That turns the world upside down. You could think of it like this, a Lamborghini in a garage looks pretty impressive. It’s it’s sleek, it’s nice. You might even be stopping, and if you were walking on the side of the road by a Lamborghini, you might be a little bit in awe of that car. But if there’s no engine under the hood, that car is going nowhere.

And the resurrection is the engine of Christianity. We have a church, the church exists because the tomb is empty, because Jesus is alive. I want you to put yourself in the sandals of those women disciples in that first Easter morning. Just picture what it would have been like to be getting up early before even the sun has gotten up. You know, it’s cold.

It’s an early dawn. The coffee has not set in. You’re making your way to the tomb and as far as you know, this is this is a terrible day. It’s not a good day. It’s not a day where there’s banners of Resurrection Sunday plastered all over.

There’s no Easter egg hunts planned. No Easter bunny. You’re you’re going there and it’s a dark day because you’re going with the plan of visiting the tomb of the Lord you’d followed the last several years. The one who you saw open the eyes of the blind, heal the sick, give life to the dead, multiply bread. You’re going to that tomb because his dead body is there and you’re going to put aromatic spices on his body.

And that was the custom of that time. If you loved someone, if you wanted to honor the dead, you went and you did this. And you went to the tomb. And one thing is certain, Jesus is now dead. They were there at the foot of the cross.

They saw Jesus hanging there. In fact, before that, they’d saw what his body had looked like. He’d been whipped with this Roman scourge. His body was was just ravaged with this scourge. And then he’s taken to Golgotha and you see him pinned to the cross.

And and you even see him utter that last gasp of breath where he says, “It is finished.” And then all the the sky is dark. It all goes silent. And you see Jesus’ body slump. And he’s dead.

Jesus is dead. That’s the last thing you’ve seen. Now, there are some things in life that you can just count on. Taxes being one of them. Gravity and death.

When people die, they tend to stay dead. That’s how it works. And so nobody in that Easter morning, no one in that first Easter morning thought that this was going to be a good day. This was a day to mourn. But when they got there, this massive tomb, this stone that was in front of the tomb was rolled away.

And they could actually look and see that the tomb was empty. And that sent Mary Magdalene, she’s the one we’re going to highlight this morning, that sent her flying back to the others with this message that would change the world forever. This message that Jesus is no longer in the tomb. And within a few years this movement would gain so much momentum, become so powerful that even their biggest critics would say, “Hey, these guys have turned the world upside down. And they’re proclaiming another king, someone other than Caesar.”

A guy named Jesus. And this Resurrection Sunday, we’re going to look at this from their perspective. What was it like to go to that tomb? And here’s what we’re going to see in John chapter 20. We’re going to see that Jesus comforts the hurting.

He encourages and emboldens the fearful. And he gives evidence for those who doubt. This is from John chapter 20. If you would, if you’re able, please stand for the reading of God’s word. John chapter 20, we’re just going to read the first 10 verses of this chapter.

John says this. Now, on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early while it was still dark and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they’ve laid him.” So Peter went out with the other disciple, and they were going toward the tomb. Both of them were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first.

And stooping to look in, he saw the linen cloths lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came following him and went into the tomb. He saw the linen cloths lying there and the face cloth, which had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen cloths, but folded up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple who had reached the tomb first also went in and he saw and believed. For as yet they did not understand the scripture that he must rise from the dead.

Then the disciples went back to their homes. Thank you. You may be seated. Well, there’s a lot of excitement in this passage. There running back and forth from the tomb.

Hearts are racing. People don’t know what to do. They’re They’re not sure if they should panic or celebrate or what is coming. But the story is told as this sober eyewitness testimony. See, John who wrote this gospel was there.

He was there. He had the first-hand experience. He got to see Mary come barreling through the door that first Easter morning. He saw the look on her face, the shock, the amazement, the fear, the joy. It was all there.

And he knew what it was because this morning changed his life forever. John says it was the first day of the week. Why do we worship as a church every Sunday? Because Jesus rose from the dead on Sunday. And ever since then Christians have managed to find ways to gather together, to meet up, to worship the Lord together, to hear from his word on Sundays.

