this passage that we've been
looking at regarding the resurrection in Mark chapter 16. We took a diversion last week
into John chapter 20. This week I'd like us to look
at a couple of verses in Matthew 28 as well as Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother
of James and Salome, brought spices, that they might come
and anoint him. Very early in the morning, on
the first day of the week, they came to the tomb when the sun
had risen. And they said among themselves,
Who will roll away the stone from the door of the tomb for
us? But when they looked up, they saw that the stone had been
rolled away, for it was very large. And entering the tomb,
they saw a young man clothed in a long white robe sitting
on the right side. And they were alarmed. But he
said to them, You seek Jesus of Nazareth. He was crucified. He is risen. He is not here. See the place where they laid
him. But go, tell his disciples and
Peter that he is going before you into Galilee, and there you
will see him, as he said to you. So they went out quickly and
fled from the tomb, for they trembled and were amazed. And
they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid. Now when
he rose early in the first day of the week, he appeared first
to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven demons. She
went and told those who had been with him, as they mourned and
wept. And when they heard that he was
alive and had been seen by her, they did not believe. As Luke
says, their words seemed like idle tales. Matthew 28 down in verse 9 and
10 is just another beautiful appearance of the Lord. And as
they went to tell his disciples, behold, Jesus met them, saying,
Rejoice! So they came and held him by
the feet and worshipped him. Then Jesus said to them, Do not
be afraid. Go and tell my brethren to go
to Galilee. and there they will see me. I think in the scriptures the
evidence for the resurrection is so extraordinarily clear that
only someone who denies the clear evidence of history would deny
the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. It's a fact so clearly
established by so many witnesses and by the witness of the scriptures
themselves that if people won't believe the resurrection, it
is just a sign of their willful disobedience to God. And so I
don't know that we need to prove the resurrection. It's very interesting
to note that this was, in human terms, the most remarkable opportunity,
wasn't it? The Lord Jesus could have marched
down to Jerusalem that morning. He could have gone to Caiaphas'
palace and gone to the Sanhedrin. He could have gone to Herod.
He could have gone into Pilate's Praetorium, and he could have
spent the rest of the day standing on the top of the temple, proclaiming
who he was to his enemies. But the Lord Jesus didn't do
any of that. There is not in the scriptures
one skerrick of evidence to suggest that the Lord Jesus ever appeared
to those who were not his brethren, as he calls them, his family,
his friends, and it's not for nothing that we, the Church,
are the bride of Christ. And it was to women that he first
appeared, and it was to women that he gave the responsibility
of declaring his resurrection. There are twelve, as I understand
it, twelve resurrection appearances in the scriptures. As we read,
Mary Magdalene alone was the first one. And then to certain
women returning from the tomb, those verses in Matthew 28, 9
and 10. Then to Simon Peter alone in
Luke 24. Then to the two disciples going
to Emmaus. Then to the ten apostles at Jerusalem. maybe with some other disciples
when Thomas was absent. Then a week later to eleven apostles
at Jerusalem, including Thomas. Then to seven disciples fishing
on the Sea of Tiberias in John 21. then to the 11 apostles on
a mountain in Galilee, Matthew 28, 16, to 500 brethren at once. And according to Paul, when he
wrote 1 Corinthians, most of them are still alive. He's really
pleading with people, if you want evidence of the truthfulness
of the resurrection, go back down there to Israel. And there are 500 people, almost
500 people you can eat in here. And then to James only, and then
to all the apostles and the others on the Mount of Olives at his
ascension. And then finally, some considerable
time later, he appeared to Paul. The resurrection is a fact established
in history, and it's a fact established in history in the presence of
the enemies of God. We read last week of the tale
of the soldiers who went to the chief priests telling the story
of the stone being rolled away. And these chief priests concoct
this marvellous solution to the problem, don't they? You were
asleep, the apostles stole the body. And Matthew makes it clear
that that report was common in Jerusalem at that time. And so the resurrection is a
fact in history, but the resurrection is a fact for God's people. It's something that God's people
