Now, after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary, Magdalene, and the other Mary went to see the tomb. And behold, there was a great earthquake. For an angel of the Lord descended from heaven, who came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. And for fear of him, the guards trembled and became like dead men. But the angel said to the women, Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, for he has risen. As he said, Come, see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead. And behold, he is going before you to Galilee. There you will see him. See, I have told you. So they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy and ran to tell his disciples. And behold, Jesus met them and said, Greetings. They came up and took hold of his feet and worshiped him. And Jesus said to them, do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee, and there they will see me. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the joy of the occasion of celebrating the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you for this beautiful narrative, succinctly telling us of his resurrection. So give us understanding and insight to your word by your spirit. May we together grow in our grace and knowledge. Help me to be clear, declaring the mighty acts of God. We pray this all in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. The resurrection of Jesus from the dead is the main event in the Christian world. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15 that without the resurrection of the dead, we, of all people, would be most pitied, and we would put our hope in the resurrected, the living, Lord Jesus Christ. This story, this narrative, when I say story, I just mean of Jesus' resurrection is given to us in all four Gospels. But the significance of that is echoed throughout the whole of the New Testament, and you'll find references to the resurrection, what it means to the believer, all the way out through the New Testament, including into the Book of Revelation. One example from Colossians Chapter 2, verse 13, Paul writes, and you who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us of all our trespasses. catch that little connection, we remain alive with Christ, the one who resurrected from the dead. And it's in that, that you and I have hope, because our sins are forgiven. That death that we had in our trespasses, we now remain alive. Now here in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus' resurrection, chapter really is on the resurrection. There's a couple of appearances really is what happens after the resurrection. And this idea of the resurrection or this story of the resurrection bookends nicely with the opening of the gospel, particularly after you get through the genealogy. But here you have the appearance of an angel and he explains to some folks here, the women particularly, What has just happened? In the opening of the Gospel, of course, you have an angel appearing and explaining to both Joseph and then to the wise men, the Magi, about the conception and birth of the Lord Jesus Christ. And here, this angel, and frequently you'll hear me refer to him as a messenger. I think we lose something in that translation of angel. You think of chubby little rosy cheek things and paintings and whatnot. He was a messenger, mighty. And he came to bear a message, both on the front end and the back end of the Gospel, particularly pertaining to yours and to my salvation. And so we have this miraculous event of the Resurrection explained to the women, and then they were taken to the apostles, but he does the same thing on the front end by explaining the virgin conception and birth. We know from two lines of evidence, both presented here in this passage of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, and it's the two things that Matthew wants to deal with and what we'll be considering this morning, and that is that the resurrection in the Gospel of Matthew is confirmed by two things, the empty tomb and his appearances, that is, Jesus' appearances. Here we will see only the appearance to the couple of women. At the end of the gospel he will appear then to the disciples and then give them the great commission as we understand it. Now, I don't think that Matthew's intention as the writer of this gospel, I don't think his intention is so much to give us a Christian apologetic on resurrection, I know lots of times, and maybe in years past, you may have come to church on Easter and you've heard of some kind of apologetic for resurrection. I don't think that's what Matthew's giving us. It's not my intention to do that today, but that is an apologetic for why resurrection can happen. But I do think that we get something here. We get the impact on the women. and then eventually the disciples. In other words, we begin to sense and understand what it means for Jesus to be resurrected from the dead. But for our purposes, we're going to take and extrapolate that out and consider a few things that the epistles tell us, as we read in Colossians 2, that this is what the resurrection means, this first appearance out of the tomb for Jesus to these folks. This is what it meant for them and for us. So we want to consider then these couple things, the empty tomb and the risen Christ by virtue of his appearance to the women. And for that sake, we want it to have for us a very lively assurance of our salvation. That's one of the things that the resurrection does, that gives us assurance that we too will be resurrected on the last day. So let's begin by considering the immediate results of