Jesus Resurrected

[0:00] Father, it's my great privilege and honor, and I'm not worthy of it, Father, that I would get to stand at the front here and try to open your word.

[0:13] And I confess before you, Father, that I am not worthy of this, and yet your Son has called me to this. But Father, we want to hear from Jesus this morning.

[0:24] Father, we thank you so much that Jesus is present in our midst. Father, we thank you that he is present. May he open the Bible to us, and may he so open the Bible to us, and may you so pour out your Holy Spirit upon us that our hearts will burn with a holy fire as Jesus opens the Scriptures to us all this morning.

[0:47] And this we ask in Jesus' name, your Son and our Savior. Amen. Please be seated. So, earlier this week, I was in one of my regular Starbucks working on my sermon, and there's this really, really fine older man that I've been having conversations with for about three years.

[1:16] He started talking to me because he saw the open Bible in the Starbucks. He knows I'm a minister of this church. He has a very different view of me.

[1:27] He goes to a mainline church. So, on certain moral issues and a range of other things, he has very different views than I do. But we've had very, very, very friendly civil conversations over the last three years.

[1:41] So, I'm sitting there in the Starbucks, and one of the things you can pray for me is that when the Holy Spirit sort of nudges me that I'm going to be far more attentive to it. And anyway, so I'm sitting there in the Starbucks.

[1:52] I know that I'm going to be talking about the resurrection. And I see, I'm going to call him Bob. And I see Bob there. And I know that Bob is a retired scientist, that he was in the hard sciences.

[2:05] And as he's getting up to leave, it's as if the Holy Spirit nudges me. And he's going to walk right by me to chat. And so, I know I have to ask him a question. So, I ask him a question.

[2:16] I say, Bob, I'm not asking you this because I don't want to start an argument. I'm not just, Bob, I'm actually just really, really curious. I'm preaching on the resurrection on Sunday.

[2:28] And I would just love to know, do you believe in the resurrection? And, you know, I'm not trying to cause, I'm just really curious. So, Bob, you know, looked at me, had this nice smile on his face.

[2:44] And he sort of looked up at the top of the ceiling for a moment. And then he said, no. And then what really surprised me is we talked for half an hour.

[2:58] And he did 25 minutes of the talking. And it was as if I just was able to be there with occasional interjections.

[3:09] As he revealed that he was, in fact, very, very, very thoughtful about the issue. And that he noticed that there's, he just knew that there's all sorts of problems, like riddles, that he couldn't solve.

[3:26] In fact, just, you know, a bit of a thing. One of the things that really struck me afterwards is that, you know, if we want to bear witness to Jesus in a post-Christendom culture like we live in now, that maybe one of the things that we have to do is just ask non-threatening questions because we're just really curious to hear what the other person would say.

[3:47] Because I actually, I was just very curious. Because I know he went to a, I know he went to a mainline church. And I know that, I know he went to a mainline church where there probably wouldn't be very clear Bible teaching.

[3:59] And I knew he was a scientist. I was just very curious. So for 25 of the 30 minutes, he just shared with me a whole range of riddles. At the bottom line for him, early on in the conversation, was if he did not believe that there could be any miracles if science was true.

[4:19] I didn't say that very well. He believed that if he started believing in miracles, it would mean that science didn't work. And it would throw into, and he knows that science, you know, isn't perfect.

[4:31] He knows better than you or I would. I mean, I shouldn't say that because some of you are scientists as well. But he knew that there's lots of things that, you know, sort of go wrong with science and are problematic with science. But he just did not, he did not believe that you could have the miracles and science.

[4:47] They didn't go together. And, in fact, one of the things he, and he said that's why he didn't believe in the virgin birth as well. And it's also why he said that he doesn't believe in any, so I said you don't believe in any of the miracles in the Bible.

[5:01] He said, no, I don't believe in any of the miracles. But he said the other miracles aren't as problematic as the resurrection. And I'm going to tell you a little bit more as we go on about it. I'll just say one other thing that I said about his, I said to him, you know, one of the riddles you must, I don't know if you ever thought about it, Bob.

[5:17] But it's sort of funny, isn't it, Bob, that the very, very book that tells us that miracles actually happen is the same book, the same faith, that provided the social context for science to develop.

[5:31] I said to him that, you know, human ingenuity is common amongst all people. There's no group of people that are more ingenious or clever than another.

[5:42] They're probably equally distributed amongst human beings. And, you know, obviously in Islam and Hinduism and Buddhist cultures and Confucius cultures, there was a lot of ingenuity and a lot of things that were developed.

[5:53] But it was only in the Christian world that the Bible provided both a teaching of miracles but an intellectual framework and basis for science to develop. And he looked at me and he smiled and he said, yes, that's one of many riddles that I can't get my mind around.

[6:09] Like, I just can't get my mind around how that actually could be. But he acknowledged that that was, in fact, the case.

