Easter | The Empty Tomb | Luke 24

Zach Cunningham preaches an Easter sermon on the resurrection account in Luke 24.

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Welcome again to King's Church. Happy Easter. He has risen. Guys, we're going to thanks for being here. We're so honored, like Drake said, that you joined us, not just on this Easter Sunday, but our very first Easter Sunday as a as a church. If we haven't met, my name is Zach. I'm one of the pastors here, and I'm so excited for this morning because, like Drake said, we are about to do what we always do, which is open the Bible, but we're also going to have something special because right after this sermon, we're going to have three people get up and share their story and get baptized, okay? Which we're very excited about. Yes. It's going to be a great morning. But before we get to the baptisms, let's get to Luke 24. So if you have a Bible, and I hope you do, let's get to Luke 24. And if you're new to the Bible, as we all once were, Luke is a book in the New Testament. And what makes Luke unique is it's one of the four gospel accounts, these narratives, these biographies of the life of Jesus. And we're going to be in the final chapter of Luke, Luke 24, looking at arguably one of the most important 12 verses in the Bible. And before we jump into Luke, maybe I can set us up this morning by sharing some quick numbers that me and my friends saw this week about Easter that are pretty crazy to think about. Okay, here is Easter by the numbers here in America, okay? First of all, in America, every year we spend $20 billion on Easter, okay? $20 billion on Easter, okay, which I found out is the annual budget of NASA. Okay, you guys following the spaceship? Okay, I am. We're locked in, strapped anybody. We're looping the moon tomorrow. Anyways, $20 billion. Okay, let me break it down for you so you can understand where it comes from. $7 billion is spent on Easter food. Okay, think like ham and hot cross buns, whatever that is, and deviled eggs, okay, which is a little bit ironic, okay? Nothing says Jesus defeated Satan, like us defeating a tray of deviled eggs. Crazy. That's it. I found that joke online. Okay, anyways. We spend, okay, I'll keep going. Three billion dollars is spent on Easter clothing. Okay, my family's keeping old Navy in business, okay. Yes, I bought this shirt yesterday, okay? No judgment here. Another three billion is spent just on Easter candy, okay, which uh breaks down to about 16 billion jelly beans, okay, enough to circle the globe three times. They outnumber us, two to one, sixteen billion. Okay, there's also ninety million chocolate bunnies consumed. And then every year, this one's crazy. Okay, every year during Easter season on the daily, 5.5 million peeps are made every single day, okay, which blows my mind. Okay, raise your hand if you actually like peeps. Okay, disgusting, all of you. Anyways, and guys, it's they're turning them out. Since I've mentioned them, thousands have quietly entered the world. Um, I'll wrap it up. Hallmark makes about $1 billion on Easter cards, which they then use to make a billion Christmas movies with the same plot. Um, we're gonna spend about three billion on Easter baskets, another three billion on toys and decorations, which gets us to around $20 billion, and that's just here in America. But the most significant number, like the most interesting number about Easter to me, is not the $20 billion spent, but the 2 billion people around the world from different backgrounds and countries who will gather in different places and spaces and different ways and different languages today to worship a traveling rabbi from some obscure town in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the Middle East, who lived 2,000 years ago. Two billion followers. He never went viral on TikTok, he never wrote a book, he didn't have a PR team, and yet he reset the calendar as we know it. We divide history by his life. And he only did three years of public ministry, but whose Sermon on the Mount, it didn't just inspire people, it rewrote ethics worldwide. Out of his teaching, hospitals were created to care for the sick, orphanages were created to care for the abandoned, and every Ivy League school in this country was started to train pastors and to propagate his legacy and his teaching. There have been more songs written for him, more paintings written of him, and more books printed about him than any other human history, and it's not even close. And the question I want to ask and answer this morning is why? Really, two questions. Two very simple questions. Number one, what really happened 2,000 years ago on Easter? And number two, what does that have to do with us today? What happened? Who is this guy, Jesus, and what does it have to do with me? Well, that being said, let's jump into Luke chapter 24 and let's jump back 2,000 years ago to that very first Easter morning. Okay, we're in verse 1 of Luke 24. If you got it, say got it. Here's how the story starts. Verse 1. On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came to