Jesus' resurrection. The first one, of course, is the empty tomb. Now, I think most of us, maybe all of us in here are believers. I don't know that for sure, but I presume that many of us are, or most of us. And an empty tomb would seem about the most self-evident thing that a resurrection would have. If you're going to have a body resurrect out of the grave, then an empty tomb would be the most natural thing to think of. But for these women, obviously, who were coming to the tomb, that wasn't their expectation. And I would say this, at the very least, we should have some empathy with unbelievers who question the resurrection. At least from the standpoint that these first, the women who come, not only are they not expecting this, but more than that, they're just at least a bit surprised, maybe in great understanding, as to what they find. So we need to consider that. For us, we not only have had lots of years of hearing of the Resurrection, but we believe it. We know it to be true, but the first people to encounter it, well, it was a surprise to them. So what we have then is an empty tomb. That's the first thing that's presented to us. We want to be technical and say this. There were actually no eyewitnesses to the resurrection. There were some women who come and find the tomb empty. And I don't want to try to bring together all of the accounts. That's something that you can do if you would like. There are plenty of books that do this. But there were a group of women who were coming. Matthew highlights two of them particularly, Mary of Magdala and the other Mary. But other gospel accounts include a larger group. And they were coming to put some spices into the tomb, that is to counteract the smell of decay. from the body, and hence not embalming, but simply to alleviate some of the odor. And they were thinking about how it is that they could open the tomb, and presumably then these couple of women, Mary Magdala and the other Mary, approached the tomb first with the idea of how are we going to get this stone away from this opening so that we can get into it, and we learned that again from others. The verse 6 tells us very clearly that when they got there, Christ was already out of the tomb. So there were no witnesses exactly to the resurrection. But there was a witness to the empty tomb. And there were some significant signs that says God is at work here. The first one is the earthquake. We see this at Sinai. We see this when Elijah is about to be taken up in the chariots of fire. We see this with Paul and Silas in the prison. There's many accounts of the scriptures that say to us that when the earth quakes, in scripture particularly, God is present. He is at work to do something special or particular. And so this kind of earthquake was simply intended to tell everyone God is here, particularly to do something, however it was that the earthquake. It doesn't even say that the earthquake was the thing that rolled the tomb away, the stone away. It just simply tells us that God was present in the earthquake, and that preceded then the rolling away of the stone. And the messenger comes. He descends from heaven, and again, it must have been something that at least was seen by the women, that Matthew acknowledges that now suddenly, out of heaven appears this messenger, this angel, And he comes and he sits on the tomb and he begins to speak to these women. And you see his appearance there. It's brilliant. And it's magnificent. And their reaction, as the reaction is with folks seeing angels all throughout the scriptures, is one of fear. So we have this very magnificent sign that God is present in the earthquake, and he sends his messenger to tell the women to explain it. So, in other words, we want to derive from this at the very minimum that an empty tomb is insufficient to simply tell us all what happened. Because even as the opponents of Jesus have pointed out, an empty tomb can be obtained in multiple ways, hence the guard that was there. Well, he said he was going to rise from the dead. So let's put some guards there to make sure that nobody comes and steals the body and says, hey, he's risen from the dead. So, at least in other places, then it's also a question. There's an empty tomb. Why is there an empty tomb? And the angel explains. There's an empty tomb. And he gives us the most magnificent words that probably have ever been spoken or written, I suppose, And this Jesus that was crucified, you know, dead, He's not here. He's risen just like He said He would. Now, we could probably, and maybe we ought to, at least pause and reflect on that. Again, one of my things is always that with being Christians for so long and living under the culturalness of these things, we get these glosses and we move through these things as if this is just the most ho-hum of events. He's not here, here's an empty tomb, the stone's rolling away, and we treat it as if it's the most ordinary things. And again, it's not to say directly that's true, but I get the sense that we just track through it. Just let's stop and consider just for a moment how great and magnanimous those words are. He isn't here. People don't just come back alive. They can come back alive. These women may have even been witnesses to the raising of Lazarus. Or maybe they were in Nain and they saw that widow's son raised. I mean, it has happened. But we should stop and consider for a moment that this is just not the most arbitrary event. This is not something that happens every day. This is not something that you just see. And it might cause a little bit of perplexity that, wait a second. He's not here. He's risen. But