had reason to anticipate. It's something that Job, maybe
2, maybe 3,000 years beforehand, anticipated with great joy, that
famous verse in Job 19.25. what Job says of his own resurrection. He says, For I know that my Redeemer,
in fact the Hebrew word is, I know that my kinsman Redeemer, my
great Boaz, lives, and he shall stand at last on the earth. And
after my skin is destroyed, this I know, that in my flesh I shall
see God. whom I shall see for myself and
my eyes shall behold and not another, how my heart yearns
within me. In my flesh, in that flesh that
was being ravaged by sores, I will see my Redeemer. The resurrection
is a declaration that the Lord Jesus is risen, and he is not
here. He is risen, he's not in this
tomb. He is risen. Matthew Henry has
a really interesting comment, just let me read it to you. We
must not hearken to those who say, lo, here is Christ, or lo,
he is there, for he is not here, he is not there, he is risen. We must seek Him as One who is
risen. They that make pictures and images
of Christ forget that He is not here, He is risen. Our communion
with Him must be spiritual, by faith in His Word. We must seek
Him with great reverence and humility and awful regard for
His glory, for He is risen. We must seek Him with a heavenly
mind when we are ready to make the world our home and say, it
is good to be here. Let us remember that our Lord
Jesus is not here. He is risen. And therefore, let
not our hearts be here, but let them rise too. We worship our God in a resurrected
Jesus in the throne room, in the courts of heaven itself right
now. And we worship God in spirit
and in truth. We worship Him as He is proclaimed
in His Word. And the preaching of the resurrection
was the incessant message of the scriptures and of the apostles.
Wherever they went, they preached the resurrection. They preached,
according to Acts 4.2, they preached in Jesus THE resurrection from
the dead. Over and over again, that was
the constant theme, because the resurrection proclaims the deity
of the Lord Jesus. It proclaims the wonder of that
finished work. Without resurrection, there is
no redemption. Without resurrection, there is
no atonement. Without resurrection, there is
no forgiveness, no salvation, no gospel, no hope. And believe it or not, the worst
thing that can befall us is that people like me and you are false
witnesses against God. If there is no resurrection,
we are still in our sins. And of all men, we are most miserable. But the resurrection is a reality. It's a physical reality. The remarkable thing about the
resurrection is that now in heaven is a man with a body. Remarkable, isn't it? To think
that that body that these women held to, this body that they
touched and felt, and I've been talking to Simon about it earlier
in the week, I wonder often when John in his first epistle says,
that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we
have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, it's to
gaze upon, our hands have handled concerning the word of life. the life was manifested and we
have seen and bear witness and declare to you that eternal life
which was with the Father and was manifested to us. And that
which we have seen and heard we declare to you that you also
may have fellowship with us and truly our fellowship is with
the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. And we saw last week
that one of the significant things, the wonderfully comforting things
about the resurrection is that the Lord Jesus was focused on
his bride. And immediately he says, you
go and tell my brethren. You go and tell my brethren who
are hiding, who are in shame, and as we read earlier, are mourning
and weeping. All those hours later, how many
hours of mourning and weeping, weeping for their own sins, weeping
thinking of their extraordinary profession. And the Lord Jesus'
resurrection is to restore fellowship, isn't it? It's to restore fellowship,
to say that all that he has been through, he went through for
his bride, and now he longs for her. He longs to be with them
again, and he longs to comfort them. We have in this world of ours
this notion that God loves everyone just the same and Jesus died
for everyone just the same. There's a million people in Jerusalem
that day. A million people. Who did the
Lord Jesus appear to? It's been interesting going to
Bury in this last few weeks because, I don't know when it was put
up there, but not too long ago there was a guy who went to some
considerable trouble because he loved this girl called Renee. And the signs are still there,
aren't they Alex, on the trees, more and more as you get closer
to Bury. And it's, I love, with a big
red heart, I love Renee. And I presume that there was
a young man or is a young man involved. And Renee is very,
very special. And I often sort of think as
