Luke: Jesus' Resurrection Changes Everything (24:36-49)

Hello, friends.

This is Pastor Creighton.

Thank you for tuning in to Newsong Church's Sermon Podcast.

At Newsong Church, we want to see Jesus lifted high in Port Perry, Ontario, as we worship, grow, and serve.

You can learn more about us and find contact info at newsongportperry.ca.

This is the holy gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Luke.

Glory to you, Lord Christ.

As the disciples were talking about these things, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, Peace to you.

But they were startled and frightened, and thought that they saw a spirit.

And Jesus said to them, Why are you troubled?

And why do doubts arise in your heart?

See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself.

Touch me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones, as you see that I have.

Then he said to them, These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.

Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and said to them, Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer, and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.

You are my witnesses of these things, and behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you.

But stay in the city until you're clothed with power from on high.

This is the gospel of the Lord.

Praise to you, Lord Christ.

Thus it is written that the Christ should suffer, and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name.

Let's pray.

Not just to discover a few interesting trivia facts, but to behold our risen Lord Jesus.

That our hearts may be filled with hope.

And that we look forward to his coming again in glory with great anticipation.

What a wonderful, glorious day that'll be, Lord.

Open up our eyes, open up our hearts, and we pray in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Please be seated.

So every year it uh seems to me that Christmas arrives a little bit earlier.

Not December 25th.

That stays pretty steady.

But uh every year I notice Christian merch or Christian merchandise, Christmas merchandise uh in the stores earlier and earlier.

It used to be late November.

We now see it in early November.

Now we're seeing it in October.

My sister-in-law in the UK says in September it's all been put out on the shelves.

And there's something about um, I mean, I'm not really one to notice Christmas merchandise per se, but I do know it's coming out earlier and earlier every year because Rachel points out the Christmas inflatables on the shelf earlier and earlier every year.

And I confess I have a complicated relationship with Christmas inflatables.

Um not with your inflatables, they're great.

But with the inflatables on my lawn, I have a complicated relationship with them.

But I love my wife even more than I dislike having fun.

So we've got a few Christmas inflatables soon to be put up on our lawn.

But year for year I noticed them on the shelves, and I noticed them earlier and earlier.

When you notice Christmas inflatables on the shelf in early October, you get this weird out-of-season feeling.

Like this is just out of order somehow.

And maybe we've been feeling like Christmas inflatables are on the shelf these last couple weeks going through Holy Week in Luke.

Christmas is in two weeks.

What the heck are we doing going through Holy Week?

We did Palm Sunday, Triumphal Entry.

Last Sunday we, no, pardon me, the the Sunday after that, we did the betrayal and arrest on Maundy Thursday.

Last Sunday, Matt took us through the crucifixion, Good Friday.

Now here we are in Easter text, and don't you know, Creighton, it's two weeks to Christmas?

What are the Christmas inflatables doing out so early?

Well, on the one hand, I have to admit, I didn't really think this through when I put together the sermon schedule last summer.

Uh, not realizing the proximity there, but the more I think about it, and the more I've opened up our text uh this morning, the more I've realized what better way is there to enter into Christmas than with the hope of Easter?

Because there is no Christmas without Easter, right?

There's no reason to celebrate the birth of this child if this child wasn't raised for us and for our salvation.

So if we can glimpse that in our text this morning, then we get to go into Christmas with that much more hope.

That much more full, that much more rich.

You know, most sermons I prepare, I've got three points and an application.

This sermon, I've got one point and three applications.

Because I think Luke has one point in mind for us, and it's this Jesus was actually, physically, historically, bodily raised.

Jesus was actually, physically, historically, bodily raised from the dead.

Death could not hold him, but on the third day he rose again, and he did so bodily.

And that means, I think, at least three things for us.

I think Luke's has at least three things in mind for us.

The fact that Jesus was raised bodily means three things.

