Well now if you would keep your Bibles in hand and turn to the New Testament scriptures to Matthew’s gospel, chapter 28. We are going to look at verses 1 through 9. If you are using one of our church Bibles, you will find that on page 835.
Over the last four weeks we have been looking at the various groups who gathered around the cross. The soldiers. The scoffers. The robbers nailed on the right and on the left of our Savior on crosses of their own. And then on Friday evening, Good Friday, we looked at the mourners – Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus who came to prepare Jesus’ body for burial. But today is Easter Sunday and so we leave Golgotha behind and we visit now the garden tomb. We move from crucifixion today to glorious resurrection. And as we think about our Savior’s resurrection from the dead, I want to direct your attention especially this morning to the angels, that the gospels tell us were present at this most wonderful moment in human history; the moment when the God-Man, Jesus Christ, undid death and rose again in victory.
We’re going to notice three things about the resurrection from our text. First of all, new beginning. It’s clear in the way that Matthew describes the scene that Jesus’ resurrection changes everything. New beginning. Then secondly, new perspective. The effect of the angelic visitation on the guards is very different from the effect that it has on the women who come to the tomb that day. Instead of falling down as though dead, the women are given a new understanding of what has really taken place. New beginning. New perspective. And then finally, new purpose. The women, and by extension all believers in the risen Christ, as commissioned to go and tell. “He is not here,” the angel says. “He has risen!” New beginning. New perspective. New purpose.
Before we look at all of that, let’s pause and pray one more time and ask for the Lord to help us and then we will read His holy Word. Let us pray.
Our Father, we thank You that Jesus lives and has sent His Spirit to His Church. He comes, another Comforter like our Savior, to take of what is His and make it known to us. We pray now as Your Word is spread before us that He would fulfill that ministry even here in our midst, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.
Matthew’s gospel chapter 28 at verse 1. This is the Word of God:
“Now after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. And behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. And for fear of him the guards trembled and became like dead men. But the angel said to the women, ‘Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead, and behold, he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him. See, I have told you.’ So they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples. And behold, Jesus met them and said, ‘Greetings!’ And they came up and took hold of his feet and worshiped him.”
Amen, and we praise God that He has spoken in His holy and inerrant Word.
New Beginning
Well the women had rested all day Saturday, a rest compelled not only by the law of Moses but by their grief, no doubt. After all, they had watched the Lord Jesus, whom they so loved, as He was crucified, dead and buried. But now, no sooner is the seventh day done, than they hasten together to the tomb. Matthew says that Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James were there. Mark adds that Salome came along, and Luke that Joanna was with them too. Mark and Luke explain that they had come having prepared spices with which to anoint Jesus’ body. Now Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus had actually already performed that very service for Jesus’ remains on Friday night of course when they had buried Jesus in Joseph’s new-cut tomb. But they had done it in haste, to be finished in time before the Sabbath commenced. And anyway, in going to the tomb together like this, having this shared task together to perform, doubtless offered some much needed comfort to these grieving women. Had they perhaps come to the tomb looking for some closure, some final catharsis, some way to come to terms with their grief as they worked to prepare Jesus’ body properly now and without haste. That, at least, was their intent – expressive of love and of loss.
But as the dappled light of the rising sun shone through the tree branches in the garden tomb on that first Easter Sunday morning, their shared tears and their whispered conversations were all snatched suddenly away. There was an earthquake! The stone was rolled from the mouth of Jesus’ tomb. There was an angel! This was not another ordinary Sunday as mourners, nameless mourners, made their way to the graveyard to pay their respects to lost loved ones. No, something radically new was taking place. That’s the first thing I want us to think about together here. Matthew is telling us about a new beginning and he does it like all great storytellers – not first by simply explaining his message in propositions, but by showing us his message in vivid imagery.
Verses 1 through 3, you might say, are like a trailer for the full movie. In a few quick images that flash across our screen, we get a glimpse of the big idea of this whole drama. That’s what Matthew is doing in these opening three verses. Would you look at them with me? Notice three things in verses 1 through 3. First in verse 1, the Sabbath is over. It is dawn. Sunrise on the first day of the week. You might know that the early Christians called Sunday “the eighth day” as a way to highlight that on top of the original creation week, there’s come this new day, the day of new creation when a new beginning erupted into the world that first Easter Sunday morning in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the grave.
