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Luke 24:8-12

Well, you can turn to the final chapter in, in Luke’s Gospel, Luke chapter 24. We’re going to continue the section we started last week. So Luke 24, I’m going to start reading in verse 1. And I trust what we covered today in Luke’s, in this section of Luke’s Gospel will prepare us for the celebration of our Lord’s Supper as we celebrate that together as a church at the end of the service. Luke 24:1, I’m going to start by reading the first seven verses and we will continue in this sermon through the 12th verse.

Luke 24, verse 1, “Now on the first day of the week at early dawn, they,” that is the women, “came to the tomb bringing the spices which they had prepared, and they found the stone rolled away from the tomb. But when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. That happened,” with, “while they were perplexed about this, behold, two men suddenly stood near them in dazzling clothing. And when the women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, ‘Why do you seek the living One among the dead? He is not here, but He has risen. Remember how He spoke to you while He was still in Galilee saying that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and the third day, rise again.”

 We learned last time, there’s this group of really exhausted women. They have had quite the weekend, very little sleep and so they are weary in their souls with sorrow, but weary in their bodies with lack of rest. And they come to the tomb early on this morning, the first day after the Sabbath, our Sunday. And they are coming intending to prepare Jesus body for resting in peace, as it were, in this place of memorial, in this tomb. They expected that the greatest obstacle that they would face would be the massive stone blocking the entrance to the tomb. How’s a group of women going to move this one or two ton obstacle away?

That stone was not the greatest obstacle that they faced. In fact, the stone itself had already been rolled away as if to invite them into the tomb. That’s where they discovered their greatest obstacle to all their intentions and their hard work and their preparation, no body. They’re tired, sorrowful eyes, maybe their shoulders sagged as they were deflated and frustrated in their best efforts to honor the Lord Jesus and prepare his body for his entombment. At that moment, suddenly they, they’re overwhelmed with this dazzling, brilliant light. They’re suddenly overwhelmed with a, with the appearance of angels in the dazzling, brilliant light of their appearance and these angels appear and they announce the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ to them.

As we’ve been through, in the account, the angelic messengers that go on to remind the believing women of what they had forgotten. And what they had forgotten are those most essential words of Jesus. The teaching that he gave prior to the cross, a year or two prior, and he’d said it several times. He taught them about the cross. He taught them about the resurrection. He had predicted everything that they had just seen and had just heard. Everything that they had witnessed, he’d already told them about. He taught them to interpret it. He told them to expect it. And this is well before any of it had ever happened.

We see in our text in verses 8 and 9, that the women remembered his words, and then they leave the tomb to go and tell the others. We also know from Matthew and Mark’s account, their accounts, that the angels commanded the women to go tell the disciples, Jesus is risen from the dead, and they gave further instructions, passed through the women to the disciples to go and meet him in Galilee; there you’ll see him. Luke doesn’t relate any of that; what Matthew and Mark tell us about.

Luke keeps all of our focus on this scene. He kind of keeps everything in and around Jerusalem. He’s got reasons for that, but he also wants us to keep our attention on these particular words that Jesus had spoken. He portrays the women here as really custodians, so to speak, custodians of Jesus’ words, that they would take those words as it were, as a treasure, as something they’re to guard and they would take them to the people that they are to speak them to and deliver them, pass them on faithfully, which they did.

 The question is how will those words be received? Take a look at verse 9. While verse 8 says, “They remembered his words. And when they returned from the tomb, they reported all these things to the eleven and to all the rest. Now Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James, and the rest of the women with them were there, and they were telling these things to the apostles. But these words appeared to them as nonsense, and they were not believing them. But Peter stood up and ran to the tomb, and stooping to look in, he saw the linen wrappings only. He went away by himself, marveling at what had happened.”

 What we’re seeing in this account is the effect of resurrection truth. It’s not merely the historical facts of the resurrection or the evidences about the resurrection, pointing to the resurrection. What we’re seeing here is the teaching of Jesus that predicted the resurrection. His teaching that interpreted the meaning of the resurrection. As we’re seeing all around us, we know that it’s one thing to affirm the reality of the resurrection, as a historical fact, to defend it historically, use as an apologetic evidence. Is that what just happened?

It’s quite another thing entirely to believe in the meaning of the resurrection, to receive the truth of the resurrection in faith, and to be converted by this doctrine, and forever transformed, changed. That is what we’re beginning to see here in the beginning of this chapter. It’s the effect of resurrection truth and its effect on the believing. All are affected in this account. All are affected by the resurrection. They’re all stirred internally. They react to the truth, and then they’re moved into action. We see that.

It’s worth considering though, for yourself, as each one of us really stands on the brink of eternity, never knowing if this is the day that will be my last. It’s worth considering whether you see the effect of resurrection truth in your own life, whether you see it actually changing you, whether it’s actually doing something. What, does it have power in your life at all? Is it transforming you deeply? Is it making you new from the inside out?

We’ll kind of work through the account here, just seeing the effect of the resurrection truth, and we’ll kind of walk through with a few points; just little things for your notes, if you want to hang your thoughts on. Number one: receiving the truth leads to action. Receiving the truth leads to action. It’s down in verse 10 that Luke identifies the women by name. He gives them a special honor by recording their names in his Gospel and this is not the first time he’s done it. It’s actually, Luke 8:2 and 3, where he gives their names first and we see them repeated here.

Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the rest of the women with them were there. He’s identified these women before, as I said back in Luke 8:2 and 3. They are those who had followed Jesus faithfully ever since Galilee. These are faithful women, believing women, who’d supported Jesus’ ministry, supported the other apostles as well. So evidently these are women who had access to means, and they use that means no longer to serve themselves, but to serve the cause of Christ.

Back in Luke 8, Luke says, he refers to Mary called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out. Imagine seven demons inhabiting you, corrupting you, making your body do things you don’t want to do, your mind think things that you find abhorrent. She’d been delivered from seven demons by the ministry of Christ. The next woman just referenced, also in our text, Joanna. Joanna is the wife of Huza, Herod’s household manager, a steward in Herod’s household. So Mary was possessed by demons. Joanna’s husband worked for one. He is working for a dreadful man. She’s married to him and in that household. Susanna, many others, all who provided for them out of their means.

I’m not gonna repreach the sermon I’ve preached on that passage. You can find that on the website if you’d like to. But each of these women has a story of redemption. Each of these women has been affected by the truth. Each of these women has been changed by Christ, forever changed. Each of these women known to the apostles, known to the early believing community, and most importantly, each and every one of these women is precious to the Lord Jesus Christ. He knows them by name. Their names are written and recorded in the Scripture and always in a good light.

The world has scoffed that the first resurrection witnesses were women, and I love that God takes pleasure in subverting the expectations of scoffers. I love it that he loves to favor those who are overlooked and dismissed, that he delights to reward the faithful with these kinds of special gifts. In God’s economy, it’s fitting, isn’t it, that these faithful women would be the first to see the empty tomb, to see the risen Lord Jesus Christ. When they came to the cross, they did not run, they believed.

Jesus said if anyone come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me. They took up the cross, they went to the cross and they believed through the cross, right to the tomb, to the resurrection. Here they are, all three synoptic accounts, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, they tell us that the group of women set out the first thing on the morning after the Sabbath, first day of the week, Sunday.

John tells us, he kind of isolates Mary Magdalene in his Gospel, he tells us Mary was the very first to arrive at the tomb ahead of the group of women, and she discovered the stone was rolled away. It says, “now on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene came early to the tomb while it was still dark and saw the stone already taken away from the tomb.” So she’s part of this group, but Matthew, Luke, they both summarize, and Luke, in summarizing his account, you see that there’s more to the story.

When you put together all the Gospel accounts and you harmonize them, when you piece together these accounts, sometimes it can be hard to see how everything kind of fits together, and the sequence of who was at the tomb when, and who first saw Jesus, and how all the details fit together. It’s a very dynamic situation, as human events are; various individuals, acting, coordinated, individual natures, groups moving together, people coming and going, saying this thing, saying that thing, different things recorded, but it all harmonizes. It all comes together.

 Clearly, as John reports, Mary arrived before anyone else. And some surmise that Mary Magdalene, maybe being a bit younger and physically stronger than the other women, moved a little bit faster than the the group of older women. So Mary is the one who having been forgiven much, having been delivered of seven demons, she was dramatically saved. Mary is the one who loved much. I think that propelled her to get to the tomb first.

So she hurries and scurries to the tomb. She finds the stone rolled away and then John 20 verse 2 says, “so she left the tomb and she ran and came to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved and said to them,” they’ve taken away the Lord. “‘They’ve taken away the Lord out of the tomb and we don’t know where they’ve laid him.’” So she doesn’t interpret correctly what she sees and you can hear a heart of great concern, devoted heart, loving heart.

In the meantime, as the other synoptic gospel accounts record, while she’s discovering and then running back to tell Simon Peter, the other women arrive, and they arrive and discover what Mary found out. Luke 24:2 and 3, “They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.” And then this, “happened while they’re perplexed, behold, two men suddenly stood near them in dazzling clothing, and when the women were terrified, bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, ‘Why do you seek the living One among the dead? He’s not here, but he has risen. Remember how He spoke to you.”

So the angels are reminding these women, this group of women, of Jesus teaching and the interest of Luke, as I said, is different from that of John, different from that of Matthew and Mark. His interest is to trace Jesus’ words starting there in verse 7. He wants us to see the effect of Jesus words on these believing women because his words are powerful. They’re life giving. They are soul transforming words, words that have the power to generate and resuscitate faith.

Maybe there are some among you here who do not yet know God as your Savior. You don’t know him as your father. You’ve not been reconciled to him. You still have sins that haunt you and darken you, and you’re ashamed of. You feel guilty and stuck in your guilt, and you’re stuck in the same pattern of sinning and feeling guilty and then you suppress it and try to turn away and distract yourself with something else. The words of Jesus can generate true saving faith in you, so that you put your eyes on Jesus Christ and see him as your Savior. And his death counts for your death, the death that you should die for those sins. And God takes away your sins and removes the burden of your guilt, and removes the shame, and clears your conscience, and restores you in a relationship with his father, who now becomes your father by adoption by the Spirit.

