Matthew 28:2
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Good evening. Look with me, if you would, at the front of your bulletin. We're going to read our text for the evening. 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. A few years ago, I was on the island of Maui, Hawaii.
I'd never been there before. I don't think I'll ever go again. But Carolyn's grandmother had actually treated us to a trip. And we decided one day to do a circuit of the whole island. So we rented a car and started to drive. And we saw breathtaking things. We saw beautiful things. We were finishing, we were coming around probably 90% of the way around the island, and we were heading north, and the terrain we were in and the direction we were headed, the light was fading, but we hadn't seen a sunset yet.
And then we turned west over a ridge, and I saw what is just hands down the most beautiful sunset I've ever seen. It was that exact moment where just for seconds before the sun goes over the horizon, the light changes. It becomes rich and stronger and golden and warm. And everything behind that ridge just looks like it's on fire. There were rolling grasslands that looked like they were dripping with gold. And on that far ridge that the sun was disappearing behind, there were three scraggly pine trees. They were silhouetted by the sun and it was just majestic. And I had this feeling in my heart somewhere, somewhere in my body, this feeling of awe. Not just beauty, not just that's cool, not just that's amazing, but this feeling of awe, at least a little glimpse of it. And it came along with like what felt like a physical ache in my chest. A feeling of almost like longing.
C.S. Lewis talks about that feeling, about that experience, as our lifelong longing to be reunited with something in the universe from which we now feel cut off. And he likens it to the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited. I read our text for tonight, and I get at least a little bit of that same feeling, that same longing.
Do you know it? It's like a part of you wants to experience something really big. You know, we all go through the repetition and the mundanities of life, and you want to experience something really big, bigger than yourself, outside of yourself, something almost intolerably big, almost something that could crush you, something dangerous, but something that's worth risking your life to experience, something that could change everything.
And we're sitting here on a Sunday evening, and we're still drying out from the last three days worth of storms, and we're thinking about bills to pay, and we're thinking about lunches to pack, and we're thinking about laundry to do, and drains to unclog, and basements to pump out. It's Sunday evening, but our text takes us back to a Sunday morning, 2,000 years ago, where something happened that was earth-shattering, that was mind-blowing, that was world-changing to the people who experienced it, to the people who heard about it, and to us.
If you don't know much about the Bible, let me set the stage for you quickly. Jesus has been about his public ministry for three years. He's been traveling and he's been teaching about the kingdom of God. He's been healing the sick. He's been performing miracles. And his disciples are just, are very slowly understanding who he is. But their understanding of what he'd come to do is like shaky at best. Even though he's been showing them that he would suffer many things at the hands of the elders and the chief priests, even though he's been showing them that he had come to die, but telling them that on the third day he'd be raised.
Even though he's been telling them these things, on the Thursday night of the Passover week, when he was arrested, they panicked and they fled. And after a sham trial in the middle of the night, in the morning, Jesus is led outside of the city, bearing his own cross, He's nailed to it, and he's lifted up, and over the course of a few hours, he dies. Some of his followers bury him in a tomb cut in the rock, and then comes the Sabbath.
And on Sunday morning, some women are going to the tomb with spices and ointments to anoint his body. And that's where we come to our verse. They're going to the tomb on Sunday morning 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. I want to look at this with you tonight in two points, two parts. Who saw what and what did it mean?
Who saw what and what did it mean? So first, who saw what? It should have been the disciples, right? They'd been traveling with Jesus and hanging on his every word, listening to him. They'd been doing things that he'd told them to go do. They'd been healing the sick. But we don't have any indication that many of them saw much of anything of the events of Friday and Saturday and Sunday. We know that they panicked and fled in the garden when Jesus was arrested.
We know that Peter followed Jesus, but from a distance. And it didn't take him very long before he denied even knowing Jesus when he was questioned. We read in one of the other gospel accounts that only John was at the cross on Friday, standing with a few women. And then we know that Peter and John came to the empty tomb on Sunday morning, but only after they'd been summoned. So where were they? Most of them were hiding in fear in a locked room.