[6:21] So I'm going to mention some other things that Bob said as we look at the text. And so if you get your Bibles, it would be a great help to me if you would turn in your Bibles to the book of Luke, chapter 24.

[6:33] We'll look at these 32 verses and I'll also share you a few other things that Bob had problems with and shared with me his problems while I just listened.

[6:46] And so it begins, actually, we're going to begin not at chapter 24, but we're going to begin at chapter 23, verse 50. Last week we looked at this and a bit more and I actually didn't read it, but I just said that one of the things, and the death of Jesus is a few verses earlier, but there's time and time and time again in the text that they want to communicate, Luke wants to communicate to us that Jesus is dead, dead, dead, dead, dead.

[7:10] And it's just sort of important that we sort of just get a bit of the flow here. So if you begin at verse 50 of chapter 23. So Jesus has died, and now in verse 50. Now there was a man named Joseph from the Jewish town of Arimathea.

[7:24] He was a member of the council, that's what we call the Sanhedrin, a good and righteous man who had not consented to their decision and action, and he was looking for the kingdom of God.

[7:35] This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then Joseph took it down, the body of Jesus, and wrapped it in a linen shroud and laid Jesus' body in a tomb cut in stone where no one had ever been laid.

[7:52] It was the day of preparation and the Sabbath was beginning. Now you might just remember, just pause here for a second, that the reading I did, I kept saying they, they, they, they, they, and yet you might not have known who the they was.

[8:02] Now we discover who the they is, are. I don't know the grammar there. Who the they is that is going to happen in verse 24. It happens here in verse 55.

[8:14] The woman who had come with Jesus from Galilee followed Joseph, in a sense, and saw the tomb and how his body was laid. Then they returned and prepared spices and ointments.

[8:26] I just want to pause here for a second. This is one of these really, really, really neat little historical comments in the gospel. Because, you know, what it's sort of implying is, okay, so there's all these women, four or five or six women, and they're watching Joseph.

[8:40] And we know from another account that Nicodemus was also with it. So we see these two guys putting Jesus' body in the tomb and sort of trying to prepare it. And their response of seeing them do it was in verse 56.

[8:57] Then they returned and prepared some spices and ointments. And it was really as if they said, oh, good grief. Leave it to men to mess it up. Look how messy it is. They use the wrong spices. It's all messy.

[9:07] There's no flowers. We're going to have to do this ourselves. Like, it's just as if, if you were to come to my house sometime and my wife wasn't present, or my daughters, and I set the table, you would say, George needs help in setting tables.

[9:21] You would know whether Louise set the table or George set the table. You would instantly know the difference. So it's just a little historical moment. The women see the men do it, and they say, I guess we're going to have to go get some spices and do the job right.

[9:36] And so it continues on, the second part of verse 56. On the Sabbath day, they rested according to the commandment. Verse 1, chapter 24.

[9:47] But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. And just sort of pause here for a second. Here's the first point, if you could put it up.

[9:57] Say it again.

[10:09] What the scriptures show here, what the historical evidence shows, and in fact, all four pieces of historical evidence all show the exact same thing. That everyone, even his closest disciples, thought that Jesus was discredited and dead, and that he would stay discredited and dead.

[10:30] Now, you can't see the discredited part here. You're going to see it when we talk about the Emmaus text. And so I'll just sort of, we heard it a few moments ago, but what you're going to see in a couple of minutes in the next story is that these two disciples, they're leaving.

[10:47] They're out of there. They're out of there because they thought Jesus was a prophet, but obviously he's not a prophet. They thought he was the one who was going to redeem Israel, but obviously he's not the one who's going to redeem Israel.

[11:01] He's discredited by his death. And they were leaving. In Emmaus, they didn't think he was going to come back to life. They didn't think the resurrection was going to happen. They didn't think there'd be a change of opinion about him.

[11:14] And as we go through here, all the way through here, the women, the men, his disciples, everybody, everybody thinks that Jesus is dead. Pilate thinks he's dead.

[11:25] Roman soldiers, the priests, everybody believes him dead. Everybody believes him discredited. Everyone believes that he'll stay dead. Everyone believes he'll stay discredited. That's like a rock solid thing of all the historical evidence, dead and discredited.

[11:41] And so, and you see, that's in a sense what my friend Bob would say. Dead people stay dead.

[11:53] They don't come back to life again. Dead people stay dead. They don't come back to life again. And he said, you know, how would it, it would change the entire universe and all of our understanding to think that a dead man could come back to life again.

[12:14] And, you know, if the resurrection actually happened, then in principle, I have no problem with any miracle. But he shared with me, and I said to him, by the way, I didn't actually, other than pointing out this little thing about how it was within the Christian culture that science developed.

[12:30] That's a bit of a riddle for him, which he knew of. Often people aren't educated to understand that. But he knew that.

