MESSAGES
FROM THE
WORD
THE CROSS IN THE EMPTY TOMB
Acts 2:22-47
SERIES: SPECIAL MESSAGES Easter 2003
There are great times of the year. Fireworks at the Hollywood Bowl, Christmas morning with the presents under the tree, significant birthdays, weddings, laying out on the beach in Hawaii, and living in the mountains and watching the first snow fall are just a few of many. However, one of my favorite times of the year is Easter. Ladies buy new dresses to wear to church. Just about everyone comes to a worship service. Friends and family gather for a holiday meal. It is all a part of the wonderful season. Why is the Easter season so rich in meaning? It always falls at the beginning of the Spring. It obviously has religious overtones. It is really a time for family and friends to get together.
As we bring our thoughts together this morning I want to take an approach to the Easter story that I have never before addressed. Some of you may have grown up in somewhat formal congregations. Many such churches run by a religious calendar. You have a Lenten service on such a date, Palm Sunday service the week before Easter, Good Friday service just before Easter and an Easter service on that Sunday morning. While our congregation is not from a formal background, most of us instinctively think along those lines even if we may not schedule our life in that way. However, I decided to read through the book of Acts this past week just to see how the early Church dealt with the issues of Lent, Palm Sunday, Good Friday, and Easter. Lent is not mentioned at all and is not really a Christian holiday. Palm Sunday is only mentioned in reference to the actual events dealing with the entrance of Jesus into the city of
FIRST, WE SEE THE PLANNING. In his play JESUS CHRIST, SUPERSTAR, Andrew Lloyd Weber portrays Jesus as a sort of tragic figure. Here is this guy who becomes popular, lets it go to His head, develops a Messianic complex, and ends up dying on a cross, which ended a wasted life. That is not at all how Jesus is portrayed in the New Testament. Rather than being a victim, Jesus is in charge of every event. We read, MATTHEW ; , 23; -19; 26:1-5; The importance of that last verse is critical. Jesus planned to die on the Passover. The religious leaders said, “whatever we do, we need to wait until after the Passover”. The plan of Jesus trumped the plan of the religious leaders. I want you to see how the early church thought of this idea. We read, ACTS , 23; , 28 For centuries there has been a debate over who killed Jesus. Was it the Jews? Was it the Romans? Was it us? The real story is that God is responsible for the death of Jesus. Remember what Peter wrote about this, 1 PETER 1:18-21 Jesus did not come to live a long life, but to live a perfect life and die on the cross. This was not plan B. It wasn’t plan C or D. This was the only plan.
The question has to be asked, “why would God choose such a plan? The answer is, “I don’t have a clue”. For God to come to Earth in the form of a man so that He could be spit on, rejected, beaten and executed is the strangest plan A plan I have ever heard of. However, this was not an after thought. From the beginning, God demanded a blood sacrifice for the atonement of sin. It began in the Garden of Eden, was put into law during the Old Testament period and fulfilled on the cross when all of the sins of the world were placed on Jesus. We may question why God did this, but the fact is, it is the plan He chose and I am grateful for that.
SECOND, WE SEE THE PROPHESIES. Throughout the Old Testament God told us what was going to take place in the future. Many of those prophesies concerned the death, burial and resurrection of the Messiah. The most well known prophesy tells us, ISAIAH 53 There are dozens of such predictions in the Old Testament concerning the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It was the foundation of all that Jesus did. We read, LUKE 24:18-27;44-48 The life of Jesus had a purpose. It wasn’t to be a political radical, great teacher or wonderful role model. All of those are true of the Messiah, but they were not the focus and purpose of His life. The life of Jesus Christ can be summed up in two statements. Jesus came to fulfill the scriptures and to reconcile sinful people to a holy God. We read, MATTHEW 5:17; II CORINTHIANS 5:17-21 The entire New Testament could be reduced down to those two passages. It is the heart of Christianity; the scriptures are reliable and God has solved the problem of sin through the person of Christ. Read through the book of Acts, especially the missionary journeys and you will see that Paul spent a relatively short period of time in each of those locations. However, he left those places having established a church by explaining to them that the scriptures were reliable and Jesus was the Messiah who had been sent from God to reconcile sinners to a holy God. That is the message of the church. The cross and the resurrection were both predicted in the Old Testament.
THIRD. WE SEE THE PROCLAMATION. I told you earlier that there are eight major sermon in the book of Acts and all but one of them include both the cross and the empty tomb. Let me show you these references. We read, ACTS 2:23-25, 31,33,34; 3:15,18,26; 4:10; 5:30; 10:39,40; 13:28,29, 33,34,37;17:3 While we tend to separate Good Friday from Easter, the early church never did that. While we tend to emphasize Easter as the most important event on the Christian calendar, the early church never separated Easter from Good Friday. They never isolated the Cross from the Tomb. There is a message for the church of today in that concept. We tend to like the empty tomb, but react to the cross. We need to include both. Without the cross, there is no empty tomb. We tell people about the empty tomb, ask them to receive Jesus as their Savior and wonder why there is no change in their life. Maybe it is because we talk to people about the empty tomb, but forget to tell them about the cross. There is no resurrection without a death first. The problem with many people is they want to be born again without first being crucified. Before we can be resurrected, we need to first die. We do not die easily.
LAST, WE SEE THE PURPOSE. Unlike Andrew Lloyd Weber, the writers of the New Testament believed that the death of Christ had a purpose. The resurrection of Christ had a meaning. We read, II CORINTHIANS 5:18-21 The entire life and death of Christ can be summed up in the word reconciliation. Because of sin, we are alienated from God. Because of the cross and empty tomb we can be reconciled to God. Let me quickly show you how this worked on that “Holy weekend”. Throughout the Old Testament, the sacrifice was for the purpose of atoning for the sins of the people. On Yom Kipur, the Day of Atonement”, the sacrifice was made and the sins of the people were rolled ahead one year. When Christ died on the cross, all of those rolled ahead sins plus all of the sins that would ever be committed in the future were placed on Christ. That is why Paul said that Jesus became sin. Through that, all sin was atoned for and forgiveness could be offered to all those who accept Him as Lord.
When Jesus came out of the tomb, He proved He was Lord over life and death and can offer eternal life to all those who accept Him as Lord and Savior. This is why the cross and the Tomb are linked. The offer of forgiveness and eternal life have to go hand in hand. The tomb without the cross offers us the possibility of eternal life if we can figure out a way to be forgiven. The cross without the tomb offers us forgiveness but no eternal life. Both of them as a historical reality offers us forgiveness and eternal life. This is the heart of the Christian faith.
You may be in attendance today and you have claimed to be a Christian, but have never really died to your own desires. You still want to be the master of your life. You will never find the empty tomb apart from first dying to your own desires and give control over to the Lord of the universe.
