Please turn with me in the Word of God to the Gospel of Luke, chapter 24, where we will read Luke's account of the resurrection and of that first Easter day. Luke gives by far the longest account that we have in the Gospels of that first Easter day. Almost all of chapter 24 is a record of what occurred on that first Easter Sunday. And we're going to read part of this chapter as our text for this evening. Luke chapter 24, beginning at verse 1, let us hear God's own word. On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb. But when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were wondering about this, suddenly, two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. In their fright, the women bowed down with their faces to the ground. But the men said to them, Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here. He has risen. Remember how he told you while he was still with you in Galilee? The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, be crucified, and on the third day be raised again. Then they remembered his words. When they came back from the tomb, they told all these things to the eleven and to all the others. It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary, the mother of James, and the others with them who told this to the apostles. But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense. Peter, however, got up and ran to the tomb. Bending over, he saw the strips of linen lying by themselves. And he went away, wondering to himself what had happened. And then skipping down to verse 36, we take up the reading again. While they, that is the two disciples who had seen Jesus on the road to Emmaus, while they were still talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, Peace be with you. They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. He said to them, Why are you troubled? And why do doubts rise in your minds? Look at my hands and my feet. It is I, myself, touch me and see. The ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see I have. When he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet. And while they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement, he asked them, Do you have anything here to eat? They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate it in their presence. He said to them, This is what I told you while I was still with you. Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms. Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. He told them, This is what is written. The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day. And repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. So far the reading of God's Word. The Gospel of Luke records that the very first words spoken on the Easter Sunday morning, at least the first words that Luke records, are the words of the angels saying to the women, Why do you seek the living among the dead? These women had come to the tomb of Jesus in every expectation that their sad duty would be to anoint a body that had been buried in haste three days before. The women who had been some of Jesus' most loyal followers had followed him from Galilee into Jerusalem. Had followed him and stood near him when they crucified him. Had been there to see him die. And had followed his body to its burial in this tomb. But had not had time, because the Sabbath was about to begin, to properly anoint and prepare the body. And so they returned early on Sunday morning, having fulfilled their Sabbath duty. to make a more proper preparation of the body of our Lord. They came with no hope of life. They came with no expectation of resurrection. They came to a tomb in a cemetery expecting to anoint a corpse. And the angel said to them, Why do you seek the living? among the dead. Jesus Christ was not a corpse in a tomb. He had risen. And this remarkable fact has in many ways been the foundation and the life and the hope of the church from that time on. Jesus is the living one. Jesus is risen. Death could not hold him. He was not there in the tomb. Now some, especially in recent centuries in the life of the church, have tried to deflect attention somewhat from the very specific historical story that is recounted here about the individual Jesus Christ. And have tried to say what Easter is really all about is life. Life coming out of death. Life as the principle of rebirth. Life as spring. That's why many, when they think about Easter, think about Easter bunnies. Because Easter bunnies proliferate and speak of life as a principle. Or we think of Easter eggs that speak of fertility and life as a principle. And we like to have lots of flowers that speak of spring coming and life as a principle. Now, none of these things are bad or unimportant in themselves, but none of them have anything to do with Easter. The angel was not articulating a principle at the tomb when he said, why do you seek the living among the dead? He was not saying we ought to emphasize life and not emphasize death. What he literally said was, why do you seek the living one among the dead ones? Jesus is not dead, says the angel. He's not making some point about a principle of the importance of life. He's making a historical assertion that Jesus, whom they thought dead, that individual is in fact alive. And that's the glory of the message of the church of Jesus Christ. It's not about a principle, but about a person. Easter and Christianity are about a person. And Luke's account, this long account in Luke 24, is an account of how the disciples wrestled with that problem. How can it be that he's alive? How can we believe that he's alive? How can we know that he's alive? And Luke records that to encourage us. To help us to