Well, good morning, everyone. My name is Nick. I am pastor for discipleship here at this church.
It's my joy to be sharing God's word with you on this Easter day.
On Friday, we heard the gravity of Jesus last night before his death.
That in the Gethsemane Garden, Jesus glimpsed the cup of God's wrath that he must drink for the sin of all humanity.
But it was not the pain or the shame or the torture of his death that was causing him to sweat blood.
It was the abandonment from God, his Father, if he continued to plan their plan to save the world.
Jesus showed us that there is nothing worse than being torn apart from God, the Father.
And Jesus faced that greatest loss to give us the greatest thing imaginable, to have God.
And on the third day after Jesus' burial on the cross, his followers were trying to come to grips with a similar loss.
Because they thought they had found God, but he was dead.
They'd lost God and they'd lost all their hope.
The man on the screen, well, thank you tech team for trying to make things work.
Can you see this strange looking man up here?
His name is Pete Holmes.
He is a fairly famous comedian.
And he has this perspective that he brings into his comedy act about God and people.
He thinks it's ridiculous that we as humans could ever think that we might be able to understand who God is.
He says that humanity is, together we are like characters in a book.
Characters in a book written by an author, but we can't get to the author.
We can't get ourselves out of the book because God, we are in it and God is not in it.
We are stuck in the book.
We are like Harry Potter trying to figure out who J.K. Rowling is.
Some of the author is reflected in Harry.
As Pete says, like some of God is reflected in us.
But that's as far as we can hope according to this guy.
And this is helpful because, not because Pete is right,
but because it shows how aware we in our world often are of our hopelessness without God.
Even if we can see that there is an author and a writer and a creator of all of this,
he needs to write himself into the story or else we have no way to have him.
If we can't get God, there is no hope.
The Bible describes human hopelessness very clearly.
That all humanity is without hope and without God in the world.
The world is our place and it seems like this is all we have while we live.
We are hopeless spiritually without God and we are purposeless without meaning and hopeless.
But Christians claim that there is proof that God wrote himself into the book.
And when he didn't do it just to star in it,
he did it to rescue the characters and give himself to us.
So, we have Luke 24 before us and we're going to join Jesus' followers as they witness Jesus' unbelievable resurrection.
The disciples were experiencing an acute spiritual hopelessness in this moment.
They were anxious.
They were asking, what do we do now?
They had no leader.
Their Messiah had just died.
The disciple John adds in his gospel in chapter 20 that they even locked the door for fear of the Jewish authorities.
Fearing violence against them.
They were also disconnected, asking, who are we now?
Earlier that day, two of the disciples had left Jerusalem.
Instead of hiding in safety together, maybe that wasn't the safest option, they thought.
And so, they left altogether.
What if I stay with...
Why would I stay with Jesus if he's not the Messiah?
Incidentally, that was the video we were going to watch.
We were going to hear about what happened on the road to Emmaus to those two disciples.
And they were also confused.
Do we dare hope that this isn't the end?
Because that same two who left earlier that morning had now returned.
They'd knocked on the locked door.
They had said they'd seen Jesus.
Luke even reports that Peter had seen Jesus too.
And they either haven't heard or don't trust the women's report of the tomb being empty that Rachel read out during the singing today.
They were standing in the locked room.
Even hearing that angels had testified Jesus was alive.
And they were wrestling.
Would they give in to hope of these reports?
Or would they give in to their doubt?
And then in verse 36, as Janet read, Jesus appeared.
And they still do not believe.
Even when they heard his voice, they saw him.
They saw his likeness.
Standing in a locked room with them.
They didn't lose their confusion or their unbelief.
So how unbelievable is this hope?
If you have a Bible in your hands, you hold eyewitness testimony.
Gathered by a, what we now call Syrian.
That's where Luke is from.
Syrian, Greek-speaking journalist.
Soon after these events occurred, he wrote all of this down to share it with you.
And you need to decide whether it is reasonable to hope in something so unbelievable or not.
There are four common doubts about Jesus' resurrection that this passage speaks against.
And the first is to doubt the event itself, that the resurrection can't even happen.
And for doubt to grow, for this doubt to grow, it's often planted in the assumption that people of this day weren't as educated as us nowadays.