I think the even more important words are, just like he said. He told you all this was going to happen. So your expectation should have been, I'm coming to find an empty tomb. That's not what you're expecting. You're carrying spices. You're coming to find a full tomb. But he told you he wasn't going to be here. And then the apologetic from Matthew's point of view, come and see where he lay. See, the tomb really is empty. Look inside. He's not here. And then he tells them, go to Galilee and tell the disciples to meet him there. Again, a slight bookend to the Gospel. Galilee was a place of darkness. Matthew records most of Jesus' ministry there, not that he did it all there, but simply that that's where we get most of Jesus' ministry in the Gospel of Matthew. Particularly, maybe, I should say it's not the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke. But in the other part of Matthew, chapter 4, Matthew quotes from the prophets to say that in the land of Zebulun, in the land of Naphtali, in the place in the north where there is great darkness, a light will come. And he puts it in reference to the beginning of the ministry of Jesus. But I can't help but think that the fulfillment of it fully is now when the angel tells the women, go to Galilee with his disciples and Jesus, the resurrection of the dead, he who has life in himself, will meet you there. And you're going to get some real light dawning in that. It sort of works out the back end of the gospel to fulfill that front end to say, here's how we're going to close this off. Go to Galilee. and see the light of the world. Now Jesus made several explicit predictions of his death and resurrection in chapter 16, verse 21, chapter 17, verse 23, chapter 20, verse 19, these are all in Matthew. And then probably the reference that the angel makes is 26, 32. So there's a couple things that we need to think about here. One is that the resurrection of the dead, particularly Jesus' resurrection, was not one of human agency, but divine agency. That is, God did it. That there was no natural explanation as to why the tomb would have been empty. I mean, consider those things. And this is what Matthew is communicating to us. This is what he is attempting to tell us, is that he is resurrected, Jesus is resurrected from the dead, and no human did it. The guards are trembling in fear. They are off by themselves. They are fearful. The women are slightly perplexed, at least to the degree that the angel has to say to them, this is what he told you was going to happen. And then to maybe add to it, not just the empty tomb, but also his, he appears. So the other apologetic line that Matthew takes in terms to tell us exactly what it is that happened to Christ on that day, he gives us then the second part after an empty tomb, the appearance, or appearances, because he does two in Matthew, of Christ. The one that we read was to the women. And we learn there that Jesus' resurrection is physical. That is, they grabbed his feet. They understood that he was human. his new nature, and that his body was a resurrected material body. He's not simply resurrected in our hearts. Yes, we come alive when we have a new heart, but he is actually physically resurrected and seated at the right hand of the Father. He's going to call it a spiritual body, not meaning immaterial, but meaning a work of the spirit that gives you a new or resurrected body. Refer to the press to understand that the women in this first century were not legal witnesses. So that they were chosen to be the first to know this. Well, it's something we should take note of. They're very unlikely candidates. Because if you were going to propagate the truth, In the first century, you wouldn't call these women to be the first and the out-of-its-face. But in keeping with how God works, and please understand I'm about to say it, He uses the weak things, or the foolish things, to confound the wise and strong. Just as we saw last week with Abigail, who announces to King David, the soon-to-be king, his potential to sin and to heed him from doing that, to stop him. We now have these women given, if you will, on a very small scale, the Great Commission. Go tell the disciples. This is what Calvin says, John Calvin says about it, this particular passage. He says, here God, by the angel, confers extraordinary honor on the women. by enjoining them to proclaim to the apostles themselves the chief point in our salvation. Now later he's going to appear as Jesus to the disciples. That's at the end of the Gospel. And the Gospels will record multiple appearances and Paul will speak of multiple appearances in the first Corinthians. Matthew just has two. One to the women and then to the apostles in Galilee to deliver the Great Commission. Now according to 1 Corinthians 15 verses 3-9, Jesus' post-resurrection appearances are part of the gospel proclamation. That is, this is how we know that Jesus is alive. That people saw him, they interacted with him, they ate with him, they grabbed ahold of his feet, that he was alive and he was embodied. And he was resurrected from the dead. So it's mainly a physical understanding. That is, they were able to touch him. I know that we give a lot of, we have our doubting Thomas, who proclaims that he will not believe until he touches the nail holes and the spear side and all that. But in some sense, what we want to understand is that he was only seeking what the other apostles had already gained, which was that they had already been able to see Jesus and touch him and interact with him and eat with him. Here, Matthew's emphasis is on the divine work of