing his message and publishing it throughout the empire. There was no material gain. These people wrote anonymously. Even from the very beginning, men with an agenda conspired together to distort the facts. Yet God intervened to keep his son's appointment with history. And at the detailed course of events that we laid them out, from Abraham's ram, to Moses' prescription for the Passover, to the Paschal Lamb being killed at the precise moment the Lamb of God was killed, we have other reasons to doubt the word of men and to rejoice that the word of God has been shown to trump human intentions and machinations every step of the way. Consider Matthew's detailed account of the priests conspiring with the Roman guard to lie about the miraculous stupor that came over them when the great angel appeared and froze them in place when he rolled away the stone and freed the risen Lord. Again, on the first day of the week, we read this from Matthew. And behold, there was a great earthquake. For an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone from the door and sat on it. His countenance was like lightning, his clothing as white as snow, and the guards shook for fear of him, and he became like dead men. He is risen. Go quickly and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead, and indeed he is going before you into Galilee, and there you will see him. Now while they were going, behold, some of the guard came into the city and reported it to the chief priests, all the things that had happened. When they had assembled with the elders and consulted together, they gave a large sum of money to the soldier saying, tell them, his disciples came at night, and stole him away while we slept. And if this comes to the governor's ears, we'll appease him and make you secure. So this great subterfuge is planned here. Now, how would Matthew know this, do you suppose? Did you ever wonder that? How did Matthew know what happened between the Romans and the chief priests? You know, it's interesting if you look at Matthew's life. Look at the background of Matthew's life. Matthew worked for Rome. Matthew was a tax collector. He worked for Rome. He was a very wealthy man with a lot of connections in the empire. Jesus even hosted a dinner at Matthew's house, the famous feast at the house of Levi. Levi is Matthew's surname, his Jewish name. So they had a feast at Matthew's house, which is commemorated in any number of Renaissance paintings. The feast at the house of Levi. Matthew was a Roman operative. He had a lot of connections in the empire, presumably. As a tax collector, he would. As a wealthy man, he would. Isn't it a wonder that the official record of the priest's side of the story has not survived history? You know, whenever I have someone who wants to contend with the established written records of something, I always ask them, well, where's your written record? You know, we get that around Thanksgiving time a lot. You know, that the first Thanksgiving was not a time that was kind to the Native Americans or something. And there's a certain sort of conspiracy that that was a day when they were exploited and that kind of thing. And I said, I'm willing to listen to that history, but where's your written record? Well, they had an official record. Rome was very scrupulous in keeping records, but isn't it interesting that no record of the priests survives history? Only the disciples thought it important to preserve the evidence. God's hand in the preservation of these reports cannot be discounted. four intact texts by reliable men with quotes from witnesses from the era to testify to the resurrection of Christ. It is our love of this story that should cause us to welcome those exhaustively boring genealogies contained in them. Yeah, the genealogies bore us, but what do they do? If nothing else, they show us the obsessive, compulsive character of the Jews to keep written records of their history, and their history as they lived it. And they painstakingly preserve these records through the Holocaust of invading armies, and six periods of military invasion. relocation, urban destruction. Even with the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple, these records have been preserved. From the time of their captivity in Egypt, 500 years before Moses' exodus, to world prominence under David and Solomon. world prominence under David and Solomon, to complete devastation by Assyria in Israel, Babylon and Judah in the 5th century BC. They became the property of imperial Persia until the empire fell to Alexander the Great. And finally, in the intertestamental period, Under Roman hegemony, the Messiah finally appeared. Everywhere these people went, they conquered. I'm talking about the Jews. Everywhere they went, they conquered. Not by might, but by carrying with them a sincere devotion which gained the hearts of their conquerors from Pharaoh in Joseph's time. to Nebuchadnezzar and his son, Abel-Meredok of Babylon, to our exercise of Persia in the time of Ezra and Nehemiah. Friends, they even gained the devotion of Alexander the Great, who marched through there and did no harm to the Jewish nation. He actually respected the fact that they were so devout in keeping their feasts and a written record of the history of their religion. What's also interesting about this time of Ezra and Nehemiah, that's the time when the Old Testament was collated together. Some four centuries before Christ. Keep in mind their notable contemporaries. Ezra and Nehemiah lived in a time when Confucius was teaching in China. When Gautama Buddha was teaching in India and Socrates was teaching in Greece. And the religion of Ezra and Nehemiah was already thousands of years old. These are new religions compared to ours. Ours goes back to Adam. And even though it took some 300 years from the resurrection of Christ, eventually Christianity conquered the Roman Empire as well. Not with a sword, but with this story. And they became the great Christian Empire, if you will. So everywhere they went, their religion took their enemies by storm. Their faith in a book, in a written transcript of the intervention of God among their people changed the face of every period of history from the very dawn of civilization. Yet the world goes on in its beloved state of intellectual and spiritual denial of the fact of the resurrection of Christ. You know what I say when someone tells me they don't believe in Christ? It's an apologetics course for the young people. I say to them, what year is it? And they'll say, it's 2014. And say, why is it 2014? And they'll look at you like you're crazy and say, I don't know, I guess because the last year was 2013. And say, alright, well, how did you get to 2013? Again, they'll look at you quizzically and say, go all the way back. It's 2014 because we started counting when Jesus was born. He's the hint of history. He's the central figure in all history. And if you want to count the days before Jesus was born, you've got to count backwards. Everyone operates on the fact, everyone in the world from every religion operates on the fact that Jesus Christ is the central figure of all history. It's the story that took the region by storm some 50 days later and right on schedule and the world by storm for the next two millennia. Jesus rose on the Feast of First Fruits. The festival when the Israelites were scheduled to make their fruit offering to God for the blessing of the future harvest. The festival of weeks, or of harvest, or as the New Testament saints call it, Pentecost. 50th day, right? It became a harvest of souls. All reliably recorded as God keeping that ancient appointment with the Son and with the saints. Friends, the Passover is the Gospel. And Jesus is the Passover. Jesus entered the city right on schedule with the Lamb. He was examined during the divinely designated time of examination. He was bound to the cross, His altar of sacrifice, at the moment when the Lamb was bound to the altar. He gave up His spirit when the Lamb was slain. He was hidden from sight on schedule with the remains of the Lamb being disposed of. He rose from the dead three days later, the first fruits of a harvest of souls which became the fledgling church of God some 50 days later in the same city and right on schedule with the feast. There's no more spectacular witness of the movement of God upon his people than these events. There's no stronger evidence of the hand of God upon the world. No other religion can offer such unimpeachable and reliable testimonies as these, and there is no more blessed people in all of human history as those who love the Lord God and believe in His Son, Jesus Christ, who rose from the dead. And I hope that this Resurrection Sunday that you'll recognize the eternal blessing of being called His disciple. I can think of no greater privilege. And whenever I come into trial or tribulation in my life and I fall to my knees with my Christian wife and my Christian children, I praise God and then I pray for the world, what do they do in a time like this? I hope you'll recognize the eternal blessing of being called His disciple and that His rising is the seed offering and the guarantee that all those who love Him will someday rise with Him and see Him and be with Him forever and ever in a world without end. Amen. Our Father, we thank You for the Word. We thank You for the written Word. We thank you for the oracles of God and the blood that was spilled to preserve them, O Lord, even the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. We receive him as our Savior and as our Lord, and we see this written record of his life and his words and his prophets, Lord, as the very word and will of Almighty God and the purpose for his people of which people we are. We praise you in Jesus' name. Amen.