Lord

Do This in Remembrance of Me

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This sermon was preached by Brian Watson on January 5, 2020.
MP3 recording of the sermon.
PDF of the written sermon (or continue reading).

When I was a child, there were many things that I did not understand about life, about God, and about church. One of those things was the Lord’s Supper. I remember going to church, where once a month some broken pieces of bread were passed around on shiny plates and thimble-sized plastic cups of grape juice were distributed. The pastor would say, “The body of Christ, broken for you. Take and eat,” and, “The blood of Christ, shed for you. Take and drink.” I had no idea what he meant by eating Jesus’ body and drinking his blood, but I went along with the program and I didn’t ask any questions.

Now that I’ve matured, I understand the Lord’s Supper better and I hope that you do, too. Yet I think that the taking of the Lord’s Supper isn’t understood by many. And this practice probably seems very bizarre to non-Christians. What are we doing when we take this little bit of food and this little bit of drink? Why do we do it? What does it all mean?

What is the Lord’s Supper? It’s one of two ordinances, sometimes called sacraments, that the church observes. The other is baptism. According to the Puritan, Thomas Watson, “The sacrament is a visible sermon. . . . The Word is a trumpet to proclaim Christ, the sacrament is a glass to represent him.”[1] Both the Lord’s Supper and baptism are visible sermons, pictures of what Jesus has done for us.

The Lord’s Supper presents a visible picture of the gospel, specifically Jesus’ substitutionary, atoning death. He died in our place, as our substitute, to atone for our sins. Yet there is more to the Lord’s Supper than this. The Lord’s Supper is based on the Last Supper, the final meal Jesus ate with his disciples before he was arrested, tried, and crucified. At this meal, all the great themes of the Bible coalesce, for the Last Supper had associations with the past, present, and future. Likewise, the Lord’s Supper is rooted in history; it affects our present; and it contains promises for our future.

Today, we’re returning to the Gospel of Luke, one of four biographies of Jesus found in the Bible. We’re beginning chapter 22. Today, we’re going to look at the passages related to Jesus’ last Passover meal that he shared with his disciples before he died on the next day. Then, in the next sermon, I’ll look at the verses related to Judas’ betrayal of Jesus.

So, we’ll begin with Luke 22:1, which says, “Now the Feast of Unleavened Bread drew near, which is called the Passover.”[2]

What was the Passover? Let us review some Old Testament history.

In Genesis, God chose Abraham and his family as the people he would use to bless the world. At the end of Genesis, this family ends up in Egypt, where Joseph, Abraham’s great-grandson, is second in command. At the beginning of Exodus, something has changed. About 400 years have passed by and the Israelites have multiplied greatly, but they no longer find favor in the Egyptians’ eyes. Instead, the Egyptians oppress and enslave them. God looks upon them with compassion and, because of his covenant with Abraham, he prepares to deliver them through the ministry of Moses. God tells Moses to go to Pharaoh and demand that he let the Israelites go. Pharaoh refuses because of the hardness of his heart, so God hits the Egyptians with nine plagues. Pharaoh still refuses to let the Israelites go, so God sends a tenth and final plague.

This time, all the firstborn in Egypt will die. The first nine plagues did not affect the Israelites, but this time, in order to avoid the tenth plague, they must do something. They are to take male, year-old, unblemished lambs, slaughter them, and place some of their blood on their door frames. When God comes to kill all the firstborn in Egypt, he will pass over the houses of the Israelites because of the blood. God tells them to commemorate this occasion by roasting the meat of the lambs and eating it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. They are to do this with their belts fastened, their sandals on their feet, and their staffs in hand, because they will soon leave Egypt, for Pharaoh will now let them go. God tells them to keep this feast once a year to remember the event. The Passover is so important that God even tells them that the month of this event will now be the first month of their calendar year.

So, that’s what the Passover was. Now, I’m going to skip to verse 7. We’ll come back to verses 2–6 in the next sermon in this series. Here are verses 7–13:

7 Then came the day of Unleavened Bread, on which the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed. 8 So Jesus sent Peter and John, saying, “Go and prepare the Passover for us, that we may eat it.” 9 They said to him, “Where will you have us prepare it?” 10 He said to them, “Behold, when you have entered the city, a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him into the house that he enters 11 and tell the master of the house, ‘The Teacher says to you, Where is the guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’ 12 And he will show you a large upper room furnished; prepare it there.” 13 And they went and found it just as he had told them, and they prepared the Passover.

Jesus is about to eat the Passover meal with his disciples. He sends two of his closest followers, Peter and John, to prepare this meal, which had to be eaten within the walls of Jerusalem.

