Sermon

It was a traditional part of Jewish grieving rituals for the nearest of kin to remain home in mourning for seven days. Mourners couldn’t wash, work, have intercourse, or even study the Scriptures during these days! Mary Magdalene, who it seems would have grieved as much as the family, would have likewise remained indoors had it not been necessary to finish the work of preparing Jesus’ body for burial left undone due to His death just hours before the Sabbath.

The first day of the week began at sundown on what we would call Saturday night, so the Sabbath – Friday sundown to Saturday sundown – had ended hours before Mary approaches the tomb.

Sepulchers were often carved into soft stone hillsides. Disk-shaped stones rolled in front of the entrances, often so heavy that they frequently required several men to roll them away.

Some have doubted the empty tomb story simply because Paul does not mention it (though 1 Corinthians 15 presupposes it), but the disciples could not have credibly proclaimed the resurrection in Jerusalem if Jesus’ body were still in the tomb. Ancient Jewish men didn’t accept women as reliable witnesses, and so we see John and Peter moved to look for themselves.

Of course, had robbers stolen the body they would have taken it in its wrappings, and had they left the wrappings they surely would have left them in disarray. Yet, whoever left them left them neatly. The face wrappings separated from the linens is not merely “folded up” (as in our reading and the NIV) but most accurately “rolled up”, which could be an indication of neatness or that it was still rolled the way it had been when it was wrapped around Jesus’ head – that His body had risen straight out of the wrappings and cloth!

Skeptics proposal that Jesus had only appeared to have died and then recovered would not explain how he could have loosed the grave cloths tied around Him or escaped a sealed tomb, but it also ignores the nature of crucifixion: The Jewish historian Josephus had three of his friends taken down alive from a cross, but two of them died despite medical attention because their bodies had been so weakened from the trauma of the cross.

On the other hand, those modern critical scholars who have suggested that the original disciples meant only that they had a powerful spiritual experience but had not intended to claim that Jesus rose bodily read our own modern culture into the New Testament: “Resurrection” meant bodily resurrection and nothing else, and no one would have persecuted the disciples for claiming that they had had merely a spiritual experience. Mere belief in ghosts and apparitions was widespread and would not have gotten them in trouble with anyone.

There are other evidences: Jesus very public execution; a high official securing His grave and yet, despite the guards, it was found to be empty; many people claimed to have seen Him; His apostles were dramatically changed; witnesses to His resurrection were willing to die for their claims; the Jews who became believers changed their day of worship from the Sabbath to the day of resurrection; and, of course, Jesus Christ being raised from the dead and alive today fits the experience of those who trust Him, even today!

So what about you? What questions, what doubts do you have that keep you from believing that Jesus Christ is alive today and even here with us now as we worship Him in this place?

And if you do believe that He’s alive and that He’s here and that He is with you and me always, then what’s keeping you from being even more honest and open about your faith and trust in Him, and letting all of Milford, the Tri-States area, and to the ends of the Earth know that He’s risen?

When He showed Himself to Mary, she must have fallen down before Him and grabbed Him around His feet and legs, because He said to her, “Don’t cling to Me.” (And perhaps even better, “Stop clinging to Me!” – exclamation point.) Because He wants her to release Him to go testify for Him, even though she’s a woman and her testimony will be suspect, even though the news sounds impossible and too good to be true, even though it may lead her into all kinds of trouble it has already led her into her greatest joy where she will never ever be separated from her Rabboni again!

Jesus died for you and lives! Live for Him and never truly die!