[12:41] And I said, some other time I'll buy you a coffee. We should talk a little bit about how science and miracles can fit together. But Bob understood that everything, intellectual, all, the whole universe, the whole mental world and his map would have to change if the resurrection actually happened.

[12:58] So let's just continue, you know, going on. Verse 2. So these are the women. And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb. But when they went in, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.

[13:13] While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel. And we discover later on that they're angels.

[13:24] And as they were frightened, that's the women, not the angels. As the women were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, Why do you seek the living among the dead?

[13:38] So put up the second point if you could. Luke is saying that what happened to Jesus is as real as your bank records, the NBA finals statistics, or the list of Canada's prime ministers.

[13:55] Luke is saying that what happened to Jesus is as real as your bank records, the NBA finals statistics, or the list of Canada's prime ministers.

[14:05] This is one of the things which was very interesting in my conversation with Bob. Very different than some of the other conversations I have in Starbucks. Apart from being a scientist, he's an older man.

[14:22] And he'd also done some other reading just in literature and in mythology and myths. And he accepted that basically Luke was making an historical claim here.

[14:36] He accepted that that was basically the type of thing. And in fact, actually, one of the things which really puzzled him about it is he really puzzled over with me how it's...

[14:49] He said, you can't... You have to believe in the historical evidence that the... I mean, it's just clear that Christianity exploded quite quickly. And that the belief that Jesus' body was gone and that he was resurrected, that that was the historical belief they had.

[15:05] And he said, you know, I puzzle over the fact that it couldn't have been the Roman soldiers. They would just have blown that belief out of the water in an instant by producing the body. And so would the chief priests and so would...

[15:15] And he said, the other thing he said that just really puzzles me is I believe and I know and I accept that the 11 disciples, that all but one of them died martyr's death.

[15:26] And I just have a hard time believing that all 11 of them would have been in on a hoax. And a hoax that went to their death. A hoax... He said, I understand hoaxes if it makes you lots of money and fools the gullible and makes you powerful.

[15:41] But it didn't make any of them lots of money. It didn't make any of them powerful. And it just led to their death. And I understand that there's some historical reality there.

[15:52] And I understand that Luke is making some historical claim. But as a scientist, I just can't believe that a dead man would come to life again. And he knew that it wasn't resuscitation, that it was resurrection.

[16:05] It wasn't Jesus just becoming alive, but that he becomes... And still to die later, but that the claim is that the grave is empty. He understands.

[16:16] It was a very... You know, one of the surprising things about asking questions of people is that it's easy to think that they're going to maybe have all these other beliefs.

[16:27] And so sometimes the reason it's just so important to ask in sharing about Jesus just honest questions is it's really helpful just to find out what they actually think and believe.

[16:40] Like in the case with Bob, I would not... I don't have to have a conversation with him. I mean, I might have to have a conversation with him about when the book was written and all that type of stuff. But the fact that this was making a historical, real claim in all of the details, Bob accepted that.

[17:00] He thought it couldn't be true. But he puzzled over how it could... How the Christianity developed and how this could not be true.

[17:11] And he said, I have no answer to how these things go together. Just as a bit of an aside, you should pray for Bob. You should pray for Bob.

[17:23] And because he was surprisingly and is surprisingly thoughtful about all of this stuff. Now, but some of you might say, George, I have a bit of a separate problem.

[17:38] I'm familiar with some of the other four historical evidences about the gospel. Four other historical evidences of what happened on Good Friday and Easter Sunday. And George, don't some of the people see one angel and some see two?

[17:54] And there's some other... George, like, how does that fit in? Like, surely just the presence of an angel means that it's not historical.

[18:04] But even if I accept that angels are possible, how... Like, aren't there just real problems here? Like, some see one and some see two? And that's a really, really good question.

[18:15] One of the problems that we have, and it's a big problem with commentaries, it's a big problem in the Christian community, is that we don't take the record as data to understand and put together.

[18:34] But we have our theories and our beliefs about how reality works and therefore will dismiss data sometimes.

[18:46] But if we actually just for a second humble ourselves and say that we're going to take these historical records, at first at least, to consider them as data, then what it tells us is that seeing an angel or angels isn't like seeing another person.

[19:11] In fact, if you take it as data, there's all sorts of very interesting things in here. The data on angels is that usually when you meet one, unveiled, so to speak, or one is revealed to you, it creates within you a sense of awe and a sense of humility and a desire to bow your head.

[19:34] And in the Old Testament and other places, sometimes even a desire to worship them. And that there's this odd human experience of both fear and a type of dread and a desire to worship at the same time.

[19:51] And the other thing is that since angels are inherently invisible, it means it's up to them to reveal to us or allow us or do something in our head so that we can perceive them.

