The Cross And The Resurrection: The Entrance to the Empty Tomb

Introduction

Have you ever heard of the North American Aerospace Defense Command-or "NORAD" for short-I first heard about it years ago in an old movie called "War Games" that starred Matthew Broderick. In the film a super computer that had been programmed to direct our nuclear arsenal went haywire and the heroes of the story had to get inside NORAD to stop it.

Well, this week I did a little research on NORAD and found out that this film's description is not that far from fact. There is indeed a place where men and computers can direct our armed forces in case of a nuclear attack. The idea for this special base began way back in the 50′s when the Cold War first broke out. Fears of a Soviet attack led to the construction of an underground base of operations deep inside Cheyenne Mountain near Colorado Springs USA. It was opened in 1966.

The Operations Center itself lies along one side of a main tunnel bored almost a mile through the solid granite heart of that mountain. This tunnel is designed as sort of a giant pressure relief valve in that it's supposed to route the worst of a nuclear blast's shock wave out the other end, past the main entrance to the base. The base itself was designed to withstand up to a 30 megaton blast that hits up to one nautical mile away. It is a massive underground complex built inside a 4.5 acre grid of excavated chambers and tunnels and surrounded by 2,000 feet of solid granite.

Inside this huge carved out chamber is literally an underground city that includes fifteen freestanding buildings, twelve of which are three stories tall. The outer shells of the buildings are made of three-eighths- inch continuously welded low carbon steel plates. They used all this metal in order to protect the base against the electromagnetic pulse of a nuclear blast - a pulse that would destroy electronic equipment. Here's another interesting fact. The buildings are constructed on top of 1300 powerful steel springs each weighing 1,000 pounds. These springs can absorb much of the energy of an attack by allowing the buildings to move 12 inches in any direction. Even the air ducts and plumbing are equipped such that in case of an attack valves seal them off so that no radiation gets inside. This entire "spring-loaded" underground base is self-sufficient. It has housing for personnel, a dining hall, a medical facility with a dental office, a pharmacy and a small hospital. There are physical fitness centers with exercise equipment and a sauna; a small base exchange and even a barber shop.

But to me the most impressive thing about this underground base are it's DOORS. You see in order to get into this vast underground city you have to go through not one but two 25-ton solid steel blast doors. They are very impressive. It would take a direct hit from a nuclear missile to breach these massive thresholds. Think of these gigantic steel rectangles as doors with a mission. They are meant to keep bad things out while protecting the good people within.

I thought of these nearly impregnable doors this week because the New Scripture records the fact that when Jesus was crucified, His dead body was laid in a borrowed tomb-a tomb provided by one of His secret followers, a man named Joseph of Arimathea. Joseph's tomb was like the tombs of the wealthy in that day in that it was carved out of solid rock and had a huge seemingly impenetrable door made of a gigantic circular stone. This stone door was designed to roll into a slot in front of that tomb entrance.

Once Jesus' body was laid in side this tomb and the stone door rolled into position, the Romans put an official seal across the nearly airtight gap between the stone and the tomb wall. They even made breaking that seal or moving that stone a federal offense. Then they put Roman guards on duty in front of the sealed tomb to enforce that law. They did all this because they wanted to make sure that the whole controversy about Jesus was done. In their minds this seal and the guards- well it settled the whole "Jesus matter" once and for all: His teachings that inspired so much controversy, the dreams that were ignited in so many people, the threat to the religious and the governmental establishment… it was all done. Everything was buried- and sealed behind this impenetrable door- or so they thought.

Sermon

Of course, we are gathered today along with billions of believers around the world to celebrate the fact that on that first Easter Sunday morning, that "impenetrable" door was breached. The huge stone was rolled away and our risen Lord's tomb has been empty ever since.

Now-over the centuries some people have tried to discount this fact.

A. For example, some say the tomb was empty not because Jesus rose from the dead but because His body was stolen.

This rumor is actually very old. It was originally concocted by the Jewish religious leaders and spread by the Roman guards only hours after Jesus' resurrection. Matthew 28:12-15 tells us all about it. Listen as I read:

"When the chief priests had met with the elders and devised a plan, they gave the soldiers a large sum of money, telling them, "You are to say, "His disciples came during the night and stole Him away while we were asleep." If this report gets to the governor, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble." So the soldiers took the money and did as they were instructed. And this story has been widely circulated among the Jews to this very day."

