Sermon given at Beecher Island Sunday School
5/6/18
Luke 24: 36-43
+ Open in prayer.
+ Following the sudden disappearance of Jesus in Emmaus, He suddenly appears to the apostles and other disciples in Jerusalem.
John 20:19 records this same event, showing the doors were locked!
That is why the disciples thought Jesus was a ghost!
The apostles were “frightened!”
Jesus was not a ghost.
Jesus then invites them to touch Him!
And Jesus even eats some broiled fish!
Yet the nature of Jesus was different. He went through closed doors.
~ The main point of this passage is Jesus was resurrected both spiritually and physically!
+ The message for us is Jesus was resurrected both spiritually and physically!
When Lazarus was raised from the dead, he came out of the tomb looking a little like a mummy.
Jesus was not a mummy.
The grave clothes of Jesus were left in the tomb. Peter and John saw those linen clothes.
* Either Jesus took His grave clothes off, or He went through His grave clothes.
Basic Christianity by John Stott is a classic book. John Stott explains the original Greek text indicates the linen clothes fell off of Jesus as if the body disappeared. (Keep in mind 75 pounds of spices were in the strips of linen.) One key was the head cloth being separate from the other linens.
= John Stott states:
“A glance at these grave clothes proved the reality, and indicated the nature, of the resurrection. They had been neither touched nor folded nor manipulated by any human being. They were like a discarded chrysalis from which the butterfly has emerged” (Stott 53-54).
= John Stott continues:
“What then should we have seen, had we been there [in the tomb]? We should suddenly have noticed that the body had disappeared. It would have ‘vaporized,’ being transmuted into something new and different and wonderful. It would have passed through the grave clothes, as it was later to pass through closed doors…” (Stott 53).
After the resurrection of Jesus, He was even able to go through closed doors. His resurrection has a supernatural element to it.
All of this talk of ghosts and mummies leads to the question: Why does God allow death in the first place?
Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Jesus Christ died on a cross for the forgiveness of sins of anyone. He was the substitute for the consequence of sins, which is spiritual death. Yet then He was resurrected! If you believe in Jesus, you will have everlasting life with Him in heaven!
+ Invitation! You can believe in Jesus this very day!