[20:05] So in a sense, what this data is telling us is I actually think that both accounts are right. In fact, what I would say is that afterwards when the women were walking home, I said, I can't believe I saw two angels.

[20:17] And another one of them said, I only saw one angel. And it wasn't that one of them was in a corner and they had a better angle on it. It would just maybe very, very well is that the way that the world actually works, because you see, at the end of the day, I think that the Bible is true.

[20:33] I think there really is a God that does exist. I believe this because I believe Jesus really did rise from the dead, triumphing and triumphed over sin and death and all hostile spiritual powers in his resurrection.

[20:47] And that means there is a God that does exist. It means that he did create all things. He sustains all things. He will bring all things to their completion. That there is a no ability to reality, but because God is sovereign, he can continue to act in reality.

[21:01] And the order that he created, then he sustains and he can act in it sovereignly. And sometimes his sovereign actions are what we understand as miracles. And I believe and I accept all of that.

[21:12] And it means that if God was to all of a sudden have an angel which is present in our service right now or angels that are present in our service right now, and if God was to decide that it was for our great good that we could see that afterwards, after we'd gotten off our faces and we're having coffee talking about it, some of you would say, I saw two angels.

[21:38] I only saw one. I saw three. I saw five. I don't know. Because, you see, when we see another human being, we're seeing something in the sense of the same type of created order as us.

[21:50] And if one of you sees two and another one sees one, maybe it's because one of your eyesight doesn't work very well or maybe one of the two people's behind something and another person needed an angle. But just the very, very nature, if we take this as data, it just means the very, very data is that angels have to, in a sense, reveal themselves to us.

[22:07] And some of the women saw two and some of the women saw one. And by the way, if you understand this type of basic distinction, it means that a whole pile of the apparent contradictions or inconsistencies or problems in how the four texts go together are removed.

[22:23] You don't have to have multiple trips going back and forth for some to see one and some to see two. I would just take it as data. I actually believe that I might have seen an angel once.

[22:37] You know, I don't talk about it, but I think I had an experience once where I saw an angel. But I couldn't... I saw something that physically wasn't there.

[22:49] I had an experience with something that was physically not there. And that happened to me once. It might never happen to me again. And many very godly Christians, it never happens to them.

[23:02] But I believe we walk in a world where there are angels and demons present around us all of the time. And most of the time we do not see them because they need to reveal themselves to us.

[23:16] And God, in his sovereign wisdom, usually does not allow that to happen. One of the things I think that we'll see from this text is that all of these texts give us a bit of a way to understand what the new heaven and the new earth will be.

[23:29] And in the new heaven and the new earth, we will see angels as our elder brothers and sisters and our elder friends. And part of the real world of the new heaven and the new earth will be conversations with them.

[23:45] But I get ahead of myself. I get ahead of myself. One of the things which Bob talked about was just that he accepted that the historical records must have shown that the tomb was empty.

[24:06] He accepts that. And he just can't, he said, I can't explain it. I can understand that if the tomb wasn't empty, that Christianity would not have developed.

[24:19] But I just can't explain the empty tomb. And the next part of Luke's historical record of what happened is Luke beginning to explain the empty tomb.

[24:31] So if you could go back to verse 5a, hopefully Luke chapter 24, sort of 5b, the second part of verse 5, the angels say to the women, Why do you seek the living among the dead?

[24:43] He is not here, but is risen. Remember how he told you while he was still in Galilee that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise.

[24:58] And they remembered his words. Just sort of pause there. In other words, they remember Jesus' words. Those of you who have been sojourning with us as we've gone through the Gospel of Luke know that there's been quite a few times in the Gospel of Luke where Luke shares with us that Jesus said that he's going to Jerusalem to die.

[25:17] I'm going to Jerusalem to die. I'm going to Jerusalem to die. I'm going to die on the cross. I'm going to rise from the dead. The women, as I said in my first point, everyone, even his closest disciples, thought that Jesus was discredited and dead and that he would stay discredited and dead.

[25:33] But now, if you could put up the third point, Adam, Luke tells the good news that Jesus died on a Friday and that the grave was empty on a Sunday because Jesus had been raised and vindicated by God the Father.

[25:48] If you think there's a bit of ambiguity in that sentence, it's true in both senses. Luke tells this good news because Jesus had been raised and vindicated by God the Father.

[26:00] And the good news is that Jesus had been raised and vindicated by God the Father. Luke tells the good news that Jesus died on a Friday and that the grave was empty on the Sunday because Jesus had been raised and vindicated by God the Father.

[26:17] That's the news. That's the news of the angels. That's how they interpret the empty tomb. Yesterday, I was driving back from Starbucks where I was putting the finishing touches to my sermon.

[26:33] And I had decided I would bike to a Starbucks a couple of kilometers away from where I live. And as I was driving back, I was just sort of filled with praise to God.