It’s all because of the resurrection. Mary sees the tomb. She runs back to tell the others. John only includes her name. Now, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, who wrote the other three gospels, they record other names with Mary, but John is aware that there’s other women because he has Mary saying, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they’ve laid him.”

But, John wants to zero in on just Mary. He wants us to see it from her perspective, look through her eyes at what this would have been like. See, sometimes skeptics are quick to say, we can’t trust the Gospels because this account of the empty tomb, there’s too many contradictions. Some mention this many women, some mention this many. Some talk about two angels, some talk about one.

And see, what they don’t realize is that they are taking their 21st century assumptions and they’re putting it on a 1st century text. See, in the 1st century ancient biographers had the freedom to include the details that they felt were important. And so, if if one records, you know, Mary Magdalene was there, and others says there was other Mary that was there, and some say two angels, and some say one angel, it’s not a contradiction. It’s just simply what they wanted to highlight. And it brings us back to this, if a detective was to ask eyewitnesses about an event, if they were to if all these eyewitnesses were to give the exact same account using the exact same words, then he would suspect collusion.

He would suspect that they have cooked up this story and worked on this together. But see, it’s when the eyewitnesses share a little bit different details from a little bit different perspective, but the same basic story is there, that’s how you know they’re reliable. That’s how it works back then, and that’s how it works today. And by the way, the fact that all four Gospels include women at the tomb that first Easter morning is a sign of its historical credibility. Because the one thing you would not do if you were concocting a story about a guy rising from the dead, as hard as that as it is to believe, you would not say women were the first eyewitnesses.

Why? Well, because in the 1st century, in that culture, women could not bear witness in court. I know this sounds very sexist, and it is, but that was the reality. They couldn’t talk in court. It wouldn’t They had no credibility.

And so, if you were making up this story, that is the last thing you would do is say women were there first. Now, first, that hurts your credibility, but secondly, it’s embarrassing. Because think about this. John was one of those men there. And what is he doing?

He’s holed up in a locked room with the other men. And and what are the women doing? They are the ones boldly, courageously, and faithfully going to the tomb first. As soon as they can, as soon as it’s barely light, they are there out of devotion to Jesus. That’s an embarrassing detail.

And historians say that’s a criterion of reliability. When they include something embarrassing, when you say something embarrassing about yourself, the only reason you’re going to include that is because it’s true. You don’t add things to make yourself look bad. Mary and the other women see the empty tomb. The stone is rolled away, and they’re in shock.

They don’t know what to think. And and they would assume, like most of us, this is because somebody has gotten here first. Just imagine going to the burial plot of a loved one, and you’re expecting to, you know, pay your respects, leave some flowers, maybe just leave a little note. But with this case, the tombstone is flung several yards away. And there’s dirt everywhere, and you you can see there’s a hole in the dirt, and you look in, and the casket is open.

There’s nobody there. Just imagine the the fear and the shock that would rush through you in that moment. That’s what these women thought. Somebody has taken our Lord’s body. They didn’t jump to the conclusion that he’s alive, because we wouldn’t have done that, either.

But Mary runs back. She tells Peter and John and then they do their best Usain Bolt impression and they race to that tomb as fast as they can. Of course, John includes the detail, “By the way, we were racing each other and I got there before Peter.” You know, cuz some things never change. You just But he says he got there and this is the first thing they see.

Verse six, “The linen cloths lying there and the face cloth which had been on Jesus’ head not lying in the linen cloths but folded up in a place by itself.” After Jesus died, this is what happened. Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, these two wealthy Pharisees, worked together and even though they had up until this point been secret disciples of Jesus. They weren’t publicly acknowledging that they wanted to follow Jesus. But in that moment, they went to pilot and they boldly said, “We want to honor our Lord.

We want to bury him.” And so they they took these 75 lb, it says, of myrrh and aloe and they they put that and this was the custom for someone who was royalty. They put that around with linen cloths underneath to keep the body smelling better. This was in fulfillment of Isaiah 53. Isaiah 53, if you want to have your mind blown, go home today and read Isaiah 53.