It seems that Jesus has made prior arrangements to have the meal in an upper room. Peter and John would have had to prepare a lamb, unleavened bread, and bitter herbs, the elements of the original Passover meal. Other elements were added over the years: a bowl of saltwater, a fruit puree or sauce, and four cups of diluted wine. Each element was very symbolic. The lamb reminded them of the sacrifice needed to be saved. The Israelites were sinners like the Egyptians, and the only way to be spared God’s judgment against sin was for someone to die in their place. The unleavened bread reminded them of God’s swift deliverance of his people—there wasn’t time for the bread to rise. The herbs reminded them of the bitterness of their slavery. The saltwater reminded them of tears shed in captivity as well as the Red Sea. The fruit paste reminded them of the clay used to make bricks for the Egyptians. And the four cups of wine symbolized the promises found in Exodus 6:6–7, that God would deliver them from slavery, that he would judge the Egyptians, that they would have a special relationship with God (“I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God”), and that they would know that he is “the Lord your God.”

Normally, a family would eat this meal together. Jesus chose to share it with his disciples. They had become his family. During the Passover meal, there would be a time when the host of the meal recalled the Passover narrative, explaining the redemptive history behind the feast and expressing thanksgiving. Listen to this statement from the collection of Jewish oral traditions known as the Mishnah. The parallels with our redemption should be obvious:

Therefore are we bound to give thanks, to praise, to glorify, to honour, to exalt, to extol, and to bless him who wrought all these wonders for our fathers and for us. He brought us out from bondage to freedom, from sorrow to gladness, and from mourning to a Festival-day, and from darkness to great light, and from servitude to redemption, so let us say before him the Hallelujah.[3]

The celebration would include the singing of Psalms 113 through 118. After the fourth glass of wine, the meal would end, and the guests were supposed to spend the night in prayer.

Before we look at verses 14–20, allow me to make an observation. It is no coincidence that the Last Supper is a Passover meal. The Passover and the whole Exodus form the greatest act of redemption in the Old Testament. There are numerous references to this event in the Old Testament as well as the New. You can find it mentioned throughout the historical books, there are several Psalms devoted to it, and the prophets refer to this event repeatedly. In short, the Exodus proved that God does mighty acts to save his people.

By connecting the Last Supper to the Passover, God is showing us the relationship between the greatest act of redemption in the Old Testament and the greatest act of redemption. He is showing us how his plan of redemption spans across the Old and New Testaments.

God is sovereign over history. He can make history do what he wants. Throughout history, he revealed himself and his plans gradually, through not only his word but also through people, events, and institutions that we find in the Old Testament. Certain events in the Old Testament anticipate greater events in the New Testament. In the Old Testament, we see certain types, or foreshadows, that anticipate the work of Jesus. We see certain people in the Old Testament that resemble Christ, but they are imperfect saviors, prophets, priests, and kings. We see acts of redemption in the Old Testament, but they do not conquer sin and death. We also see acts of judgment in the Old Testament, often coupled with those acts of redemption, though they are not the final judgment that will occur when Jesus returns to Earth. These types in the Old Testament taught the people of that time about God and gave them clues that greater events were going to occur in the future. For us, on this side of the cross, they provide a context for Jesus’ ministry, so that we can see how he fulfilled all the promises of God in the Old Testament.

Here are a few things we can learn, as Christians, from the Passover. One, it anticipated Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. We know this because the apostle Paul tells us that Jesus is our Passover lamb (1 Cor. 5:7). Peter tells us that we were ransomed from sin “with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot” (1 Pet. 1:19). The redemption of the Israelites out of Egypt was accomplished through a blood sacrifice. Though they were freed from slavery to the Egyptians, the Passover did not deal with their slavery to sin. No animal sacrifice could atone for human sin. Therefore, the Passover was an incomplete redemption and a mere foretaste of Jesus’ greater, perfect redemption.

Two, the Passover and the Exodus show us that God is powerful, that he performs amazing acts of redemption, and that he is to be feared. For those of you familiar with the plagues, the parting of the Red Sea, and the image of Mount Sinai in Exodus 19, you know how powerful and frightening God can be. God is still a holy and jealous God. He is still a consuming fire. It is important that we still have that image of God.

Three, we see that God graciously saved his people even though they were sinful. The Israelites were often not any better than the people of other nations. God simply decided to be gracious to them. Their salvation was not based on their obedience and their goodness, and neither is ours.

Four, in Exodus, there is a phrase that God tells Moses to say to Pharaoh: “Let my people go, that they may serve me” (Exod. 7:15; 8:1, 20; 9:1). God freed the Israelites from the yoke of slavery to the Egyptians, but they were not rescued so that they could live for themselves. If you have faith in Christ, you are freed from slavery to sin, but you still have a master. Jesus says, “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matt. 11:29–30). We are freed from the yoke of sin in order to serve the King of kings and Lord of lords.

It’s important to understand the Passover and what it means for us. Now, let’s see what happens when Jesus shares this meal with his disciples. Let’s read verses 14–20:

14 And when the hour came, he reclined at table, and the apostles with him. 15 And he said to them, “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. 16 For I tell you I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” 17 And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he said, “Take this, and divide it among yourselves. 18 For I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.” 19 And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” 20 And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.

Jesus wanted this last opportunity to teach his disciples the significance of his impending death. He knows he is about to die, and yet he is in complete control. In fact, his vague directions to Peter and John in the previous section were probably intentional: he wanted to make sure that Judas did not know the address of this upper room so that the meal would not be interrupted by a premature arrest. (We’ll talk more about this next time.)