Then second thing to note, verse 2, there was an earthquake in the moment that Jesus rose. The earthquake here echoes the earthquake in Matthew 27:51 that took place, do you remember, it took place at the moment of Jesus’ death. When He breathed His last, there was an earthquake. And so think about this. Christ’s entry down into death and His exit now on the third day, up out of death, are both punctuated and announced by the very fabric of the world that He made, shaking and trembling under the weight and the moment of what was taking place.
And then the third thing to see, verses 2 and 3, an angel. He rolls back the stone and parks on top of it. I imagine him, you know, one leg crossed over the other, you know, bouncing his knee as he drums his finger on the stone waiting for the women to finally show. And he’s sitting there on top of this stone to make sure that there is no possibility of anyone coming to try to move it back into place. No, no, now the tomb is open, the grave is empty forever.
And don’t miss what he says, Matthew says the angel looks like. Look at verse 3. “His appearance” – that really probably is better translated, “His face was like lightning and his clothes white like snow.” You have incredible lightning storms here in America. In Scotland we really don’t have anything quite like the storms that you have here. When we first moved to Mississippi, my wife and I, I remember us standing in an upstairs window in our home in Columbus and watching, you know, agog as this storm rolled across our little town and these dramatic forks of electricity lighting up the sky. Well Matthew says this angel had a face like a lightning strike. His face! No wonder this is a terrifying moment – earthquake, empty tomb, and a being whose face leaves an after-image burned into the back of your retina every time you look at him.
It was terrifying, but none of it is random, and I very much doubt that these faithful and devout Jewish believers missed the meaning and the symbolism of these images. You see, these are all apocalyptic images, apocalyptic signs – earthquakes, angels, faces like lightning. They’re drawing on an ancient Jewish scriptural apocalyptic tradition. So for example, the prophets of the Old Testament or John in the book of Revelation for that matter, repeatedly speak of the coming of the Lord either to judge or to vindicate His people, coming with an earthquake. Or in Daniel chapter 10 verse 6, another piece of apocalyptic literature, the prophet sees a supernatural figure whose face “is like lightning.” One scholar of that passage in Daniel says this. “This would of course suggest power and glory in general, but lightning is a frequent accompaniment to the coming of the Lord.” You see, these were the kinds of sights and the kinds of sounds in which apocalyptic literature typically trafficked as it pointed to the great and final cataclysm to come at the end of history. They were the kind of things everyone was expecting to see at the general resurrection of the dead on the last day, on the day of judgment.
But this isn’t the last day here in Matthew 28, is it? It’s not the last day of the old world. But Matthew’s point is that it was, nevertheless, actually the first day of a new world. Even though it’s not the last day of the old world, it is the first day of the new. You see, something unexpected, something unlooked for was happening here. The age to come, the new creation, was erupting right into the middle of the old world with the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. Saturday sabbaths were done now because Sunday had come. The Lord’s Day had come. The day that the light was made in that original creation week, that is the day now that new creation breaks into the middle of the drab old world of ours, this world of sin and death, in the resurrection of the light of the world Himself.
And so, do you see it? What is Easter Sunday really about? What does the resurrection of Jesus mean? Well it means that in Jesus, God was making a new world. It means that in Jesus, that new world has already begun to break into the middle of this old one. It’s sort of poking through the fabric of this threadbare world of ours. And it means that when you take Jesus as risen Lord and Savior, you are made new too. “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation,” 2 Corinthians 5:17. Actually what Paul says there is literally, “If anyone is in Christ, new creation.” He’s not saying you are a new creature; that’s true enough, in a sense. He’s saying something far more wonderful. He’s saying if you are in Christ by faith alone, then the new creation that He rose to inaugurate that Easter Sunday, the new life that God gave to Him that now pulses through His exalted resurrection body, reigning at the right hand of the Father in heaven, and the new world that is one day coming of which He Himself was the firstfruits, all of that, that new creation is now instantiated in you. You are swept up into that new creation. “The old is gone,” Paul says, “the new has come.” You now belong in a new world, and the new world now lives in you. That’s what Jesus is offering – a whole new beginning, new life, entry into the world to come, right here amidst this old world all around us. It’s amazing! Here is a new beginning. And you can have it if you would but come today and bend your knee in trust and in repentance to Jesus Christ. New beginning.