His words have power to generate faith. Words also have power to resuscitate faith, a faith that is there, and is true, and is believing, but sometimes is overcome with weakness, weakness of the flesh, weakness through affliction, weakness through temptation, weakness of sin. Even the believing can become subdued and overcome, hurt. That’s these women and so the angels say, they deliver the only elixir, the only salve to dress the wounds, and the only elixir, the only thing they can take in, that will actually resuscitate and regenerate and revive, it’s the words of Jesus. “Remember how he spoke to you while he was still in Galilee, saying that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and the third day, rise again.” Remember that?

Jesus Christ, the Son of Man, was obedient in suffering and then in dying for the sins of sinners. In his own body on the cross, he took their sins, he suffered injustice for their injustices, delivered blows delivered at the hands of sinful man. He absorbed God’s wrath in their place and died the death that they deserved and don’t fail to remember that infinite value of that final phrase of verse 7, “and the third day he rose again.”

Taken together, these words are the message of forgiven sin, of atonement provided, of redemption won, of sin and death conquered. And the women witnessed Christ accomplishing this redemption. They saw it happen on the cross right before them, but they didn’t remember the words, and so they were not interpreting in real time. Now they’re here to be witnesses of Christ’s victory over death, over the grave, over sin. They had failed to connect the actual events, the facts, to Jesus words that they might interpret the meaning, that they might even find encouragement and comfort.

How often we do that, go through life and we stumble through facts, stumble through events, stumble through activities. Things happen to us. We do things. People do things with us, to us, around us, and it’s as if the Bible that we read on Sundays doesn’t apply on Tuesdays. We all can be like that. But if we’re saturated in the Word and the Word of Christ is dwelling in us richly, you know what? We take that Bible into Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday.

We interpret everything around us in the light of his truth, his providence, his working, his acting, knowing that “God causes all things to work together for those,” for those, “who are called according to his purpose,” for those who love God, and so that even if bad things seem to happen to us, we interpreted them through the light of his eternal truth. We’re not flustered, we’re not worried, we’re not anxious, we’re not doubtful, but we’re always hopeful, grateful, joyful. That’s the power of these words they had forgotten and we sympathize because we can see, we do that too.

They’d forgotten and that means that the brute facts before them had had no power to change them, no power on their own to affect them. The brute facts are just facts, but now in verse 8, now that they remembered his words, that makes all the difference in the world. Now they are thinking, contemplating, it’s starting to dawn on them, starting to settle into them, and they spring into action. Over in Matthew and Mark’s Gospel, in fact, I’ll give you an option. You can either turn to Matthew 28:5 to 7 or Mark 16:6 and 7. They both record the same thing, but from two different authors, and you can choose either one. Choose one, though.

Follow along as I read, because what I’ll do is I’ll read, but I’ll kind of give my own harmonization of the two accounts and I’ll trust it’ll make sense as you follow along. But the women, the women arrive and Mark and Matthew give kind of a, a different angle or a part of what the angels said. So they tell us more than what Luke has told us. Women arrive and the angel said to the startled, astonished women, do not be afraid. Don’t be amazed, for I know that you’re looking for Jesus the Nazarene who’s been crucified. He’s not here, for he has risen just as he said. Come see the place where they laid him, where he was lying. And then go quickly and tell his disciples and Peter that he has risen from the dead. Behold, he’s going before you into Galilee, and there you will see him, just as he said to you, behold, I have told you.

Luke is not looking at Matthew and Mark as he writes his gospel and kind of choosing and piecing out what he’s going to say. It’s just, notice in what I read and maybe what you see in your own text, in verse sixish, around there, “he is not here, for he has risen,” and notice those words, “just as he said, Behold, he’s going for you into Galilee. There you’ll see him.” Just as he said to you, just as he said, that’s what Luke wants us to focus on. What did he say and why is that so important?

He ( Luke) wants us to see the effect of Jesus words on these believing women because his words are powerful. They’re life giving. Travis Allen

We realize from Matthew and Mark, in their accounts, the impetus for leaving the tomb was the angels commanding, sending them forth. But as we go back and you can go back to Luke 24:7, now. We go back there, Luke wants us to see the, it’s the angelic reminder of Jesus teaching, what predicted the suffering of the cross, and the resurrection glory, what not only predicted all that, but it also interpreted the cross and promised resurrection.

Luke wants us to see the truth that has affected them, that’s gripped them, that’s gotten a hold of them. We know that when they first left the tomb, as they’re on their way, they’re still quite flustered, as you would be, as I would be. Even though they remember Jesus words, Luke 24:8, it hadn’t fully settled into their minds. It was starting to, but it hadn’t fully settled in their minds and so Mark 16:8 kind of captures their frame of mind as they’re leaving the tomb. “They went out, fled from the tomb for trembling and astonishment had gripped them. They said nothing to anyone for they were afraid.”

 They said nothing to anyone. Okay, So is that a contradiction with what we see in Luke 24, that they did say something to somebody? No, it’s not a contradiction and there are those who scoff at the scripture and try to make that into a contradiction, but it’s easy to resolve. We’re not to suppose, as Alfred Plummer says, “that the women remain silent about it for the rest of their lives, but only so far as fear kept them silent. And when the fear passed away, they told their tale to the disciples.” That’s how to read this.

So once the shock had subsided, once the astonishment had dissipated and they kind of came to their senses, they remember the truth that the angels reminded them of. They remembered the report that they were to take to the disciples and that’s settled into their hearts. In fact, Matthew 28:8, kind of combines these ideas and says “they departed quickly from the tomb with fear,” and then adds, “and great joy and they ran to report it to his disciples.”

 So at first, yes, the women were gripped with trembling astonishment. They’re silenced in the shock, their feelings and emotions of fear and dread. But another emotion is there as well, great joy starting to well up within these believing women. It’s always the case with believers, isn’t it, that great joy overcomes crippling fear. It’s always the case. Their hearts here are starting to burst with joy. They cannot keep it down. They come, open their mouths, start talking about what they’ve seen and heard. They remembered his words, Luke 24:8, “And they returned from the tomb and reported all these things to the eleven and all the rest.”

Again, Luke is just summarizing. No doubt we understand that Mary Magdalene, having come to the tomb first, also returned first, as John 2:1 and 2 say, “She spoke first, and upon their arrival, the other women spoke up after her.” They join her testimony. We can imagine they’re all very excited. All of them trying to talk at once, all talking over each other. Different parts of the story come out in different times. At first, it would probably be a bit confusing to the men listening as those things happen to be.

Women, you need to understand that if you’re talking and several of you are talking at once and just one guy listening, we cannot do what moms do. We’re not moms. Moms can hear all the little voices around them and see the cat getting into something and the dog over there and they can do every. Men are very one-dimensional, one track. Please be merciful with us. So all these men listening to all these voices, but eventually all this settles in to a cohesive, consistent testimony.

What I want you to see here before we move on, these women have received the truth, and receiving the truth has led them to take action. They’ve received the truth, and the truth is settling in their minds, and their joy is overcoming their fear. So something is transforming inside of them, and now they’re bursting forth and they’re taking action. This is not an emotion driven activism of the moment. It’s a settled conviction, anchored in the truth that Jesus spoke.

That’s why the angels were insistent to give them and remind them of the truth Jesus spoke, anchoring them to a place in their emotions and in their memory, where there’s an unhurried teaching. It’s a proclamation. It’s an explanation, “while they were still in Galilee.” They can go back there in their minds and remember, in an unhurried moment, maybe while walking along the way, they hear their Master speak and teach. They understand his words. It settles in and it overcomes all fear and all anxiety, anchors them in the truth, takes deep root, informs the mind, grips their affections, grips their emotions, and channels them, and directs the will to godly, faithful, lasting action. These women are not overcome with an immediate impulse to just act quickly, do something. No, they do the right thing and they do that right thing from that point forward, for the rest of their lives.

These women, remember how they started the morning; discouraged, sorrowful, physically exhausted, emotionally shattered. They just wanted to get over to the tomb, prepare the corpse of their beloved Jesus properly, offload all these spices and all the things that they prepared, the ointments and all that that they prepared, and stumble back home to find some measure of rest. Now all that is forgotten. Tired. Who’s tired? Weary bodies suddenly come awake and are energized, trembling with excitement, hearts pumping, adrenaline flowing as they’re astonished by what they’ve seen and heard. They run to the apostles. They run back to the disciples. Parting quickly from the tomb, they leave with reverence and great joy. They don’t saunter back. They don’t stroll leisurely to their homes. They run to report the news to the disciples of Jesus.

In fact, Luke uses the imperfect tense in verse 10, continuous action here, in the past. They were telling these things to the apostles, as in repeatedly telling them over and over. Telling them. Excitedly telling them. So not only have these women remembered what Jesus taught them, they have received his teaching as truth. They’ve remembered it and they call it to mind and they say, Oh yeah, that’s the fact, that’s the interpretation, that’s the meaning. And now they obey the angelic command with haste. They understand why the command is important. They run with profound zeal, and it results in a lasting excitement and joy.

Now, I hate to pause here because there’s a lot more to tell about these women, more to see how the Lord honored them to be the first ones to see him alive. I’ll just reference this. Maybe we’ll come back to it in a subsequent sermon, but Mary Magdalene is going to be the first to see the risen Lord Jesus. And if you want to read ahead or do some augmenting reading, John 20:11 to 18, records Mary Magdalene seeing the risen Lord. The other women who are also named here in the group of women that are not known to us, they too are going to see Jesus before Peter or any of the apostles according to Matthew 28:8 to 10.

But Luke, interestingly, doesn’t show us all that. Not yet. He wants to. He doesn’t even show the risen Lord yet. He’s waiting for the disciples on the road to Emmaus. Two disciples that we really don’t know much about. What he wants us to see here is the effect of receiving the truth in these women, that leads to immediate action and then next, he wants to see what the, what the men do with it. This leads to a second point: Dismissing the truth leads to confusion.

Dismissing the truth leads to confusion. I mentioned earlier that Luke is tracing the effect of Jesus words here. We see the angels cite his words in verse 7. The believing women react in verse 8, they remembered. Followed by the neuter plural object of the verb, they remembered. What neuter plural object? His words. It’s a neuter word. The word logos is a typical word for word and it’s a masculine word. But this is not the word logos, ho logos. It’s the word rhēma, hē rhēma. Hē, is the definite article. So hē rhēma and that’s a neuter word, neuter gender. So it’s, tōn rhēmatōn autou; the words of him, to be more specific.