We can become a hopeful people as his disciples, we can become a Bible people as his disciples, and we can become a go and tell people.

A hopeful people, a Bible people, a go and tell people.

That's the three things that, well, this text has in mind because when we encounter the resurrection, we encounter the gospel.

The gospel is good news.

That's literally what it means.

It's not good advice.

It's not here's what you do to, you know, make God uh put that extra fry in your McDonald's bag, so to speak, right?

It's like, you know, here's the here's what you do to just get a little bit more of his favor, get him working a little bit more on your side.

The gospel is good news.

It's not a good advice about how to live your life in such a way that God's pleased with it.

It's it is good news what God has done on your behalf to reconcile you with himself, to give you hope in his son Jesus.

So this is news for us, this is good news for us.

That our Savior was risen from the dead, and the fact that he was raised changes everything.

It changes everything.

Jesus was actually, physically, historically, bodily raised for us and for our salvation.

So open up your scriptures, open up the Bible to Luke chapter 24, verse 36.

Luke 24:36

And we're gonna look at uh well, we're gonna we're gonna see this.

We're gonna see Luke lay this out for us.

Jesus is actually bodily raised.

And Luke makes it so clear he wants to rule out any respectable options that we might suggest as alternatives.

I mean, number one, the most respectable alternative to the bodily resurrection of Jesus will be something like this.

Well, Jesus died on Good Friday, that's true, but dead people have a way of staying dead.

Like it's not death isn't something we try for a little bit, see if it's for us, and then decide to reverse course.

It's like the first century, folks, they knew just as much as we do.

Dead people stay dead.

We don't get to just say, well, it's just superstition, that's just the culture of the time.

They knew just as well as as we do that death doesn't work that way.

At least not evidently.

So, verse 36, Luke wants to rule this out right off the bat.

As they were talking, the disciples were talking about these things.

They're hearing these reports from women who've seen an empty tomb, from disciples who encountered Jesus along the road to their hometown.

They're seeing the risen Lord Jesus.

Things are being reported of that.

In fact, Jesus isn't staying dead here.

As they're talking about all these things, trying to process them together, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, Peace to you, which is a pretty remarkable thing to say to disciples who literally spent the last few days denying and deserting and trying to save their own necks.

Peace to you is the first thing the Lord says to his disciples.

They didn't earn that peace, they didn't earn that forgiveness, they didn't go crawling back.

Jesus went to them and offered them his peace.

So the claim here is very simple.

This Jesus isn't staying dead.

Okay, well, next respectable option would be something like this.

Well, we know that when the body stops operating, the body doesn't restart, at least not in that time frame.

So if Jesus is visiting his disciples, probably he's doing that as a spirit, a ghost or an apparition, something like that.

And that would be a pretty respectable option for the first century.

It was understood in this context that when the body stopped operating, the immaterial spirit had a way of hanging around the body for a number of days.

It made the funeral uh arrangements so sacred to know that that in some way you're still in the presence of this uh spirit, immaterial spirit, before they make their way to the hereafter.

And so to make the claim that Jesus reappeared as a spirit would make perfect sense in this context.

That would be a perfectly respectable claim to say we were paid a visit by Jesus' spirit.

His body's dead, but his spirit's still, you know, animated in some sense.

And, you know, for us, we think either one of two things, I think.

Either we think uh that's preposterous and superstitious, because we're cool materialists here in, you know, Canada in 2023.

You know, the materialism is a worldview that says basically the material world that we can see and and and touch and measure and manipulate, this is what's real, this is really real, what's material.

And, you know, we we like to say, therefore, we can kind of rule out any immaterial reality.

It's like what we see is what you get.

That's materialism.

And yet we have to explain things like consciousness, which isn't a material reality, but we're very conscious of being conscious, aren't we?

And so now, okay, well, we ought to make some permission for immaterial reality, but maybe it is, maybe it isn't.

I don't really know.

All we can be sure of is what's material here.