I'm driving over there, what would that first meeting have
been like when Renee and her man got together? And she'd seen,
I don't know, maybe 20 of these signs on the way to Berry. You
see, he loved Renee. What would that meeting have
been like if when he finally did catch up with Renee and she
met with him and he was in a coffee shop with another girl called
Natasha? It happens to be one of the local
ladies of renown. And he says, well, I love Natasha
just as much. The whole thing is meaningless,
isn't it? God's love is particular. God's love is centered. on a particular people. God's
love is powerful. God's love is not separated from
all that it is to be God. See, we love that verse, don't
we, in John 3.16. For God so loved the world. But here, here we really see
that love in action. We see that love transforming
lives. We see that love that took our
Saviour from heaven to this earth and took our Saviour through
all of that humility, through all of the pain of Gethsemane
and all of what led to the cross and to the final humility of
the grave. And now that love Now that love
can be expressed in new and special ways. People experienced the power
of the resurrection. as they were born again. The
Lord Jesus says, because I live, John 14, 19, you will live also. Because I have life, resurrection
life, you will have new life. And they went everywhere preaching
Jesus and the resurrection. They preached that salvation
is accomplished and it's finished. And now, according to Isaiah
53, we have a Saviour who is satisfied. He has seen the travail
of His soul and He now is a satisfied, He now is a glorified, He now
is a God who is a man in resurrected flesh. And they preached it. Wherever they went, they preached
it. Peter preached it on the day of Pentecost. And when he
got to meet the Sanhedrin, he preached it again. And he preached
it to the Gentiles in Acts 10 to Cornelius. And Paul, having
met the Lord Jesus preached resurrection constantly wherever he went it
was his message if he was in the synagogue at Antioch in Acts
13 or before the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem or if he was a reign
before Felix the Governor and King Agrippa, to the church at
Rome, to the Corinthians, to the Galatians, to the Ephesians,
and to the Philippians and the Colossians. Wherever he went,
he preached resurrection. One of the most beautiful passages
about it is in Philippians, isn't it? he says, whatever things
were gained to me, all of what he had earned in the eyes of
men, he now counts loss. Yet indeed I count all things
lost for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my
Lord for whom I have suffered the loss of all things. I count
them as rubbish, dumb is the right word, that I may gain Christ
and be found in him not having my own righteousness which is
from the law, but that which is through the faithfulness of
Christ, the righteousness which is from God, by faith, that I
may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship
of His sufferings, being conformed to his dead if by any means I
may attain to the resurrection of the dead. Not that I've already
attained or I'm already perfected, but I press on that I may lay
hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. The Lord Jesus laid hold of these
people. As we saw last week, like Nicodemus
and Joseph of Arimathea, these women's motivation was now not
a sense of duty, but just a response of love. Love that's exercised. Love that is
powerful. Love, it motivates. They have seen him, they have
heard him, and he had come to them. And it's our hope, isn't it?
Peter said, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has forgotten
us into a lively hope, a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus
Christ from the dead to an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, that
fades not away and is reserved in heaven for you. At the end
of the Scriptures, John, an old apostle, he saw the risen and
exalted Christ again. And even this old saved apostle
fell at his feet as dead. And who was it who lifted him
up? We need lifting up, don't we, again and again. We need
lifting up from the cares of this world and the sins which
so easily entangle us. And he laid, the Lord Jesus laid
his right hand upon me saying unto me, fear not, I am the first
and the last. I am he that liveth and was dead
and behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen. And have the keys of hell
and death. He said to Mary and Martha, I
am the resurrection and the life. He that believeth in me, though
he were dead, yet shall he live. And then, as I read earlier in
that upper room discourse, he said, yet a little while and
the world will see me no more. He had no purpose in showing
himself to the world that had rejected him. They will see him. They will see him again soon.