the tomb, bringing the spices they had prepared. Okay, something that we learn here, and something we still need to figure out. Okay, first we learn that it's the first day of the week, Sunday morning. We know that Jesus was just crucified on Friday. That's clear to us from this verse, but there's something unclear about what we just read, if you read it by itself. It says that they came to the tomb. Well, who is they? Well, a few verses earlier, and in the other gospels, we learned that it was a group of women coming to the tomb. And specifically, we learn from Matthew's gospel that it was Mary Magdalene and another woman named Mary who were coming with some spices to put on the corpse of Jesus. And we'll move past this quickly, but I think it's worth mentioning something here. Okay, there's a few different Marys in the New Testament. Okay, it's a very common name back then, a common name today, and four of them are mentioned in the New Testament, including the mother of Jesus. And so you got two Marys coming to the tomb here, and we don't know a lot of the other Mary, but we do know a little about Mary Magdalene. Okay, in Luke chapter 8, we're introduced to her, and we don't know everything about her past, but we do know this: that she was a person with a past. That her story included spiritual darkness, brokenness, and suffering. Like she had her demons, but Jesus changed her life. And at risk of getting too preachy too early in the sermon, I think this is significant for us, that this story starts with a woman who once lived in the darkness of night, who is now witnessing the dawn of light on the greatest day in human history, that God, in his providence, think about it for a second, as he orchestrated this Easter story that right from the beginning, in some of the most important verses in all the Bible, he chooses to start the most influential movement in the history of the world with a broken woman with a shady past. And guys, that's big time for us in the room that the Easter story starts with reminding us that there is hope and healing for people like Mary Magdalene and people like us, people like you and me. And if that's you this morning, I just want to make it clear for you there's room in the story of God for people like Mary Magdalene, and there's room at King's Church for people like this. Because to be honest with you, this is all we got. Broken people with broken past whose lives have been changed by what happens next in the story. Okay, keep going because something unexpected happens at the tomb. Look at verse 2. They, the women, found the stone, rolled away from the tomb, and they went in, but they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. Okay, it says they found something they didn't expect, and they didn't find something they did expect. What does it say? It says they found the stone. Okay, this massive stone that sealed the tomb rolled away, okay, which would have been wild, but they go in and it says they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus, which would have been even more wild. Okay, now picture the scene here. Okay, I'm not sure if you're somebody who loses things a lot. Okay, my wife's always pinging her phone. Okay, I don't know if you have kids or multiple little kids, you know this. Like, it's one thing to lose your keys, it's another thing to lose a phone. But guys, it's a whole nother thing to lose a body. Okay, there's and think about this there's there's no tracker on Jesus, like there's no air tag, no find my friends that they could whip out and find him. They get there and he's gone. And then in the story, the streak of weird things continues for them. You know, verse 4, keep going. They're obviously confused, but then look at verse 4. So while they're perplexed about this, suddenly two men stood by them in dazzling clothes. And so the women, naturally, were terrified and they bowed down to the ground. Okay, so there they are, picture it, hanging out the tomb, when all of a sudden, bam, it says two men just show up, which in itself would have been pretty freaky, but but then there's something about their clothes that seems important to Luke. It says they've got dazzling clothes on. Or maybe your translation says they beamed with lightning. Okay, so they've got super shiny clothes here showing up. And so the girls naturally fall down, they freak out, and they bow down. And we learn from the other gospels that these guys were in fact angels. Okay, which is actually it's not a super common thing in the Bible, but the word angel means messenger, and oftentimes they show up with a very unique message, and this message they bring starts with a question. A question that would have turned their world upside down and would have turned this world upside down. Look at look at it. This is what they ask. Why are you looking for the living among the dead? Ask the men. Okay, again, to these girls at this time, this would have been the most confusing question in the world. You know, there's a lot of confusing questions in life. Why did Nico trade Luca? Why do people clap when