How perverse are the sinful hearts of men. When Jesus was dying on the cross the leaders had taunted him, saying, “Let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him” (Matt. 27:42). But now Jesus had done something even greater than that. He had been raised from death. Did they believe in Him? Of course not. They could not believe because they would not believe.
How perverse are the sinful hearts of men. When Jesus was dying on the cross the leaders had taunted him, saying, “Let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him” (Matt. 27:42). But now Jesus had done something even greater than that. He had been raised from death. Did they believe in Him? Of course not. They could not believe because they would not believe.
We concluded yesterday by looking at what we should see when we look into Christ’s empty grave. I had pointed out the first three of the five Spurgeon mentions. We’ll continue that in today’s lesson with the fourth point, the most important one. We must look into the tomb to see that Jesus is not in it. He is risen, as He said. He has conquered death.
At this point, however, neither Peter nor John had seen the resurrected Lord. He was seen by the women first, those who had been last at the cross and were now first at the tomb. Jesus met them on their way home after they had gone to the tomb, seen the angels, and heard about Jesus’ resurrection. The angel’s message contains four imperatives which are as important for us as they were on that first Easter day for those women (vv. 6-7).
On reaching the tomb they were astonished to find that the stone had been moved from the entrance. We can imagine them standing at a distance, afraid to go close, wondering what had happened. Who had moved the stone? Had the body of Jesus been stolen? Grave robbing was a common crime in the ancient world. Perhaps the robbers were still around. Or had Pilate ordered the body’s removal? What should they do? At last they decided the disciples should be told. So Mary Magdalene was sent back to the city to find them. Not one of them imagined that Jesus had been raised from the dead.
The only resurrection that counts for anything is a resurrection of the body. The disciples knew Jesus’ resurrection was real when they touched His body, and it was only because of their deeply grounded conviction that He was raised that they were willing to launch out from their obscure corner of the earth to the whole of the Roman world with the Gospel.
In 1989, Westerners were astounded by the political changes in Eastern Europe. Country after country repudiated its seventy-two-year Communist heritage and replaced its leaders with democratically elected officials. We rejoiced in these changes, rightly. But, though the American media with its blindness to things spiritual will not tell us, the changes in the Eastern bloc have not come about by the will of one person, Mikhail Gorbachev or any other, but by the spiritual vitality of the people.
If there is a God and if he has made us to have eternal fellowship with him, then we are going to look at failure, suffering, pain and even death differently. For the Christian these can never be the greatest of all tragedies. They are bad. Death is an enemy (1 Cor. 15:26). But they are overbalanced by eternal matters.
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