[26:45] I love riding a bike. I love it. It was a beautiful morning. It was around lunchtime. It was beautiful out. And, you know, my bike is just gliding along and it's working pretty good and the streets are nice and quiet where I was.

[27:01] And it was just so beautiful. I was so thankful just to be able to be enjoying a beautiful day in Ottawa riding my bike along. Like, I meant, and as I was doing this, I was thinking about a counseling session that I'd had quite a few years ago when I was in my previous church.

[27:19] Some of you, I've heard, I've told you before how one of the things, if you're ever trying to help a friend who's in distress and they're, you know, mental or emotional sadness or, you know, whatever, they're in a big conflict and you're trying to help them, like one of the things that you have to do in your conversation is to try to get them to ask some questions and not only find out what happened, but you also have to ask them how they feel about different things that happened and you also have to ask them how they understand what's happening to them.

[27:51] And I was riding along on my bike and I thought back to it because quite a few years ago when I was in my other church, there was one day on a Sunday, I think it was, no, it was a Saturday, it was a Saturday, it was a Saturday and I'm driving to a place and I have to go to a day-long meeting.

[28:07] It was a beautiful day like it was yesterday. Beautiful, beautiful day in June and I'm driving down this country road and I see a guy that I know and he's driving his bike on the country road and I think to myself, dang, here I am in a car, I was dressed, clothes, collar, going to a day-long meeting and look at that guy.

[28:29] I feel so jealous for that guy. I'm envious of that guy, shorts, t-shirt, riding his bike on a beautiful country road on a beautiful June day in the Ottawa Valley.

[28:40] That's what I'm thinking. So, a week or two later, this guy comes to me because he's in great distress and as fate would have it, he talks about that day.

[28:52] He's driving along in his bike and I ask him about it, you know, and I ask him the question about what he meant and he said, oh, George, that was one of the worst days of my life. I was driving along this country road on my ex-girlfriend's son's bike and I felt like I was one inch tall.

[29:11] I felt so embarrassed and humiliated. Every time a car or a pickup truck went by, I tried to hide my face. It was completely and utterly demeaning to me to be on a bike, not in my truck or my car because he lost it.

[29:29] That's a whole other thing. So, see what I mean by you have to ask people how they understand it. Here I am. So, if he had just told me he's driving his bike to this, I'm thinking, oh boy, he's in a really, really good mood because he gets to drive his bike on a beautiful country road in June in the Ottawa Valley.

[29:45] But his understanding of the event was that he was embarrassed and humiliated and demeaned. So, you always have to understand not just what happens, you have to try to understand what it means.

[29:57] And so, what Luke provides here in the historical record and it's going to continue throughout the rest of Luke 24 is that Luke provides the interpretation of the death of Jesus upon the cross, his entry into death and his resurrection and the empty tomb and Luke interprets it for us.

[30:19] He tells us what it means. He says that it's good news. Jesus has been raised by God the Father and he's been vindicated by God the Father.

[30:33] Why is it that I believe the Bible? I believe it in the Bible ultimately because Jesus trusted and loved the Bible and Jesus was raised from the dead.

[30:44] Why do I follow Jesus? Because he was raised from the dead. There's other reasons as well. But the resurrection of Jesus vindicates. Remember the first point is that every single one of Jesus' friends and disciples and everybody thought two things that Jesus was discredited and dead.

[31:02] And with the empty tomb and the resurrection Jesus is alive and vindicated. His teaching is vindicated. His death on the cross is vindicated.

[31:14] He is vindicated. His teaching now has it makes it's you have to listen to his teaching. It has to turn your world upside down if you come to that belief.

[31:26] Bob understood that his world would be turned upside down. His intellectual world his emotional world would be turned upside down if he came to believe that Jesus was raised from the dead.

[31:40] And Luke tells us that Jesus was raised by the Father and vindicated by God the Father. Now interestingly enough I didn't say this to Bob but I actually know slightly the minister of the church that he goes to.

[31:59] And I was thinking to myself in fact I might do this if I'm being really mischievous and playful I might say to him that he should ask the senior minister at his church if she believes in the resurrection because she doesn't.

[32:20] But she believes that the New Testament is stories to communicate hope. That it's a type of mythology and Bob would have nothing to do with it.

[32:36] In an odd way Bob believes more than his minister including the fact that he would honestly say to me that he doesn't believe the resurrection was possible.

[32:49] I'm going to say more about this I'm going to tell you this now one other thing that Bob said to me and I want to say this now before we go on I know I need to keep moving on throughout the thing.

[33:04] Bob towards the end of the conversation Bob said to me George I guess you don't think I'm a Christian because I don't believe in the resurrection. And I said to him well Bob we probably have to have a coffee over that one because it's a little bit more complicated than you think.