raising Christ. The body is not stolen. The guards are terrified. They're sitting off by themselves. That story will kind of close out in the next passage. We didn't read it. But we can simply acknowledge this. There was no amount of money given to these guards that would change the actual circumstances. So with their pockets full of cash, they may have said, yes, yes. We were asleep, which doesn't bode well for them to be guards. And some disciples overcame us as Roman warriors. We want to kind of take that out and we want to consider that for a moment, that here were average men coming along and overcoming Roman warriors to get into a tomb of steel body. That was the story. But they knew deep down in their hearts that if you cornered them one day by themselves without that cash in their pocket, They would have to say, you know what, we were terrified. We were scared. Out of our wits. We're not sure what happened. But like Jesus on the cross, there was an earthquake. And suddenly, it was gone. Jesus here is acted upon. What Matthew uses is the passive voice. He has been raised. There's a reason for that. In John chapter 10, verse 18, Jesus states that he has the power to lay down his life and to take it up again. That is, in his divine nature, he can lay down and raise up. Now, he refers to it as himself doing that. But in Acts, Peter emphasizes that it is the work of the Father. In Acts 2, 32, and 36, and 13, 37, he says that it is God the Father who raises up Christ. In other words, The understanding of it that is proclaimed is that Jesus is acted upon, that is, that it is of the divine nature that He, in His human nature, returns to life. Now that's important for us. It's important for us because it gives no human any credit for the raising of the dead. But it also, as the resurrection of Christ Himself is then counted towards a work of salvation in our lives, we also want to understand that in the same way, as we read in the beginning, that God raised up Christ, that He makes us alive together again, so that for our purposes, we get no credit for salvation. We didn't choose Him, we didn't bring our hearts alive together again, we didn't do anything to affect our salvation. But in the same way that God raised Him, He made you alive. That is, through divine power, to take something dead and make life into it. Why? Because God has life. This is what Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, and the life. He says to him very clearly that in himself is the life to do this. So that for the purposes of Matthew's gospel, we have these miraculous bookends of a divine conception, birth, and a divine resurrection. That is, of the divine order of things, God himself does these. so that we derive and understand that salvation and all of the implications of the resurrection is miraculous. To deny these parts of our understanding of our doctrine is to deny the very tenets of our faith. So, what does Jesus' resurrection then mean for you? This is the application, folks. Those of you who are in Sunday school. Firstly, It means that He is Lord. What kind of application is that? Well, Romans chapter 1 verse 4. That's what it means. That the Son of God was declared or appointed the Son in power. So the Son of God is declared or appointed to be the Son. Now, what Paul does there is he's not talking about a change of essence, but a change of status or function. Think of Psalm chapter 2 verse 7, Today I have begotten you. Or to think of Philippians chapter 2, which we looked at last week and this week in our evening worship, that we have this exaltation of Christ. And in His exaltation, He's given a name that's above every name that He has bore. and to him every knee will bow. Right? So there's this status, this function that happens to him by virtue of his death and his burial and his resurrection and his exaltation to the right hand of the Father that he now functions as the Lord of all he has exalted. That's very important to all of our salvation that he rules and reigns over all things. particularly he rules and reigns over his church. So he functions as the king of kings. In which, as we continue to say, that he is subduing you and me as his people to himself, that he rules over us, that we are obedient to him. He is Lord of all. That's a good thing because we understand that he is the beginning of things and he is the end of things, the Alpha and the Omega, that there is some meaning to everything. That there's some purpose, or as the New Testament says, some telos, some end goal to which we are going. And it is all ruled over by Christ Himself. So that just by that virtue of Him being Lord of all, that my life and your life has purpose in Christ. That's what the resurrection means, personally. He's the Lord of all. Well, actually, to continue on with that, he's declared the Son of God in power. This is also from Reverend Shepherd 1 verse 4. But the second person of the Trinity takes on flesh. This is, again, Philippians Shepherd 2, where we have this taking on the form of a servant and being in flesh, and then being a servant, to be pointed down. And then he's given the name that's above all names in his And this all happens according to the spirit of holiness that we're told in Romans chapter 1 verse 4, in which here Paul is contrasting the two ages, the old age of the flesh and the new age of the spirit. In his earthly life, Jesus is the Davidic seed, and in his new life-giving way, he is the son in heaven, or in the realm of the spirit, he gives life and is new life. Because He Himself went through death, conquered it, has life, and now gives