Easter Sunday • 2025

Amen, church.

Well, he is risen.

He is risen indeed.

Hallelujah.

Well, my name is Justin.

For those of you who don't know me, I'm one of the pastors here at Sacred Mission, and it is my joy and privilege to be able to bring God's word to you this Easter morning.

We're in Luke, and we're looking at Luke's account of the resurrection.

And we enter this morning after having Jesus already been buried.

He was buried in the tomb of this man named Joseph of Arimathea.

Joseph was a wealthy disciple of Jesus who had asked Pilate if he could have the body of Jesus for a proper burial.

You see, it was custom for Rome to put on display their authority and power by leaving their victims of crucifixion hanging on the cross for predators to come and devour.

And so Joseph, not desiring to see his beloved rabbi come to such a fate, he asked if he could have his body.

And him and this man named Nicodemus.

Nicodemus, he was a Pharisee and a member of the Sanhedrin, this leader of the Jews.

They wrapped Jesus with linen.

They placed him in Joseph's own purchased tomb where no one had yet been laid, soon after Jesus died on that Friday afternoon.

And then there's the women.

Luke introduces us to them.

The women, Mary, Magdalene, Joanna, who was the wife of Chusa, Herod's household manager, who had been healed by Jesus himself.

There was the other Mary, Mary, the mother of Jesus, and the other woman with them.

They had prepared these spices and perfumes to mask the odor of decay and to temporarily preserve Jesus' body before his complete burial.

And the Gospel of Luke tells us that they rested and refrained from ministering to Jesus' dead body after his crucifixion on that Friday because it was not permitted according to Jewish law.

You were not able to perform burials on the Sabbath.

The Sabbath that starts on Friday evening and ends on Saturday evening.

And so the women having laid Jesus in the tomb with Joseph and Nicodemus, preparing this preservation of his body, they rested on Saturday, and then Sunday morning they come to the tomb in the garden.

Verse 2.

They found the stone rolled away from the tomb.

But when they went in, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.

I think it's proper for us to try and put ourselves in the place of the women as much as we're able to this morning.

You saw his flesh torn from his body.

You saw him pierced onto the cross of crude timber.

You saw him lifted up and die.

You saw his side pierced with blood and water flowing down.

You saw them dropping him from this torture device, wrapped up, put in this hewn tomb, and you come there ready, ready to minister, ready to pay honor and respect, ready to mourn and weep.

And all of a sudden, you see the stone that was rolled against the opening of this tomb to seal its contents gone.

They approach the tomb and they see that the stone has been removed from its place and that the entrance of the tomb is now exposed and open.

And as they go inside to investigate it just a little further, they notice that the body of Jesus is missing from where it had been laid.

How would you feel in that moment?

What would be racing through your mind?

I I love the language Luke uses in his account.

In verse 4, it says this while they were perplexed.

I don't think that that English translation gives weight to what is actually happening here in the heart and mind of these women.

You see, the word perplexed, it communicates something bigger and more intentional.

It's this sense of emptiness, of being in want.

It's a loss that is felt deep in the soul, that what you had thought you would find and discover in your searching wasn't there.

You see, they were at a complete loss because they expected to see a dead body in the place where you lay dead things to rest.

But that's not what they discovered that morning.

I think this state of perplexity shows us that they still did not believe nor remember fully the teaching and promises of Jesus concerning his death and resurrection.

Imagine their state of confusion.

They could have only speculated as to what might have happened to their beloved rabbi.

We had just laid him here only 24 hours ago.

We had put him to rest Friday evening.

What is going on?

Where could he be?

Anxious and trembling, there in that moment they hear a voice call out to them, Why do you seek the living among the dead?

You see, as they stood there perplexed, empty, they're met by these two angels who pose to them a very pointed question.

Why do you seek the living among the dead?

What a crazy question to ask these women.

They had come to the tomb that morning to mourn and grieve.

They had come to delay the rotting process of a corpse.

They had come to contemplate what life was now going to be like without their rabbi, without his direction, without his teaching, without his fellowship.

They came looking for the dead.

You see, they simply had assumed that Jesus would be right where they had left him.

And then the men answer their own rhetorical question.

He's not here.

He is risen.

You see, Jesus wasn't there in the tomb where they had left him because he wasn't dead anymore.

It's that simple and mind-boggling at the same time.

Only dead things lie in dead places.

Why would he be in this tomb?

He's not dead, he's risen.