Because here’s what you need to know. Isaiah 53 was written by a guy named Isaiah 700 years before these events took place and he gives the details of the gospel as clear as anybody in the New Testament. And he talks about how there is this suffering servant, this this one who was rejected by his own people. And this one who bore the sins of others, died in this horrible way. He could have spoken in his defense.

He chose not to. He chose to lay down his life for others. And then it says that after he died, he was put in a wealthy man’s tomb. That wealthy man is Joseph of Arimathea. And 75 lb, that is an incredible amount.

Think about that. That is a lot of expense. And so, here’s the point. Even though Jesus was killed like a common criminal, he was buried like a king. And as Peter and John peer into the tomb, they notice two things.

First of all, Jesus isn’t there. That’s the big thing. And they also notice the linen cloths are still there. Almost as if the body of Jesus had just evaporated in midair and left the cloths right there. See, in the past, skeptics would sometimes say, “Here’s what probably happened.

Here’s how Christianity got started. Somebody stole the body out of the tomb. The disciples show up, they see the empty tomb, and they assume, “Oh, Jesus must have risen from the dead. Great day.” Except for that the cloths were there.

Now, why would the linen cloths be there? If someone was a grave robber, and that did happen in the first century, just like it happens even today some places, if you were going to rob a grave, you do not take the time to unwind all those linen cloths before you take the body. That just does not make sense. And it doesn’t work to say that the body was stolen because after this, we’ll see there were resurrection appearances. That is what triggered this whole movement.

It wasn’t the empty tomb. The empty tomb put everyone in shock. It was seeing the risen Jesus himself in the flesh. That is what turned the world upside down. So, people aren’t going to be convinced just because of a missing body.

They need to see a resurrected one. But secondly, you got to remember something. These guys, these first apostles, were willing to suffer and die for their belief in the resurrection of Jesus. You just stop and think about that for a moment. What are you willing to die for?

Would you be willing to die for something you know for sure is a lie? I just just paint this picture in your mind. Peter says to John, “Hey, I’ve got this great idea. We’re going to steal the body of Jesus. We’re going to tell everyone that he rose from the dead.

And then, you know, we’ll we’ll get beaten, we’ll get in prisoned, we’ll get kicked out of town after town. And then eventually they’re going to kill us. It’ll be great.” JOHN WOULD BE THINKING, Peter, what is that you’re smoking? Back in college I was challenged by a classmate who said he couldn’t believe in the resurrection because dying and rising gods were just standard fare in the ancient world.

Oh, it’s no big deal. Jesus rose from the dead, so did Osiris, so did all these other guys. So, I looked into it because maybe you’ve heard this idea before. That really got my attention. I was kind of kind of concerned when I heard, “Wait a minute, there’s a lot of dying and rising gods from the ancient world?”

That threw me off. So, I looked into it. And here’s what I found. First of all, there are not many, there are some dying and rising gods, that is true. But here’s the big thing you need to understand.

Those were all written as myths. They were all written as mythical explanations of seasonal cycles of vegetation. It was always about things like in winter things die and in spring they come back to life. And never, not even once, do you have a historical report of someone who actually lived in history dying, rising again, and appearing to people and proving he was alive. That never happens.

And so, if you’ve heard that idea, just know that is a fabrication. The Gospels, on the other hand, root the story in history. It’s all based on eyewitness testimony. And here’s the big thing that stuck out to me as I was studying this back in those years, it’s that there’s multiple multiple historical accounts of these men being willing to suffer and die. And and the fact that they died in various ways, they didn’t all get killed all at once.

But you know, if there is a collusion, if there’s people working together for a lie, eventually somebody gives. But nobody gave. Nobody recanted. Nobody said, “You know what? I was wrong.

I didn’t see Jesus. Never mind. I don’t want to die.” No, they all willingly went to their deaths. And this is history that this happened.

Can you imagine just the the astonishment of seeing the the cloths there? I love this little detail here about the head covering. I I’ve wondered about that. Like, why did Why does John include that? Like, “By the way, there was cloths there.”

And then it just reads like eyewitness testimony. And then the the headcloth was folded up in a neat place by itself. Which tells us one more reason why Jesus is amazing. He’s a man who folds his own laundry. And it it says it was folded there like he was leaving an example for us, I think.