see that as they went through a process of coming to realize that Jesus was alive, so too we can be encouraged to go through that process with hope and with confidence and with assurance. So how did the disciples come to learn that Jesus is the living one on that first Easter Sunday? Well, the first thing that we see in this text is that they came to learn that Jesus is the living one as an unexpected surprise. One of the things that comes through so powerfully in this passage is that no one who had followed Jesus and listened to him for three years had expected him to rise from the dead. The women come, as we've already seen, with spices to anoint a corpse, not with any anticipation that Jesus would be found alive or that the tomb would be found empty. They went despairing to the tomb. They had no hope that Jesus would be alive. When the women came from the tomb, filled now with faith because of what the angel had said to them, coming, it appears in a significant group. We have three women named, and then we're told there were others with them. There have to be at least five or six women who had gone together to the tomb, perhaps more. they come rushing back to the disciples, to the eleven, and to others who were gathered together, and they tell their story, and the disciples' reaction is, that's nonsense. It's an idle tale. The Greek word used here, in some circumstances, can refer to delirium, people sick and raving in a fever. In spite of the fact that they knew these women, they knew they were reliable women, in spite of the fact that there were numbers of them, the disciples just said, this is ridiculous. And then we have the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. And when they meet Jesus and do not recognize him, they recount how they had hoped that Jesus was the one who would redeem Israel. But they're defeated. They believe that all their hopes have been in vain. And then even when Jesus appears to the disciples later in that day, when he himself stands among them, their first reaction is that they're seeing a ghost. They're filled with doubt. They can't believe their own eyes. And what's important to see in this is that all of those who would have us believe that ancient people were people who were easily led astray by superstition or would believe just anything that was told them as a story or believe that people popped up from the dead all the time, it's simply not true. These were people very much like us. If there's anything you come to know in life, if you live long enough, is that the dead stay dead. That there's nothing quite so awful and final as death and burial and a tomb. And that's what they thought had happened to the Jesus whom they loved. They had no expectation that he would rise. And so in each of these instances that we find in the text, the women at the tomb, the disciples on the road to Emmaus, the disciples later gathered at dinner, Each time when they were called to believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, their initial reaction was unbelief. They couldn't believe it was true. It was an unexpected surprise for them. But what Luke wants us to see is that these disciples, who had been despairing and doubting and defeated, came to faith in Jesus Christ because of what happened on that first Easter day. And this is important because it's as if Luke is reaching out to us and saying, have you ever doubted the resurrection of our Savior? Have you ever wondered if these things can really be true? Have you perhaps had friends or perhaps had classes in schools where the idea of resurrection was ridiculed and some substitute notion was put in its place. And Luke's saying, it's not surprising that people when they first think about the Christian claim that Jesus Christ is raised from the dead, that the first reaction might be doubt and unbelief. It's so unbelievable. It's so amazing. It's so unexpected. It's so contrary to all human experience. But that first Easter led all of these people who had known Jesus and had loved Jesus to come to faith that he was indeed alive, that death could not hold him. And Luke calls us to believe that as well. This unexpected surprise moves on then in the experience of the disciples to an undeniable sight. They see things that cannot be denied. I don't mean by that that they can't be denied by people determined to be skeptical and unbelieving. But they could not deny them in their own experience. Even though their inclination was to deny it, they could not persevere in unbelief in terms of what they experienced and saw there. They saw, the women in the first place, an empty, open tomb. Some of the other gospel accounts talk more about the women's speculation. How would they open the tomb? Some of the other gospel accounts refer to the fact that guards had been placed at the tomb. the fact that the tomb was open and empty is a huge surprise and a real problem for those who would deny the resurrection of our Savior. Who would have an interest, if Christ be not risen, in taking his body? This was not the tomb of a pharaoh, where tomb-ribbers might hope to find treasure. This was not a tomb that either the Jewish leaders or the Roman leaders had any interest in emptying. In fact, quite the opposite. They put soldiers there so that no one could take the body. The authorities seemed to feel, or to fear, that the disciples might come and steal the body and claim that Jesus was raised from the dead. But Luke's account shows how that's exactly the opposite of the way that the disciples reacted. They were not inclined to go on trying to serve Jesus and serve his mission, and because they believed in resurrection, steal his body to try