They were more gullible.
They'd just believe anything.
But this is upside down.
Think about this.
In modern day Chatswood, we are far more comfortable than Luke's audience with the idea that death can be held back.
That death can be pushed away.
Our life expectancies are more than double what they were back then.
We have healthcare and medical miracles and resuscitations and those things that bring you back to life on the walls everywhere,
including over there on the other side of church.
It's common.
But living under Rome, without hospitals, without modern medicine, death was closer than recovery.
You cut your leg, it might be a death sentence.
They were far more experienced with death.
And arguably, they would have believed in a resurrection less than we might.
But to add to this, no religion at the time in the known world included any expectations or the acceptance of a bodily resurrection.
So, when the leaders of Israel react to Jesus being executed,
they convince Pilate to seal Jesus' tomb and place a guard of Roman soldiers outside.
Not because they were afraid of Jesus coming out.
But because they'd heard what Jesus had said about rising again.
And they worried that the disciples might break in and pretend that Jesus had risen.
If you want to read about that, it's in Matthew 27.
But even though Jesus had promised that he would rise, his disciples themselves had no belief the resurrection was possible.
They made no attempt to fake it.
Nobody in their right mind would create a story at the time based on resurrection.
And that brings us to doubt too.
The accounts of what happened must be fake.
This assumes that the disciples in Luke created a lie,
knowing that a Jewish audience would accept a resurrection.
That's the assumption.
Surely God's people expected their Messiah to rise.
Well, according to modern day scholar N.T. Wright,
there was no promise in the Old Testament of a bodily resurrection at all.
Not one.
The only similar resurrection is in Daniel 12 on the screen, verses 2 and 3.
But it describes God's people rising together.
Potentially the end of all things.
With bodies that shine.
Nothing like this mundane, normal body of Jesus that we've just heard about.
Jesus' resurrection would have been the least believable lie that the disciples could tell.
Luke is reporting eyewitness testimony that we must, just like them, either believe or make an alternative argument.
You could start by trying to argue that, thirdly, the disciples didn't really believe Jesus had risen.
And there's two reasons that doesn't make sense either.
Firstly, some who were in that room in Luke 24 died testifying that Jesus was risen from the dead.
Is a lie worth dying for?
And they didn't just get killed because of their faith.
They faced death with joy.
Christians were known at the time to be hunted down and brutally killed while singing.
They were joyful.
They had the confidence that this was not going to be their end.
That they too would be raised because they'd seen Jesus raised.
And secondly, they lost the tomb.
You can go to Jerusalem nowadays and you can pay money to see a tomb of Jesus.
But there's no historical proof that that's the one.
And the reason why we don't know where the tomb is is because the disciples lost it.
No one cared.
Church leaders ever since had graves that were venerated.
People wrote down the date when they died and marked the place where they had been buried.
People traveled long distances to pay respects to their church fathers.
But the followers of Jesus completely forgot about Jesus' final resting place because he didn't have one.
The disciples really believed that Jesus rose from the dead as a real person.
And fourthly, they did not just have a spiritual experience.
If you doubt that Jesus physically rose again in this passage, I offer you this.
Did you think it was weird that Jesus asked to eat some fish?
Why is this broiled fish story in there?
It's so strange.
Literature experts say that these kinds of verses in Luke prove that he's trying to convey history.
Not write a myth or a legend.
Because it makes no sense.
Jesus either stood on the floor, talked, showed them the scars of his execution,
and then asked to eat something and ate in front of them,
or Luke's a crazy, terrible myth writer.
It's far more likely, in fact, I believe it is true,
that Luke is writing down what the disciples and he believe is the truth of what happened.
That's Luke's testimony.
Jesus is no ghost.
He's eating.
And Luke himself was talking to fellow Gentiles,
knowing how outrageous Jewish religion was to the rest of the world already.
So he would never tell something so outrageous and unbelievable
is someone being provably killed and executed,
and then on the third day rising to life and asking for some dinner?
Unless it happened.
You can't argue that there's only a spiritual resurrection.
And as Jesus says in the first 39,
a ghost has not flesh and bones, as you see I have.
Either the resurrection and all Christianity itself
is an illogical lie made up by insane people
that no one would expect or believe to be true.
or it's true.