Jesus is acting as host of the Passover meal, yet instead of recounting the Exodus story, he starts to teach them about the theological significance of his death. Jesus tells his disciples that he will not eat this meal again until “it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” He will not share in such a meal until the kingdom is consummated, when he returns.

Then, Jesus takes one cup and gives it to his disciples. This is probably either the first or second of the four cups of wine of the Passover meal. It is a common cup that he shares with his disciples, just as it is a common loaf of bread. This meal scene is one of intimacy and unity. It seems completely natural to read about people eating, but we must remember that Jesus is not just a man; he’s also God. God is eating with humans! God dwells among us and desires close fellowship with us. What an amazing idea!

In verse 18, Jesus says he “will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.” The kingdom was inaugurated with Jesus’ first coming, but it will not come in its fullest form until he returns and recreates the universe to be Paradise. In this passage, Jesus twice refers to a future fulfillment of the kingdom of God. He wants his disciples to know that, even though he will die, death will not have the last word.

Then, Jesus takes the bread and gives it to his disciples. Here, Jesus begins to reinterpret the elements of the Passover meal in a radical way. The bread and the wine of the Passover meal will correspond to Jesus’ death.

Jesus takes the bread, a symbol of life and sustenance, and makes it a symbol of his death. Elsewhere, Jesus had called himself the bread of life (John 6:35, 48) because he is the source of eternal life. In order to impart that life to those who have faith in him, his body would have to be broken. Animals die so we can eat their flesh. Grain is crushed so that we can live. Even grapes were crushed so that their juice could be extracted and fermented. It is possible that the references to bread being broken and wine being poured out are references to a famous passage in Isaiah 53, one that we looked at two weeks ago. Isaiah 53:5 says, “But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities.” A few verses later, we read, “Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand” (Isa. 53:10). God the Father had to pour out his wrath on someone, for sin must not go unpunished. God is a perfect judge. He cannot let evil go unchecked. But God is also gracious. He gave his Son to take the punishment that his people deserve. And willingly Jesus took that punishment in our place. He was crushed so that we don’t have to be. That was God’s will. It was always his plan.

Notice that Jesus said, “Do this in remembrance of me.” Israelites were supposed to remember the Passover, but when they did, they didn’t just bring a past event to mind. Rather, they saw themselves as participants in the Exodus. In that way, it affected their present life. They also anticipated a future redemption that would come through the Messiah. For us, we should remember Jesus’ death, not in order simply to review history, but in order for our lives to be changed. We, too, should also look forward to Christ’s return, when he makes all things new.

We should also notice that, in saying, “Do this in remembrance of me,” Jesus isn’t saying, “Do this in order to be saved,” or, “Do this to receive more grace.” Catholics believe that the eucharist (their word for the Lord’s Supper) imparts grace and is a key part of salvation. But Jesus doesn’t say anything like that.

Finally, Jesus distributes the cup, which commentators agree corresponds to the third cup of the Passover meal. He says, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.” The “pouring out” likely refers to Isaiah 53:12: “Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.” In the Bible, blood represents life (Lev. 17:11). In order to bear the sins of many, Jesus had to die in the place of many. Because of our sin, we should die eternally, yet Jesus took our sin and nailed it to the cross, so that we could be credited his righteousness. As it says in 2 Corinthians 5:21, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

We also come to the important idea of the covenant. A covenant is a bit like a contract. It is a binding commitment that is made unilaterally, which is to say there is no negotiating. God sets the terms of the agreement and he faithfully keeps his end of the arrangement. There are many covenants in the Bible: ones made with Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David, as well as the new covenant. The two covenants in view here are the “old covenant,” the one made through Moses at Mount Sinai, and the new covenant.

After God delivered the Israelites out of Egypt, he made a covenant with them. He said that if they obeyed him, then they would be his “treasured possession among all peoples” and “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (see Exod. 19:4–6). God then gave Moses and the Israelites the Ten Commandments as well as many other laws. This covenant was based on a condition: if the people obeyed those laws, then they would be God’s treasured possession.

After the law was given, a ceremony was held to inaugurate this covenant. In Exodus 24, Moses and the people offer animal sacrifices and Moses reads them the law. The people said they would obey the law. Then something very strange happens: Moses takes some of the blood of those animal sacrifices and threw it on the people. There are two important ideas behind this strange event: One, the people of Israel were God’s people because they were made clean from a blood sacrifice. Two, if they failed to obey the terms of the covenant, the result would be the shedding of blood—their blood! Most covenants began with blood, a reminder of the consequences of breaking that contract. And if that contract was broken, blood would be shed.

We know from the Old Testament that Israel was not perfectly obedient to God. In fact, they were often wildly disobedient. The same is true of all human beings. We often ignore God instead of living for him. We fail to love God as we should. We fail to love one another. We don’t do life on God’s terms; instead, we act as if were gods.