planes land? Okay, pretty much any question in calculus. Why are there numbers and letters? Like, there's a lot of confusing questions in life, but none in life would have been more weird and more confusing than what this question did to these gals. Why are you looking for the living among the dead? Now I want to pause here and zoom out because there's something happening here that you gotta see next in the Easter story that I think is the perfect picture of our life today. You see, if you had to summarize things so far for the Easter story, here it is. They go looking for something and they come up empty. Or in other words, Easter starts with an empty search. They came to the tomb with their hands full of spices, expecting a corpse, and all they found was a tomb that was empty. And here's why this matters for us. Because that's not just how the Easter story starts. No, that's how all of our stories start. You see, if I could just take you behind the scenes a little bit of this church, like one of the reasons why we're here today, like one of the reasons why we're so excited and so joyful at what we found here is because of what we did not find out there. You see, your life, whether you realize it or not, is also a search, a search for meaning, a search for purpose, a search for joy and happiness, a search for life, life with a capital L. And biblically speaking, you have to understand that's actually not a defect, that's a design feature that God has created you and all of us for a deep and lasting joy. The issue is not the search, the issue is where we do the searching. You see, in the same way that these women came to a graveyard expecting a corpse, all of us go to the things of the world expecting to find life, only to realize that over and over again it too comes up empty. That's my story, okay. Going to money, expecting security, going to people looking for approval. Like all of us live a life like a treasure hunt across the world, like Nicolas Cage, but we come up empty. Okay, this is life. Maybe you go to sports or success, maybe it's career or kids, maybe you go to relationship or even religion. I mean, think about what's happening in the story. Mary went to a tomb on Sunday to perform a religious ritual on a dead teacher, which is exactly what some might be doing here this morning. It's cultural, it's routine. But you don't actually expect anything to be alive. And in the same way, the angel said to the women, while you're looking for living among the dead, the same could be said of us. Looking for life in a graveyard, going back to the same things, looking for things, only to walk away empty-handed. That's my story, that's our story, and maybe that's your story this morning. But the good news is this it's not the end of the Easter story. No, this story doesn't end with an empty search, but with something else empty. Keep reading. Look at verse 5. Why are you looking for the living among the dead? asked the man. And then arguably the greatest verse in all the Bible he is not here, but he has risen. Amen? Okay, keep going. Remember, the angel said, how he spoke to you when he was still in Galilee, Jesus said, It is necessary that the Son of Man be betrayed into the hands of sinful men, be crucified, and rise on the third day. And they remembered his words. You want to talk about a plot twist? Here it is. The angel gives this incredible announcement with three different parts. The first one is this he is not here. Like you came looking for the body of Jesus and it's not here. And guys, that matters a lot more than you might think. In fact, all of Christianity depends on that body not being in that tomb. And people for 2,000 years have been trying to explain it away. Okay, maybe the body was stolen, the stolen body body, crazy. I just saw this on the news two weeks ago. Some dude from Bartonville got arrested by the FBI for stealing a body. Do you guys see this? And I'll be honest, my first reaction was, oh no, that can't be right. Bartonville? Like, are we sure it's not from Louisville? Like, surely not from Bartonville. Like Sanger, maybe? I don't know. But my point is this. My point is this, like, you think about it, like, stealing a body is pretty wild. Okay? And it would be a lot of work. But as crazy as stealing a body is, like, just as crazy as stealing a body is believing that that would be possible here. Think about it for just three seconds. First of all, you're gonna steal a body, you gotta get past the Roman guards whose lives depended on that tomb staying shut. And then you'd have to move a massive stone, which was not designed to be moved quietly or quickly. And it and it couldn't have been the disciples who stole it. Why? Because they were distraught two days ago from their friend dying. They couldn't have possibly schemed to steal it. And if they had, why would all of them die painful, brutal deaths for a lie? And surely the Roman guards didn't steal it to play a prank on the Jews, or else when this whole Jesus is alive resurrection thing started, they would have just paraded the body through the streets and