Either unbelievable nonsense or unbelievable hope.
So let's see if Jesus can resurrect your hope in himself.
And you might be like the disciples,
a little frightened, troubled, confronted even.
Even as doubts rise in your minds,
just like the disciples,
Jesus wants to prove to you that he is really him.
Look at my hands and my feet.
It is I myself.
Touch me and see.
Jesus really is himself.
The friendship of God
that the disciples had experienced
was back on.
Hope is resurrected in front of them.
Jesus' physical body has been restored,
not replaced.
As he chewed fish and was held down by gravity,
just like my hand here,
and breathed the stuffy air,
it's a bit nicer than it would have been
in that locked room hiding from the Jews
in that space.
Jesus was recognisable
by sight and sound.
And he was touchable,
flesh and bone like you and I.
The disciples had their friendship
with Jesus resurrected.
One of the best parts about living in this city
is enjoying food together.
It is one thing that has always been a part
of living in this community.
I have had the privilege
of going around to your houses
and you giving me a meal.
And that felt like an extension of
I want to be your friend.
I want to get to know you.
And that is wonderful.
But it was so much deeper than that back then.
If you ate with someone,
it was an invitation into friendship
that everyone understood.
And when Jesus ate the fish,
know that he didn't have to do that.
It doesn't mean he was hungry.
It means he wanted to show
that he wanted friendship,
that we can have him back.
And if you are someone
that has a sense that
there's a somebody out there
who's going to complete you,
think of Jerry Maguire
or any movie or book
or like pretty much every story
has this longing in it.
We're trying to find that person
or we can never find that person
or we're dealing with the grief
of losing that special person.
Jesus is that person
who can bear the weight
of all of our expectations
of that special someone.
Even if you have someone
in your life right now
who comes pretty close
and won't be sitting next to you.
Death always separates,
but Jesus never dies.
And he is saying,
you can have me for real, forever.
Our relationship with him
will continue face to face
for eternity.
Jesus is really with us.
He's not an imagined presence
that we sometimes speak of in grief
when someone dies.
They're looking down on us.
No, Jesus is really alive
alive and one day
will be physically present with you
for he will raise you up
like him
to be with him.
And he proves
the depth of his love
for his friends
in his scars
on his hands
and his feet.
He says,
touch me
and see.
And he showed them
his hands
and his feet.
the scars
that bear the nail marks
of crucifixion
on his physical body,
he still has them
right now.
They're scars
that show us
that Jesus didn't just die
for himself
in some kind
of self-justifying act
before God
as a martyr.
No,
they prove
his suffering
achieved something
for his followers.
He suffered
on their behalf.
He achieved
forgiveness
of them.
Steve mentioned
this on Friday.
Jesus' scars
are like
our receipt.
There I claim
that our debt
of sin
is paid.
Just like
when we leave the store
and we're holding
on to our receipt.
This is our ticket
to freedom.
We're not going
to get tackled
by a security guard.
We have proved
that Jesus
has paid
our debt
of sin.
When we hold
Jesus' scarred hands
one day,
we will hold
the receipt
that our debt
for sin
is paid.
His scars
are hope
also
for our own
scars.
if you are
suffering
through life.
It might be
pain,
illness,
physical,
mental,
events in the past,
trauma in the past,
things happening
right now.
All of what
you face
one day,
you will see
how it matters.
you might not
be aware
of it yet,
but one day,
if you follow
Jesus,
you will
one day
be you
in your body
restored
beyond your
tears
and your
troubles
and your
story will
continue.
It will not
be deleted
and you will
step out
of your
suffering,
carrying your
language
and your
personhood
into the
physical
embrace
of Jesus
scarred
hands.
Your scars
on that
day
will be
shown as
worth it
following
Jesus
and his
scars
are proof
to you
of that.
And you
will never
have to be
apart from
Jesus
like Jesus
was
from his
father
and from
his
disciples
for those
three days.
And the
proof of
this is
that
Jesus
passes
through
walls.
Here's an
interesting
question that
I found in
my reading
in the last
few weeks.
I don't
think I'd
ever just,
it's so
simple,
but I'd
never thought
about it.
Why was
the stone
rolled away
from the
tomb?
