MATTHEW 28:1–10
What’s the wildest announcement you’ve ever heard? I’m wondering because I’m about to hear one. Any second now an airlines agent is going to pick up his microphone and . . . wait a minute . . . he’s about to talk. I can see him. The guy acts sane. Appears normal. Looks like the kind of fellow who bowls and loves his kids. But what he is about to say qualifies him for a free night in a padded cell. “Ladies and gentlemen, the airplane is now ready. Flight 806 to Chicago will be departing soon. Please listen as we call you to board . . .”
Think about what he just said. He’s inviting us to ascend seven miles into the sky in a plane the size of a modern-day ranch house and be hurled through the air at three times the speed of the fastest NASCAR racer in history.
Can you believe what he is asking us to do? Of course you can. But what if you’d never heard such an invitation? Wouldn’t you be stunned? Wouldn’t you feel like the women who heard this announcement three days after Christ had died on the cross? “He is not here. He has risen from the dead as he said he would” (Matt. 28:6 NCV).
This is what happened:
Early on Sunday morning, as the new day was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went out to see the tomb. Suddenly there was a great earthquake, because an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and rolled aside the stone and sat on it. His face shone like lightning, and his clothing was as white as snow. The guards shook with fear when they saw him, and they fell into a dead faint. (Matt. 28:1–4 NLT)
How conditions have changed since Friday. The crucifixion was marked by sudden darkness, silent angels, and mocking soldiers. At the empty tomb the soldiers are silent, an angel speaks, and light erupts like Vesuvius. The one who was dead is said to be alive, and the soldiers, who are alive, look as if they are dead. The women can tell something is up. What they don’t know is Someone is up. So the angel informs them: “Don’t be afraid! . . . I know you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He isn’t here! He has been raised from the dead, just as he said would happen. Come, see where his body was lying” (vv. 5–6 NLT).
Such words mess with you. They cause you either to leave the airport or get on the plane. Be they false, the body of Jesus lay like John Brown’s, a-moldering in a borrowed grave. Be they false, then we have no good news. An occupied tomb on Sunday takes the good out of Good Friday.
Be they true, however—if the rock is rolled and the Lord is living—then pull out the fiddle and don your dancing shoes. Heaven unplugged the grave’s power cord, and you and I have nothing to fear. Death is disabled. Get on board, and let a pilot you’ve never seen and a power you can’t understand take you home.
Can we trust the proclamation? The invitation of the angel is “Come and see . . .”
The empty tomb never resists honest investigation. A lobotomy is not a prerequisite of discipleship. Following Christ demands faith, but not blind faith. “Come and see,” the angel invites. Shall we?
Take a look at the vacated tomb. Did you know the opponents of Christ never challenged its vacancy? No Pharisee or Roman soldier ever led a contingent back to the burial site and declared, “The angel was wrong. The body is here. It was all a rumor.”
They would have if they could have. Within weeks disciples occupied every Jerusalem street corner, announcing a risen Christ. What quicker way for the enemies of the church to shut them up than to produce a cold and lifeless body? Display the cadaver, and Christianity is stillborn. But they had no cadaver to display.
Helps explain the Jerusalem revival. When the apostles argued for the empty tomb, the people looked to the Pharisees for a rebuttal. But they had none to give. As A. M. Fairbairn put it long ago, “The silence of the Jews is as eloquent as the speech of the Christians!”1
Speaking of the Christians, remember the followers’ fear at the crucifixion? They ran. Scared as cats in a dog pound. Peter cursed Christ at the fire. Emmaus-bound disciples bemoaned the death of Christ on the trail. After the crucifixion, “the disciples were meeting behind locked doors because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders” (John 20:19 NLT).
These guys were so chicken we could call the Upper Room a henhouse.
But fast-forward forty days. Bankrupt traitors have become a force of life-changing fury. Peter is preaching in the very precinct where Christ was arrested. Followers of Christ defy the enemies of Christ. Whip them and they’ll worship. Lock them up and they’ll launch a jailhouse ministry. As bold after the Resurrection as they were cowardly before it.
Explanation:
Greed? They made no money.
Power? They gave all the credit to Christ.
Popularity? Most were killed for their beliefs.
Only one explanation remains—a resurrected Christ and his Holy Spirit. The courage of these men and women was forged in the fire of the empty tomb. The disciples did not dream up a resurrection. The Resurrection fired up the disciples. Have doubts about the empty tomb? Come and see the disciples.
While you’re searching, come and see the alternatives. If Christ is not raised, if his body is decayed into dust, what are you left with?
How about Eastern mysticism? Let’s travel back in time and around the globe to India. It’s 490 B.C., and Buddha is willing to see us. Here is our question: “Can you defeat death?” He never opens his eyes, just shakes his head. “You are disillusioned, dear child. Seek enlightenment.”
So we do. By virtue of a vigorous imagination, we travel to Greece to meet with the father of logic, Socrates. He offers a sip of hemlock, but we pass, explaining that we have only one question. “Do you have power over the grave? Are you the Son of Zeus?” He scratches his bald head and calls us raca (Greek for turkey brains).
Undeterred, we advance a thousand years and locate the ancient village of Mecca. A bearded Muhammad sits in the midst of followers. From the back of the crowd we cry out, “We are looking for Allah incarnate. Are you he?” He stands and rips his robe and demands that we be banished for such heresy.
But we escape. We escape back in time to Jerusalem. We ascend the stairs of a simple house where the King of the Jews is holding court. The room is crowded with earnest disciples. As we find a seat, we look into the radiant face of the resurrected Christ. The love in his eyes is as real as the wounds on his body.
If we ask the question of him—“Are you raised from the dead? Are you the Son of God?”—we know his answer.
Jesus might well personalize the words he gave to the angel. “I am raised from the dead as I said I would be. Come and see the place where my body was.”
Quite a claim. Just like passengers in the airport about to board a plane, we get to choose how we respond. Either board and trust the pilot—or try to get home on our own.
I know which choice I prefer.