[33:21] earlier on another one of the things that Bob had said is that one of the things that he puzzles over was after I shared with him about the Bible and all was the basis of science and he acknowledged that and he said and it's more than that George he said I can't get my mind around the fact that this story has transformed so many people's lives he said you listen to Bach you listen to the beauty of that music you go to Europe and you see these unbelievable cathedrals and you think of some of the literature that was produced and if this isn't true how could that be a basis of so much creativity and so much beauty and so much courage and heroism and it's a riddle for him that he couldn't put together in his head and so when he asked me about being a Christian

[34:27] I said to him it's a bit more complicated than you think I said first of all Bob if we have to pass get 100% on a theology test to get into heaven nobody's going to make it to heaven so it doesn't matter your background if you're Roman Catholic Thomas Aquinas won't get into heaven if you're more reformed Calvin's not going to get into heaven Billy Graham he's not going to get into heaven nobody's theology is perfect so I said everybody is in heaven with imperfect and incorrect theology and I said the second thing is I think that God's a bit shameless in terms of how he has Jesus relate to people and I think that in heaven there'll be a lot of people who have a lot of questions and maybe don't believe some things that they should but they just really have this fundamental trust in Jesus and attraction to Jesus and they can't explain it but it's a deep-seated thing and it affects how they live their lives in some ways and I think there'll be a lot of people like that in heaven

[35:34] I I said I don't know how that fits in with you but I think there'll be a lot of people like that in heaven I said the thing about the resurrection is to not believe certain things in your trust in Jesus it robs you of a whole range of things about how to live your life if you believe in the resurrection of Jesus it starts to transform or has the potential to transform your willingness to risk your willingness to die for the faith it inspires you and gives you confidence probably to create that type of beauty and the sacrifices and the courage and the intellectual development you miss a lot you miss a lot by not coming to accept the full doctrines but it's ultimately all about trust in him that was actually how we finished our conversation with the promise that we would talk again in the future but as I said if I was mischievous

[36:37] I would say that he should maybe ask his rector about this whether she believes in the resurrection of Jesus because you see the very story that we get here the historical evidence shows if you don't really believe that it happened then it's actually not an inspiring story at all that it's actually something which is sort of crazy which Bob gets but a lot of religious and spiritual people don't get if you just continue reading it Luke brings this out actually we'll go back to verse 8 again and we'll start going really quick by the way in case you're really wondering about it but and they remembered his words and returning from the tomb that's Jesus's words remembering his words and they sorry verse 9 and returning from the tomb they told all these things to the eleven and to all the rest now it was Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James and the other women with them who told these things to the apostles but these words seemed to them an idle tale and they did not believe them the words translated as idle tale

[37:38] Luke was a doctor the guy who wrote the gospel of Luke is a doctor and he uses a medical term from the time and the medical term from the time which translated here is idle tale it's a medical condition when you babble due to a delirium in other words if you have a type of illness which is causing delirium and you start to babble that's how they interpreted what the women said to them they didn't take it as wow this is a really hopeful story too bad it's not true they said this is the babbling these are babblings of delirious people that's how they understood it verse 12 but Peter rose and ran to the tomb stooping and looking in he saw the linen cloths lining linen cloths by themselves and he went home marveling at what had happened and just sort of pause here if you could put up the fourth point and we'll use this fourth point to start to get into the last part of the story what we see here is that

[38:44] Jesus is not an illustration of what happens to everyone because they are human he is God's promised power for salvation to everyone who believes in him Jesus is not an illustration of what happens to everyone because they are human he is God's promised power for salvation to everyone who believes in him in an earlier conversation with Bob about a year earlier he had shared with me that he even though he knows that scientifically you'd have to say that the dead stay dead he had a basic sense that that couldn't be true that there must be something after and something greater but he couldn't articulate it but here we see that Jesus is not an illustration of what happens to everyone because they are human nowhere in the text does it talk about it as being something like a natural process it see that he is God's promised power for salvation to everyone who believes in him now we're going to go into the sort of very briefly the trip to Emmaus and some of you are going to wonder you know

[39:53] George I can maybe understand what you have to say about angels and they have to be revealed to us but surely you have some problems with the whole story of the road to Emmaus and why it is that two people who knew Jesus couldn't recognize him and surely George there's some problems with this story that makes it wonder whether it's an historical story so we're going to close by looking at that verse 13 that very day two of them were going to a village named Emmaus just pause for a second in the original language it's very very interesting it doesn't say two men it might be two men but it doesn't say specifically that it's two men we know that one of the two is a man because we know his name is Cleopas but it says two of them so it's actually quite possible that it was a man a husband and wife or a father and daughter that were walking to Emmaus because the text doesn't specify men but says just two that very day two of them were going to a village named Emmaus about 11 kilometers from