The world seeth me no more, but you see me. Because I live, you
shall live also. He said to his disciples, it
is to your advantage that I go away. He goes to prepare a place
for us. So we've seen that it's what
is preached, what was preached and is preached by God's witnesses
today. We preach Jesus Christ as God. We preach Him as having finished
His work for His people. We preach Him as a satisfied
God. But we also preach Him as a God
who is living and active amongst his people right at this very
time. See, they trembled, verse 16,
8 and Mark, they trembled and were amazed and they were afraid. Matthew says, these women went
from the tomb with fear and great joy. There is a sense in which
when God meets with people, there is a sense of awesomeness which
is best described as fear. He is altogether different from
us. He is infinitely holy. He is infinitely supreme. And when people really meet Him,
as He is, when He comes and meets them, then that meeting is something
which He will cause to leave an indelible mark on their souls
and their lives. There is, in God's people, a
healthy fear of the Lord. The secret of the Lord, says
Isaiah, is with those who fear Him, and He will show them His
covenant. His covenant is the Lord Jesus. And so, that fear which caused
those soldiers, those tough soldiers to fall down like dead men, that
awesomeness of being in the presence of heaven's witnesses and heaven's
glorious son. It does bring a healthy and meritorious
respect. But look at Matthew 28 verse
9 with me. So these women, they went to
tell his disciples They were given a simple instruction, go
and tell his disciples. And then behold, Jesus met them. Jesus is always the initiator
of meetings with his people. And he met them saying, rejoice. That's what he calls upon his
people to do when they see him. They rejoice. We rejoice in who
he really is. And we are not troubled by His
deity. We are not troubled by His sovereignty. We rejoice in the fact that He
is God. We rejoice in the fact that He
rules this universe with absolute, perfect, consummate ease. We rejoice in the fact that as
God, He changes not. He causes His people to rejoice
in Him as He really is, not as we make Him out to be. He meets
with them and He says, rejoice. He initiates. And so they came. They come in response to his
meeting of them, they come in response to him saying, rejoice. And they held him by the feet. Just remarkable, isn't it? what
opportunity He gave for those women, maybe the ones who came
to anoint that body, those ones who just a short while before
had seen those feet with those huge iron spikes driven through
them. They can now hold Him by the
feet, and they worship Him. Isn't that what Christian life
is about? Here comes He meets, and when
He has met with us, we want to hold on to Him more than life
itself. Nothing matters like being with
Him. You can imagine how tightly they
held Him. They weren't going to let Him
be taken away and be treated like that again. And they worshipped
Him. They worshipped Him. See, they held on to His feet. They weren't standing on their
own feet. They were going His way and not
their own way. The Lord promises. He says, the
Lord honours those who honour Him. and he works this faith
and he works this devotion and he grants faith and in Hebrews
11 6 that we looked at last week says he rewards those who diligently
seek him what reward for these women what a remarkable meeting
with the Lord Jesus and then he has these remarkable
words, do not be afraid. There's so much that they could
have been afraid of in those tumultuous times. Be at peace,
he keeps saying to his apostles when he meets them. Peace be
with you. And then he says, and tell my
brethren, what a description. What a great description of His
people. What a great declaration of sovereign
free grace. We all stand as children of God
on a perfectly equal footing. All perfectly saved by the same
amazing Saviour. Who makes you to differ? So there's
no difference between saved virgins and saved harlots. They're all
saved by the same saviour. There's no difference between
saved scholars and saved dancers. There's no difference between
saved Pharisees and saved drug addicts. There's no difference
between saved princes and kings. and saved outcasts. He's called a friend of publicans
and sinners. Tell my brethren, tell my brethren,
they are mine, you see. He doesn't say tell Jerusalem
and the whole world, he says tell my brethren, tell my people. As Isaiah 26, 19 says, together with my dead body they shall
arise. Hosea has a great description
of the impact of resurrection in the hearts of his people.
After two days he will revive us. On the third day he will
raise us up. that we may live in His sight. That we may live in His sight. The resurrection is proof of
who our Lord Jesus is. It's also proof of who His people
are. We are raised together with Him. We will not die, brothers and
sisters. We will just be transformed in
the twinkling of an eye. Death is just the removal of
the body which hinders us from fellowship with the Lord Jesus.
That's what happens when people die. instantly they are to be
with the Lord. The resurrection is to be a comfort to us. But
I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who
have fallen asleep. lest you sorrow as others who
have no hope. For we believe that Jesus died
and rose again, even so God will bring with him those who fall
asleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the
word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the
coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep. For the Lord himself will descend
from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, with
the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. then we who are alive and remain
shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the
Lord in the air. Thus the result of all this is
that we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one
another with these words. We are going to rise. Colin Jeff
in the resurrection will be recognisably Colin Jeff, as the Lord Jesus
was recognisably who he was. There will come a time, a time
very soon, where there will be, as there was for those women
that day, an intimacy of relationship again. And He will wipe every tear from
their eyes. How close will we be to the Lord
Jesus? That's how close we'll be. He's
finished His work. He is the King of Kings and Lord
of Lords. Let's pray.