And so for us to the claim that Jesus reappeared as a spirit, well, maybe that's reasonable, maybe it's not, because that's an immaterial reality we can't really measure.

Now that that would be true for us in Canada in 2023.

We like to ask each other questions like, do you really believe in ghosts?

And it's amazing when you ask someone that question, you know, who responds what.

We're sort of torn on that.

Is the material reality the only thing that really exists, or is there something more?

We're split on that.

But you go to Bangkok, like I know someone who recently went to Bangkok, and uh, you know, you'll take a tour around the city and you will see uh these little miniature, they almost look like bird houses or doll houses that are placed out in the backyard of just about every place of residence in Bangkok.

And if you're Rachel, you're gonna ask, well, what are these things?

And the tour guide says, Well, these are spirit houses.

These are spirit houses for the spirits of the deceased person who, you know, previously resided at this address.

You don't want them living in the house with you, so you provide them with their own living quarters.

And so, you know, I guess the spirit is like very tiny and like operates you like that little alien in Men in Black or something, but um you know, but here's here's their dwelling.

So, you know, kind of we've got our own living arrangements, right?

And you know, this tour guide is very obviously familiar with giving this tour to Westerners.

I don't know if it was someone on the tour or whatever, just sort of posed a question, like, oh, that yeah, is the likely thing, right?

And this tour guide says, well, you know, the thing is you'll be skeptical until it happens to you.

Which is a pretty ominous thing to say, I think.

But I guess my point is this.

What makes us think that our 2023 Canadian worldview grid is the right grid by which everything else needs to be measured?

We look at scripture, we look at the evidence, and we say, well, the spirit world thing, whatever, it doesn't make sense to me, so it has to be, it would just rule that right out.

I mean, you talk to someone from Bangkok today, and they will tell you exactly the opposite.

So, what makes our grid immediately and evidently superior than anything else?

What makes it better than this first century grid?

I mean, we're torn ourselves on whether or not this could be a possibility, right?

Could Jesus reappear as a spirit?

That would be a respectable claim, if not in our context, then in theirs.

And here's what Luke is saying.

No.

Verse 37.

But they were startled.

The disciples are startled, they were frightened and they thought they saw a spirit.

That's the conclusion they jumped to, because that's what's respectable, that's what's reasonable.

But Jesus said to them, Why are you troubled?

Why do doubts arise in your heart?

See my hands and feet.

It is I myself, touch me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.

See, an immaterial spirit doesn't have the material that we have.

A bodily reality.

That's what Luke is saying here.

He's not making the respectable claim that Jesus reappeared as a spirit.

He's making the outrageous claim that Jesus actually appeared before them, bodily raised from the dead.

Just as bodily as he was crucified, so just as bodily he was raised.

That's the claim.

Now, we've got our own little spin on this interpretation.

You know, Jesus is a spirit, that's a respectable option.

We've got our own little 20th, 21st century spin on that.

And it goes something like this.

Maybe Jesus wasn't an immaterial spirit, you know, who came back from the from the grave or whatever, but maybe Jesus was really, he was more of like a spiritual experience.

It was more like the resurrection was this subjective spiritual experience that the disciples were having.

It was more like the disciples, even though they saw Jesus crucified, and that was a real, you know, hardship, that was a bummer, um, we're we're still feeling hopeful.

We still feel, you know, our hearts are still full of possibility.

And because our hearts are still full of possibility and full of all the good things that he taught, well, it's like we're, it's like, you know, kind of like he's still alive, you know, in that way.

And it becomes this sort of subjective spiritual experience, and the resurrection is a big metaphor for all of this.

And I think Luke would respond to that respectable suggestion in the same way he'd respond to the previous one.

He'd say, Spiritual experiences, don't eat fish and chips.

Verse 41.

While they still disbelieved for joy, disbelieved for joy, this is too good to be true.

The disciples are saying that, bear in mind.