Why was
the stone
rolled away
from the
tomb?
According to
this passage,
it's not so
Jesus could
get out.
Walls
couldn't hold
him,
he was
physically
resurrected,
and yet
he can
never be
limited by
something like
a stone
or a
wall.
The stone
was rolled
away,
not so
Jesus could
get out,
but so we
could see
it was
empty.
Jesus could
have knocked
on the
door of
this room
with his
fearful
disciples
inside.
After all,
he's not
a ghost,
but he
wanted to
show his
disciples that
he could be
with them
anywhere,
in the
darkest hour
of their
life,
in the
darkest hour
of their
soul.
There is
no limitation
for Jesus
Christ.
He will
be with
you.
Just like
Jesus didn't
need to
eat the
fish to
show that
he was
himself,
he wanted
to.
And unlike
Lazarus,
who died
again,
Jesus,
the death
has lost
its grip
on Jesus.
Jesus can
disappear,
as happened
before the
very eyes
of the two
on the road
to Emmaus,
and he
can
reappear.
He lives
in a
realm beyond
decay and
limits.
He isn't
like any
other religious
founder,
or any
other
resurrected
person.
He will
never be
held back
from his
people.
We no
longer need
a temple
or a
priest to
get close
to God.
We have
Jesus
himself.
But none
of this
lands as
true for
his audience
yet.
Even with
all this
before them,
the disciples
didn't believe
the women,
the returning
to,
even Peter,
and now
they can't
even believe
their eyes,
even with
Jesus in
front of
them.
And so
Jesus
needed,
needed to
open their
minds so
they could
understand.
Look at
verse 45.
Don't
downplay the
spiritual
experience of
believing in
Jesus'
resurrection.
Luke has
given us
evidence for
it, yet
we now
still need
the same
power to
open our
minds and
illuminate these
scriptures today
as the
disciples did in
that room,
or else
we're going
to stay
just like
Jesus'
followers in
verses 41.
at best,
we can be
joyful and
amazed,
but stuck
in unbelief.
So Jesus
opened their
minds to
the word
of God
and the
truth in
it about
himself,
gifting
them
understanding
that carried
with it
belief.
And it's
specific
belief in
Jesus,
that he
is the
one who
fulfills
all that
the Old
Testament
promised,
that he
rose from
the grave
on the
third day,
and that
forgiveness
of sins
comes through
repentance
in his name.
God
today,
you do not
have to
have all
the answers,
all the
understanding,
but if you
believe that
Jesus was
raised from
the dead,
and that
his scars
have the
power to
offer
forgiveness
from sins,
sins,
then you
need only
turn and
repent
and believe
in him.
You will
receive
everything in
Jesus,
eternal life
with God
and a
living hope
that puts
all the
struggles and
darkness of
this world
in a
perspective
that goes
beyond it.
Nothing
else can
offer you
that.
Jesus
has
reasoned
with our
anxious
minds,
and he's
come near
to those
who are
disconnected,
and he's
given them
belief,
and for
all those
who believe
in Jesus,
he also
destroys
our confusion
at what
is going
on in the
world,
what do
we do
with our
life,
and our
hopelessness,
and graciously
gives us
purpose.
Have a look
at verse
48.
You are
witnesses to
these things,
Jesus says.
Witnesses
testify.
They
testify.
Think of
it this
way.
There have
been countless
people from
that moment
in that
room to
now who
have testified
of the
truth of
Jesus raised
from the
dead.
Think of
it like a
chain.
I'm thinking
of one of
those big
industrial
chains that's
like holding
a ship
in place
on the
dock.
Huge,
big chain.
Each link
leads out
of that
room
with these
followers.
It leads
out across
history,
across
hundreds of
generations
of believers
who have
each carried
the gospel
to the
world to
witness what
they've
seen.
not in
the room
on that
day,
for there
were only
a few,
but what
they have
seen through
the testimony
of the
Bible.
And that
chain has
led all
the way
into this
room.
We're still
connected.
And this
happens because
Jesus'
followers have
a purpose,
and it's
three things.
Spirit,
the word,
and the
plan.
First,
Jesus promises
that we
will be
clothed
with power
from on
high,
verse 49.