In the end, the old covenant simply didn’t work. There’s no way that mere human beings could obey its terms. Therefore, God would establish a new covenant. This was promised in Jeremiah 31:31–34, but there are other passages in the Old Testament prophets that speak of a new covenant. In short, the new covenant promised that all of God’s people would be forgiven of sin, would truly know God because they have a right relationship with him, and would have God’s laws written on their hearts by means of the Holy Spirit, the third person of the triune God.

The new covenant is better than the old covenant. But that was by design. God’s plan is perfect. He knew his people could not obey the old covenant. God’s intention was to show that only one son person could ever obey that old covenant, and that person was Jesus. The only way the old covenant could be fulfilled was to have God become man and live a life of perfect obedience. He fulfilled the terms of the old covenant. But—and this is the amazing part—though he alone fulfilled those terms, he took on the penalty that covenant breakers deserve. He died on the cross to take away the penalty that we all deserve for our sin.

What Jesus is saying at this Last Supper with his disciples is basically this: “What I’m about to do is the key to God’s eternal plan of redemption. My blood sacrifice will pay the penalty of the old covenant for you, and my blood will usher in a new, fulfilled covenant. People who are part of this covenant will never pay for their sins. Your sins will be forgiven, and you will have new hearts.”

The fact that Jesus asks his disciples to do this in remembrance of him means that he expects that they will take it regularly after his death. We understand that the Lord’s Supper, which we take here once a month, is based on this Last Supper. It is a time to remember that Jesus died for our sins.

What does all of this mean for us? How does this affect our view of the Lord’s Supper? First, we should see how great Jesus is. I hope you now have a deeper understanding of just how central his life, death, and resurrection is to all of history, to God’s plans, and to your life. Jesus is the greatest. He is truly the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and end of history, and the author and goal of our faith.

Second, food in the Bible is often a symbol for spiritual sustenance. Of course, we need to eat food regularly to live. But we also have spiritual hunger and thirst, a longing for something that the things of this world cannot satisfy. Jesus is the only one who can satisfy the deepest yearnings of your soul. In John 6:27, Jesus says, “Do not labor for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you.” Are you trying to fill your spiritual hunger with Jesus or something else? No money, no job, no other relationship, no amount of pleasures and entertainments will satisfy that spiritual hunger and thirst.

Third, though we’re not told this here, the Lord’s Supper is reserved for God’s people. It doesn’t automatically give you spiritual life. Only faith in Jesus gives you that. And faith in Jesus is trusting in him. That faith should lead to love of Jesus and obedience to him.

Fourth, we’re also told that elsewhere that the Lord’s Supper is a time to examine our lives. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 11:28, “Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup.” It’s a time for us to ask certain questions, like, “Do I know God? Am I living as his servant? Are there ways that I’m disobeying him? Do I have sins I need to repent of?” If you are not a Christian, I urge you to trust in Jesus. Faith in Jesus is the only way to be spared God’s judgment against your sin, your failure to love and live for God. If you’re not yet a Christian, I would love to talk to you personally about following Jesus. If you’re struggling with sin, I would love to help you in any way I can.

Fourth, the Last Supper and the Lord’s Supper call us to be a community. Jesus shared a common cup and a common loaf with his disciples. Though we come to faith in Christ individually, when we are regenerated by the Holy Spirit, we enter the body of Christ. In 1 Corinthians 10:16–17, Paul writes, “The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.” Are you an active part of the body of Christ? Are you using your spiritual gifts to serve the church? Or do you just come to consume a spiritual product and live life alone? God meant for us to be in relationship with him and with each other. I would encourage all of us to be more involved in the life of this church, to be more committed, to become members. Take ownership of this church. Regard it as your family.

My fifth and final point is this: The Last Supper looked backwards to the Passover. And it looked forward to when Jesus would not only die for his people, but also to when he would return to complete the establishment of God’s kingdom on Earth. The Lord’s Supper looks back to when Jesus died for us, but it also looks forward to when Jesus will return to make all things right. And when that happens, we who are Christians will eat a meal with God.

There are several places in the Bible where this new creation is pictured as a great meal. We read one of those passages, Isaiah 25, last week. God promised that in his new creation, there would be the finest of feasts. That could be a literal meal—which might be a comfort to those of us who love to eat—or it could symbolize the kind of fellowship that we cannot imagine right now. Either way, God will make all things new, he will eradicate death, and he will offer us the very best food and fellowship that we could ever hope for. At that time, we will commune directly with God. All his people, those who know him, those who have been forgiven of sin, those who have been given the Holy Spirit, will live forever in God’s house.

When we take the Lord’s Supper together, we remember what Jesus did for us: His body was broken and his life drained out so that we don’t have to be broken, so that we can live. And when we take the Lord’s Supper, we experience a foretaste of what will come in the future. We will eat and drink together in the presence of God. We can take the Lord’s Supper with seriousness, remembering that it cost nothing short of the death of the God-man, Jesus Christ, to rescue us from sin and eternal death. But we can also take it with thanksgiving and joy, knowing that God loves us so much that he gave us his Son, and that the Son laid down his life willingly for his people, to bring them back to the table in his house.