[41:00] Jerusalem and they were talking with each other about all these things that had happened while they were talking and discussing together Jesus himself drew near and went with them but their eyes were kept from recognizing him and he said to them what is this conversation that you were holding with each other as you walk and they stood still looking sad then one of them turned named Cleopas answered Jesus are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know these things that have happened there in these days and he said to them what things and they said to him concerning Jesus of Nazareth a man who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people and how our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death and crucified that he was the one to redeem Israel ah yes and besides all this it is now the third day since these things happened moreover some women of our company amazed us they were at the tomb early in the morning and when they did not find his body they came back saying they had even seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said but

[42:10] Jesus they did not see and Jesus said to them oh foolish ones and just so you know in Matthew 5 it talks about how you should never call someone a fool in Greek it's a different word here so Jesus isn't doing what he said not to do in Matthew 5 oh foolish ones and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory and beginning with Moses and all the prophets he interpreted to them in all the scriptures things concerning himself so they drew near to the village to which they were going he acted as if he were going farther but they urged him strongly saying stay with us for it is toward evening and the day is now far spent so he went in to stay with them when he was at table with them he took the bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them and gave it to them and their eyes were opened and they recognized him and he vanished from their sight and they said to each other did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road while he opened to us the scriptures now I'm going to talk about why they didn't recognize him in a moment but we don't know for sure but it's been long held by many Christians that Jesus was probably wearing like a long robe a robe with sleeves that would have come down to here so he's walking along there talking but many wonder if the moment of the recognition of Jesus is when

[44:02] Jesus has a table and he takes the bread to bless it and break it and at the eight o'clock service I was wearing robes so it would have been an object lesson I showed and the robes fall down and they would have seen the nail marks in his hands and so many people throughout church history think that the moment that God allowed their eyes to be open to see was at the same moment that they would have seen the nail prints in his hands that were covered until that moment so here's the thing let's talk about this story very briefly if you could put up the next point the first thing that Luke is telling us is that Jesus is the same person on Easter Sunday as he was on Good Friday but now he is resurrected with a resurrected body Jesus is the same person on Easter Sunday as he was on Good Friday but now he is resurrected with a resurrected body once again we have to take this as data how many of us have seen a resurrected body rather than us sort of thinking that we that a resurrected body has to act the exact same way that our bodies do we need to have look at the data and if you look at the data it does not seem as if resurrected bodies act the way we do in fact this is partly how we can understand what our new bodies what will be like when we put our faith and trust in Jesus we share in his resurrection what heaven the new heaven and the new earth is going to be like we're still going to have bodies we're going to be the same person as we were before dead but we will be resurrected we will have no more sin and our spirits our souls will have a completely different relationship with our body and our body will have a different relationship with the rest of matter and here we see that part of what it is is that God keeps them from being able to recognize it's a miracle that God does not Jesus but that God does so that Jesus is not recognized and some of you you know sometimes when I say certain things about this and we get we get really really worried about certain things we have objections and

[46:13] I might say you know somebody I say George that's sort of scary to me because the idea that God could just stop me from recognizing something and then allow me to recognize something George I find that very very scary what do you say about that and I would say yes it is scary God's bigger than you are he's bigger than I am he's sovereign and the more you think that you're autonomous the more that Jesus is going to terrify you because you come to Jesus and you start to learn to give up your autonomy but here's the thing he's wildly good and he's going to prepare he's fitting you for an eternity of union with your creator and a resurrected person in a resurrected body in a new heaven and a new earth and that's where he's going with you and you're going to give up your autonomy because autonomy is a myth and an idol that's not even true anyway the tiniest little virus and you're dead the tiniest bit of the increase in air pressure and wind and your whole world is blown to part if you live your life on the basis of being completely and utterly autonomous you're living your life based on a lie but the option is in giving up autonomy and being a doormat the option is to give yourself to Jesus who died for you who loves you who only wants to fit you for the new heaven and the new earth and so what Luke is showing here in a very powerful way is he's showing something about the resurrected body he's showing that the body will be able to vanish that it will be able to move it's he's showing that it isn't just Jesus having come back to life on this side of the death and he's hobbled with all of his injuries and he's stuck in Jerusalem he can be in Jerusalem appearing to Mary Magdalene and then he can be walking with the eleven disciples and then he can appear to Peter and then he can be in the locked room and it's showing that it's a body it's the same person but it's a resurrected body in

[48:21] Jesus is resurrected and it's a resurrected body and you look at it and and and if we want to have a sense especially those of us maybe at a time close to death and we can look at it with ourselves or a loved one who's dying and if we study the accounts of the resurrected of Jesus we are getting a sense of when I breathe my last I breathe my last on this side of the grave and the next thing I will know is that I am breathing in the new heaven in the new earth as a resurrected person with a resurrected body that will be like Jesus is and it's not because I'm a good person it's it's because Jesus reaches across death and when I put my hands in the hands of Jesus he will never let me go and I will share in his triumph and in his resurrection it's not on one hand natural to me in terms of me being able to do it in my own body but it's natural to me in the sense that you and I were made for this we were made to be at one with God in healed and whole bodies that have a different relationship with our soul and the entire created order including angels and archangels and all the company of heaven and that's what we were made for that is the Christian hope brothers and sisters you put your hand in the strong hand of Jesus to other things very quickly you can put up the next point Jesus teaches that his betrayal crucifixion death resurrection and glorification are seen in all of the Bible and that is what the Bible is all about jesus teaches that his betrayal crucifixion death resurrection and glorification are seen in all of the Bible and that is what the Bible is all about you know if you read the