This wasn't what they'd expected. They didn't know what to do, and they were afraid. So who else witnessed the events of that first Easter morning? We know that Joseph of Arimathea took Jesus' body down from the cross, and then with Nicodemus prepared it and put it in Joseph's own tomb. These were rich and powerful men who seemed to be followers of Jesus, but in private. This was the first evidence of their public association with Jesus, of them following Jesus.
They placed him in the tomb, and then Joseph rolled the great stone into place. But they weren't there on Sunday morning. You know who was? The guard, the soldiers of the guard that Pilate sent. Do you remember the elders, the chief elders, and the Pharisees had gone to Pilate on Saturday morning and asked him, they said, sir, remember how that imposter said, after three days I will rise?
Order the tomb to be made secure until the third day, lest his disciples steal him away and tell the people he has risen. And Pilate granted that request. He sent a guard of soldiers and said, go and make it as secure as you can. So they were there. They were there Sunday morning and they saw what happened, but they didn't really see. So who's left that witnessed these things? Well, all four gospel accounts tell the story of the multitude of women who had followed Jesus and ministered to Jesus, listened to Jesus, and even supported Jesus's ministry. They'd followed him in Galilee, and they'd followed him from Galilee, the 70 to 80 mile trek on foot to Jerusalem for Passover week. They would have been there, we assume, for his triumphal entry. All the gospel accounts tell us that they all agree that they were there at the cross, they were there at his burial. According to three of the gospel accounts, they saw Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus
putting Jesus's dead body in the tomb, and now they're going to his tomb on early Sunday morning. We don't know exactly how many women there were. There are at least three that are just clearly named. There are four, maybe five, depending how you account for the different Marys that are described in different ways in the Gospels. That shouldn't be surprising to us. People can describe me in lots of different ways. He's the son of Bob and Kathy.
He's the brother of, I have a lot of siblings. He's the father of these four daughters. He's the husband of Carolyn. So we don't know how many women there were. And there are certainly women who weren't named. But we have at least four, it seems, maybe five who are named. If you look up one verse above our text for tonight, we see that it says Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. How would you like to be described that way?
The other Mary. Mark names three women, Mary Magdalene, the other Mary again, and then Salome. Luke says that there was a woman named Joanna with them. She was with them, all the women, as they explained all these things to the eleven. So it seems like she was a witness to what happened at the tomb also. But just like the disciples, they still didn't understand. Do you know how we know they didn't understand? because what were they going there to do?
What did they have in their hands? They had embalming spices. They were going to the tomb expecting to find a dead body. They'd seen Joseph of Arimathea take Jesus' body off the cross, limp in death. By Saturday, it would have been cold. They were going to the tomb, even wondering amongst themselves, how will we move the stone? They were expecting to find a dead body. So we shouldn't be surprised by their response to our text.
That the stone was rolled away and that there was an angel sitting on it. They were confused. They responded with fear and with trembling. But then everything changed. When they arrived there and saw what our text describes, The angel said, why do you look for the living amongst the dead? Jesus isn't here, he's risen just like he said, come and see where his body lay.
Can you imagine that assignment to that angel? To go down and it's almost like standing vigil, but it's not a sad vigil. It's this proclamatory vigil where that angel gets to say, he's not here, he's risen just like he said. And with a smile like the rising sun, his arms are open. Come and see where his body lay. Who saw what? Point two, what did it all mean? I want to tell you three things today. What did it all mean? God is sovereign over physical creation, number one. Number two, he's sovereign over life and death, and number three, Jesus is alive. He's sovereign over, God's sovereign over physical creation, he's sovereign over life and death, and Jesus is alive. So first, God is totally and completely sovereign over all of physical creation. The main example I want to point us to
and think about this for a moment, is that stone. God didn't have to figure out the physics of how to move that stone. He didn't need three women or five women or ten women to move the stone when they got there. He didn't need to marshal the strength of a guard of soldiers to move it. He didn't need the angel's help. And Jesus surely didn't have to struggle to move that stone. God stands wholly and incomparably above his creation.