But, there are some obvious problems with the Jewish religious leaders' plan. First, everyone back then would have known that it is very unlikely that Roman guards would allow themselves to fall asleep because doing so while on duty was a crime punishable by death. And, even if they were asleep how could people sneak in and roll away that huge stone without waking them? And if the guards were sound asleep, then how did they KNOW it was the disciples who stole the body? So, it wasn't a very good lie to start with. Plus, it doesn't explain how the disciples were willing to die for what they knew was a lie. Would you go through a martyr's death for something you knew was not true? I don't think so.

B. Others say Jesus didn't really rise from the dead- the women just went to the wrong tomb.

But, there are serious problems with this hypothesis as well. First, don't you think the disciples "male and female" would have made absolutely sure it was the right tomb before they risked their lives proclaiming Jesus' body was gone? Plus, their friend Joseph of Arimathea knew where his own tomb was located. Surely he would have checked out the women's story. And "if the women went to the wrong tomb" then the disciples who went to check the women's claims had to go to the wrong tomb as well. Now, I could believe the men could do this more than I could the women because women aren’t afraid to ask for directions! But even if they DID repeat the mistake of Jesus' female followers, all the Jewish authorities would have had to do to stop the rumors was to point out that they went to the wrong tomb. In fact, they could have offered guided tours of the right one. They could have unwrapped Jesus’ body and laid it out for all to see. That would have stopped the disciples cold. But they didn't do that. No! the Jewish religious leaders DID and SAID nothing-and as Patrick Fairbain put it, "The silence of the Jews was as significant as the speech of the Christians."

C. Others say that Jesus' resurrection was just a mass hallucination.

This is the belief that says all the disciples -all those hundreds of people who claimed to see Jesus risen from the dead-they were all sharing some sort of "group day dream" that went on for 40 days. Well, psychologists say that this theory doesn't hold water because genuine hallucinations are like dreams in that they?re INDIVIDUAL events that CAN'T be shared between people. It would be like me asking you, "Did you enjoy the dream I had last night?" or "Did my nightmare scare you?" This just doesn't happen. There's no such thing as "mass hallucinations." In fact, one expert said that 500 people sharing the same hallucination would be a bigger miracle than the resurrection itself!

D. And then a few years ago a TV special aired about archeologists who say they had found a fourth way to dispute Jesus' resurrection.

Their claim is that the bones of Jesus were found back in 1980. While digging the foundation for a building or a highway in Israel, an ancient crypt with several ossuaries, or stone boxes were unearthed. You see, it was the practice back then to wait until the body of your loved one decayed such that all that was left was their bones…and then they would take the bones from their stone tombs and put them in stone boxes -or Ossuaries. Well, one of these boxes that were found has the name, "Mary" on it and another the name "Jesus" and a third another form of the word "Mary" and a fourth the name "Judah". These archeologists claimed that what they'd found were the remains of Mary, the mother of Jesus, Mary Magdalene, Jesus, and the bones of Jesus' and Mary Magdalene's son, Judah.

Their theories have all kinds of holes in it. For example, the writing on the ossuaries dates from the Herodian period- thirty years before Jesus' crucifixion. Plus the inscriptions of the names are not easy to read. The name "Jesus" looks more like "Hanun" But even if it said "Jesus" there were lots of people with this name in that time. "Jesus" or "Joshua"- same name - were very popular names back then. So you could dig up lots of ossuaries with that name on it. And, another thing that muddles their claim is the fact that as a poor carpenter it is highly unlikely that Jesus' relatives would have had a family tomb. Plus… there's no record that Jesus ever married or had children which leads me to mention the biggest hole in this silly story: a thing called HISTORY. Let me explain.

How many of you think it would be possible for me to say that Abraham Lincoln was not shot and killed in For Theater, but slipped in his bathtub, hit his head, and went into a coma for one or two months before he passed away? Can I have a show of hands? How about this one: how many of you think it's possible that JFK was killed with a bow and arrow or that Martin Luther King, Jr. died in a car accident? Does anyone think these things could have happened in these ways instead of the ways they were portrayed in the news? There are no hands up because we know none of these statements is true and we know they are not true because there were EYEWITNESSES to all three of these assassinations. Journalists wrote their stories about each of these tragedies based on their interviews with eye-witnesses and these stories got put in the historical record.