And this
is a
reference to
the coming
of the
Holy Spirit.
The Spirit
is God
with us
wherever
we are,
not just
wherever
Jesus stood.
Because when
he's in
that room,
that's where
God is.
That's how
to be
close to
him.
But there
is an
unbreakable
connection
with God
through the
Spirit that
every Christian
wears like
a garment
that empowers
us to
achieve
Jesus'
purpose.
The
confidence
the disciples
discovered
through the
Spirit was
like having
Jesus with
them every
moment of
their life.
He is
with us
in the
Spirit.
And that
same Spirit
speaks through
the Scriptures.
It's the
Word of
God in
the Bible.
It guides
our life
and it
is our
message.
And Jesus
is specific
again.
What words
in particular?
His
summary in
verse 44
refers to
the law
of Moses,
the prophets
and the
Psalms.
And that's
a description
of how the
Jewish Bible,
what we now
call the
Old Testament,
was structured.
The law,
the prophets
and the
writings.
All of
that,
that we now
call the
Old Testament,
everything in it
points to
Jesus.
And it's
also the
words spoken
through the
apostles and
the eyewitnesses
to Christ in
the New Testament.
It's the
activity of the
Holy Spirit
that inspired the
prophets,
historians,
and the early
church who
witnessed these
things.
See,
Christians find
hope for
living in the
Bible.
We're like
trees,
reliant on
the sap
of Scripture.
All of
us came to
faith through
words spoken
by the
Spirit in
the Bible
because we
were not in
the room
with Him.
And as
the Spirit
empowers us
to share
the words of
Scripture,
we are given
a plan,
a plan to
share it
with the
world.
And the
plan is
clear.
Verse 47
says,
It's a
plan that
we partner
with God
in while
He works
the miracle
of saving
the world
along the
way.
And Luke
himself knew
about the
Spirit,
the Word,
and the
plan.
He knew
because people
from that
room
followed
Jesus'
plan.
The
gospel of
Jesus had
reached Luke
where he
was,
countries
away,
speaking a
different heart
language.
And he was a
Gentile,
he was an
enemy of
the Jews,
but he
found out
that Jesus
rose to
give him a
living hope.
back in
chapter 1
of Luke,
Luke tells
us why
he's gone
and wrote
all this
down.
It's to
bring certainty
about what
he had
heard,
to go
directly to
the eyewitnesses
and report
back.
And Luke
calls those
eyewitnesses,
the people he
spoke to,
or the people
who he heard
about Jesus
from,
servants of
the word.
I think
that's a
beautiful
description
of the
purpose of
Jesus'
people,
to be
servants
of the
word.
And how
thankful we
should be
to Luke
that a
servant of
the word
himself,
nearly 2,000
years later,
we are
hearing from
eyewitnesses
through his
journalism.
And Luke,
at the
beginning of
his gospel,
started by
reporting what
happened in
the temple.
When
Zechariah was
the first to
hear of the
good news of
the coming
Messiah, and
Luke finishes
his gospel back
at the temple.
Look at verse
51 and on to
the end of
this book.
Jesus ascended
into heaven
physically,
visibly,
as if ascending
to the throne,
the throne of
heaven, and
then he was
gone from
their sight.
But this
time with
Jesus gone,
the disciples
were joyful,
continually, it
says.
They went to
the temple
praising God.
Their
darkness was
gone.
And they
went to the
temple where
they could be as
close to God as
possible,
grateful that
their Messiah
had risen,
and they
were waiting
for the
Spirit to
come.
And from
that point
on, once
the Spirit
came, they
went everywhere.
They didn't
need to go to
the temple
anymore.
They went
from hiding
in the
darkness,
anxious,
disconnected,
and confused,
to believing
united and
purposeful.
Jesus is a
hope for
living.
It's a
living hope.
No person
need live
without hope
and without
God in
the world.
Anxious,
disconnected,
and confused.
No person
need fear
that we
can't know
the author
who created
this story.
So let the
resurrection of
Jesus confront
your mind and
your heart
and your
whole life.
There is
one who has
defeated the
darkness of
sin and death
and rose to
life, who
now offers
the light
of life
to you.
So repent
today and
find forgiveness
in him and
a living hope.
ending