Notes

  1. Thomas Watson, The Lord’s Supper (1665; repr., Edinburgh; Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 2004), 1-2. ↑
  2. All Scripture quotations are taken from the English Standard Version (ESV). ↑
  3. Pesahim 10.5, quoted in I. Howard Marshall, Last Supper and Lord’s Supper (1980; repr., Vancouver: Regent College Publishing, 2006), 22. ↑

 

My Lord and My God! (John 20)

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Pastor Brian Watson preaches an Easter message based on John 20. The resurrection of Jesus gives us hope, because all who trust in him, all who embrace him as Savior, Lord, and God, will have a resurrected life, too. The only way to eternal life and peace is Jesus.

My Lord and My God!

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This sermon was preached on April 1, 2018 (Resurrection Sunday, a.k.a. Easter) by Brian Watson.
MP3 recording of the sermon.
PDF of the written sermon (see also below).

I don’t know about you, but I’m glad that it’s April. Only in the past few days has it started to feel like spring. It was a long winter, and we still have about three, small, stubborn mounds of snow at the edge of the parking lot. But the rest of the snow has melted, and the temperature is getting a bit warmer. And before too long things will start to get greener.

I love it when spring arrives, because it gives us a feeling of hope. We see signs of life after a long period of dead leaves and bare branches. The seasons of nature remind us of the seasons of life, and we can see signs of both new life and death all around us. Five weeks ago, we got a new dog, a puppy who was about twelve weeks old at the time. She’s already grown quite a bit, and she can be very playful. On the other hand, we look at our older dog, who at twelve years old is slowing down and sometimes walks with a limp.

But our lives—or the lives of our pets—aren’t like the seasons. The seasons come and go in cycles. Our lives aren’t cyclical; they only move in one direction. While we all were young at one point (if we’re not young now), we know that we’re getting older, and that eventually our bodies will decay and die. Even this past week, I saw evidence of that. Last Sunday night, I found out that the wife of a family friend died. She was probably only in her mid-thirties. She had a rare disease that caused her body to create way too many of one protein and not enough of the corresponding protein. And though she had some experimental treatments with stem cells, she couldn’t be healed. I only met her on two occasions, but I was very sad to hear about her death. She left behind a husband and two young children.

Someone else I know this week died. He was in his late sixties and had multiple health problems, including a major stroke several years ago. I saw him the day before he died. He was having trouble breathing and he wasn’t very responsive, in part because he was on morphine and was tired. He couldn’t talk. But with a bit of effort he could open his eyes and nod his head. Viewed from one perspective, it was sad to see him in the shape he was in. He was in his bed, leaning to one side, a tube bringing oxygen to his gaping mouth. He had lost quite a bit of weight, his breathing was labored, and his skin was very pale and unhealthy looking.

But viewed from another perspective, his situation wasn’t sad. And neither was his death. That’s because trusted that Jesus Christ is the Son of the living God. He trusted that Jesus’ perfect, righteous life was credited to his account and that Jesus’ death on the cross paid for all his sins. He trusted that Jesus rose from the grave on the third day, the first day being the day when Jesus was killed by crucifixion. He believed that Jesus’ resurrection was a vindication of who Jesus is and what his death accomplished. He believed that Jesus “was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification” (Rom. 4:25).[1] And because he believed that, and because he embraced Jesus as his Savior, Lord, and God, I knew that this was not the end of his story. I looked at him and said, “One day, you’ll get a resurrected body, a perfect body that won’t have all these problems, a body that will never die.”

The great claim of Christianity is that there is eternal life for those who are united to Jesus. Those who trust Jesus will die. But as Jesus once said, “Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live” (John 11:25). Those who belong to Jesus will one day be raised from the dead and their bodies will be transformed, or glorified, so that they will be immortal. This will happen when Jesus returns to judge the living and the dead and to make all things new. And the reason we trust that this will happen is because almost two thousand years ago, Jesus rose from the dead. The resurrection of Jesus is the first installment of a new creation, a world that is made perfect, a world in which there is no more evil, disease, war, or death.

This sounds almost too good to be true. Everything in life seems to head towards a fall and the long death of winter. Can there really be an ultimate spring and an endless summer? Can there really be eternal life after death?

Well, that is the claim of Christianity. And I believe it is true. The reason I believe that Christianity is true is because it makes the most sense of life, because it provides us great hope, and because there is evidence that supports its claims.

Today, I want us to see three things about Jesus and his resurrection. One, no one would have fabricated this story. Two, I want us to see why Jesus lived, died, and rose again. And, three, I want us to see what a right response to Jesus looks like. We’ll do that by taking a look at what the Gospel of John says about Jesus’ resurrection.

We’re going to read John 20 today. We’ll start by reading verses 1–13:

1 Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. 2 So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” 3 So Peter went out with the other disciple, and they were going toward the tomb. 4 Both of them were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5 And stooping to look in, he saw the linen cloths lying there, but he did not go in. 6 Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen cloths lying there, 7 and the face cloth, which had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen cloths but folded up in a place by itself. 8 Then the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; 9 for as yet they did not understand the Scripture, that he must rise from the dead. 10 Then the disciples went back to their homes.