end it. But they didn't because they couldn't, because there was no body. He is not here, but also, part two, he is risen. Okay, or in other words, his body wasn't carried out of that tomb, guys. He walked out of it himself. This was not a resuscitation, this was a resurrection. And he didn't almost die, he didn't pass out, no, he was dead. No pulse, no breath, and no life. And now he is alive. And not just spiritually alive or metaphorically alive, but physically alive. A heart that was once still, all of a sudden, starts beating. Lungs breathing, eyes opening, and veins flowing with the precious blood that saved us. Hands once nailed to a cross are now moving, and feet that were once pierced are now standing. And guys, listen, in this moment, Jesus, he didn't just escape death, he defeated it. And listen, this wasn't plan B. Like this wasn't random. No, this was always the plan. That's the final part of the announcement from the angel. And it's crazy. He says this, hey, remember Jesus told you this? Like he said, remember, it's necessary that I be betrayed into the hands of sinful man, be crucified, and then rise on the third day. Guys, Jesus said it again and again and again to his disciples. Guys, here's the deal. I'm betrayed, crucified, and rise on the third day. These guys, these disciples, they should have been at the tomb counting down. Like New Year's Eve, the ball dropped. Ten, nine, eight, or like a buzzer beater, like the end of the Yukon Duke game. Like three, two, one, bang! Like this is what should have happened, and yet they're not there because they missed it. They miss the main thing that Jesus was trying to communicate. And we'll pause here because there's a lesson to learn or a warning to catch here. Here's what we learn here: you can be near the main thing. You can talk about the main thing. You can be really close to the main thing, but you can miss the main thing about Jesus. And that's an unfortunate reality, but a great reminder for the church people in the room. Because maybe you've been coming to church for a while. Like this ain't your first Easter. Like you know where to park, you know where to sit, you know how uncomfortable those chairs are, you know how loud this train is. You know some of the songs we sing, and you know some of the people in the room. And all of that is great and fine. But this says it's possible that you can know all of those things and more and miss the main thing. And this morning, guys, I don't want anybody to miss it. You don't know what the main thing is? You know the reason that we celebrate today, it's not the chocolate bunnies or the pastel colors. It's that Jesus lived, Jesus died, Jesus rose, and Jesus reigns. He is the good and happy king of heaven and earth. He is the good shepherd that laid down his life for his sheep. He is the faithful friend who died for his friends and rose victorious. Don't miss it. He is not here, he is risen. And you might be thinking to yourself, like, did it have to go down this way? Like, why the death part about the story of Jesus? Like, it's cool that he rose from the dead. That's a fun fact, but like, why did he have to die? Was it really necessary? The cross. Like it says here from the angel, it's necessary for me to be crucified, but why? And that's a good question to ask. And maybe the good news of Jesus is alive, it won't hit you until you realize why Jesus had to die. Like we didn't have a good Friday service here at King's Church, but it's good for us just to pause and think about it for a moment. You see, the reason why the cross was necessary, the reason why Jesus had to be crucified is because of what we were talking about earlier in the sermon. You see, with all this empty search stuff, you have to understand, like, we weren't just looking for life in graveyards, we were sinning against a holy God. Like every time that we ran to money or approval or success, like whatever it was, we weren't just running to those things, but we were replacing God. So every time we search for life and said, This will satisfy me, we are simultaneously also saying to God, You never will. You're not enough. This is what happens when we go to approval. Like it's not, that's what sin is. It's not just a mistake, it's rebellion, it's treason. And all of us are guilty of it. And because God is both holy and just, sin must be paid for. Like it can't get swept under the rug. But God is not just holy and just, he's also loving and merciful. And so in steps Jesus, and there hangs Jesus, and he pays for our sin himself. Or in other words, Good Friday was very bad for Jesus, but it is very good for those who believe in him. And that's why it's called Good Friday. But the best part of the story is that's not the end of the story. Guys, Saturday may have been silent, but on Sunday, all of heaven roared. Because Jesus didn't just defeat sin, he defeated death. And he rose not just to pay for our sins, but to give us life. Because maybe the greatest proof of the resurrection of Jesus is not just an empty tomb, but full hearts. Like people who were empty are now