But >> >> if you weren’t amazed with Jesus already, now you will be. But he he got up in an orderly way. That’s what it I think John is highlighting the fact this was not haphazard. This does not look like the evidence of somebody going in there and making a mess and taking the body. This is Jesus knowing he was going to rise from the dead.

All right, I’m going to fold up my headcloth. I’m going to set it right there. I’m going to go show myself to people. That’s what Jesus did Easter morning. And then we come to Mary.

The boys have gone back home. They didn’t see Jesus. They saw the empty tomb and the cloths. Mary comes back. And now she’s there all by herself.

And here’s something you need to know about Mary Magdalene. She had lived a life where >> [snorts] >> she was utterly alone. She knew what it like what was like to be utterly alone. She at one point wanted nothing to do with God. She thought God wanted nothing to do with her.

She was possessed by seven demons, Luke says. That’s how we’re introduced to her. She had seven demons. I just imagine even one demon that would be terrible. She had seven living inside her.

And then one day she met Jesus. And Jesus set her free. He cast out all seven demons, changed her life forever. And it says that she was one of those women who followed Jesus. She was with the men at times, and she would give out of her own means to support him and his ministry.

So, think of the contrast. You got Judas who is pilfering from the treasury. He’s one of the 12. Mary Magdalene is portrayed as this generous giver. See, the Bible elevates the dignity of women.

And this is something that is highlighted again and again. For once in her life, Mary had peace. This is the cool thing about this whole story is it it zeros in on her experience because it matters how Jesus relates to you personally. Yes, God loves the whole world, and yes, Jesus came for the whole world, but we have to know Jesus came for me. When he was on that cross, it wasn’t just that he died in general.

He died for my sins. He rose again to give me life. And that changes everything for us. Verse 11 says Mary was weeping as she stood at the empty tomb. I think a better translation would even be sobbing or wailing.

She was just completely overwhelmed with grief. This same word was used of the mourners at the tomb of Lazarus. When you’ve given up all hope, this is what you do, you weep. Because she is convinced that her Lord, her Jesus is dead forever. She had watched him die.

The most loving man to ever live had died in the most shameful way imaginable. And as far as she can tell, now someone has stolen the body. She can’t even honor his body. So, she’s in tears, just weeping. She’s distraught and confused.

And she sees angels there, and they say, “Why are you weeping?” Think about this. It should be obvious, and yet I think the angels are wanting to get her to turn around. God will often do this. He will send people into our life to get us to turn around.

To to see things from a different perspective. She turned around, and who was there but the gardener? Or at least that’s who she thought she saw. And the gardener says the same thing, “Why are you weeping? Whom do you seek?”

And she says, “Did you take the body? Where Where have you laid my Jesus? I just want to honor him. That’s all I want. You can You can send me away.

I don’t care. I just want to honor Jesus.” Every founder of a world religion has a known burial site. We can go to Confucius’s grave. You can see where the different cremated remains of Buddha is are.

And you can go to where Muhammad’s burial site is. You can go to You can go to Abraham’s burial site. All the people, but what about Jesus? There is no recognized official burial site for Jesus because he’s not there. And all it takes is one word from her savior.

He says to her, “Mary.” And all in a moment, everything comes crashing down. The truth of who she sees in front of him, that same Jesus, that same way he had always said her name, that same smile, that same look of love right there in front of him. Talk about having your world turned upside down. Mary would remember this moment for the rest of her life.

Because somehow if this was Jesus and he was alive, then nothing would ever be the same. And and the worst thing imaginable is always going to come to an end. That’s not the last word because of the resurrection. I wonder if him looking like the gardener is a subtle nod to Jesus being the Lord of his creation, tending his creation even as he did at the the Garden of Eden. I wonder if it’s signaling he is restoring all things.

And Jesus at Easter was healing those who are hurting. And even in that culture where women were kind of looked down on, they they weren’t seen as as true eyewitnesses in court, Jesus shows even in that culture for a woman to see him first. And not just any woman, this was the girl that everybody once said was the crazy girl, right? And he says, “I want to go to Mary. Mary Magdalene, you get to be the first one to say I have seen the Lord.”