The word, rhēma is broader than just, logos. It refers to the sayings of Jesus, the teachings of Jesus. You could even kind of put the gloss on it, of the doctrine of Jesus, about his redemption; delivered over into the hands of men, rejected, crucified, dead, buried, resurrected. Doctrine of the Gospel, it’s what he taught about that. It’s a broader word here. So these sayings or teachings of Jesus, Luke then tracks what happens with those words, those sayings, those teachings of Jesus, as he moves through the account.

He uses pronouns in the verses, that come at, kind of as a callback referring back to those sayings or teachings of Jesus, summarized by the angels, in verse 7, remembered by the women in verse 8, and then notice in verse 9, the women returned from the tomb, verse 9, and “they reported all these things.” What things? Again, the phrase, all these things, each word in the neuter plural referring specifically back to the teachings of Jesus, what he taught, the prediction of verse 7.

We see it again in verse 10, “These things”, end of the verse, “they were telling these things to the apostles.” Again, neuter plural, calling back to the prediction of verse 7. Come to verse 11, Luke throws us a huge breadcrumb there. No mistaking what he’s talking about, even if it casts the apostles in a poor light, which it does. But these words, ta rhemata tauta, these sayings, these sayings and teachings just relate to them. These sayings appeared to the apostles as nonsense. They, the disciples, the apostles, they were not believing them.

It’s tragic, isn’t it? I mean, you’d like to see something else written there. Mighty apostles spent three years with Jesus, walked with him, talked with him. All of his words had to be like, just like a familiar voice, a comfort. Nonsense, don’t believe. They were hearing the truth, but here they somehow, for some reason, are not receiving the truth. They’re dismissing the truth and they’re cast into, because of it, cast into confusion and unbelief. They remain in their unbelief. They remain in their confusion. They remain in the darkness and discouragement of their souls. What these women witnessed at the tomb, the stone rolled away, empty tomb, angelic presence, the teaching of Jesus that, they were, the angels reminded them of, interprets the empty tomb, interprets the cross as well. These men dismissed it all.

Look, if you want to start a new religious movement, and I don’t recommend it, but if you want to and you intend to build it on the foundation of a made-up story about a resurrected Messiah, knowing this story to be false or at least mistaken, yet wanting it to be true, let me give you a couple tips. Don’t do it like this. First, don’t portray the leaders of your movement like this, as rejecting what they later claim is true, what they live for and then seemingly in stubbornness, died for. Don’t write this into the record of your testimony. Don’t put this in the written record that the leaders regarded the report of the women, a report that they would one day preach as gospel truth, but they initially received it as nonsense. This is a really bad look. They’re going to be able to recall this video. Even better, they’re going to be able to point to it in the black and white of Scripture.

Instead, if you’re going to start this new movement built on a lie, second, you got to put your key leaders in the best light possible. They got to be early adapters, steadfast believers. Instill confidence in the followers of your movement that this these Apostolic leaders are the first ones to get it right. They see what no one else can see. They see inside people. They understand, they get it. First ones to embrace the resurrection, they remember Jesus’ predictions, always believed, never doubted, never forgot. These guys are impeccable. And thirdly, certainly do not, do not base the validity of your entire movement on those who in society are prone to be disregarded by everyone as being unreliable witnesses. To put a fine point on it, don’t record that the first witnesses to the empty tomb, the first to hear the angelic announcement, the first to witness the resurrection, don’t record that the first witnesses were women.

It’s John Nolan who writes, “in the cultural stereotypes of the day, these are only women, not to be believed in matters of deep importance.” End Quote. And you get that sense, don’t you, that that’s how the apostles and the other disciples, that’s how they think. They dismiss them. Whether it’s then or now, I believe there’s almost nothing more hurtful to the heart of a woman that she not be believed, but that she be disregarded, dismissed, especially when a woman is in earnest and not only that, but she’s right, telling the truth, wholly sincere, and her passion and joy over the truth is dismissed as mere enthusiasm of a hysterics of a woman.

It’s the most hurtful thing for her to be set aside, to be disbelieved, but it was common in that day that the female testimony, especially like in the courtroom, was to be avoided. Josephus advises this, “Let not the testimony of women be admitted on account of the levity and boldness of their sex.” Those words, levity and boldness, kouphótēs and thrásos; another way to translate those words is giddiness and impetuosity, or even, on the one hand, frivolous inanity, for the first word and bold audacity for the second word. That’s the cultural stereotype of women in that day, but not only in the days of Josephus, in the days of Jesus, but in the centuries since then.

In fact, I’d wager good money that even today, in the hearts of many, that stereotype of women persists. Their enthusiasm and their emotion is often misinterpreted, disregarded, dismissed. I’m not saying, I’m not trying to say defend every emotion of a woman, even for a man, that’s all emotions. Good. You just believe it out of hand. I’m not trying to say that, trust would verify everything, but certainly don’t dismiss it out of hand.

Listen, consider in the third century, in his apologetic treatise against Celsus, that’s the name of the treatise against Celsus, Origin quotes, “This Pagan critic who scoffed at Christianity is based merely on the testimony of a [quote] ‘half frantic woman’ in a system of delusion who had dreamed up the resurrection.” And this is his [quote] “owing to a peculiar state of mind” or under, “under the influence of a wandering imagination.” That’s Christianity. That’s what explains the whole thing to Celsus.

His words have power to generate faith. Words also have power to resuscitate faith, a faith that is there, and is true, and is believing. Travis Allen

The charge is that Christianity rests on the delusion of half frantic women, and it’s the Gospels that seem to suggest that to them. Fantastic tales rooted in giddiness and impetuosity to the frivolous, inality, and inanity of several bewildered women who nonetheless were boldly audacious in their report and insistent. And these disciples, these apostles, these fools are stupid enough to believe the unreliable testimony of a woman, and worse, to stake their lives on that testimony. How stupid. How foolish. That’s how it’s being presented.

And remarkably, it’s the Gospel writer Luke who beats Celsus to the punch. He records the reaction of the men quite plainly. Verse 11, “These words appeared to them as nonsense.” The word translated nonsense is lēros, comes from a word lálos, which comes from the verb laléō. Laléō means to say or to speak, but lálos means to be loquacious, talkative, overly talkative. It can be cute in a child, but it becomes kind of annoying, the older people get, right. Lēros, this word built from those other words, most certainly is not a compliment. Lēros refers to idle talk, nonsense, frivolous tales, the stuff of sheer fantasy.

In fact, the word is found in, it’s a, it’s a Hapax Legomenon here. It’s meaning, meaning, Hapax Legomenon. Meaning it’s the only use of it in the Scripture, but it’s used in medical texts at the time. In the Greek, Greek medical texts to describe the crazy talk of those who are in a delirium or hysteria due to a fever. So it’s a fevered talk, don’t pay any attention to it.

It’s the same charge, isn’t it, that Celsus would later make and, on the basis, reject this resurrection report. Turns out the earliest disciples of Jesus, the eleven apostles chosen by the Lord himself, they shared Celsus view, at first. Luke says, these words seemed to them as nonsense. They appeared that way, aorist tense, refers to their initial judgement, how that report struck them at that point in time. And I’m thankful, it’s just at that point in time, aren’t you? But then, it was on the basis of that judgement, it kind of framed their thinking.

It says here that they were not believing them, that’s the imperfect tense, refers to their ongoing state of mind, for a while they continued not believing them. The verb that’s translated there, appear. These words appeared to them as nonsense, or in some translations seemed as nonsense. It’s the verb phaino. Phaino means to shine, to give light, to reveal; make something visible, apparent, clear. That’s certainly the intent of the angels to the women, make it clear. Certainly, the intent of the women to the disciples, make it clear.

Angels remind the women of Jesus’ teachings to illuminate their mind, help them with clarity, help them rightly interpreted what they’re seeing in front of them and the women brought that same report to the men with the same intent. What happened? What subverted the good intentions of the first witnesses deeply encouraging words of the angels in the exciting news reported by the women. For whatever reason, his disciples were disinclined to accept their report. What was it? Did discouragement darken their minds, too? Were they distraught, as the women had been, with hopelessness, despair, disappointed expectations, dashed hopes and dreams?

I mean, these men left their jobs, their families behind, their homes behind. They could have spent the last year three years building on their wealth, building their businesses, investing, making relationships in Galilee, furthering their own interests. What did they do for three years? Followed this man around? What’s, what’s happened to him? Dead in a tomb, buried. Might have been also, that they were dismissive of these women because, because they were women. They knew that the women had gotten up early that morning and they were exhausted. Now it seems they’re delusional. And don’t try to, don’t try to build me up or encourage me with some report of his body being gone, resurrection. I’ve heard it before. It’s ended in disappointment. I got to go back and either wait for him to come again or maybe he’s not the Messiah, there’s another Messiah coming.

 The apostles, the rest of the disciples and by the way, the rest of the disciples, this is not just a male female thing, because the rest of the disciples had a mix of men and women there. But they’re stuck here in a state of unbelief. They haven’t trusted the report. They’ve dismissed these women and what they’ve said. They’re not believing. They’ve treated these faithful, believing women who they know, who have supported their entire cause the entire time, they’ve forgotten all that and they treated these precious women, whom God has chosen for this special honor, with a stereotypical dismissiveness.

Beautiful irony, isn’t it though, that God has chosen these precious women and marked them out for a special honor to be the first witnesses of the resurrection truth. The most important confirmation of all that Jesus said and did, of all that he taught, and all that he accomplished, the resurrection from the dead, is that confirmation. And God chose these women, these women to be the earliest believers, the earliest receivers, the earliest witnesses. I think that’s just beautiful, don’t you?

The point here is not to say women are better than men. It’s not that, it’s to say that faith is better than unbelief, that believing and receiving the truth is way better than disbelieving and dismissing it. By faith we understand, we reason correctly, we, we reflect well on the words and the teachings of Jesus, but apart from faith, if we’re not focused on his words and thinking about them and reflecting on them, we’re stuck in a spin cycle, darkened in our understanding. We’re lost in the recesses and labyrinths of our hearts and all the philosophical conundrums and everything that we’ve chased down. It’s Alice in Wonderland diving into a rabbit hole, and we’re gone.