[50:19] Bible thinking it's all about I I listened to a I went to a clergy retreat when I was still in part of the Anglican Church of Canada. And the entire purpose of the entire clergy retreat was to show how Matthew's gospel was actually a type of early Marxism to deconstruct.

[50:37] I'm not making this up. I am not making this up. All your money going to send clergy to clergy days and we spent 48 hours having a guy with a PhD tell us that the gospel of Matthew was proto-Marxist attempt in code to deconstruct the capitalist and feudal and empire structures so that it would inspire poor people to take the means of production and to be able to strive for a more just future.

[51:09] That's crazy. Completely ludicrous. Here's the thing. Many years ago, I know this person, I can't remember what the other movie was, but she went to a movie with her husband and she thought she was going to a Tom Cruise movie.

[51:24] I think it was maybe one of the Mission Impossible movies. And unbeknownst to her, because she wasn't really paying any attention, the Mission Impossible movie was sold out. So they went in to see the Will Smith movie, I, Robot.

[51:36] And they told me this story. Halfway through the movie, she says to her husband, this is a really funny Tom Cruise movie. Like, where's Tom Cruise?

[51:49] It doesn't make any sense. Like, where's the spy stuff? What's all this stuff with robots? And the husband had to say to her, Mission Impossible was sold out, we're in a Will Smith movie.

[52:01] And then she realized, oh, well, that makes sense. That's why I see Will Smith all the time. That's, it's iRobot. That's why there's robots. So here's the thing.

[52:11] If you think that the Bible is all about gender theory, queer theory, Marxism, Freudianism, behaviorism, imperialism, the British Empire-ism, if you think the Bible is all about that, and you read the Bible, it doesn't make any sense.

[52:31] It makes no sense. It's dark and unclear. But Jesus, who is risen from the dead, tells us, what is the Bible all about?

[52:43] What will start to make Leviticus and Numbers make sense? Look at it from the perspective that it's all preparing you to understand the betrayal, death, resurrection, glorification of Jesus, the Messiah, who came as the power of God for salvation for all who believe, and the Bible will start to make sense.

[53:08] it's like being in iRobot thinking it's a Tom Cruise movie to not think otherwise, to not think that. That's what Jesus tells you. Just final thing in closing, I'm going to ask you to stand a moment in prayer.

[53:21] One of the professors at Royal College, I had coffee with him a couple of months ago, and because, you know, professors who write books on all like that, they asked me, they said, what do you think the Gospel of Luke is all about? And my next point here, if you could put it up, I think the whole Gospel of Luke is to bring us to a point to be able to pray this prayer.

[53:41] Dear God, please grow in me a humble, trusting, walking, knowing of the greatness, glory, and grace of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, crucified and risen.

[53:57] If you go back to the beginning of Luke's Gospel, he writes it to a pagan named Theophilus. And we don't know if he's a pagan skeptic, we don't know if he's a pagan seeker, we don't know if he's a pagan who has just become a Christian.

[54:10] But he writes it for Theophilus so that Theophilus will know the story of Jesus. Luke writes the Gospel of Luke so that as we come to the end of it, and hopefully long before this, in our heart, we want to pray a prayer like this.

[54:28] Dear God, please grow in me a humble, trusting, walking, knowing of the greatness, glory, and grace of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, crucified and risen.

[54:43] Amen. That's what Luke's about. That's what he hopes that you will want to pray. And a prayer like that is how you begin the Christian life, and a prayer like that is how you live the Christian life every day.

[54:58] Every day, in a sense, for the rest of my life, I could pray a prayer like this, and it would be a good prayer. As I start my day or end my day to say, Dear God, please grow in me a humble, trusting, walking, knowing, the greatness, glory, and grace of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, crucified and risen.

[55:21] Amen. Please stand. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Just bow our heads in prayer.

[55:38] If you want to join me in this prayer, I'm just going to pray the prayer on the screen. If you want to join me in that, that would be great. But if you don't, that's fine too. Whatever the Holy Spirit leads you to do. Dear God, please grow in me a humble, trusting, walking, knowing of the greatness, glory, and grace of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, crucified and risen.

[56:03] Amen. Amen.onda Welcome to language into size and true happiness. In the phrase 있지, please make us at the time save andugo transcendה Merive under Iowa, wise,