Meanwhile back at the ranch, the others have been hanging out in that locked upper room. They’re they’re scared, they’re terrified. All the big name heroes you think of, Peter, James, and John, they’re all just huddled together, terrified of what comes next because all they know is that two nights ago or three nights ago Jesus had been arrested by these Roman soldiers. They had taken him away and they all scattered. And it looked like those religious leaders had won.

They got their wish, they killed Jesus. The Romans can crucify anyone they want, why not come after them next? They’re guilty by association. And so they’re scared. That’s why Peter had denied knowing Jesus on that Thursday night.

He said, “I don’t know the man.” Because he didn’t want to be arrested, too. He didn’t want to be associated with Jesus because of what it would cost him. So, they’re paralyzed by fear, not to mention the guilt they felt, especially Peter. And as they’re mulling all this over, trying to make sense of these events, trying to make sense of how the tomb could be empty, what’s with the cloths?

Why is it that Mary is saying she has seen Jesus? Suddenly, guess who shows up? They have to rub their eyes. It can’t be. He’s alive?

Maybe this is a vision. Maybe this is a trick of my mind. My my brain is playing a a joke on me. But no, he’s there. They can reach out and touch him.

He’s solid. And his word to these jittery, anxious men is peace. Peace be with you. That’s Jesus for “Calm down, guys. It’s going to be okay.

I was dead, but I am alive forevermore, never to die again.” And to assure them that he’s not a vision, he’s not a ghost, he says, “Look, come on up. Look at the nail prints on my hands. I am the same Jesus that was crucified.” He says, “Look at the wound in my side.

I received that spear thrust. That’s the me, the same Jesus who died. I’m back. I’m back. I’m gloriously and bodily alive.”

So, Easter means that Jesus brings peace to the anxious. And he emboldens the fearful. So, when you’re anxious about the future, and we all are at times, remember the resurrection. Remember that Jesus came out of that grave, and think about what that means for your future. It kind of puts everything in this very powerful focused perspective when you consider the problems of life in light of the fact that Jesus has risen from the dead.

What does that mean for the things that we build up in our mind as this is terrible? Jesus says peace be with you to each one of us. He gave them peace. Peace is what this whole world is longing for. It’s why we go after all the things that we go after in this world.

We’re we’re searching for peace. We’re hungering for it. And Jesus, because he takes our guilt away, he gives us peace with God. The peace that mat- that matters and lasts. He didn’t just give them peace, he also gave them a purpose.

He said, “As the Father has sent me, so I’m now sending you. I’m giving you a mission. You guys are going to go out and change the world. And just as I’ve breathed life in the Holy Spirit into you, you’re going to bring life to the world. You were going to tell people that there is a resurrected king who died for you.”

Now they could say with Mary, “We have seen the Lord. We’ve seen him.” And that changes everything. And it did change everything for these men. They were transformed from these terrified guys huddled up in a locked room to going out and being courageous preachers and going out and taking on the world with this message of a crucified and risen savior.

Elsewhere I mentioned this, the Bible says, “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is pointless and you are still in your sins. You still have to pay for your sins. If Jesus didn’t pay for it, then you got to pay for it. At the end of this life, we all will meet with God. And the question is, have my sins been paid for or am I going to pay for them now?

See, if Jesus died on the cross for your sins, And he rose from the dead. He proved that that payment has been made. And all you have to do is receive that as a gift. It’s not something you earn. It’s not where you have to go through these religious steps and you you qualify yourself.

I got to look a Christian way. I got to read a certain number of chapters of the Bible. No. You just receive it by faith. You say what Jesus did for the world, he did for me.

When he rose from the dead, he did that for me. I believe that. Because Jesus is alive, they know the joy of forgiveness now. If Jesus is alive, everything he claimed about himself is true. Everything he said about him being God, about him being eternal, it’s all true.

And And even if we can’t make sense of all of that, we can’t have categories for how can he be man and God? It’s true because he rose from the dead. And look, this is not the stuff of legend. Legends like Robin Hood and King Arthur, all those, they developed over time and they were always told in retrospect. This is what was going on during that time.