filled with joy. People who were dead are now alive in Christ, and people who were searching are now satisfied. Because when an empty search meets a risen Savior, everything changes. In his presence is fullness of joy. And so now our great joy, it's not in trinkets or toys or treasures, but in King Jesus and his gospel. And that's the resurrection hope that's changed my life and so many lives here. And we hope it changes your life. And this hope on Easter Sunday, like it's not just vague hope. Like it's not just flimsy hope or like floating in the sky like it helps you on Easter Sunday, but it doesn't help you on Tuesday hope. No, guys, Easter Sunday and this resurrection, it helps give you real hope, even in the middle of real suffering. You know, in fact, just one week ago, uh today, so last Sunday, was my mother-in-law's 62nd birthday, okay, Mallie's mom, Terry. So after church last week, we went to visit her for a birthday party, and we visited her at Roselon Memorial Cemetery. So she had passed away three years ago with cancer, but she loved Jesus and gave her life to him. And so we're there last week, and I'll be honest, I don't know if there's anything stranger than going to a cemetery with a three-year-old. Okay, just try to picture it as my daughter EJ rolling up to a cemetery. Like, while we all feel the weight of it all, right? The silence, the finality, grave, like all of the loss. My daughter, if you can picture it, she's just running around, she's dancing on top of the grave, and she's picking flowers sometimes off other people's graves, and so we have to tell her not to do that. Like, just try to picture it. But what's interesting is things that we see as inappropriate, like taking flowers or dancing on a grave, she sees as perfectly appropriate. And seeing her running and smiling, like that's a picture I'll never get out of my head because it's a picture of loss, but also a picture of hope. Like the grave is a place of fear, but also oddly, a place of joy. And that's what Jesus does, isn't it? He takes a place that once represented death, and he now fills it with hope. Because of Jesus, graves are temporary, death is defeated, and the story isn't over. Because Jesus walked out of the grave, all of us who belong to Jesus one day will also walk out of the grave. The cemetery, it's not the end of Jesus' story, it's not the end of Terry's story, and it's not the end of anyone's story who will put their faith and trust in Jesus. That's the hope that Easter gives us. And guys, that's real hope. That's what happened 2,000 years ago. That is Easter. And I want to end quickly with what's our response to this. Like, let's finish up in Luke 24. Because of this great truth, how do we respond to this? Well, there's three different responses from three different groups here that I think is important for us. Go back to verse 9 in Luke 24. It says, returning from the tomb, they, these women, reported all these things to the eleven and to all the rest. Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary, the mother of James, and the other women who were with them were telling the apostles these things. Okay, so these women had this absolutely wild experience at the empty tomb. And it says, immediately they go and tell the other disciples what had happened, okay, which makes sense. Okay, you see something crazy, okay. Your friend is apparently gone and alive, so naturally you go and tell anyone and everyone. Okay, which is the first response we see here. The first response is this go and tell. Your response to the empty tomb, the first one is a go and tell kind of response. Like for those of us who believe the message, who've also had an experience with the resurrected Jesus, our response should be to go and tell. Because if Jesus is alive, you don't keep that to yourself. No, resurrected faith cannot stay quiet. It's a go and tell kind of faith. And that's why, shortly, Renison, Riley, and Angel are about to do this in baptism. To go and tell, to tell the world that they're with Jesus. So that's the first response. But keep going because not everybody believed the message like the women did. Look at verse 11. They tell the eleven and all the rest, but verse 11, but these words seemed like nonsense to them, and they did not believe the women. Okay, you can almost picture the scene. They get there, guys, we got there, the tomb's open, it's empty, and then these angels told us Jesus rose from the dead. Okay, and and whether it's because how crazy that sounds or how despondent their hearts were, it says they counted it as nonsense and they didn't believe. Which leads me to the second response that we see here, not a go and tell response, but a doubt and dismiss response. Doubt and dismiss. Okay, which is what many in this world do. They hear this great message, but they doubt it and dismiss it as nonsense or as fantasy, and they do nothing. And to those people, and maybe some of you in the room, I would just humbly submit that with the claims laid before you, that just to casually shrug and move on, that's not the most intellectually