When we’re not believing but doubting, we’re the ones that are delusional, not the early witnesses. We’re the ones that believe our darkness is light, that our truth is error, that our judgments are impeccable, that our reasons for rejection are reasonable, that our resistance is noble. In reality, we’re lost in confusion. We’re nothing but fools when we dismiss truth, when we don’t believe, but just live in doubt. Rejecting the truth, dismissing the truth, always and only, leads to confusion, and darkness, and futility, and discouragement, and despair, and if that is never lifted by faith in the truth, that despair will turn into an eternal despair in the pit of hell.

Sobering reminder that these things matter. There are consequences to what you choose to believe and how you choose to live your life. Don’t neglect it. Don’t disregard it. That is the proclivity of the fallen condition, isn’t it? It’s only by God’s grace that any of us come to see anything. So what is it that breaks through the, this proclivity of the fallen heart? Only the mercy and grace of God and it’s a grace that’s powerful, that has effective, results in the obedience of the faith and that’s how this segment ends, which I think is so hopeful. I’m grateful for it.

 Number three: seeking the truth leads to contemplation. Seeking the truth leads to contemplation. I can’t say full, you know, full throated belief at this point, or embracing, or awakening for Peter. All I can talk about right now is contemplation because that’s where Luke leaves us. So I got to go where the text goes. Seeking the truth leads to contemplation. He’ll come to believe fully later, but at this point, just he’s contemplating. He’s pondering. We’ll see it in a minute.

 But it took a, it took a little bit, but one among their number, the number of these disciples, the apostles, he started to stir, started to awaken. His ears perked up at the sound of his master’s voice and the report of the women. His heart began to beat. He responded, verse 12, in a characteristically Peter way, “But Peter stood up and ran.” He’s sitting there on the couch and not anymore. He’s getting up and immediately runs to the tomb. Typical Peter. He is not going to die wondering, this guy, the spark of faith has lit his engine and got him up and got him moving, propelled.

He arrived at the tomb, then verse 12, stooping to look in, he stoops down, looks in, peers in, and he sees the linen wrappings only. The verb tense changes there as Luke brings us into the scene, “stooping to look in”, past tense, “but he sees” that’s present tense. It’s like you’re looking over his shoulder. He sees the linen wrappings only. We see what Peter sees there; so there’s a focus, linen wrappings only. Draws our attention to something important.

You don’t need to turn there now, just listen to this out of John 20 verse 3 and following, because he gives kind of the expanded account of what happened with Peter. John writes, “Peter,” not only Peter, but John as well, “the other disciple, they went forth, and they were going to the tomb. And the two were running together; and the other disciple ran ahead faster than Peter and came to the tomb first.” Just got to throw that in there. Always competing; men are. right?

“But stooping and looking in, he saw the linen wrappings lying there; but he did not go in.” At least he’s honest about his victory. “Simon Peter also came, following him, and he entered the tomb and he saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the face cloth which had been on his head, not lying with the linen wrappings, but rolled up in a place by itself.” What is it about these clothes? What is it about this fabric? Very curious this.

It’s Matthew who recorded the guard that the Jews posted at the tomb on Friday, the guard that was meant to prevent some rash grave robbing plot by the disciples, Matthew 27:64. Disciples who might come, these weak and frail disciples, who’d all run and torn away, they’re going to somehow muster the strength to come and make an attack at the grave and overpower the guard and the twelve of them or eleven of them going to roll this two-ton stone away? Not likely. But the story was meant to try to fool the naive into believing Jesus rose from the dead, as he’d said.

These same guards fled at the appearance of the Angel when he came to roll the stone away. And as Matthew goes on to tell us in Matthew 28:11 to 15, that some of these guards came into the city, they reported to the chief priests, all that had happened. So they, these chief priests gather all the rest of the Sanhedrin. They confer with one another. They decide on this course of action. So it says, “they gave a large sum of money to the soldiers,” so bribe. And then they said, “You’re to say, ‘the disciples came by night and stole Him away while we were asleep.’” Man, there are so many violations of soldiering. These guys would be dead on a number of counts. So I want you to say that.

I want you to incriminate yourself, but here’s enough money to make it worth your while and if this should ever come to the governor’s ears, we’ll win them over; keep you out of trouble. They’re bribing for a lie. But it is this stupidity of sin, isn’t it, that causes you to believe someone who has clearly perjured themselves. We’re going to win them over, keep you out of trouble. Yeah. “But they took the money, did as they have been instructed, and this story was widely spread among the Jews and is to this day.”

That’s what Matthew says. He’s writing an evangelistic Gospel to his own people. He wants them to understand where this story started. Based on what Luke has written in verse 12, based on what John recorded in John 2:6 and 7. What is the key piece of evidence that undermines their stupid story? Some cloth, linen, laundry. What are the linen wrappings doing there? If the disciples came and stole the body, wouldn’t they be in a bit of a hurry? Why would they unwrap the body and then take the dead body away without clothing? Wouldn’t that be likely to draw attention? If you saw that walking through the streets of Greeley, what would you?

More curious than that, as John recounts, “Peter saw the linen wrappings lying there and the face cloth which had been on his head, not lying with the linen wrappings, but rolled up in a place by itself.” Look at the meticulous care taken by the risen Lord, so that Peter and his disciples will know that in leaving the tomb he was not leaving in any grave clothes, not walking out in this stuff. Grave clothes are unfitting and wholly unbecoming for the living one to wear. Changed his clothes before leaving the tomb, and then he neatly and triumphantly and orderly folded them up and rolled the trappings of death and set them aside.

 Now, Peter does not know exactly what he’s seeing here at the end of verse 12. He needs time and space to think. So verse 12, “he went away by himself marveling at what had happened.” John explains that still, as yet, they did not understand the Scripture that Jesus must rise again from the dead, John 20, verse 9. It’s an abbreviated version, by the way, of what the women reported to Peter and the others, “how he spoke to them while he was still in Galilee saying the Son of Man must be delivered in the hands of sinful men, be crucified, and on the third day arise.” I just summarized right there in John 20, verse 9.

It all started when Peter received the truth, didn’t dismiss these women, but he received what they were saying. He wasn’t dismis, he wasn’t quick to be dismissive, to reject them. He listened. He didn’t stereotypically set them aside. He wasn’t impulsive, in this case, which admittedly is uncharacteristic of Peter. Here he’s mindful, cautious, careful. Why? Something sparked his mind and he says, no, I’m not going to let that thought go. I’m going to take this out into the center of my attention. I’m going to think about it. So he seeks the truth. He runs to seek the truth. He runs to investigate the truth.

Yeah, he had faith, and it needed, it needed resuscitating like the women’s did, but he had faith. He didn’t, he did believe, but he did not understand at this point. He hadn’t understood the Lord’s teaching, when he delivered it back in Galilee; remember when Peter said, he took him aside privately and rebuked the Lord for saying he’s going to be crucified and handed over, rejected. What did the Lord say to Peter? Hey, thanks for the tip. No, “get behind me Satan.” He rebuked Peter.

Peter did not fully understand then, he doesn’t understand fully now, but he does make the connection. He doesn’t apprehend the meaning of their report, but in humility, he receives their report. And what struck the others as odd and as nonsense, Peter chose not to dismiss. In humility, Peter’s heart is open, it’s receptive, it’s willing to consider. Is that the framing of your heart? Is that the framing of your heart when you come on a Sunday morning? Is that the framing of your heart when you listen to teaching in any other venue? Is the framing of your heart to be open, humble, receptive, and submissive? Or are you every time you sit down to listen to a sermon or listen to teaching, are you braced for impact? You have more of a mind that says, prove it to me, college boy.

Humility is the crack in the door of Peter’s heart and it was through that small crack that faith barged in, took over and directed his life. As Peter’s mulling over, considering their report, this fledgling faith sprung, to, his body into action. And faith, informed by the truth, fed a spiritual curiosity that led to further investigation. And that further investigation, having investigated all these things for himself, Peter now has something to think about and better than that, end of verse 12, something to marvel at.

Do you still marvel over the truth? Do you still wonder at it? Does it astonish you? Does your Bible reading produce joy in your heart or are you dead to it? Are you sleeping through your Bible reading? When’s the last time you picked up your Bible? Not Peter. He’s investigated. He’s making connections to what the women said and what he’s seeing. He’s interpreting his life and his thinking all through the truth and the grid of the truth. He’s got to get along with his thoughts. So he goes home, gets to a place of solitude. He makes time in his schedule for meditation, reflection, contemplation. Commits himself to prayer and in the faith that God has given him, Christ by the Spirit and the word minister to Peter’s heart, delivered him from unbelief to illuminate his mind and give him understanding.

Now it might not be obvious at this point in the narrative. Such dim small beginnings, majority of the Christian movement still choosing not to believe. Just a few women and, kind of a, the dimmer switch on the light in Peter’s mind growing brighter and brighter. At this moment, this is all you’ve got, but the dam is about to burst. Heavens are about to pour out blessing. The Holy Spirit is about to proceed forth from the Father and the Son to come upon his people and create the movement we are a part of now. Movement that has changed lives, forgiven sin, glorified God, helped us to see him well, worship Christ.

It’s a gospel that many have died for, bled for, been persecuted for, lost their jobs for, been spurned and marginalized and scorned for. It’s a gospel and a truth and a Christian faith that the enemy has tried to destroy, put down, imprison, make illegal. Christ said, “I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.” And here we are.

Listen in the hustle and bustle of your life, the myriad of distractions in the world, this scourge we call social media, all the binge worthy entertainment on offer free of charge to you. All the wonderful and interesting things for you to do, all that you can give your attention to, all you can spend your money on. You will never receive the truth if you do not seek the truth. You never seek the truth if you don’t humble yourself to be receptive to it, to receive the truth, if you’re not intentional to get away from all that noise, and all that business and distraction, and contemplate the truth.

If you fill your schedules every single day with kids stuff and meetings and business and pleasure, and I’ll say this too, and family. You know how many times family becomes the idol of a Christian’s life? If you don’t be intentional about giving yourself to the contemplation of the truth, you will live at best, a mediocre Christian life and you’ll stand before God and his Christ. In the end, you have to explain yourself, and for some, maybe all, the mediocrity is to veil, for your lack of regeneration. You’re not truly converted. You think you are, but you’re about to find out a hard cold reality. It’s going to turn into a hot and eternal reality because you’ve never been converted and you don’t know him.