That’s not how the story of the resurrection came about. The earliest records we have include this list of eyewitnesses because they cared about facts back then just like we do today. And in that list, you even have included this this time when 500 people saw the risen Jesus. And so anytime people say, “Well, maybe it was a hallucination or maybe it was a trick of the mind. Hallucinations are not a group event.

500 people seeing the risen Jesus, that means something. He was really there. And it’s included in a time when within two to three years that list was put together, historians say, of these eyewitnesses. And then it’s included in the letter to the Corinthians, 1 Corinthians, which was written about 20 years after the resurrection. And so historians agree that that is way too fast for legend to develop and creep in there.

Even even secular historians, those who don’t believe in Jesus, they will tell you if you look at the facts it’s painfully obvious these guys, right or wrong, they believed they saw the risen Jesus. It’s just too obvious. What they put themselves through, what they said about Jesus, they saw something. Did they see the real Jesus? That’s what they said.

In fact, the report in Acts is that the first thing the Jesus movement proclaimed is that because Jesus is alive, he is the Lord of all of life. He’s defeated the grave. The authorities even threatened them. They said, “Stop preaching. You’re making us look bad.”

They said, “We cannot but help or we cannot help but speak of what we have seen and heard.” They’re saying, “Look, once you’ve seen the risen Jesus, once you’ve heard his voice saying your name, once you felt the nail prints in his hands, you don’t just pretend that didn’t happen. That changes your life and we have to say this. We have to proclaim this message because he’s the Lord of life.” Jesus is stronger than death, so they didn’t have to fear death.

They weren’t afraid to suffer. >> [snorts] >> These first Christians went from being scared rabbits holed up in a burrow to courageous roaring lions. And they went all over the world with this message. But not all the apostles were there that first Sunday. We learn about this guy named Thomas.

Thomas was absent at church. And you know what happened? He was probably off by himself because this is a lot of us can be in this frame of mind. If something bad happens, we think the best thing for me right now is I need to get alone, be by myself. I don’t want anyone to try to comfort me or encourage me.

I just need to get alone, isolate. It’s very easy to go there, isn’t it? That’s Thomas and he we know his frame of mind was already kind of cynical going into this because when he when Jesus had said I’m going to Judea, Thomas was the one who said, “Well, we’re all just going to die there anyway, but okay.” That’s Thomas. And he’s a skeptic.

So, when they come to him and they say, “Thomas, we’ve seen the Lord. Hallelujah.” He says, “I don’t believe it.” He He doesn’t believe it. He’s a skeptic.

And many of you can be like Thomas. You know, it can be hard for you to believe in the miraculous. You say, “I haven’t seen a miracle. That’s never happened to me. I’ve never seen a dead man get up out of the grave.”

Thomas says, “I want proof. You’re not going to convince me by saying this. I don’t care how excited you guys look. I need to see it myself.” And so, the next week Jesus comes again and this time Thomas is there.

Jesus says, “Thomas, this is what you wanted. Put your fingers in my nail prints, buddy. Put your hand in my side. It’s me.” And Thomas, I imagine him just falling on his knees here.

He says, “My Lord and my God.” Because how else can you respond if Jesus has risen from the dead? Then he has destroyed all doubts about being God. Notice Jesus showed Thomas his body as evidence. And today people want evidence for the resurrection.

Who wouldn’t? And I think it’s interesting he showed his body. If you think about what is the most readily available evidence for the world today, it’s his church. It’s his church. It’s It’s us.

It’s the family of God. And what does the Bible call the church? The body of Christ. See, even today his body is the best evidence. Because think about this.

If Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, how do you explain the Christian church? Why would this ragtag group of guys suddenly start proclaiming this message from the beginning that they’d seen the risen Jesus? There were other would-be Messiahs at this time in the 1st century. They got killed, too, and their movements died. Nobody wants to follow a dead Messiah.

So, why is it that 3 days after Jesus was publicly killed, everybody saw him killed in Golgotha, why is it that his followers start saying, “He is risen. He’s alive, and we’ve seen him ourselves.” Unless Jesus rose, the birth of the Christian church just makes no sense. Historians are left scratching their head. Yeah, why why did this movement suddenly take off?