New Perspective
Then the second thing I want you to see is how the resurrection gives a new perspective. It gives a new beginning to all who believe. It also gives a new perspective. Look at verses 4 and 5 first of all and notice the careful contrast that Matthew is establishing between the reaction of the guards posted outside Jesus’ tomb and the women who have come to care for Jesus’ body. When they experienced the earthquake and they saw the stone roll away and they saw the glory shining in the face of the angel before them, verse 4 says, “For fear of him, the guards trembled and became like dead men.” The word for “trembled” there has the same Greek root as the word Matthew just used a moment ago for “earthquake.” So the ground is shaking and they are shaking too. There’s an earthquake; the soldiers also experienced a soul-quake. They were there to keep Jesus’ body in that tomb. He is dead and they don’t want anyone stealing His remains and spreading rumors that He was still alive. That’s why they are there. But at the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, all of that came unglued and so did they. They became like dead men, Matthew says. Likely all he means is that they fainted and fell to the ground, but his language is purposefully ominous. It’s meant to point to the final fate of anyone who joins these soldiers with their vested interest in keeping Jesus dead. Don’t let your cynicism and your intellect blind you to the truth. There is a new beginning, new life available for everyone who will trust in and surrender themselves to the risen Christ, but there is an ominous note of coming judgment sounding here too for all who reject Christ or who deny He ever rose at all.
But if that’s how the guards react, look at how the women respond. Now understandably, they too are terrified. Look, that’s the right reaction, isn’t it, when you meet someone whose face blinds you. That’s a pretty scary moment. And so the angel says to them, “Do not be afraid.” Actually it’s much stronger than that. It’s a command. “Stop being scared.” It’s almost as though he’s far too excited about what he has to tell them to be all that terribly patient with their terror. He’s like a husband who knows he’s got the one thing his wife has told him she’s always wanted for her birthday and he’s too impatient for her as she is trying to open her present. “Let’s get on with it, already! I know you seek Jesus who was crucified. He’s not here. He has risen, as He said!” The grammar of that sentence, by the way, is really important. “Jesus who was crucified.” “Was crucified” in Greek is a perfect tense. That means it’s referring to something that happened in the past but it has ongoing implications for the present. The cross that seemed so final, a period at the end of the sentence of Jesus’ life. While it is an action in the past, it’s implications go on and on and on and everything is different now because of the cross.
But look at the text. The angel doesn’t just say, “Jesus who was crucified,” but “Jesus who was crucified has risen.” That’s a different tense of verb. That’s what’s called an aorist verb. It means an action that is complete and perfectly accomplished, once and for all, in the past. Now if you are still awake after the grammar lesson, here’s the point. Here’s the point. The first part of the sentence is true. The cross has continuing implications; it matters right now. It changes everything right now and forever, only because the second part of the sentence is true. He has risen once and for all. Because Jesus is alive, in the same body in which He was crucified, now seated at the right hand of the Father in majesty and glory, everything has changed. You see, the resurrection of Jesus was His vindication. The world condemned Him as a criminal, as a wicked, wretched liar, a blasphemer. But the Father vindicates His Son by raising Him from the dead. It is the Father’s affirmation that His Son’s work has been accomplished and all the Father’s requirements for our pardon that He has met, they’ve all been accepted in the courts of heaven’s justice. And so the Father raises Him from the dead. It is the public demonstration now that death is dead, love has won, Christ has conquered.
Did you see how along with the angel’s explanation of what has happened, he offers two proofs to help bolster the faith of these women in this greatest of all news. First of all, he says to them, “Jesus has risen as He said.” Now remember the cast of characters gathered around Jesus’ ministry – disciples, these women, His family. But once He had been hanged upon the cross, everyone forgot that He told them in advance this is how it was going to go. Matthew 16:12, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be killed and on the third day rise again.” Told them plainly. Certainly the disciples, they all forgot it. They fled into the night, didn’t they? And the women too, we know they’d forgotten or they’d never come to the tomb bringing spices to anoint His remains for their permanent interment in the grave. No, they would have shown up with popcorn waiting for the stone to roll away to have a party. “Jesus is going to rise any moment now!” But there’s no expectation of that among these mourning women. And so the angel reminds them all of this is taking place exactly as He promised it would. You can know this is true because all His word, all His promises have been fulfilled.