11 But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb, and as she wept she stooped to look into the tomb. 12 And she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one at the feet. 13 They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.”

It’s Sunday, and Mary Magdalene goes to the tomb of Jesus. In the other Gospels, we’re told that Mary was with some other women, and that they went to the tomb to put spices on Jesus’ body. This was a form of embalming a body; the spices would help cover the smell of the decomposing body. Because Jesus was hastily buried, they didn’t have the opportunity to do this before he was put in the tomb.

It’s quite clear that Mary wasn’t expecting Jesus to be resurrected from the grave. She thinks some people have taken Jesus’ body from the tomb. She says this to Peter and John (“the other disciple”) and to the angels. And it seems like the disciples weren’t really expecting this. In Luke’s Gospel, we’re told, “Now it was Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James and the other women with them who told these things to the apostles, but these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them” (Luke 24:10–11). Mark says that the women were afraid after they saw the empty tomb (Mark 16:8). Matthew says that even after they saw the risen Jesus, some of the disciples doubted (Matt. 28:17).

The point is that no one seemed to believe that Jesus would rise from the dead. People in Jesus’ day knew dead people stayed dead. British theologian N. T. Wright says that Gentiles weren’t expecting this sort of thing.[2] He also says that Jewish people “never imagined that ‘resurrection’ would happen to one person in the middle of time; they believed it would happen to all people at the end of time [Dan. 12:2; John 11:23-24]. The Easter stories are very strange, but they are not projections of what people ‘always hoped would happen.’”[3] The apostles weren’t expecting that a man would come back from the grave in an indestructible body in the middle of history.

If no one was expecting Jesus’ resurrection, we shouldn’t think that people simply made this story up. There is simply no evidence that a group of people fabricated this story. The details of the story would be too unbelievable to make up. After all, if a Jewish person were to make this story up, they wouldn’t have women being the first witnesses of the empty tomb. In the first century in Palestine, a woman’s testimony was almost useless. In that male-dominated society, a woman’s testimony would be heard in court only in rare cases.[4] Now, that’s not a biblical or Christian view of women, but that was what people believed in that day. If you were making up a story, you wouldn’t have women as the first witnesses. You would likely have rich men or priests see the empty tomb first.

Also, the apostles would have nothing to gain by making up this story. Christianity put them at odds with the Roman Empire, the superpower of the day that controlled the whole area surrounding the Mediterranean Sea. This area included good portions of the Middle East, Northern Africa, and Europe. Christians occasionally died because of their faith. The earliest Christians were Jews, and the Roman Empire tolerated the Jewish religion. But it did not tolerate Christianity for almost three hundred years. Who would make up a story that would lead to their own death?

There are many other reasons to believe that the resurrection is true. You can read about them in the article that was included with your bulletin.[5] If you read that article, you’ll see that it points you to some online resources if you want to learn more.

The second thing I want us to see is why Jesus’ death and resurrection matter. Let’s read verses 14–23:

14 Having said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing, but she did not know that it was Jesus. 15 Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” 16 Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned and said to him in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means Teacher). 17 Jesus said to her, “Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” 18 Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”—and that he had said these things to her.

19 On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” 20 When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. 21 Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” 22 And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.”

It was early in the morning and still dark when Mary went to the tomb. And she was now weeping. So, it’s understandable that she wouldn’t recognize Jesus. She assumes this man who is now talking to her is a gardener. That’s a reasonable guess, since Jesus was crucified and buried in a garden (John 19:41). When Mary hears her own name called by Jesus, she recognizes who is talking to her. Perhaps that’s an echo of what Jesus said earlier in John’s Gospel. He called himself the good shepherd who leads and lays down his life for his people, his sheep. He said, “The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out” (John 10:3).

But perhaps Mary wasn’t so mistaken. Maybe Jesus is a bit of a gardener. Bear with me for a moment. The big story of the Bible says that God created human beings in his image and after his likeness (Gen. 1:26), to reflect his glory, to serve him and to obey him. Essentially, we were made to know and love God, to live all of life under God’s authority, and to let others know about God, too. At the beginning of the Bible, God made the first two human beings and he put them in a garden. I think this is a literal event that also has symbolic meaning. The first human beings were supposed to keep the garden (Gen. 2:15) and they were supposed to “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it” (Gen. 1:28). And if you think about it, you start to get this image: Outside the garden is wilderness, a wild, undeveloped area. And as God’s image bearers worshiped and obeyed God and as they were fruitful and multiplied, having children who also worshiped God, they would be able to expand the garden until it filled the whole earth so that it became a paradise, full of the glory of God.

Now, that sounds like a beautiful thing. But there’s a problem. The first human beings didn’t trust God and obey him. They doubted his goodness. They wanted to be like God. In effect, they tried to remove God from his throne. As a result, God kicked them out of the garden, into the wilderness. And as a partial punishment for sin, God put his creation under a curse. Now, life would be hard; people would die. God did this to limit the rebellion of human beings. God loves his creation and doesn’t want evil—particularly the evil of rebellious human beings—to ruin it.