life. So the first thing is that He is Lord. That's it. That's the first point. And it's very important for us to understand, Paul starts his whole epistles to the Romans by hinging on that one verse, chapter 1, verse 4. That this is who Christ is, and this is what this means as you spin it out, that He is Lord. Secondly, and I mentioned this earlier, you and I, by virtue of the Christ's resurrection, have assurance in our salvation, particularly of our justification. This is 1 Corinthians chapter 15, verse 17. So we understand that at the cross, Jesus himself satisfied his heavenly father's divine justice, right? That Adam, and all of us in Adam, we have broken or transgressed God's law. You have, and I have. And we have no way to atone for that. We had no way to make up for it. We had no way to become right with Him. And in that grand injustice, that grand offense to God the Father, Christ comes. And He dies on the cross, vicariously, that is in my place, substitutionary. In my place, in your place. He dies for me in my place. So that on Him the penalty of my sins and your sins have been laid and paid in full. But we understand not simply that it is His path of obedience, that is His death at the cross, but we understand that it is His resurrection. Romans 8 chapter 11, because God raised Jesus from the dead, He accepted Jesus' atoning sacrifice. That means He goes into full fact. And you have assurance. You have assurance that your sins are forgiven past and present and future. That there really is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus our Lord. A dead Savior alone is no Savior. You need one who has passed through death to life. It's the exclamation point that makes it all worth it. It makes it a fashion. You have a high priest who intercedes for you in chapter 7 of Hebrews, verse 25. And he has a superior priesthood to the sons of Aaron because it's eternal. It's ongoing in perpetuity because it is now in heaven. It's sitting at the right hand of the Father. That Christ is now able to intercede because his intercession is given efficacy. That is, it's made effectual for us by his divine nature. so that there's continual effectiveness of His atoning work now that He's alive, sitting at the right hand of the Father, so resurrected, that is now coming to me. The virtue of it continues into eternity. We'll see this tonight, if you come back, that one of the things about His exaltation is that it makes effectual His salvation not to us only in a moment in time, but for all eternity. Because He is now acting still as Redeemer in His exalted state by, among other things, in His office of priest, sitting next to the Father, making intercession for you and for me. That is, applying the sacrifice to us. So that when I cry out, Father, forgive me of my sins, it's because of the Word of Christ that that has any effect at all. And then lastly, and these aren't the only ones. These were four, and these were fine to do. You're guaranteed a future resurrection. This is also the first Corinthians, chapter 15. We sang about this a little bit, I think, earlier, that Christ is the first fruits. So I'm going to think again of the body of Christ, that he goes first. That's the first fruits. as his people. We're the complete harvest at the end of the age. There's a good reason why that the New Testament particularly, although it's a little bit of the Old Testament, uses the image of a harvest. You see it in St. Jesus' parables of the kingdom, that he sends the angels as reapers into a harvest. You see it in Revelation, that the angels act as reapers of a harvest. And there's a good reason why. Paul takes that metaphor, he turns it and says, you know what, the end will be just like a harvest. And in that last day, the Lord will come and He will harvest His people. And that because Christ is the firstfruits, has passed from death to life, that guarantees for you and for me that as we languish in graves, that that's not the final answer, but that we will be raised in time at the harvest to be with Him in body and soul forever. So we look to him as the first fruits. Because of him, because he did it, I will follow him in my time. He is the life-giving spirit that will give you life. And he calls me and you from the north on that last day. There are plenty of other things that we can think about that are applicable for Christ's resurrection in our lives. Those are four that I think are necessary words our time to consider. These were all true of Mary of Laboulon and the other Mary and the other women who were around the tomb. At the very moment when they saw them, it was true of that, of them at that point, as it is for us right now. There's two things to say, I suppose, as we come to an end. And that's this. One, it is a day of salvation, as every day is, as we're told. to call you to faith. So if you've never made a profession of faith, today may be the day. But for all of us who are believers, this should offer to us great and grand assurance that the words we heard earlier, quoted by Peter, that if we're suffering now, particularly for righteousness, that we don't suffer in vain. We want to recognize and understand that our suffering, whatever it is, is short compared to the glory that will come because of Christ's resurrection. In the name of Jesus, I do pray. Heavenly Father, we give you thanks for your word to us and we ask that you would bring it into our hearts, our minds, Give us the assurance that we are yours and you are ours. That we are the people and you are our God. We give you great thanks this morning for that. We pray through Christ, amen.