to deceive people. They didn't believe in the resurrection. They didn't hope in the resurrection. They weren't thinking about resurrection. Nobody had an interest in stealing this body. And the fact that the tomb was empty is an undeniable sight that arrested the attention of the women and Peter and others. Second sight is the presence of the angel, these men in glittering apparel. Again, Jews were not used to seeing angels all the time. angels were a rare event a glorious intercession from heaven these women knew that something really remarkable was happening if there were angels there among them and those angels had a testimony why do you seek the living among the dead he is not here he is risen that's the voice of heaven speaking to them about the meaning of this empty tomb and then there's the appearance of of Jesus himself appearing on the road to Emmaus and talking to these two disciples eating with them and then allowing their eyes to be opened so that they saw who in fact it was that had been speaking to them and they knew they recognized that it was Jesus this Jesus whom they'd known for years did our hearts not burn within us when we came to recognize who this was and then he appeared to the disciples gathered later in the day and he asked them to touch him I'm not a ghost I have a body that can be touched give me something to eat I can eat just like a real person our Savior came forth alive from the tomb. And as the disciples in these various settings saw the empty tomb, saw and heard the angels, saw the Savior himself as he talked with them, walked with them, ate with them, touched them, they came to realize he is alive. He is risen. He is risen from the dead. And out of this unexpected surprise, and out of this undeniable sight, then came to these disciples an unassailable certainty. An unassailable certainty. A certainty in their hearts and in their lives that enabled them to live and to die for the name of Jesus. A certainty that he was alive and the Lord of life. That he was the life-giving spirit who would give life to his people. You know, when you think about the lives of those early disciples, when you read about them briefly and don't think too deeply, they can seem kind of heroic. Wouldn't it have been great to be Paul and go on those missionary journeys? Wouldn't it be great to be Peter and be the prince of the apostles? Well, we should all talk a little more to Dr. Tan about how noble and every moment satisfying it is to be a missionary. No, most of the time it's hard and tough. Paul had any number of ways in which he suffered before he was finally martyred. Peter went through all sorts of difficulties with his own countrymen and then with Paul and in all sorts of circumstances till at least tradition holds that he was martyred. What was it that led these early Christians to give up all for the sake of Jesus Christ? It was an unassailable certainty that he was who he claimed to be and that he was alive, that he was the Lord and therefore worthy of all honor and service. And how does Jesus encourage those disciples on that first Easter and encourage us today to attain that unassailable certainty? Well, he does it in a most remarkable way. He says, in effect, you can be absolutely certain that I'm alive and that I'm the Lord of life because the scriptures say so. That's amazing when you think about it. Listen to these words. Luke 24, beginning of verse 44. For he said to them, this is what I told you while I was still with you. Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the Psalms. Then he opened their minds so they could understand the scriptures. And he told them, this is what is written. The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day. Jesus had made the same point to the disciples on the road to Emmaus. Verse 25 of Luke 24, He said to them, How foolish you are and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory? And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he explained to them that what was said in all the scriptures concerning himself. Jesus says to them and Jesus says to us, the most fundamental way in which you can know that Jesus is the Christ and that He had to suffer for our sins and had to be raised to life for our life is that the Scriptures say so. Well, that's sort of disappointing, isn't it? Didn't you hope for a bigger finish to this sermon than that? Aren't the Scriptures kind of uncertain? Don't we live in a world where people are forever saying, you can't trust the Scriptures 100%. Our Lord Jesus Christ trusted the Scriptures 100%. And our Lord Jesus Christ was willing to found His whole life and work on what the Scriptures said. And he called his disciples to rest their whole lives on their confidence in what the Scripture taught. Because Jesus came for one purpose and one purpose only, to fulfill what the Scriptures had prophesied. Peter takes this theme up in a remarkable way in his second epistle. Really elaborating on the point that Jesus makes here in Luke 24. Peter says to those to whom he's writing in his first chapter of his second letter, we did not make up myths that we are following. Some people already in the first century have begun to say that. These stories you Christians tell, they're just a bunch of myths. We did not make up myths, Peter says. And then he says, chapter 1, verse 18 of 2 Peter, We ourselves heard this very voice born from heaven, for we were with Him on the holy mountain. Peter's talking about the Mount of Transfiguration. Peter's talking about how he stood there with James and John and saw Jesus glorified before him. And he's talking about how he heard with his own ear the voice of the Father coming and