So if we think, well, I'd believe in the resurrection if I saw it for myself, the disciples are seeing it for themselves and they can't believe it.

So who are we to think that we would believe it to ourselves?

Anyway, while the disciples still disbelieved for joy and were marveling, Jesus said to them, Have you anything to eat?

They gave him a piece of broiled fish and he took it and ate it before them because spiritual experiences don't have digestive systems.

Bodies have digestive systems.

That's the claim.

Jesus was actually physically, bodily raised in history, the history we live in.

Jesus is bodily raised in it.

And we need to rule out any possibilities to the alternative here.

Luke is not making a respectable claim that would be easily passed.

He's making the outrageous claim that Jesus actually died and he actually rose.

In 1903, I think it was December, no, pardon me, October 9, 1903, the New York Times published an editorial called Flying Machines Which Do Not Fly.

And this editorial predicted that it would take between 1 and 10 million years for humanity to develop an operating flying machine.

Sixty-nine days after this article's publication, on December 17, 1903, Orville and Wilbur Wright successfully achieved flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.

Now, when that was reported to the New York Times, among other major news outlets, it wasn't published as news for between a week and two weeks.

And you know why?

Because the respectable claim here is it's going to take between one and ten million years to achieve flight.

That's what respectable people believe.

And so surely this report that, you know, these two brothers in backwater, North Carolina achieved flight, that's preposterous.

That's outrageous.

That has to be false.

Okay, the argument here is not the right brothers achieved flight, therefore Jesus rose from the dead.

That's a non-sequitur.

I'm trying to make an observation about human nature here.

We are skeptical, we are doubtful, we are incredulous.

All of these things that the disciples themselves are feeling, by the way, doubtful and disbelieving and troubled.

We feel all of these things, but no matter how strongly we feel these things, it doesn't make the reality any less true.

The New York Times sure felt doubtful that we would achieve flight, but it didn't make the flight that occurred any less true, and it only happens, has to happen once for the outrageous claim to become the true claim.

We have to deal with our own doubtful hearts, but deal with them carefully because just because we foster doubt does not change the reality of the situation.

R.

C.

Sproul writes this: When we say that we believe in the resurrection of Jesus, we are not proclaiming the eternal significance of an idea.

Nor are we saying that Jesus lives on in someone's memory or that his reappearances were simply visionary experiences.

The confession of the Church of Christ for 2,000 years has been and must continual to be an unequivocal conviction of the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Amen.

And that's what we're going to do at Newsong.

Proclaim the bodily resurrection of Jesus.

It changes everything.

That's the one point I think Luke has in mind for us.

When we talk about the resurrection, we're talking about Jesus' body and coming back to life.

We are not talking about anything else.

That means at least three things for us.

Let me go through these.

Number one, Jesus being bodily raised means we become a hopeful people.

One of my favorite images of the resurrection in literature is from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

And if you haven't read The Lion, the Witch in the Wardrobe, do yourself a favor and get it for Christmas.

Because there's no, you're never too old to read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

It is wonderful.

And in The Lion, the Witch in the Wardrobe, the White Witch has uh the magical land of Narnia captive to a perpetual winter.

And um these four pevency children, our heroes, have ventured into Narnia, and Edmund, the second oldest, has has kind of been uh well, he's he's he's allied himself with the white witch, but now he's he's very well become her captive.

That's what he's become.

He got more than he bargained for.

But the great and mighty lion Aslan, the true ruler of Narnia, is back on the scene.

And Asland arranged arranges an exchange with the White Witch.

He'll give his life for Edmund's life, which the White Witch claims is her own.

And he does that.

He makes the exchange, he lets himself be shorn, his mane shorn and humiliated, strapped down to a giant stone table and killed so that Edmund could go free.

And here's where we pick up the story.

At that moment, they, two sisters, Susan and Lucy, uh, heard from behind them a loud voice.