I prompted you at the beginning to consider for yourself as each of you stands on the brink of eternity, which you will spend in one place or another, in heaven or in hell, and think about your life. Think about your actions, think about your priorities, think about your relationships, how you interact with people or don’t. Consider what it is you really love, what you give your time and attention to. What you invest in are these precious doctrines of the gospel, the suffering of your Savior Jesus Christ, who suffered for your sins.

He took away the suffering for you, and he’s taken it upon himself. He went to the cross to atone for your sins, to forgive you. Dying on the cross for you. Precious doctrine of the Gospel, the victory of Christ over death, to deliver you from sins eternal penalty, eternal death, and also to deliver you from sins power so that you live a holy, godly, pure, joyful, grateful life; fruitful to his glory. Are you feeding your spiritual curiosity by reading and studying and investigating the truth that you might grow by it? Not to prove a position, not to win a debate, not to solidify what you’ve always believed anyway. So that you change!

Are you feeding your curiosity spiritually or are you starving it? Are you feeding yourself instead with tasty junk food of the world’s passing news and fads and movements and interests? Is what you say you believe actually changing you, truly transforming you, or are you pretty much the same? I’d like you to ponder those things, reflect on them, do a little bit of Peter like contemplation as you sit in your seats, as we come to our time at the Lord’s Table.

But ask yourself, am I characterized by an active faith, a fervent zeal for the truth? Am I characterized by a joyful, fruitful knowledge that is changed me and continues to change me? Does the gospel of Jesus Christ thrill my soul? Does it fill me with joy in believing? Does it prompt energetic service to him? Not just good stuff, not just activity, but service to him, to love and serve his Church, to love and serve his people, to love and serve his Gospel. Think about those things as we move through this time of remembering, reflecting, contemplating on the meaning of these elements. The bread, the broken body offered for you, the blood of the new covenant poured out for you, that you would be with him in his covenant, numbered among his people forever.

Bow with me as we ask the Lord’s blessing on these common elements, bread and cup. Ask him to set them apart for holy use in remembrance of him. Our Father, we have a lot to think about coming out of Luke 24 and even our prior reading from Titus 2 and 3. We do want to contemplate the meaning of truth, yes, the historical facts of what you have done and accomplished, what Jesus said and did, but it’s the meaning of what he said. It’s the meaning of what he did, that he taught, that he interpreted for us, that his apostles throughout the writings of the New Testament have explained and helped us to understand and helped us to see the implications of them and to apply.

It all comes back to these, this remembrance at this table of these simple elements of a bread and a cup. So, Father, we ask you to bless these elements, take the common bread and the common cup, and let us set them apart from common use, to a holy and a sacred use, to represent the body and the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, a body offered to you for us, a bloodshed to ratify your new covenant. Let us remember that now and contemplate in Christ’s name, Amen.

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Luke 24:1-9

Would you turn in your Bibles to Luke chapter 24. We are returning to the final chapter of Luke’s Gospel, Luke 24, getting the details of this amazing, amazing account of the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. There may be occasions or seasons in the Christian life when a believer loses sight of what’s important, when a believer loses focus on that which is essential and maybe veers off course, becomes ineffective due to, in that state of wandering and veering off course, becomes ineffective due to temptation to sin or distraction or worldliness. And in that condition, having fallen, he can become discouraged and even for a season be faithless.

We know, though, from Scripture that God will always bring his believing children back from, faith, faithlessness through the precious gift of repentance. God will strengthen their faith and restore their hope, return them into his, his useful service. The formal presentation of what I’ve just described, the doctrine, all its relating and supporting truths, the doctrine is called the Doctrine of Perseverance, the perseverance of the saints. And this is really what we are seeing in this 24th chapter of Luke. Christ is coming. He has risen from the dead. He never left, but he has risen from the dead and he comes now in this final time on earth to restore the faith of his people. And he’s going to do it by preserving them in God’s Word, by God’s Word.

Listen to this brief section from the confession that we affirm and we, every couple times a month, we confess from it. The London Baptist Confession of Faith from way back in 1689. Those guys knew how to put a word together, a sentence together. This is what they said, “though many storms,” this is from chapter 17, on the perseverance of the saints. “Though many storms and floods arise and beat against the saints, yet they shall never be able to take them off that foundation and rock which by faith they are fastened upon. Notwithstanding through unbelief and the temptations of Satan, the sensible sight of the light and love of God may be for a time clouded and obscured from them, and yet he is still the same. And they shall be sure to be kept by the power of God unto salvation, where they shall enjoy their purchased possession, they being engraven on the palm of His hands and their names have been written in the book of life from all eternity.” That’s the scroll that is now in the hands of our risen Savior, that was just sung about in that song.

Paul told Timothy, in 2 Timothy 2:19, “The firm foundation of God stands having this seal, ‘The Lord knows those who are his.’” There are times, as I said, and seasons, in which a believer may not look very much like he belongs to the Lord, and that’s a tragic time for sure. But the Lord still knows those who are his. He knows. He is omniscient. He sees all things. He knows the decision made from eternity past. But how are they known to others?

How are God’s people known to others? True believers repent of sin. They walk in faith. And that’s why Paul continues and says, “let everyone who names the name of the Lord abstain from Adikia.” Adikia is the word unrighteousness, sometimes translated iniquity or sin. And that Adikia, unrighteousness, wickedness, iniquity is always rooted in unbelief and unbelieving thinking. The Lord knows those who are his, and everyone else around will know who belongs to the Lord by the life that they live.

So as we come to the morning of the resurrection, we need to realize that this is exactly what the disciples of Jesus need so desperately at this juncture in their lives: the restoration of their faith. It’s critical that they return to what they know by faith to be true and to be right, and hopeful, and solid, because they are broken, scattered, troubled. Starts with the apostles themselves, the band of Jesus’ disciples. They are struggling, aren’t they? Led by Peter, denied even knowing Jesus; the rest of them have slinked into the shadows of the city or hunker down into their homes. On a fallen human level, we may sympathize with their mourning and their state of sorrow and even their despair, but we’d be wrong to sympathize wholly with them. That’s the sinner sympathizing with the sinner.

We need to abandon our sin and see them from a different view and that’s what this passage helps us to see. As the Angels rebuke the women, as the Lord rebukes the disciples on the road to Emmaus. We don’t have any real good reason to depart from faith, to depart from believing, circumstances, trials, afflictions, pain, sadnesses, sorrows. The Lord went through all those, never lost sight of believing, never took his eyes off the God who called him. You say, well, that’s just human nature. No, our Lord was human. He had a human nature, and he never failed.

Problem is not our humanness; the problem is our fallenness. And so we need to learn from the Lord and learn from Luke 24, and the Holy Spirit, how to return, how to be restored in faith and believing. These guys are really struggling in their faith, but we cannot let our own sympathies, and they are fallen weak sympathies, we can’t allow that to ignore, to allow us to ignore the cause of their troubles, which is a failure to remember Jesus words and to believe. It’s what our author, Luke the Evangelist would have us see in Luke 24 from start to finish of this great chapter. He writes as he stated very clearly, with purpose, in Luke 1:4, so that we might know the exact truth about the things we’ve been taught. So we would, would know our doctrine with certainty. So we’d hold fast to it with deep conviction and that is what this whole chapter is about.

As the Good Shepherd who is now risen, as he gathers his scattered sheep from all over Jerusalem, and he brings that flock, that scattered flock together, he shepherds them all back into the safety and the security of his own sheepfold, so they can feed on the soul nourishing truth that he has given them and he will give them. This is the Good Shepherd doing Good Shepherd work. This is what we see right here from the very beginning, right at the outset, as these believing women, who as we noted last week, they faltered in their faith, they’ve been troubled, they don’t see things clearly, and here they return to the tomb on Easter morning to attend to his dead body.

Let’s pick up the reading in chapter 24, Luke verse 1. We’ll read through verse 9. “Now in the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, bringing the spices which they had prepared, and they found the stone rolled away from the tomb. But when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. And it happened that while they were perplexed about this, behold, two men suddenly stood near them in dazzling clothing. And when the women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, ‘Why do you seek the living one among the dead? He is not here, but he is risen.

     “‘Remember how he spoke to you while he was still in Galilee, saying that 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. And when they returned from the tomb, they reported all these things to the eleven and to all the rest.” That’s what we’ll cover for this week. Next time we’ll finish that section going up to verse 12.

Let me give you three points for our outline this morning. First we see, first point, what the women found. Second, what the Angels said, and third, what the women did. What the women found, what the Angels said, and what the women did. First, number one, what the women found. Luke set the scene there in verse 1. As we think about him setting the scene, the elements that he put there, very simple and yet very intentional elements or facts that helps us to discern what state of mind these women are in on this morning. They’re coming to the tomb on the first day of the week.

They’re coming first thing in the morning immediately after the lifting of the Sabbath restrictions. Is this because they are devout women and that’s why they come first thing? Is it because they got up early and God blesses those who get up early? Could they have come in mid-morning after coffee and Bible time? They’ve come early because they haven’t been sleeping anyway. It really stretches credulity to think anything else. I’m quite certain that these women had had very little sleep since the night before the Passover.

When Peter and the others had been with Jesus, then followed him into the Garden of Gethsemane, they witnessed his betrayal by Judas, his arrest by the Roman guard. They were led by their own chief priests. When this, apostles scattered and ran, I have no doubt they ran into the comfort of their fellow disciples, gathered together with one another in little groups, talking about what had happened. They were praying anxious prayers, talking about what to do.

As we know, Peter and John left that company to enter into the belly of beasts, bravely, it would seem, entering into the courtyard of the high priest to be there when Jesus was run through all those sham trials and that became, as we know, the platform for Peter’s spectacular fall, leading to further discouragement of Jesus’ little group of followers. When Jesus was then handed over by the Roman soldiers, to the Sanhedrin, and then to Pilate’s praetorium, they all ushered him up to Skull Hill, nailed him to the cross. And for these believers, their faith seemed at this point utterly crushed, as their hope died that day with Jesus on the cross.

So when you read Luke 24:1, I know we know what’s coming and we tend to project on these women on the morning of the resurrection, this great anticipation of resurrection glory. But do not imagine that at all. These women are not in a strength, a tranquil state of mind. They’re not coming calm, serene, hair in place, make up on, top of their game, they’re exhausted. They’ve had very little sleep since the early hours of Friday. They are emotionally shattered. They’ve just witnessed their Lord die and the brutality of the men around him, the leaders of their nation, probably friends and neighbors who were passersby and hearing them call out abuse and scorn upon the Lord that they love.