Well, Jesus was subject to the same historical record method just like any other person who ever lived on this planed. I mean, He was born, raised in Nazareth, ministered throughout Israel-as a PUBLIC person. People were eyewitnesses of His life and they were eyewitnesses of His teachings. They wrote down His words and they are preserved for us in the historical record. I say all this because there is HISTORICITY involved in our celebration this morning. There is a historical method that's been trusted for every other human being in history and it can be trusted for Jesus as well- His very public life- His very public death…and His very public resurrection.

If CNN or BBC had a homepage back in the first century it would have been buzzing about Jesus' resurrection appearances because eyewitnesses of it were everywhere. All these people who saw Jesus… their stories would be flooding the newsroom. I say all this to remind you that Jesus' resurrection is a HISTORICAL fact. It really happened. I would go so far as to say it is one of the most validated facts in history.

But, for many people it's not the historicity of the resurrection that they have a problem with. A lot of people don't care about that. They think, "maybe it happened-maybe it didn't". What these people wonder about is the RELEVANCE of it all. They think, "What does Jesus' resurrection mean in my life?"

And, that's what I want us to focus on in the rest of our time together this morning. Think of our topic as the "what that factor" of Easter. There's a text in Ephesians chapter 1 that addresses this issue. Paul is writing the Christians at the church in Ephesus and basically he says that the same power that raised Jesus from death to life?that power is available to believers. Is that a "so what?" or "what!" Listen as I read. This is Ephesians 1:18-21:

18 – I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which He has called you, the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints,

19 – and His incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of His mighty strength,

20 – which He exerted in Christ when He raised him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly realms,

21 – far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come.

Did you get the "So What" that Paul talks about in these verses? He says that the same power that raised Jesus from the dead… that power is available for the day-to-day challenges of people who trust in that power. Let me say that again. The very same power that brought Jesus back to life?the same power that breached that impenetrable stone door… the same power that authenticated His identity, the same power that reset the calendars of history and divided time itself in to BC and AD… that power is available to humans today who are humble enough to admit their sin and confess their belief that Jesus is God?s Son?that He died for them and rose again. Resurrection power is available to Christians like you and me.

On this Easter Sunday I want to point out three significant ways the power of Jesus? resurrection can impact individual lives -three "so what's" and here's the first:

(1) The resurrection of Jesus can empower the greatest CHANGE.

That power can take a sinner like you or me and wash our sins away and then turn us into a new person. It is as Paul puts it in 2nd Corinthians 5:17,"If anyone is in Christ, He is a new creation. The old has gone. The new has come."

We worry a lot these days about a thing called "identity theft." This is where someone gets your credit card number and then they pretend to be you and spend your credit. That happened to us a few years ago when someone stole my sister's credit card. They spend hundreds of Rupees and we realized what had happened. These days entire industries have been created to protect your identity so that kind of thing doesn't happen. But friends there is something that can do far more damage to your identity or personhood than computer hackers or pick pockets. I'm referring to sin. Sin destroys us from the inside out. Left untreated it is a cancer to the soul-a disease that degrades and mars us such that we become less and less like our Creator… and more and more like His adversary. Sin makes us selfish and prideful. It makes us hateful and contentious. It causes us to lust. It warps our ambitions. It makes us jealous. It destroys relationships. Every bad thought you or I have ever had. Every bad thing we've ever done. Every good thing we avoided doing. It is all because of sin.

But, when we admit our sin to God-when we profess our belief that Jesus Christ is His Son-that He died for us on the cross- and then rose again… when we ask Jesus to forgive us and to come into our lives, He actually comes in! And when He does, with the power of His resurrection, He repairs the ravages of sin and makes us into new people. If you doubt this can happen. Look at the first disciples. They were obviously changed. Remember, At Jesus' trial, death, and burial, they scattered and hid in fear, but after the gift of Jesus' indwelling empowering Holy Spirit they became bold and outspoken. As I told you a moment ago, even under the threat of torture and death these guys kept talking about Jesus life, death, AND resurrection right up until they were executed for doing so. The power of Jesus? resurrection does that. It changes people. It makes them new- BETTER. Well, do you want to be a BETTER husband or wife or parent or employee? Jesus' resurrection power can make you one!

Well, that is a testimony to the power of the resurrection. When someone lets the risen Jesus live in and through them, He inspires and empowers them to be the best at what they do even if its mowing lawns or cleaning houses or running errands.