Now, if you’re reading the Bible thoughtfully and you read the first three chapters of the Bible, you may wonder, “How can we get back to the garden? How can we get back into God’s presence? How can we have a right relationship with him? How can go to a place where we will never die?”

As you read the Old Testament, you see how all human beings are rebellious. And, frankly, you don’t have to read the Bible to see that. Just look around. Look at how rebellious even little children can be. We can’t make our lives into a garden. We can’t remove all the weeds from our lives, let alone the whole world. People have tried, and they have failed, again and again.

The only solution comes from God. God the Father sent his Son, Jesus, into the world. He did that in part so that Jesus could fulfill God’s plans for humanity. Jesus is the only person who perfectly loved, obeyed, worshiped, and served God. He is the ultimate image bearer of God, the true image and likeness of God. He is the perfect human being, the only one who has any right to live in the garden of God.

But how can Jesus bring people like us into the garden? We are made unclean by our sin, our disobedience to God, our rebellion against him, our ignoring him. God is a perfect judge who must make sure that the guilty receive the appropriate sentence for their crimes. God cannot allow rebels to live in his garden, so the appropriate sentence is death. Really, when we choose to turn away from God, we turn away from the source of life, and we find a world of death. No one forces us to do this. We choose this willingly, because we don’t love God.

The only way that Jesus can bring us into the garden is to take that sentence of death on himself. That’s what he did on the cross. He died to pay the penalty for our sin. He endured God’s punishment against sinners on the cross. “For our sake he [God the Father] made him [Jesus] to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21).

And when Jesus rose from the grave, he was the first fruits of a new garden. Quite literally, the resurrected Jesus came out of the garden tomb as an immortal being, the second Adam planted in a garden. And he later ascended to heaven, where he is now with God the Father, praying and pleading for his people, serving as their great high priest. But someday he will come again, to judge everyone who has ever lived. Those who have turned to Jesus in faith, trusting that he is who the Bible says he is and that he has done what the Bible says he has done, will live in a garden paradise forever (Rev. 22:1–5 echoes the garden imagery of Gen. 2).

Jesus told his disciples, “Peace be with you.” The only way to have real peace in this life, the only way to have peace with God, is to know Jesus. Jesus said to the Father, “And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17:3). That doesn’t mean that knowing facts about God gives us eternal life. No, it means we must know God because we have a relationship with him. That is what brings us peace. We don’t earn a relationship with God. We don’t make ourselves acceptable to God. No, we must simply receive salvation as a gift.

Now, I want us to see what a right relationship with God looks like. Let’s read verses 24–31:

24 Now Thomas, one of the twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.”

26 Eight days later, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” 27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.” 28 Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” 29 Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

30 Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; 31 but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

When Jesus appeared to the other disciples, Thomas wasn’t there. Thomas gets a bad rap. He’s known as “doubting Thomas. For him, seeing is believing. But earlier in John’s Gospel, Thomas said he was willing to die with Jesus (John 11:16). So, Thomas was a person who followed Jesus and trusted him. Still, he couldn’t believe that Jesus had risen.

Jesus doesn’t rebuke Thomas. Instead, he appears to him and to the rest of the disciples on the following Sunday. And Jesus invites Thomas to see him and to touch him.

When Thomas see Jesus, he cannot help but say, “My Lord and my God!” One of John’s goals in writing his Gospel is to make it clear that Jesus is God. He begins his Gospel that way (John 1:1) and here at the end he records Thomas’ confession of faith.

People who truly believe in Jesus know that he is Lord and God. I think we generally understand what the word “God” means, but it’s hard for us to understand what “Lord” means. When we hear that word, we may think of the House of Lords in London. The word sounds antiquated. But John’s initial readers would have known what was being said. During this time, the superpower of the world was the Roman Empire, and its leader was the emperor, also known as Caesar. And Caesar was known as Lord. According to one dictionary, Lord means “one having power and authority over others.”[6] Caesar was the most powerful man in the world.

He wasn’t just known as Lord, but he was also known as “the son of God” and a “savior.” There is an inscription of a decree made in 9 BC by an official in the eastern part of the Roman Empire that says the birthday of Augustus—the emperor reigning over the Roman Empire at the time Jesus was born—should be celebrated. This official wanted the calendar to be reset to the emperor’s birthday, in 63 BC.[7] The inscription claims that Augustus was a “savior”[8] and “our god.”[9] Coins in the Roman Empire had titles of the emperor on them: divi filius (“son of God”) and pontifex maximus (“greatest priest”). In the Roman Empire, the Caesar was worshiped as a god.

So, when Thomas says, “My Lord and my God!” he’s saying that Jesus is the true God, the true Lord, the true King, the world’s true ruler and ultimate authority. Thomas swears his allegiance to Jesus, not to Caesar.