 This is a tough, tough weekend for them. R. Kent Hughes captured the mood perfectly when he described the women, “as having dark sackcloth covering their souls.” It’s a good description, he said further, “They’re depressed, exhausted, mourning, with no hope whatsoever between the afternoon hours of Friday and this early trip to the tomb, aside from preparing the spices and the perfumes to finish the burial process and the preparation of Jesus body. Perhaps they found some comfort in Passover observance, but their hopes have been crushed. The joy was gone from them, dead, buried in that same tomb.”

Luke 23:56 says they had returned home to prepare the spices and perfumes. They had rested on the Sabbath according to the commandment. And now Luke 24:1, “On the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, bringing the spices which they prepared.” Mark says that the women came very early. Matthew says they came as it began to dawn. John, he says that Mary Magdalene came while it was still dark. Those accounts are not contradictory at all. They’re complimentary.

But the group of women, we have to understand, had come from different homes, probably all met up at a certain place in a certain time, and the time they came together was what we referred to as nautical dawn, earliest mark of Daybreak, when the sun has not yet peaked over the horizon. Enough light, though, makes the horizon visible. That’s called nautical dawn. Still quite dark, as you may know. But the light of the morning is rising, the sun is coming up, it’s driving all the shadows away. And so the day has started and it’s time to move.

 On the way to the tomb, according to Mark’s Gospel, something else is starting to dawn on the minds of these women. They are saying to one another, who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance of the tomb? This is a big problem. And you can kind of tell their state of mind because they really didn’t think about this on Friday. They thought about it while they’re on the way to the tomb. That’s a big obstacle, about a two-ton obstacle. So they, these women who had been there Friday to watch this happen, see Joseph’s men roll this two-ton stone in front of the tomb prevented them access and they’re going to need some help, aren’t they?

What they had not known, because it had come up in the intervening time, you know, that is during the Sabbath. While these women were obediently observing the commandment of the Law, their chief priests and their Pharisees were not obeying the commandment. The Jewish leaders went to Pilate and according to Matthew 27:62, “The next day,” after the, “after the day of Preparation, the chief priests and Pharisees gathered together with Pilate, and they said, ‘Sir, we remember that while He was still alive that deceiver said, “after three days I’m going to rise again.” Therefore, order for the grave to be made secure until the third day, lest His disciples come and steal Him away and say to the people, “He’s risen from the dead,” and the last deception would be worse than the first.’ Pilate said to them, ‘You have a guard; go make it as secure as you know how.’ And they went, made the grave secure, and along with the guard they set a seal on the stone.”

     So the women had not anticipated that problem. They didn’t know about it. As we continue reading, Matthew resolves it for us, “Now after the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to look at the grave. And behold, there was a great earthquake, for an Angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled away the stone and sat upon it. His appearance was like lightning, his clothing was as white as snow and the guards quaked,” for fear, “from fear of him, and became like dead men.” And they go hustling back to the chief priests.

So unbeknownst to these weary and discouraged women, what they forgot to factor in when they had set out on their little quest, on the first day of the week, we go back to Luke 24:1, at early dawn as they drew near to the tomb, bringing the spices which they prepared, the women had no idea what to do about that great obstacle, the two-ton stone covering the tomb. They didn’t know God had already solved the problem for them, a problem they didn’t even know existed. If you could just make a little asterisk in your notes and say, God is working when I don’t even see it. He’s solving problems I don’t even know exist. So the problems that I do know exist, he’s got those too. Okay, back to our regular scheduled sermon.

They didn’t know what to do about the stone covering the tomb. It’s yet another in a long list of discouragements that they’d already endured. This stone that may prevent their and disappoint their best efforts to honor Jesus body and anoint it as they wanted to, little did they know God had already obliterated that obstacle, sent his Angel to roll away the stone. But, also, little did they know, God had done something even prior to that which would prevent them from achieving their goal of anointing the body. Verses 2 and 3, “When they came, they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.” What they find is the stone rolled away. Problem solved.

What they don’t find is what they came for in the first place, the body of the Lord Jesus, but God had solved that problem too. As Philip Riken put it, “What the women found is that they could not find Jesus.” It’s a problem for them until they get some perspective which is coming. There are some who think mistakenly the Angel had descended from heaven to roll away the stone so that the resurrected Jesus could leave the tomb, not true. Jesus in his resurrected state, he had options. He could walk in the normal way, as he’ll do with the two disciples walking from Jerusalem to Emmaus, verse 13 and following. He can also vanish instantly from one place, in verse 31, show up in another place, verse 36, passing through the walls. He can appear and disappear and reappear at will, it seems. Traverse great spans of distance, metal barriers like walls and locked doors, distances like kilometers and miles, not a problem. Large stones over tombs and imperial seals that bar passage, none of these things are obstacles to him.

 The resurrected Jesus in his glorified spiritual body. Interesting putting those two words together, spiritual body. It’s sounds like an oxymoron. That’s exactly what Paul calls it in 1 Corinthians 15:44, an immaterial material, a spiritual physical. That’s what he’s composed of. Evidently glorified humanity, if we look at the Lord Jesus Christ, has some angelic properties. Pretty cool when you think about where we’re heading. So removing the stone was not to let Jesus out, but to let the women in. Let them come, let them see, let them enter and find out. So that’s what the women found when they came. They found an empty tomb, and they found a disappeared body. We keep reading to find as, as they did, what we need to hear.

The Angels come to show to the women, to show that the message is not dependent on the vessel carrying it. Travis Allen

Number two, point number two, what the Angel said. What the Angel said in verses 4 and 5, “And it happened while they were perplexed about this, behold, two men suddenly stood near them in dazzling clothing. And when the women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, why do you seek the living one among the dead?” You can imagine the scene. These women all enter into the crypt, they’re all huddled close together in the dim light and they’re perplexed here about not finding the body of the Lord Jesus. They know they have the right tomb. They watch the body go in. They watch the stone be rolled. They have no identity problems with where the tomb is located. They came to the right place and they’re perplexed.

Interesting word. Aporeo is built from the word poros. Poros refers to a way or a means. It’s got an alpha primitive on the front of it’s making it, no way, no means; so literally to be all together without a way. That’s how they are in their minds. I, I’m all together at a loss, totally bewildered here. They thought a rock would be their biggest problem. This is a way bigger problem than a two-ton boulder, no body, all these spices; look, got all dolled up and everything.

So as they’re scratching their heads, dim light of the tomb is immediately dispelled in the brilliant light cast by the sudden appearance of two very well-dressed men. We know they’re Angels. Luke uses the word men, specific to men, andres. They’re not mere men as indicated by their apparel, as indicated by the women’s reaction and if there’s any lingering doubt, verse 23 refers to them as Angels, angelos.

Matthew and Mark, if you read the other accounts, you’ll see that Matthew and Mark mentioned only one of the Angels, presumably the spokesman speaking, the one that was prominent to them, even though there were two of them as recorded by both Luke and John. Luke describes the brilliance of their clothing using a word for starlight, lightning, that kind of a brilliant light. Imagine standing in a dark, dimly lit place and all of a sudden the brightness of lightning shows up in the middle of you. You’d be absolutely terrified. It’s the same word, by the way, that refers to Jesus’ clothing at the transfiguration. So quite the shock.

Of course the women are terrified. It’s an intensified form of a verb, phobeo. Emphobeo and it’s the noun form here conveys extreme fear. So before this, standing in the presence of this terrifying, otherworldly beings and they instinctively, they know what they’re seeing and they just can’t help but bow their faces to the ground. Their faces go down to, it’s very explicit in the language there to the earth, to the land. They kiss the ground. They’re not saying, they’re not reasoning, I ought to bow. They’re struck. The fear buckles their knees.

The glory and the majesty of these beings, it, it just sends them to the ground. And you might think the Angels, considering what these ladies have been through in the past 72 hours, maybe they could have taken it a little easy. Maybe they could have showed up in a gentler, subtler way. Maybe not as to frighten the women. Maybe come in strolling through that area as two kindly old men out on a morning walk or something. It may have been easier for these women on their feelings, it’s not really what the moment called for.

The Angels, Hebrews 1:14, calls them ministering spirits. Ministering spirits, serving spirits, they’re sent out to render service for the sake of all those who will inherit salvation. That’s what Angels are designed by God to do. They serve humanity. They serve those created in the image of God, very powerful, glorious, majestic creatures. And yet they’re also in their service to God, doing his will as fast as they can, intelligent, using all their powers of intellect and being to their advantage to accomplish his will in serving his people, serving God’s people.

They are astute observers of humanity. They’ve been watching us for thousands of years and these two Angels know exactly how to minister to these women effectively; It’s like this. So their sudden arrival, the shocking appearance were necessary, not for their own sake, not to say that’s our calling card, we’re Angels, splendorous, glorious, powerful. It’s not about them. They come like that for the sake of these women.

They could have come more subdued, but they didn’t. Came like this for the the spiritual good of these women, for the recovery and the restoration of their faith. These women had to be snapped out of their melancholy frame of mind. The dim perspective of troubled hearts, spiritual sight that is dulled by grief and discouragement, it creates a false perspective, a misleading view of what’s good and bad, right and wrong, true and false. Grief does not produce good thinking. They are here in that state of mind and they are discouraged, but they are unnecessarily discouraged. If they only knew what was what, what was real, what was true, immediate perspective change. We’re going to see that.

So these ladies had to have their attention arrested by a force far greater than their overwhelmed emotions. So their sudden arrival, their dazzling appearance, which these are necessary, that does the trick too. And now that the Angels have their attention, the women are ready to listen. They’re ready to listen attentively and carefully to every word. And what is it that the Angels say?

If the Angels had come down to convince the women about the miraculous resurrection of Jesus, we might imagine they had a number of options at their disposal. Lots of things that they could do. Very resourceful, these Angels. They could perform great acts of power. They could tell them stories about Christ’s preincarnate glory, astound them with amazing tales of where they’ve been, what they’ve done with the Son of God in realms of endless light. They might have even just shown the women a video replay of the resurrection, cast the the vision on the tomb walls. None of that.

All that matters at this critical moment are the words Jesus had spoken. Peter had experienced great and glorious things on the mount with the Lord at the Transfiguration. He says so 2 Peter 1, but what does he count as more important than any experience, any vision of glory, any real experience of glory being in the presence of the Shekinah glory of God and the transfigured resurrection, pre-resurrection, but resurrection glory of Christ? What does he count as more important? Prophetic word was more sure.