Jesus resurrection power does indeed change people. It made a persecutor named Saul into a missionary named Paul. It took a slave trader named John Newton and turned him into a passionate abolitionist. It took one of the main crooks in the Watergate scandal, Charles Colson, and turned him into a man of great integrity… who has spent his life ministering to prisoners-telling them about the grace of God. This "so what" of Easter is what Paul was saying in Colossians 1:27 when he wrote, "It is Christ in you the hope of glory." The power of Jesus resurrection can indeed inspire the GREATEST change.

Hoover Dam is located in the southeastern corner of Nevada IN USA. It was completed in 1936. At the time it was both the world's largest hydroelectric power generating station and the world's largest concrete structure. It is 726 feet high-The second highest in the U.S. And, speaking of concrete, it is made of 4,360,000 cubic yards of concrete-that's enough to pave a highway all the way from Bangalore to New Delhi. Hoover Dam holds back Lake Mead which is nearly 158,000 acres of water. I can't even begin to calculate the volume, much less the weight.

Can you imagine the power of that dam- able to hold all that water in check!? And, speaking of power, its turbines put out 2.08 gigawatts of electricity! But you know, all these stats about gallons and acres and cubic yards and gigawatts-these aren't the true indication of the power of Hoover Dam. No! the best proof of it's power is seen when someone in Nevada walks into a dark room and flips a switch and that room is CHANGED, changed from darkness to light.

Change "is power" and Jesus' resurrection has the power to change PEOPLE like you and me. 1 Peter 1:3-4 says,"Because Jesus was raised from the dead, we've been given a brand-new life and have everything to live for, including a future in heaven-and the future stars now."

This leads me to mention a second "so what…?"

(2) The power of the resurrection can inspire the greatest LOVE.

You see having Jesus- Who loves all people unconditionally-having Him live inside you, well, it inspires you to love people in the same way. Think what that means to parenting and marriage. If you were raised by a Christ-follower Whose love inspired their affection for you… if your spouse loves you even when you're unlovable-which is most of the time-then you know how wonderful it is to be on the receiving end of that kind of resurrection power.

Think what this power means to friendships. Jesus' resurrection can turn a normal friend into a "…friend who sticks closer than a brother." I'll testify that our best friends down through the years "were the best" most genuine Christ-followers.

I'm sure you agree that our world needs this kind of unconditional love! I mean, drive-by shootings like the one this previous month's wouldn't happen if those teens knew Jesus and let Him love through them! Think of all the wars that would stop if people knew Jesus! Inspired by the greatest love people would choose reconciliation over retaliation!

In fact, if more believers learned to access Jesus' power and love unconditionally, more people would be drawn to Jesus… because that kind of love is not normal. So, when they see it, people notice. They start asking questions because all people hunger for that kind of unconditional, grace-driven love. Do you remember what happened in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania in USA back in 2006? There was a shooting at this little Amish school. A gunman went into the school, ordered all the little boys out, said to the little girls that terrible things were going to happen to them- and terrible things did happen. Five of them wound up dead. And then the gunman turned the gun on himself. It was a horrific crime. But the entire news media industry descended on this little town, not because so many little girls had been killed in that school, because there were more kids killed at Columbine than were killed in Lancaster County that day. So why did the news people descend on this little town? I think it was because of the response of the Amish people to the murder of their children. Did you know that before the sun set that day, some of the parents and loved ones, relatives and people from the Amish community went to the home of the widow of the murderer; They sat down and told her face-to-face that they were forgiving her now-dead husband and forgiving her and that they would like to live in peace with her and her three children. But they went beyond that. They established a fund for the family of the killer; and when it came time for the killer to be buried, the Amish attended the funeral as kind of a sign of solidarity. One reporter sat down with a relative of one of the kids who was killed and said,

"You must be overwhelmed with grief." And the uncle or whoever it was said, "I'm overwhelmed with grief, but that doesn't preclude me from forgiving." And another reporter said, "Such wrong was done to you." And the man responded by saying, "When wrong is done to me, that doesn't give me the right to hate." These reporter people started scratching their heads, like, "We don?t even know what you're talking about. This is a kind of radical love that we've not seen." The phrase most used in describing how the Amish responded to wrongdoing that had come their way, the phrase that reporters kept using, was: "beyond human comprehension." Beyond human comprehension. And it really was! The Amish would sit down day after day with reporters and tell them that they follow Someone called Jesus, and that His standard of love is not that you love people who are easy to love or that you just love when it's natural for you to love. His standard was radical love. His standard was love your enemies, love wrongdoers, love the kind of people that the human inclination inside of you would rather retaliate against. Jesus' standard was to pray as He hung nailed to a cross, "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do!"