Loud noise, a great cracking, deafening noise, as if a giant had broken a giant's plate.

The stone table is broken in two pieces by a great crack that ran down from one end to end, and there was no Aslan.

The morning after something strange is happening here.

Who's done it?

cried Susan.

What does it mean?

Is it more magic?

Yes, said a great voice from behind their backs.

It is more magic.

They looked around.

There, shining in the sunrise, larger than they had seen him before, shaking his mane because it apparently grown back again, stood Aslan himself.

Oh Aslan, cried both the children, staring up at him almost as frightened as they were glad.

But what does it all mean?

asked Susan.

It means, said Aslan, that though the witch knew the deep magic, there is a deeper magic still, which she did not know.

Her knowledge goes back to the dawn of time, but if she had looked a little further back into the stillness and darkness before time dawned, she would have read that there is a different incantation.

She would have known that when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor's stead, the table would crack, and death itself would start to work backward.

Death itself would start to work backward.

We're a hopeful people.

Lewis is not being subtle here.

Lewis is pointing us to the reality of the situation.

Now that Jesus is bodily raised from the dead, death has begun to work backward.

In any and all circumstances, we have hope.

No matter how our bodies may deteriorate, no matter how imminent or far away our death may seem, no matter the violence or destruction we see in the world around us, death has begun to work backward, and Jesus is ground zero.

And if you are in Christ, life will eventually catch up with your death and tear it to pieces.

We're a hopeful people because Jesus is raised.

We also become a Bible people, and this might not follow as clearly as the first point, but let me flesh this out, verses 44 to 47.

Jesus is explaining the significance of what just took place to the disciples.

These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, the Psalms, shorthand for the whole of Scripture up to that point, all of these things must be fulfilled.

And he opened their minds to understand the scriptures and said to them, Thus it is written that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning in Jerusalem.

The risen Lord Jesus takes them on a Bible study and says, Everything up to this point, all of God's word and scripture points to me and what I will accomplish on your behalf through my cross and through my resurrection.

I am the substance and center of God's word, the living word, right in the midst of us.

Jesus is at the center of the Bible.

The risen Lord Jesus is at the center of the Bible, and therefore we become a Bible people.

The question is: do we read the Bible that way?

Do we read the Bible with Jesus at the center, or do we read it like a self-help book?

23% of Christians, Canadian Christians, agree with the statement that the Bible is relevant to modern life.

And 14% of Canadian Christians read the Bible at least once a week.

So the overwhelming majority of Canadian Christians seem to say that the Bible doesn't have much to say to me.

And I wonder, there's many factors to this, but I wonder if at least one of those factors has to be this that when we open up scripture, we expect ourselves to be at the center of it.

We open up scripture ready for scripture to give me my self-help pep talk for the day, and I take that with me.

We don't open up scripture to expect Jesus in the middle of all that.

I I I I ran a well, I helped to uh teach at a retreat for grades four and five, and I'm not very good at that, but I was down in Texas and working with this age group.

Anyway, the one thing I know is you need lots of visuals, you need lots of examples for this age group.

And so I had a teaching about keeping Jesus at the center of your life, and I set up a pole and I put a big yellow ball on top of that pole, and to that pole I had strings of various lengths, eight of them, you know, attached to smaller balls.

And I got uh, you know, eight kids uh to all kind of hold the ball and and all kind of walk at the same pace and they're kind of orbiting.

And you already see the visual, right?

We're doing the solar system, eight eight balls, because now we've eight planets apparently, but anyway.

So here they are, they're they're all kind of going, and I'm saying, here's how the solar system works, right?

We know this is how it works.

The sun is at the center of everything, and the solar system finds its orbit, right?

But let's say one day planet Earth decided, I think I'm the most important part of this solar system.

I think everything should orbit me now, and I got the kids to name out all the things they love about living on Earth, right?

It's got football and the Dallas Cowboys and all that stuff.

Anyway.