The written word is more sure, more certain, that’s what matters here, the words Jesus has spoken. So the Angels start here with a mild rebuke. They follow with a command to repent. And then they remind the women of what Jesus said. First, the mild rebuke in verse 5, the Angels ask the women a question. Why do you seek the living one among the dead? But that’s a rhetorical question. The Angels aren’t waiting around for their answer. They require no reply but they do intend by this rhetorical question, why do you seek the living one among the dead? They want to awaken their conscience. They want to startle them with, yeah, what am I doing here? And my, the Lord is the living one. What does that mean? What are the implications of that?

They awaken the conscience and they follow that with the announcement, “He is not here, but he has risen.” They declare to them the resurrection, they announce it. The Angels had to be a bit incredulous. I mean, I can’t get into an, I can’t get into any human beings’ head. I certainly can’t get into an angelic head. They have to be incredulous. From heaven they heard and observed all that Jesus taught in Scripture, all the promises he gave, teasing out the implications of doctoral prophetic truth. He talked about, as Peter put it, “things into which Angels had long to look,” and these Angels had long to look and see into these things.

Fact: according to 1 Corinthians 11, Angels observe the worship services of Christ’s true churches. They want to see the structure of authority and submission in the church. They want to see that well observed, rightly observed order, that the truth might have a hearing among God’s people, that God’s people would rejoice. They want to see husbands and wives lined up in their authority structures as they should, parents and children. They want to see all of that functioning in the local church. They rejoice to do that. Angels, I’d imagine, are here now watching this service, watching other faithful churches. They long to look into these things. They long to understand.

They themselves being not embodied spirits, but simple spirits. They don’t have the experiences we have. They don’t know the Lord as we do. They know him in a different way and here they are seeing all that Jesus was promised happening and they’re, they’re excited. They see the end of sin. They see atonement provided. They see the redemption of God’s elect accomplished, provided. They see this as the very fountain of all salvation and here are these women, mourning, discouraged, they can’t see straight.

The holy Angels hung on every word that Jesus spoke. They were eager and excited in their anticipation to see the full realization, to see the Son of God glorified in Christ. And they find it the greatest of sins, mysteries. And the more I think about it, I do too. The greatest of sins mysteries, how it influences the mind and dulls the heart. So the very people of God, us, we forget. How do we do that? Why do we do that? Why do we fail to remember even in dark times and troubled times? Why do we God’s people fail to take heart, fail to show courage, fail to lead the ungodly around us, fail to point to the truth?

The Angels, I would imagine, expect the attitude of Jesus disciples to be akin to what we read earlier in our service for scripture reading in Isaiah 8:17. “I will wait for the Lord.” That’s my posture even when I don’t understand things around me. I will wait for the Lord. I will wait for the Lord and I will hope for him. I hope is all resting in him. I’m not unsettled in my heart. Things are perfect, glorious, our future’s bright, it’s eternal. I will hope in him. And as they wondered about Israel, should people inquire the dead, on behalf of the living.

So now they wonder again, why do you seek the living one among the dead? You’re not them. You’re not the unbelieving of Israel. You are the disciples of the Lord Jesus. He’s not here, obviously. He’s risen. He is risen indeed. Don’t be so dull. Don’t be so slow of, hard to believe. Jesus had said in John 14:6, “I am the way and the truth, and the life in him was life. John 1:4 and the life was the light of men. He appeared as Paul said, “to abolish death”, 2 Timothy 1:10 and to bring life and immortality to light through the gospel.

 “Jesus said, I am the light of the world, and he who follows me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.” That’s why Paul taught when he recapitulated the doctrine of the bodily resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15:45, “This Jesus who is the last Adam is, he’s become a life giving spirit.” Now I understand all that is truth written after the fact, truth that required the coming of the Spirit to enlighten and illuminate the mind and let the apostles teach and the prophets prophecy and the teachers teach.

 The churches and all that had to be, be developed in their thinking and take firm root and deep root, but it’s starting right here, starts right here. So while the women are perplexed about the appearance of the Angels, the Angels are perplexed about dullness of the women. The Angels say, you got no business in this tomb searching for the living one among the dead. He’s not here, he’s alive. In other words, let the dead bury their own dead. You go follow Christ, go follow the Lord Jesus.

So now that they have their attention with this rebuke, it’s gentle in tone, but it’s a clear rebuke. It puts the women in a receptive frame of mind for repentance. So second, the the Angels command their repentance. Don’t use the word repent, but that’s what’s commanded here. He says, “remember how he spoke to you while he was still in Galilee.” The word, remember, there, they use that verb remember, mimnesko, and they put it in the aorist imperative, which is a very strong way of commanding. It’s a combination of a verbal tense and mood that stresses the urgency of this command. So it’s like, do this and do it now. It’s really, really urgent. Make it your top priority to remember how he spoke to you. Remember that.

It’s actually a bit of irony here in mentioning where the women heard Jesus, where they heard him, hearing him while he was still in Galilee, They cite that location back in Galilee while they’re standing here at this place, a tomb to honor the memory of the dead. Here’s why this is kind of interesting. Just briefly, I didn’t mention it earlier, but the word for tomb is mnema with an MN, mnemoneuo. It’s mnema comes from the verb mnaomai, and means to be mindful of. To be mindful of, it refers to a memorial, a monument to remember, in this case remember the dead. So it translates into a kind of a concrete way as a grave, a tomb, a sepulcher. But it’s memory, that’s what the word means.

They are there at the place of memory, and they’ve forgotten. So the Angels snap them out of their wrong thinking as the women have come to this place of remembrance, to this tomb, intending to memorialize their dead Savior. They called them to repent of that thinking and remember instead the living one and the living words he spoke while in another place when they were of a frame of mind to remember the life-giving words that they heard from him, where they feasted on the bread that he gave when he broke it for the 5000, for the 4000. And he told them “I’m the bread of life.”

So rebuked to get their attention, a call to repentance to put them in the right mindset. And then thirdly, the reminder itself, “Remember how he spoke to you while he was still in Galilee, saying that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified. And the third day rise again.” I suppose there could have been a number of things they cited in Jesus’ teaching so many ways to remind these dear men, but what they remind them of is essentially the gospel, the prediction of the suffering of the Son of Man; join together to the prediction of his glory and by meditating on his suffering and on his glory, that’s gospel truth. It’s the gospel.

The message of the gospel has its own power, its own strength. It’s like a seed. Travis Allen

The prediction itself was recorded twice in Jesus’ Galilean ministry, Luke 9:22, like, Luke 9:44, Luke 9:22 says “The Son of Man must suffer many things.” There’s that word must again, which is in our text as well. “He must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and be killed and be raised up on the third day.” It’s kind of interesting that what the Angels summarize in Luke 24:7, “He must be delivered into the hands of,” not the chief priests, the elders, chief priests, and scribes, “but delivered in the hands of.” He takes all those terms and combines them into one term. What does he call them? “Sinners.” He must be, “he must suffer many things, be rejected by the elders, chief priests and scribes, and be killed and be raised up on the third day.” 22 verses later Luke 9:44. Put these words into your ears, for the Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men.

Just a summary pointing back to that earlier instruction. Lord Jesus continued to say the same things as he left Galilee, entered into Perea, and then into Judea and Jerusalem. We can read those things in Luke 17:25 and Luke 18:31 to 32, repetitions of the same kinds of predictions of his suffering and his glory. But I want to draw your attention in verse 7 to that little word, must, and the word must that follows each subsequent point. The Son of Man must be delivered, must be crucified, and must rise again.

The controlling verb is that verb must. Small verb, weighty verb of divine necessity, dei. It’s D.E.I, but not in the D.E.I that we think about today. It’s dei. It’s a Greek word. Okay verb. It expresses, really, this divine necessity verb, expresses the necessity and the immutability of the divine will. The Son of Man, must be delivered. Think, oh, that’s a matter of divine necessity, that’s immutable. That’s God’s unchanging will. He must be delivered and he must be crucified and he must rise again. And so whatever’s follows that must, must happen.

It’s guaranteed by the unchangeable will of God, his eternal decree, the determination of the Triune God, the Inter-Trinitarian council, to redeem a people for the glory of Christ. Some call that the Pactum Salutis, Council of Peace, some even call it the Covenant of Redemption, but it is a free decision of God to redeem a people for Christ, in Christ, through Christ, and by this very means that he be delivered, crucified, and resurrected, and once determined, that will of God will not, does not ever change.

That’s why Jesus spoke of it as, a necessity, a must. He is giving his people, if they’ll listen to the word, and this one being a little tiny word, three letters, and man, it punches above its weight. If they’ll listen to this word, they will have an assurance of certainty. If they believe, they’ll have a a guarantee of the ironclad word of God’s immutable will, secured by his eternal power and decree. That’s why Jesus said in Luke 9:22 same thing, “The Son of man must suffer many things, be rejected by the elders, chief priests and scribes, and be killed and be raised up on the third day.”

He states the gospel as a necessity of God’s will. And then 22 verses later, Luke 9:44, he builds from that. He actually replaces the verb, dei, it’s necessary, with the verb mello, which means soon, imminent, certain fulfillment. The Son of Man is going to be delivered or about to be delivered into the hands of men. So he’s working from his own theology, it’s a divine necessity, so it’s gonna happen and it’s gonna happen soon.

This gospel, in ironclad certainty, guaranteed by the eternal unchanging will of God, has become now a reality. And that’s what these Angels are telling the women to remember. They don’t offer any proof of the resurrection. They don’t show a video. They don’t, they don’t call the women to examine the evidence; the word of Jesus is sufficient and reflecting on its fulfilment for them, it’s life giving.

Man, do we need to hear this now? It’s a bit rhetorical to say now more than ever, but let me do it anyway. Now more than ever, the Church of Jesus Christ needs to pay attention to the words of Jesus Christ and the little ones too. The big doctrines, the sayings, but also each of the individual words and preachers need to preach those words. They need to be bold and confident because they’ve done the study and they know what’s there.

 It’s not sufficient for preachers to get up and just glibly pass over all the details. So you know what, I’m, I’m really just here to give the gist, make sure everybody’s, kind of like encouraged, just kind of like a life coach, cheerleader, just want to give pep talks. I don’t want to discourage anybody. I mean, people are having a hard time as it is.