When Christians tap into Jesus' resurrection power, and love like this, the world notices. Well, let me ask, "Do you love like that? Do you love unconditionally… POWERFULLY…or is your love a weak powerless fickle affection?" Some people are very limited in their capacity to love. Perhaps they didn't grow up in loving families or they haven't been around loving people. Many people haven't been around churches that have helped them grow in love. The fact is, on our own, we have a very limited capacity to love. But Scripture says Jesus' resurrection power can give us power to express the GREATEST love, the same kind of love Jesus expressed for all people as He hung on the cross. That?s power! I mean, when someone says to you, "What's the big deal about Easter?" When you say, "Jesus rose from the dead on Easter!" and they say, "So what?" You can say, "The power of the resurrection can empower the greatest change; it can inspire the greatest love.." but there's more you can say. You can tell them,

(3) The power of the resurrection can overcome our greatest FEAR.

And what is our greatest source of anxiety? It's the one thing we are powerless to stop: DEATH.

Aristotle called death the thing to be most feared because "it appears to be the end of everything." Jean-Paul Sarte asserted that death, "removes all meaning from life." Robert Green Ingersoll, one of America's most outspoken agnostics, could offer no words of hope at his brother's funeral. He said, "Life is a narrow vale between the cold and barren peaks of two eternities. We strive in vain to look beyond the heights." The pessimism of French philosopher Francois Rabeliais was equally arctic. He made this sentence his final one: "I am going to the great Perhaps."

With statements like these, no wonder we fear death! And, the older you get the more your fear of death grows because it hits you that when people say things like, "The statistics on death are quite impressive. 1 out of 1 people die." As you get older you realize that statistic includes you-and that is a scary thought.

Well, in 1 Corinthians 15:55, the apostle Paul reflects on Jesus' resurrection power and if you think of it in baseball terminology it's almost like he's trash talking the power of death. Do you remember what he says- "O death, where is your victory? O grave, where is your sting?" With the power of Jesus' resurrection inside, it's as if Paul says to this nightmare that all humans face… it's as if he taunts death itself and says, "Is that all you got, Who's afraid of you!" Paul says this because he knows the resurrection of Jesus Christ proved that death doesn't have ultimate authority over mankind anymore. The power of death has been broken because Jesus broke it. And in the very next verse, Paul says Christ has given us that same victory. Hebrews 2:15 says that Jesus' resurrection power, frees, "…those who were like slaves all their lives because of their fear of death." (Hebrews 2:15)

When Charles Lindbergh, the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic, discovered he had terminal cancer, he and his wife went to spend their final days at their Hawaiian home. Lindbergh engaged a minister to conduct his last rites and wrote out these words to be read at his burial service: "We commit the body of Charles A. Lindbergh to its final resting place; but his spirit we commit to Almighty God knowing that death is but a new adventure in existence, remembering how Jesus said on the cross, "Father, into Thy hands I commend My Spirit." Did you catch how Lindbergh described death? He called it "a new adventure in existence." No need to dread it or ignore it, because of the resurrection power of Jesus!

Listen. Do you want this power I've been talking about?

power to become the person you've always wanted to be?
power to be free from thoughts of vengeance because you love even your enemies?
power to be finally free from the fear of death?

Invitation and The Final Challenge

Do you want this power? Then all you need to is go through a DOOR. There's no stone or 25-ton solid steel blast door blocking your way because this door is an OPEN door. The DOOR I'm referring to is Jesus Himself. In John 10:7 Jesus said, "I am the door." The resurrected Jesus Himself invites you to come to Him in faith. He wants to forgive your sin and give you this power we've talked about. Won't you come? Romans 10:9 says, "If you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved." I invite you to make that confession this morning. And if you do, leave your seat come down the aisle and share that decision with me. If you have other public commitments to make come! come as God leads.

The Rev. Lenin Kumar
The Potter's Home International Church
The Christian Living

Preparing the Bride...For Christ's Coming!
www.pottershomeinternational.org

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