The earliest Christians were willing to die rather than compromise that allegiance to Jesus. They would rather die than bow before the emperor and worship him. One of John’s students was a man named Polycarp (69–155), who became the bishop of Smyrna, which is now known as Izmir, a city in Turkey. He became a martyr, a Christian who died for his faith. At the time of his execution, some people tried to convince him to worship the emperor and therefore be saved from death. They said, “Why, what harm is there in saying, ‘Caesar is Lord,’ and offering incense” (and other words to this effect) “and thereby saving yourself?”[10] But Polycarp refused. Then, “the magistrate persisted and said, ‘Swear the oath, and I will release you; revile Christ,’ Polycarp replied, ‘For eighty-six years I have been his servant, and he has done me no wrong. How can I blaspheme my King who saved me?’”[11] When Polycarp was told he would be burned by fire, he said, “You threaten with a fire that burns only briefly and after just a little while is extinguished, for you are ignorant of the fire of the coming judgment and eternal punishment, which is reserved for the ungodly. But why do you delay? Come, do what you wish.”[12]

True Christians recognize that Jesus is not only Savior, but also Lord and God. I don’t think we have proper categories to understand what “Lord” really means. The most powerful man on earth is probably the president of our country, yet no matter who is in the White House, it seems like at least half the country hates him and doesn’t recognize his authority. And the president’s authority is limited, of course. But Jesus is Lord over everything. And when we come to him as Savior, he becomes Lord over all of our lives, not just our Sunday mornings or whenever we feel like being religious.

I think the reason many people don’t embrace Jesus is that issue of authority. We simply don’t want someone else to be Lord over our lives. That is why people reject Christianity. It’s not because Christianity is irrational or illogical. It’s not because there is no evidence to support the claims of Christianity. We have eyewitness testimony from several different witnesses, and the basic claims of Christianity are supported by philosophy and science. I think people often ignore that evidence because they don’t want a Lord.

The philosopher Thomas Nagel, an atheist, wrote these words several years ago: “I want atheism to be true and am uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God and, naturally, hope I’m right in my belief. It’s that I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that.”[13] He then says, “My guess is that this cosmic authority problem is not a rare condition.”[14]

We don’t want there to be a Lord God because we don’t want someone telling us what we can and can’t do, particularly in important areas of our lives like sex, marriage, money, how we use our time, and how we treat people who are different from us. I think people know that the Christian life isn’t an easy one, and they don’t want to take what they think is the hard road. As G. K. Chesterton put it, “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.”[15]

Yet if we reject Jesus because we reject his authority, we also reject his blessings. He said that those who believe—even when they haven’t seen him in the flesh—are blessed. John says he wrote his Gospel so that people would believe and have eternal life in Jesus. If you know Jesus, you know God and have eternal life. But if there’s no Lord Jesus in and over your life, there’s no eternal life for you. So many people say, “Rest in peace,” after someone has died. I’m here to tell you the truth: the only way to rest in peace is to have a right relationship with Jesus, the kind of relationship that Thomas and Mary Magdalene had. We will all have that moment when our bodies will fail. We all will die, whether in a sudden accident or slowly on a bed, tubes connected to our bodies, morphine in our veins. What happens next? Will you have eternal peace? You will if Jesus is your Lord and God.

We will all come under some authority. Something will rule over us, whether it’s something that we treasure the most or even our own desires. Entertainment, pleasure, money, politics, and almost anything else can function as our lord and god. But Jesus is the only God who would sacrifice his life for you. He’s the only Lord who can die for your sins and make you right with God. No one else, and nothing else will do that for you. I urge you to put your trust in him. And if you don’t know Jesus, please talk to me. I would love to help you know him and follow him.

Notes

  1. Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are taken from the English Standard Version (ESV). ↑
  2. “Nobody in the pagan world of Jesus’ day and thereafter actually claimed that somebody had been truly dead and had then come to be truly, and bodily, alive once more.” N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, Christian Origins and the Question of God (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2003), 76. ↑
  3. N. T. Wright, Simply Jesus: A New Vision of Who He Was, What He Did, and Why He Matters (New York: HarperOne, 2011), 192. ↑
  4. Flavius Josephus the Jewish historian, writes in his Antiquities 4.8.15, “But let not the testimony of women be admitted, on account of the levity and boldness of their sex.” ↑
  5. Brian Watson, “Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ,” https://wbcommunity.org/evidence-resurrection-jesus-christ. ↑
  6. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, 2003). ↑
  7. John Dickson, A Doubter’s Guide to the Bible: Inside History’s Bestseller for Believers and Skeptics (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2014), 133. ↑
  8. M. Eugene Boring, “Gospel, Message,” ed. Katharine Doob Sakenfeld, The New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2006–2009), 2:630. ↑
  9. Orientis Graeci Inscriptiones, 2:458, quoted in Dickson, A Doubter’s Guide to the Bible, 133. ↑
  10. The Martyrdom of Polycarp 8, in Michael William Holmes, The Apostolic Fathers: Greek Texts and English Translations, Updated ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1999), 233. ↑
  11. The Martyrdom of Polycarp 9, in ibid., 235. ↑
  12. The Martyrdom of Polycarp 11, in ibid. ↑
  13. Thomas Nagel, The Last Word (1997), 130. ↑
  14. Ibid., 131. ↑
  15. G. K. Chesterton, What’s Wrong with the World? (New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1912), 48. ↑