saying, This is my beloved Son, hear Him. Peter says, we're not making up myths. I was there, I heard it, and I saw it. But Peter goes on then in verse 19 to say, and we have something more sure. Think about that. Peter, who looked in the glorified face of Jesus Christ and heard the voice of the Father from heaven says, I have something more sure than that. And what is it? And we have something more sure, the prophetic word to which you will do well to pay attention. Peter's saying, before you start trusting what you see and what you hear, more fundamentally you should trust God's word. That's the foundation that cannot be shaken. People hear all kinds of things. There are all kinds of people who claim to have seen visions and had revelations and had experiences. Jesus says, Peter says, the rock on which we have an unassailable certainty is the scriptures which long ago prophesied that Jesus would die for his people and rise from the dead. Peter preached his first sermon at Pentecost. And one of the texts he used in that sermon was Psalm 16. I have set the Lord always before me. Because He is at my right hand, I will not be shaken. Therefore, my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices. My body will also dwell secure. Because you will not abandon me to the grave, nor let your Holy One see decay. You have made known to me the path of life. You will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand. Peter said that's a prophecy of the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. In Acts 4, Peter preached, and one of the texts he used was Psalm 118, which we sang. And particularly the verse, the stone the builders rejected has become the capstone. The Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes. the Lord is God and He made His light shine upon us in the land of the living. This is the promise of Scripture. This is the repeated message of Scripture. You can think of Isaiah 53 with the well-known prophecy of the death of Jesus Christ, but there's also a prophecy of His resurrection. Isaiah 53, verse 10, Yet it was the Lord's will to crush Him and cause Him to suffer. And though the Lord makes His life a guilt offering, He will see His offspring and prolong His days. And the will of the Lord will prosper in His hand. After the suffering of His soul, He will see the light of life and be satisfied. The prophets looked forward to a suffering Savior. And the people of God in Jesus' day didn't believe it. And the prophets looked forward to a resurrected Savior. And the people in Jesus' day didn't believe it. But Jesus says it's the truth. It's the truth. It's an unassailable certainty. God, from the fall of mankind, indeed, from all eternity, was planning our salvation, prophesying the coming of the Savior, bringing the Savior to do His work for us, and now it's done. It's fulfilled. And in Him, there is life. you notice how the angels spoke to the women at the tomb. The women doubting and perplexed by what they had seen. And the angel says, Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, he has risen. Remember how he told you while he was still with you in Galilee? The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, be crucified, and on the third day be raised again. Luke recorded it. Luke 9.22 and Luke 18.31 and following. How Jesus had prophesied his death and resurrection. And the angel says to these women, do you remember? He said it. He promised it. And it's true. And then Luke records of the women. Then they remembered his words. And that's the moment at which they believed. Because they went running back to the other disciples to tell them that the Lord was risen. They knew at that moment, as a gift of the Holy Spirit, That what Jesus Christ said could be believed, must be believed, was to be believed. It was an unassailable certainty planted in their hearts. That the word of God which Jesus spoke and the word of the prophets recorded in the scriptures all came together to assure the people of God that the Jesus whom we serve and worship is the living Lord. And this is crucial for you and me because He is the living Lord who gives life to us. It is crucial that we know that His word is unassailable so that when we hear Him say, as we do at the beginning and end of every service, As He said to those disciples on that first Easter, Peace be with you. That He really brings peace to us. That when He says forgiveness of sins is to be preached in His name, that we can rely on His word, that forgiveness of sins comes through His name. And that as He is the Lord of life, so He will preserve us alive. And the world and the flesh and the devil will not be able to destroy us because they could not destroy him. And as death could not hold him, death will not hold us. He has the words of life, and in him we will live. This is why the church has seen a celebration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ as so central for the experience of God's people. He is alive, and in his life we will live. May God grant each one of us the grace to know that he is alive and to experience his life in us. Amen. Let us pray. O Lord, our God, how thankful we are that we serve a risen Savior. How thankful we are that Jesus Christ is alive today. That he has all things in his hands. That he is the ruler of the kings of this earth. That he is the great bishop of his church. And that he is the Savior of every soul that turns to him in hope. O Lord, fill us with hope in believing that our Savior lives to accomplish his purpose, to fulfill all that he said he would do, and to give us hope and comfort and joy in living. Hear us, for we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.