What is the impetus? What’s the What’s the thing that drives that kind of change in people? In a Greco-Roman culture that worshipped power and left unwanted babies out in the cold for exposure, and celebrated, cheered at the gladiatorial bloodbath, in that very culture, these small the small band of misfits came along and said, “Every life matters, because Jesus died and rose again for everybody.” Even today we see this the repercussions. It’s It’s resounding through the centuries.

People know human life matters. Human equality, we take it for granted today. It wasn’t taken for granted in Jesus’ day. Women, well, yeah, women, of course they’re equal to men. They weren’t treated as equal in Jesus’ day.

Who changed that? It all goes back to the resurrection. That’s why the first Christians cared for the sick and didn’t abandon them during a plague. There are two reported plagues that happened during the first 3 centuries of Christianity. One was in AD 165.

It’s believed to be an outbreak of smallpox. Second was in AD 249, It probably measles. Both of those epidemics killed 1/4 of the Western world at that time. Now, you compare that to COVID. At COVID, 0.

0004% of the population died. There is no comparison. And in his research, the historian Rodney Stark discovered that Christians responded very differently from the pagans. When the disease arrived, the the people who were from pagan households would turn their sick ones out into the streets because they didn’t want to get infected. We got to protect the rest of us.

Send them out there. It was Christians that brought them into their homes and cared for them. This isn’t just Christian writers talking about Christians. Pagan writers from that time talk about how Christians loved their own and loved the world unlike we do. So, let’s just ask, what would cause someone to want to risk deadly infection so they could reach out and care for a total stranger?

It all goes back to the resurrection. These people followed a man who loved them enough to die for them. And because he had defeated death, they had nothing to fear. If we get infected, that’s all right. We’re going to be with Jesus.

It It’s a promotion, right? When you know the risen Jesus, the worst thing imaginable is no longer the end. The gospel is this: God became a man in Jesus of Nazareth. He lived a perfect life, the life we should have lived. He died the death we deserved to die.

He took the punishment our sins deserve on himself. And because he rose again to life, all who repent of self-centeredness and transfer their trust from self to him are granted eternal life. And when your faith is in the risen Jesus, you’re forgiven, not condemned. You can stand before God boldly, the Bible says, because it’s by grace you are saved through faith in the resurrected king. You’re loved, not rejected.

And the future could not be brighter because the tomb is empty. But the question is, do you believe? Do you? Is this just a story? Is this just something that we like to celebrate because it it makes us excited around Easter time, or do you believe it really did happen?

And it’s all true, and what Jesus said about himself, it’s all going to come to pass. Let me encourage you, if you have not yet given your life to Jesus, Easter Sunday is the perfect time. And know that if you got doubts, Thomas had doubts. Bring them to Jesus. Look in his word, see what he says about those doubts.

If you have hurts, you think nobody can heal me, look at Mary. Mary was in everyone’s eyes a lost cause. Jesus loved Mary. Or think about how scared they were in that upper room. Jesus emboldens the fearful.

You bring all of your fears, your hurts, and your doubts to Jesus, and he will change your life. He’s done that for me, and he will do that for you when you come to him. Let’s pray together. Awesome heavenly Father, we are once more in awe of who Jesus is because we recognize this Jesus is unlike anybody else. He’s not the stuff of legend, he is not the stuff of mythology, he is real.

He’s alive today. He holds the keys of death and Hades. All of that stood against us, All the things that would lead us to be fearful. All the things that would cause hurt and anguish in our hearts. We know Jesus brings healing to all of that.

If we feel bitterness, Jesus brings healing for that. And Father God, if there is anybody here who would like to give their life to Jesus. I pray that you would open their hearts. Let the floodgates come in of your Holy Spirit. Bring them that new life that comes through faith in the risen Jesus.

Help them to see that forgiveness and eternal life, it’s real and it’s available through King Jesus. We pray in his mighty name. Amen. Please join us. You cannot sing this song sitting down.

I serve a risen Savior. He’s in the world today. I know that he [singing

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