You know, for people having a hard time, as it is, these women, what do the Angels say? Get detailed about the words, believe them; every single one. Son of Man was indeed delivered into the hands of sinful men, was indeed crucified, and these women had witnessed that. So if that happened according to his word, well, they got to remember the rest of what he said because he didn’t stop with his death. Got to remember the rest of what he said about being risen from the dead. They got to believe it. They’re bound to believe it. That’s their proof. That’s their certainty. Why? Because Hebrews 11:1, “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for. It’s the conviction of things not seen.”

They weren’t there to watch Jesus physically get up and resurrect and revive and walk out or disappear out of the tomb. No, but faith would tell them it happened, just by focusing on his words. It is necessary; therefore it will happen. “The assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen,” that’s what faith is. Their faith is rewarded in the suffering of Christ’s atonement, which is now fulfilled.

Their faith is going to be further rewarded in the resurrection as they remember his words, believe, reflect on them, learn from them. The women found the tomb empty, nobody inside. Now they have to heed the Angels, they have to receive the rebuke, repent of failing to remember, believe everything that Jesus has said, and then remember all of his words, each and every one of them, and believe. What did they do? Third point, I’m happy to tell you, they did believe. They did. They did remember.

     So here’s number three, what the women did, what the women did. Simple sentence, verse 8, “And they remembered his words.” I love reading that. They remembered. Good job. These faithful women received that angelic rebuke. They repented and remembered Jesus’ words. Their faith began right here at this moment to be restored, to be built up, to mature, to be strengthened and now what we read in verse 9, that’s going to help these women keep on remembering Jesus’ words and reflecting on them. “And they remembered his words, and when they returned to the tomb, they reported all these things to the eleven and to all the rest.”

You want to make sure you hold on to something of spiritual importance and truth. Give it away. You’ll hold on to it by giving it away. You will deeply embed it in your heart if you keep on teaching, and speaking, and reporting, and telling the truth. Sending the women back to report Jesus’ words to the eleven and all the rest, that’s actually an initiative of the Angels. We read in Matthew 28:7, “They said go quickly and tell his disciples.” Mark 16:7 adds, “tell his disciples and Peter and tell them add he has risen from the dead” and Luke tells us, “and they reported all these things.”

So yeah, the resurrection, including what the Angels commanded them to remember as well, the gospel words of Jesus predicting fulfilment, fulfillment of the gospel, fulfillment of all the elements of the gospel in what he did, dying on the cross to atone for sin, rising from the dead. There’s quite the contrast here, and especially so for the first century mind. And I shouldn’t just isolate the first century way of thinking.

We should talk about all the centuries before the first century, and many of the centuries all the way from the first century up to the time in which we live, because in our century we’re taught to deny obvious realities such as the differences between male and female. But when we failed to consider how these Angels came first to the women to announce the resurrection, we don’t see the contrast we should see here. We’ve got the strongest of all created beings coming down to the weakness of human adults, these precious women.

If we don’t see that contrast, we fail to see the point here. We’ll see more about it next time, but it’s very important to reflect on this now as we conclude and kind of consider how to apply this to our lives. Of all the followers, Jesus could have sent the Angels too. He didn’t send them to the great apostles of the church first to announce the resurrection and come to the most intellectually astute, that doesn’t apply just to the women, applies to the men too. Not many wives, not many mobile, not many mighty. They didn’t come to the most intellectually astute of the great orators or debaters of their time. They didn’t come to the wealthy, the influential.

In fact, the Angels didn’t come to any of the male disciples at all. And if you’re trying to provide a reliable witness in a first century mind, and that’s why I say in human history before that, all the way leading up to the first century and from the first century on until modern times, a reliable witness in court was a male voice, a male witness. Jesus did not send his Angels to the men. This isn’t a punishment. The majestic and mighty Angels came to the women, to the weaker sex, to those who were not considered in their time to be mighty and powerful, but vulnerable and dependent. Because the message is not dependent on the vessel carrying it. And that should encourage every heart here, male and female, young and old, child and adult and senior adult.

The message does not depend on us. It doesn’t depend on our power, our strength. It doesn’t depend on our influence. It doesn’t depend on our charisma, it doesn’t depend on our followers online, doesn’t depend on our money. If you think the gospel will be better received if it comes from a superstar or a celebrity, you got to rethink your theology. The Angels come to show to the women, to show that the message is not dependent on the vessel carrying it.

The message of the gospel has its own power, its own strength. It’s like a seed. Those small can be crushed between the fingers, but when planted intact, you don’t mess with the seed, you don’t take anything away from it. But when you plant it intact into prepared soil, it grows a mighty harvest. It has its own power to give life, regenerate, transform, encourage and preserve. The word Angel, Angelos means messenger, comes from the Greek verb Angelo. Angelo means to report or announce, which is exactly what these women do. They reported all these things to the eleven, to all the rest.

So because of the message that they now are reminded of, that they’ve always held but failed to see and kind of hid it under a bushel. Oh no. These women, because of the message, become Angels in a manner of speaking. They’re messengers of the gospel, restoring faith, preserving faith in the men. They go to the eleven and to all the rest. We know it’s going to take some time for further reflection, to know, understand, benefit from the truths of verse 7.

But having remembered them and now being commissioned to take the words of Jesus back, to remind the eleven apostles and the rest of the disciples, these women have some time to reflect on those words, to ponder those words and notice these women who started the morning discouraged, how do you think they’re doing now? Have they had any any more sleep? No. Physically, nothing’s changed. They’ve still got all their issues. They’re still running on empty in the tank, but now they have the life-giving message which gives them life, a spiritual life and an energy. They cannot wait to get back to the men. Everything’s changed, everything’s changed. And this takes us back, beloved, to where we started to see the outworking here, kind of in, in a narrative form of the doctrine of the perseverance of the Saints.

Though there are many storms and floods that arise and beat against the saints, such as seeing the Lord Jesus crucified on a cross, give up his spirit and die, be taken away from the cross and buried in a tomb. Third day comes, the time when decay and decomposition starts to take root and set in. Though many storms and floods arise and beat against the saints. Though the Assyrian army is marching to your city. Though the Huns are at the gate, though the culture around you is disintegrating, it’s becoming more violent and blasphemous. Many storms and floods arise and beat against the saints, but because of the preserving power of the truth of the gospel, nothing can knock us off that foundation and rock which by faith we are fastened upon.

We didn’t fasten ourselves to the rock by ourselves, through ourselves, because of ourselves. We’re fastened to that rock because God did that. He drilled us in; he anchored us there. So even temporary unbelief and blindness, whether that happens by the temptations of Satan, discouragements and disappointments, fearful anxieties, threats of a changing world, anything else you want to fill in that blank with?

“I’m persuaded that neither death nor life, nor Angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing is able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Are you so persuaded? Because if you’re not, if at times you falter and fail in believing, let the interaction of these Angels and these women in this text chart your way back to steadfastness, back to believing, back to taking heart, back to encouragement.

If you follow through, verse 7, and do your own reflection on that amazing, mighty, chock full of encouragement and hope truth, it’ll fill you with a lifetime of life. The Son of Man, who’s that? God’s chosen, specially anointed mediator, the only mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus, the God man, the one who has a divine nature, human nature, who stands in the gap between God and man, to represent man to God, God to man, that Son of man. He was delivered into the hands of sinful men.

He’s delivered into their hands because he had taken their sins upon himself. He took their afflictions and griefs and sorrows on himself and became, because he bore their sin in his body, he became a curse of God, not because of any sins he had done, “because he committed no sin nor was there any deceit found in his mouth, but he was crucified, pierced through for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities.” The chastening of our peace fell upon him, and by his wounds we were healed. And though he was delivered up because of our transgressions, he was raised because of our justification and he was raised on the third day, according to the Scriptures.

He rose from the dead. He left that tomb empty, having conquered the grave, death, the sin that took us there. By remembering these words, by reflecting on them, by believing them with no reservation, no qualification, and then repeating them to others, as we continue to teach, we continue to deepen our understanding, as we evangelize, as we disciple.

Life, transformation, change, that all happens and those are elements of our faith that strengthen our assurance. So although the sensible sight of the light and the love of God may for a time be clouded and obscured from you, yet God is still the same, and you will be kept by the power of God unto salvation, where you will enjoy your purchased possession. You are engraved upon the palm of your savior’s hands; your name having been written in the book of life from all eternity.

Those, beloved, are words of truth that you must always remember and believe. Whenever you lose sight of hope, when you’re attempted to discouragement so that you can be restored in faith. Those are the words of truth you have to remember, reflect on, rejoice in, so that in times of strength and fruitfulness and joy, you can give thanks to God because he is worthy. Let’s do that. Bow that with me in prayer.

Our Father, we thank you not only for the good and glorious gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, but we rejoice in how you have brought this to us, in the very human stories, in the, with these characters that we can all identify with, people that are our own flesh and blood, we get them. We are even tempted wrongly to sympathize with the result of their fallen condition and the sins that they commit and the weakness of faith that they show.

And yet we realize they’re like us and we’re like them. And there is no temptation that’s come upon us except that which is common to men, common to women. And yet, God, you will always make the way of escape, that we can bear up under the temptation and not enter into temptation and not fall into sin. And the very clear route of escape is to look down at our Bibles and meditate on the words of Jesus Christ, in total and in part, and to understand, believe.

We thank you that you have, by your amazing grace, granted us by your Spirit to be regenerated to this living hope. You’ve given us a new nature. You’ve given us eyes to see, ears to hear, a heart to believe and understand and receive, to be receptive to your rebuke and your correction. You, by the Spirit and by the Word, teach us how to repent. You’ve given us that gift. You never take it away. So it’s always there and available if we have fallen, and if we do stumble and fall, we’ve become weak and believing, we can always be recovered and restored.

Let us give ourselves fully to understanding your Word and learning and believing deeply, so that we can rise up and walk confidently in the truth and boldly proclaim it and report it to others. We love you. We thank you so much for what we’re learning. We thank you for the Lord Jesus Christ and the atonement that he won for us on the cross. The redemption accomplished, the Spirit applies. We thank you that we can bring glory and honor to you, father. In the name of Christ, we pray. Amen.

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Luke 24

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Luke 23:50-56

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Matthew 5:6

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Matthew 5:5

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James 5:19-20

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James 5:16-18

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James 5:13-15

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