Okay, let's all try and orbit Earth, kids.

And so Earth planted his feet, and then all the kids tried to orbit around, but the strings are still attached to the sun, mind you.

That's the way things are supposed to work.

And you can imagine what happened next.

They all get tangled up, they all crash together, and uh they're laughing and having a good time, and that's great, but I know they get it, and I know they get it for this reason.

One of the kids, one of the olders, looks at me and he's just got this look of sheer frustration on his face that he goes, This isn't working.

Exactly.

It's not supposed to work like that, right?

How often when we open up scripture for ourselves, we think, what I'm about to read orbits me?

Or do we open up scripture and ask, Lord, how do I find my orbit around you today?

If Jesus is the center of scripture, then we will find hope and life and we will find those things that apply to our lives and fill us with all those things, but we will find them when Jesus is at the center of them.

If reading the Bible seems like a fruitless and frustrating exercise for you, I wonder if the place to start is to start by praying, Lord, would you be the center of what I read?

Center my heart in the hope that you have for me.

Because if all of Scripture points to the risen Lord Jesus, the law, the prophets, the Psalms, all these things, then we discover the risen Lord Jesus at the center of it all.

Anyway, lastly, we become a go-and-tell people.

Sharing is the mission, it's not an optional extra.

This is what Jesus says to his disciples.

On this side of the resurrection, you are witnesses of these things.

Behold, I'm sending the promise of my Father upon you, but stay in the city till you're clothed from power on high.

And it's like we're just pivoting right into the book of Acts.

So stay tuned.

Going and telling is the mission.

It's not an optional extra.

It's not for those Christians who really want to go for it, want to go for that A.

This is the mission of the church.

You are witnesses.

The disciples are witnesses with our eyes.

We are disciples, we are witnesses by virtue of the Word of God.

We have beheld the risen Lord Jesus.

He is at the center of our life, the center of our proclamation, and so we bear witness.

We share.

Many of us have three names we're already praying for, that they would know the kingdom of God is drawn near.

We've got Christmas services coming up that make for easy invitations.

I mentioned the word one-for-one as a resource last Sunday, and we're going to dive more into that in the new year.

But there are so many, there are so many possibilities, but how to share, but how to bear witness to this wonderful reality that Jesus is risen, and not just for us, for the world.

Because that's our hope.

Friends, Jesus is actually physically bodily raised.

So if you're here this morning and you're just checking out who this Jesus is, you're just trying to figure him out.

I'm so glad you're here, and I'm so glad that you're sticking with us.

Don't waste your time thinking about alternatives, more respectable options than Jesus rose from the dead bodily.

Consider the claims of his eyewitnesses.

He rose bodily.

Do I believe it or not?

I'm not looking for other options.

It's a yes or a no.

What does it mean to be a hopeful people?

Could the outrageous claim be the true claim?

And if the outrageous claim could be the true claim, how could that change your life?

How could that give you hope in hopeless times?

If you're a growing Christian, you're figuring out what it means to follow Jesus, let me encourage you, have Jesus at the center of your life and at the center of your study of scriptures.

Invite him to be the thing you orbit and we orbit together, and you will discover the liberation it is to find your true orbit around him.

And if you're a committed Christian, if you're saying, I'm a lifelong committed disciple, then pray.

Pray what it means to be a go and tell person, a go and tell people.

Pray for opportunity, pray for zeal, pray for earnestness, pray for anticipation and excitement to share the good news that Jesus is actually physically, bodily raised, and therefore there is no Christmas without Easter.

Amen.

Thank you for listening today.

We worship a generous God who calls us to follow Him in giving willfully, cheerfully, and sacrificially.

Newsong Church's mission and ministry is one hundred percent funded by the generous gifts of those worshiping and journeying with us.

If you'd like to offer a gift towards Newsong's ministry, please visit new songportperry.ca slash giving for more information on how to do that.

May God bless you and keep you today and every day.