Jesus wasn't there in the tomb where they had left them.

And the men call the women to remember, right?

They try to jar their memory back to his teaching and promises.

Remember what he had told you would happen.

Remember the promises that he made to you.

You see, the women's doubt that morning was not due to their circumstance.

It wasn't due to what they were observing with their own eyes and experiencing within their hearts.

No, their doubt, their confusion, their anxiousness and worry, it was due to their forgetfulness of Jesus' promises.

He had told them this would happen.

That this was something that he communicated from the very beginning of his public ministry.

We see all the way back in the Gospel of John at the wedding feast of Cana, as Jesus is sitting there in this sobriety and so and somberness, and everyone else is celebrating, being glad off of the wine of which he has created through his own miraculous power.

They ask him, What's going on, Jesus?

No, no, no.

My hour hasn't come yet.

You don't get it.

I'm looking forward to something else.

I came here for a purpose to die and rise to new life that you might have forgiveness of sin.

You see, they had forgotten these things.

But when the men who stood at the entrance of the tomb jarred their memory, what did they do?

It says that they got up and they ran to tell the other followers of Jesus.

Verse 11.

As they told the disciples and the other followers of Jesus, it says this, but these words seemed to them just an idle tale.

They did not believe them.

When the apostles and the rest of Jesus' followers heard the report of the women, they settled in their hearts that it was just an idle tale.

I think it's interesting what Luke is doing, and I think he may be doing this very intentionally.

You see, the language for idol actually means empty also.

They thought the woman's report was empty.

They thought that their story of an empty tomb was itself absence of any substance, that it was just an idle tale.

It was ultimately an empty fable, and so they don't believe them.

Now, pay attention to who's who's not believing them.

They were the ones who not only heard his teachings on morality, his teachings on justice and righteous living, right?

But but they also heard his parables and prophecies.

They had heard his promises and claims of his coming death and resurrection.

And they're sitting there hearing the report of these faithful women.

And they look at them and say, it's just an empty story you're telling.

What does this possibly tell us about Jesus' disciples in this moment?

What are we being invited into observe?

Maybe it's that they accepted Jesus' teachings, but they actually spurned his prophecies.

Maybe they received from Jesus what benefited them, but ultimately they rejected him, who he truly was, what he had truly come to accomplish.

Maybe they were willing to listen to what seemed right in their own understanding, but they ultimately refused what seemed irrational or impossible.

Maybe at the end of the day they resolved to accept that he was simply a good teacher, a rabbi of rabbis, but he was not the Messiah that they had hoped for.

I mean, he's dead.

Isn't he?

Any way you try to look at it, what we have to understand is that there was a part of Jesus that they were willing and able to accept, but there was a bigger, infinitely more important part of who he was that they couldn't.

The very notion of an empty tomb was nothing more than an empty fable.

Because to them Jesus was dead, and so was their hope along with him.

Verse 12, but Peter.

You gotta love Peter.

He's just reckless, he's the one that's always gonna step out in faith and see for himself.

But Peter rose and ran to the tomb.

Stooping and looking in, he saw the linen claws by themselves and he went home marveling at what had happened.

You see, when Peter got to the tomb in the garden that morning, he stooped down and he looked in and he saw the linen claws that once wrapped and bound Jesus' body lying by themselves.

It was then.

At that sight of the crumpled up linen, that Peter was able to run away, marveling at what he had seen.

And I think this helps us to examine and contemplate something this morning.

Here's where I think that this text helps us to consider our own hearts.

There is no life among dead things.

There is no life among dead things.

Look at what Luke is doing here.

Jesus had promised that he would die and be raised to new life.

The women, they're coming to the entrance of this tomb.

They are to minister to the corpse of their dead rabbi, and these two men ask them with such curiosity, such a very detailed question: why are you here?

Why do you seek life among dead things?

And then the men, right?

Well, Luke says that these women stand there empty.

They came to the tomb thinking that they were going to discover and find something, and they're left with this feeling of loss and emptiness and want.

They weren't discovering what they had hoped that they would see there.

And then the men, right, when they hear the report and the story of what the woman has seen, Jesus is no longer there.

These angels, they spoke to us.

They said he's risen from the dead, he's alive.

These men look at these faithful women and say, your words are empty, not the grave, it's your fabled story that you're creating.

You see, I believe that this pointed question.

was an effort to shake them from their perplexed state and cause them to realize the vanity of their search efforts.