The second proof is the empty tomb itself, isn’t it? Verse 5, “Come and see the place where He lay.” John 20, verse 5 tells us what the women would have seen as they looked into His tomb. John says there were linen cloths lying there and the face cloth, which had been on Jesus’ head, not lying on the linen cloths but folded up in a place by itself. So this is not the frenzied disarray of grave desecration. Neither can someone possibly have stolen the body. After all, if you were stealing a body, who would take the time to unwrap the corpse and then rearrange the linen cloths in the shape and outline of the body like this? No, no, it’s very clear isn’t it? Jesus has risen. And so while the angel doesn’t entirely succeed in chasing their fear away, as verse 8 points out, their fear is now at least tempered with new joy. The angel gives them a new perspective. Do you see that? By the way, that’s why the angel came, why the stone was rolled away in the first place. It certainly wasn’t to let Jesus out. Look, if death couldn’t hold Him, a stone blocking the door certainly could not. Soldiers standing guard would have no power. Linen grave cloths binding His limbs would be utterly ineffectual. No, no, the angel came and the guards fainted and the stone rolled away not to let Jesus out, but to let these women in, to give them a new perspective. To show them, to assure them – Jesus lives! And to outmatch their fear with stronger joy.
And that is a new perspective that the risen Christ continues to provide. Those who are too enlightened to believe at any possibility of the bodily resurrection of Jesus, they face only the fate of these soldiers in the story. Present fear in life; a hopeless, aimless, empty life and a final judgment to come. But those who embrace the good news – that Christ who died for me now lives and reigns for me – they receive from the cross the pardon that it secured and their fears now no longer rule their hearts because now they have reason, don’t they, for joy unspeakable and full of glory as they receive the end of their faith, even the salvation of their souls. A new beginning. A new perspective. Do you have a new perspective? Do you have light shining in the darkness of this old, dreary, sin-filled world? You get it from Jesus who lives.
New Purpose
Then thirdly, there’s also a new purpose that Jesus’ resurrection bestows upon His disciples. Look at the commission the angel gives to these women in verse 7. Do you see it in verse 7? “Then go quickly,” he says, “and tell His disciples He has risen from the dead. And behold, He is going before you to Galilee. There you will see Him. See, I have told you.” So the same wonderful note of urgency, almost impatience, sounds again here that sounded earlier in the rather abrupt command to stop being scared. Doesn’t it? “Go quickly! This is such big news, you can’t hang around here! You need to go let the disciples know ASAP. Go and tell them He has risen and He is going to be waiting for you when you get to Galilee!”
It’s an extraordinary moment, and it actually affords us a little glimpse, by the way, of the dynamics of the new creation that the resurrection establishes. These women who were not considered reliable, legal witnesses in the ancient world, they are the first ones sent to bear formal testimony to the fact that Jesus lives. You see, in the new creation that Jesus inaugurates, the dignity of women and men is restored to its original creation order and beauty. In our society all around us, that is being undermined and distorted on every hand, but in the new creation it is restored to its original beauty and order, neither diminishing the one or exalting the other in the wake of the cross and the empty tomb. Which was, by the way, utterly revolutionary for the world in which the Gospels were first written. That is the ethic of the new creation. It doesn’t mean that all distinctions of gender or role or calling are dissolved for men and women in the family or in the church. That’s not the point. But it does mean that through faith in Jesus who lives, there is neither now Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, all are one in Christ Jesus. And the value and dignity and testimony and ministries and service of women and men alike are honorable and precious in the kingdom of God.
But the even bigger point is that the commission given to these formerly grieving women is in fact a commission that comes to every disciple of the risen Christ. You too, me too, we must go quickly and tell – “He has risen from the dead!” That’s the message. Members of First Presbyterian Church, here’s an Easter challenge for you. Who will you tell this week that Jesus is risen from the dead? What would happen if each of us prayerfully identified at least one person this week to take aside and say, “He is risen. He is risen indeed.” Go quickly and tell them He has risen from the dead. The commission is as urgent today as it was then. Don’t dawdle. Get on with spreading the good, good news. Jesus Christ is alive!
There’s a new beginning inaugurated in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. You can be a part of it if you put your faith in Him. There’s a new perspective that trusting in Him gives you. Your eyes will be open. You begin to see yourself, your sin, your future, your life in a whole new light. Jesus, because Jesus lives, everything changes. Now there’s hope. Now there’s hope. And there is a new purpose for your whole life. If you become Christ’s, He sends you across the street and around the world to tell everyone, “Jesus lives!” May the Lord give us grace, all of us, to live in the joy that the resurrection affords us.
Let us pray.
Our God and Father, we praise You that You rose, You raised from the dead Your Son, our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, that He now sits at Your right hand and every knee will one day bow to Him and every tongue one day confess of Him that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. We rejoice to make that good confession here and now. Because He lives, O Lord, our hearts are full. We face tomorrow with hope and we pray for grace to obey the urging of the angel to go quickly and tell them He is risen. For we ask this all in Jesus’ name, amen.