And he speaks and all creation listens to his voice and stands at attention and obeys. One of my daughters has recently been saluting me when I tell her to do something. I promise I did not tell her to do this. I never taught it to her. I don't know where she picked it up. But when she's in a certain mood, I'll say, can you do this thing for me? Go do this thing. Sit down and whatever. And she'll lock her feet together.
She'll throw her chest out and her shoulders back, and she'll salute me. And with a big grin on her face, she says, yes, sir. And then she runs to do the thing. It's kind of fun to watch. But that's how God's creation responds to his voice, with joyful and immediate obedience. In Genesis, God with his word, with his voice, by speaking, he can create rocky planets. And here in Matthew, with his voice, with his command, he moves a great stone.
God is totally and completely sovereign over physical creation. Two, he's sovereign over life and death. That sovereignty over molecules and inanimate things and far-flung stars and planets, that extends to, for example, the cells in our bodies. He knows every hair on our heads. He knows the cells in our bodies. He knows what they do.
He knows why they're there. He spoke them into existence, and he's in control of it all. Jesus' body in that tomb was, in the words of an old movie, it was dead, dead. Not just dead, but dead, dead. His body was really dead. He had cells like ours, with little nucleuses in the middle, with DNA, the mitochondria that are the powerhouses of the cell, little things called ribosomes that make proteins.
His body was like ours. He was a man like us. He was in every one of those cells. 30 trillion cells were dead, dead. And God raised him from the dead. So we should remember that we have a soul that's eternal. We have bodies that are decaying. But God cares about our bodies. He's in control of all things. He's sovereign over life and death. And like we sang this morning, death has lost its grip.
on us. We should take comfort in remembering that God knows all things, that he's in control of all things, and not just that he's in control, but every cell of our bodies actually listens and responds to his voice. That should give us comfort. God is sovereign over life and death. And number three, Jesus is alive. He is who he said he was. Paul said in Romans that through his resurrection, Jesus was declared to be the Son of God in power. Praise the Lord. And that changes everything. It changes everything. It changes who we are as Christians. Our sins and our failures and our weaknesses no longer define us. Our sorrows don't control us. It changes everything, and it demands a response. The guards responded with fear and became like dead men. The women responded with fear and great joy, Matthew says, because the angel
told them, he's not here, he's risen. Come see the place where he lay. And that invitation is the same for us. Come see the place where he lay. If you're here tonight and you're not a Christian, if this is your first time in a church, if it's your first time looking at a text from the Bible or opening the Bible, that's true of you. This demands a response. If you're sitting here and you've been coming to this church for 10 years because you're 10 years old or 12 years because you're 12 years old, if you're a child here and you're wondering, have I trusted in Jesus, This demands a response.
We're staking our lives on it, your moms and your dads, the people around you in this room, that this really happened. Christianity isn't just, it's not a feel-good religion, though there is deep joy and eternal contentment to be found here. It's not a, it's not a just, it's true for me, religion, though it does make great sense of the world. The question for you is, did this really happen? Did Jesus rise from the dead?
Did he walk out of that tomb? And the Bible and the angel and even the risen Jesus invite you to come and look. For most of us here, we're already trusting in Christ. But we should remember and meditate on and massage into the deep recesses of our hearts these truths about God's sovereignty and about what he's done for us in Christ. And that should give us in the ups and downs of life, of life in difficulty, in sorrow.
It should give us wind in our sails and air in our lungs. It should give us boldness. It should increase our faith. It should give us joy in the good times and comfort and even joy when times are hard. Those three scraggly trees on the hill in Maui, silhouetted by the sunset, was just a glimpse of that longing, that desire for something to be and to have that that was lost to us because of our sin.
But it's the hill with the three wooden crosses where that longing is satisfied and where that ache, that ache in your chest, gives way to joy and peace and praise because it's there that Jesus died so that we wouldn't have to die. So praise God that he was raised on the third day. Praise God for a risen Savior who is interceding even now for us. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, you are good to us and you are good to us in Christ.
may we latch on to these truths about who you are and what you have done may we remember that we have a risen savior who reigns in heaven now and to whom all things are subject under his feet may that give us a hope and joy and peace even tonight we ask in jesus name amen