They were never going to find Jesus in that tomb that morning because true life doesn't reside in the dead, in the tomb of dead things.

In this moment, it reveals a deep truth about our own tendency to search.

We search for life, purpose, and meaning in the places of this world that cannot sustain it.

We try to find these things in fleeting pleasures, in material pursuits, in broken systems.

Ultimately, the human condition is one of seeking to find life amongst the tombs of this world.

And the resurrection of Jesus reminds us that true life is found not in the tombs of our expectations, but in the living Christ who has conquered death and has risen from the tomb of despair.

Though Jesus himself was acquainted with death by dying on the cross, just days later, he alone triumphs as the source of true and everlasting life for all who believe.

Who don't just see the story of Jesus as an empty fable, but as the source of all hope.

Because the fullness of life walked out on Resurrection Sunday.

But yet, this is our story.

This is what we are so prone to as people.

We seek life.

We seek after life from dead things.

We seek after life from dead things.

There's a lot of us here, we're like the women in this story.

In a way that we we we look for life and purpose and meaning.

We hope to discover life where only death resides.

And too often our own fear, our anxiety, our stress, our doubt, it floods our hearts because we're standing at the entrance of this tomb perplexed.

Like, how many things in this world that you've sought to find life from, that you sought to find meaning and purpose from, have left you standing there empty.

It wasn't able to deliver what it had promised.

It wasn't able to come through and satisfy what you had longed for it to.

No, you're standing at the entrance of a tomb of this world, hoping that it's going to actually fill you, and there's no life inside of it.

It's just a rotting corpse.

You see, we we do this for religion.

We think we can come to the tomb of religion and find life in its rituals and its customs and ceremonies.

But religion has been so corrupted by our hands that it's become nothing more than a mere superstition to simply sedate our guilty conscience.

Because you and I both know, we intrinsically know that there's this chasm that exists between our attempts at being good enough, at striving for good works, and the utter holiness of our God.

But we try to overcome this disparity through ritual or ceremony, through dead religion, rather through the gospel of the living Christ.

So I ask you, why have you come searching here today?

If it's to find life in the tomb of dead religion, you're not gonna find it.

You might sedate your conscience momentarily, but inside of that tomb is just a rotting corpse.

What about moralism?

Many of us we search among the tombs of this world when we ourselves are whitewashed ones.

You see, we try so hard in this life to mask the stench of our own death with the oil of good works and the perfume of self-righteousness, but you cannot make a corpse smell good for too long.

You see, the scriptures show us that we are dead in our sin and trespasses, that we are unable to actually produce life from these dried-up bones.

Only the resurrection power of God can do such a miracle.

Some of us we believe life will rise out of the ashes of a revolution.

Right?

This is what we're experiencing in our culture right now.

If we can just fabricate and create a revolution big enough, then life is going to actually rise from its ashes.

We hope for and we fight for a cultural revolution that's actually going to turn over the grave, that liberates those who are trapped underneath its oppression.

But this revolution, it's it's brittle bones.

It's brittle bones that will erode back into the earth over time.

This is the cyclical nature of our human history.

We revolt, we have this revolution, we think life is going to be born from these ashes, only to discover that over time death has once again defeated mankind, and we need another uprising.

And then another one, and then another one, and it just keeps going and going.

There is no real life to be.

Be gained in the cultural revolution.

There is just a buying of time before another oppressor comes to stake their claim over you.

The only liberation that can bring life is the liberating power of a risen Savior.

It's an eternal revolution that has already occurred when Jesus overthrew the governing power of sin, death, and the grave.

Many of us believe that we will find life in our material possessions, in our accomplishments and achievements.

We're convinced that life is found in what we possess and what we're able to grasp with our own hands, but we're simply dying alongside dying things.

Things that have no persuasion on the outcome of the grave.

I love Charles Spurgeon, the Prince of Preachers.

He said that six feet of earth make all men equal.

We may accumulate here and now.

You may fill your storehouses with gold.

We may work tirelessly to heap up our own treasures, but in the end, in the end, the tomb will hold you just like it does every single person you look down upon or you stepped over to try and satisfy your own greed.

It's going to hold you the same way.

And it's going to hold you the same way no matter your bank account, no matter your achievements and accomplishments, no matter your stuff or success, the grave will hold you.

Maybe some of us were like the men who found the report of an empty tomb, nothing more than an empty fable.