honest position I've ever heard of. Okay, I think you owe it to yourself to dig in and investigate the claims, which leads me to the final response, verse 12. Look at verse 12. They're doubting and dismissing by verse 12. Peter, however, got up and he ran to the tomb. When he stooped to look in, he saw only the linen cloths, and so he went away amazed at what had happened. And so while all the other disciples shrugged and sat there, Peter got up and he ran to the tomb. He had to go check it out for himself. And so he looks in and he only sees the cloths there that once held his friend, and it says he went away amazed. And to be honest, that's my hope for some of you this morning, that you would be a Peter. That you wouldn't doubt and dismiss it, but instead you would run and investigate, that you would run to the empty tomb with a level of urgency and you would investigate the claims that, like Peter, you would see that the tomb is in fact empty and that Jesus is in fact risen. The empty tomb demands a response from all of us. He is not here, he is risen, and he is returning soon. And I'll end with this. I'll invite the band to come up, but I want to share a story that some of my friends shared with me this week that I thought was the perfect picture of Easter, what we're celebrating today. Okay, maybe some of you have heard this, okay? So I'll try to share the story quickly. Back in 1815, there was a war going on between England and France, okay, and I'll spare the details, but the French were led by a guy named Napoleon. You ever heard that guy, Napoleon? Well, the French wanted to enslave Britain, okay, which they were not down for, okay? But Britain's only hope to defeat the French was to win one battle, okay, to put all their energy towards that one battle, to put all their eggs in that basket, okay, pun intended. And if they would win that battle, they would win the war. And it became known as the Battle of Waterloo, okay? And what I was learning about this battle, it was a battle with high stakes, okay? The French had Napoleon, but the British had a guy named General Wellington. Okay, remember that name? Wellington. Well, anyways, the battle happens, it's very intense, okay? And all these people were back in London and they're gathered at the square to learn about their fate, okay? And back in London, they had this big billboard that they would post the result of the war on. And so the story goes that that night all these people are gathered and they're looking at this billboard, and finally this man comes. And the story goes that that night it was very foggy. Okay, or that morning it was very foggy. And this guy came and he wrote two terrible words on that billboard that said this Wellington defeated. And immediately it's recorded that you could hear the loud cries and all the mourning and the shouting as people began to run and hide and fear, like they knew what this meant for them and their families. But there's also stories written of a small group of people who stayed in that square, and they just stared despondently at that billboard. But as the story goes, they're standing there, and a few minutes later, a gust of wind came through the city, and it took that low London fog away, and it's revealed that on that billboard there were not two words, there were actually three. Wellington defeated Napoleon. That actually, on that moment, right there, that he had actually beat Napoleon in that city, you can hear it. Mourning turned into dancing, and tears turned into laughter, and hope was restored. And guys, that's the story of Easter. Two thousand years ago, on a dark Friday, hell put up a billboard that said, Jesus defeated. But on the third day, right, the sun rose, the earth shook, and the fog was cleared, so that we would see what really happened. There's not two words but three. Jesus defeated death. That's the story of Easter. And that's the story of King's Church, and that's why we gather the king of life has defeated death. And that's why I'm about to invite these three people to get baptized to show a perfect symbol of dying with Christ, but rising with him and resurrection. Let me pray for us, and then we'll hear from these guys. God, we're so thankful for this day, especially, that every Sunday we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus, but Easter gives us a unique opportunity just to think about it a little bit more, the implications of it. God, I'm thankful that verse 6 is true, that he is not here, that he has risen from the dead. And God, I pray for everybody in this room to be moved by that to a place of worship and a place of belief. God, if there's anybody in this room that hasn't believed that message, God, would you open their eyes, give them new hearts? And God, I'm thankful for the story of Brenneson, of Riley, and Angel, hearts that were once dead and searching and came up empty, a time and time again, but found life in the empty tomb and in the risen Savior. God, help us worship you as we listen and hear these stories and respond in singing. It's in Jesus' name I pray. Amen.