And you've come here this morning in this search.

But if we're able to really be honest, many of us were searching for truth, but we're guarded.

Right?

We're cautious.

We're unwilling to fully embrace it if we were to actually find it.

Some of us this morning we've run like Peter to the tomb, but it's not been in faith.

It's not been in a genuine curiosity of what we might discover.

We've actually run there this morning in skepticism.

We're unconvinced of the report.

We're unwilling to receive the testimony that the tomb is empty.

We've run there in disbelief, desiring to prove this idle tale as false.

Some of us, we've run to that tomb in enmity.

You're here this morning, but if you're honest with yourself, you're very angry with God.

The circumstances that you're facing in your life, the things that have been taken from you and that you've lost, the absence of these desires being satisfied and met.

You are here this morning and you're angry with God.

And your hope, your hope is to discover something when you run to that tomb this morning.

But your hope is that you will simply see a dead body still rotting there where it lied.

So that you can be affirmed in your indignation.

But maybe some of you here this morning, you're actually running to the tomb this morning in genuine curiosity.

You're wondering, you're seeking, you're hoping that it could possibly be true.

That this could really be true.

But you're simply too afraid of the cost of stepping through the entrance to see it for yourself.

It's easier to not believe for now.

It's easier if this whole thing is just a lie.

I won't have to surrender what I truly want.

I won't have to be obedient.

I won't have to live a life for someone else.

I can continue to live it for myself.

It's easier in the here and now if the gospel account of his resurrection is actually the empty fable we hope that it is.

But that is so momentary.

What seems easy now is eternally burdensome.

My challenge this Easter is to walk in.

And like Peter, gaze upon the linen cloth that is lying crumpled on the ground and walk away in amazement this morning.

See that death's bounds have been released on Jesus.

See that he is not here because he has risen just as he said.

You see, my hope for us is that we stop stumbling around in the tombs of this world, hoping to find life.

Because true life is only found in the very one who has conquered death.

Jesus is not dead, for he has risen.

Let me submit this to you this morning.

This right here, this is the reason why Jesus alone is the only one whom we're able to find the life that we so desperately long for.

It all hinges on the resurrection.

You see, if Jesus is still dead, then he's like every other dead thing that we try to find life in.

And so this world becomes simply a smorgasbord for you to find your own pathway of truth and fulfillment and satisfaction.

But let me tell you something.

As you search those tombs of this world, you're going to stand like the women on that Sunday morning in the garden, empty and perplexed that you were never able to find what you had hoped was in there.

The resurrection is the reason.

Because Jesus is not a rotting corpse lying in a tomb.

He is the one, the only one, who got up out of the grave and has risen and conquered death.

And now we can seek him, not among the tombs, but we seek him in life because he is life.

You see, if Jesus was still dead, his tomb would simply be one of the many that we search for a sign of something living.

He himself would just be an empty fable that we could never trust to actually come through on his promises.

But the call of the gospel is this: stop looking for life among the dead.

Stop looking for life among the tombs of this world because Jesus, the true and faithful life of men, walked out of the tomb that tried to hold him.

The Lord Jesus is risen, church.

So why do we continue to seek the living among the dead things of this world?

Why do we continue to stumble around in the darkness of our sin?

Why do we run to tomb after tomb of hopelessness and despair, convinced that this time we're actually going to find life in it?

Church, let us run to Jesus.

Let us seek the living one that we might rise with him out of the deadness of our sin and into the everlasting life that he has victoriously purchased and accomplished for us.

My prayer for you this Easter is that we would seek life from Jesus.

You see, the empty tomb stands as a resounding call to stop seeking life among the dead things of this world.

Like the women who came to anoint a lifeless body, we often stumble into the tombs of dead religion, moralism, revolution, prosperity, hoping to find purpose and life.

We run with skepticism, anger, fleeting curiosity, only to stand perplexed at the emptiness of it all.

But hear the angel's question echo in your heart today, right here and now.

Why do you seek the living among the dead?

Jesus is not here.

He is risen just as he said he would.

You see, the resurrection is our unshakable proof that true life is found only in him who conquered death.

So stop stumbling.

Stop stumbling in the darkness of sin.

Stop chasing the fleeting promises of this world.

Church, run to Jesus.

Run to Jesus, the living one who has triumphed over the grave and offers you everlasting life in Him.

The Lord Jesus is risen.

Amen.

Seek Him and live.

Let's pray.