Stages in the Crucifixion 31–36; He is Risen; He is Alive - Resurrection Day, Matthew 28:1-8

We are going to finish the last six stages in the crucifixion. That is a fitting prelude to understanding the reality of the resurrection, which is the second part of the message as we look at what happened on that day.

As I have been studying over the past several weeks related to these events that occurred between Jesus being pronounced guilty by Pilate and sent to be crucified, and the seat final event which is the ceiling of the tomb, I have gone on from that to examine the significance of these last details, along with what were told about the resurrection in the four Gospels. And there's a lot here. This is not a one-shot Easter or resurrection-day message, this is the beginning of probably three or four weeks of looking through what is what is told to us what is been revealed to us, not only in terms of the events.

We need to focus on what happened on that first resurrection day. But then we need to move beyond all of that to the evidence that that provides, and then we need to understand the significance and importance of the resurrection.

We stopped last time to look at the final six stages of the crucifixion. The first five stages were the procession from the Praetorium to Golgotha. The second stage was the first three hours on the cross, from 9am to noon where the wrath of man was hurled at the Savior as He hung on the cross as they reviled Him and ridiculed Him and blasphemed Him. But His response again and again during that time was one of grace and one of forgiveness. He demonstrated a relaxed mental attitude. He was calm, He wasn't panicky, and He knew why He was there.

Then, during the second three hours the justice of God is poured out on the Lord Jesus Christ as He bears the sins of the world, and is judicially separated from the Father. It is during those three hours that our sins, the sins of every human being, the sins of the world, were paid for through a substitutionary death on the cross. It involves the canceling of sin. It involves forgiveness, and involves the satisfaction of God's righteousness.

Then His physical death is stage 25, followed by the confirming signs. There was the earthquake, the rocks are split, some of the dead that were raised, and then after His resurrection went out into the streets of Jerusalem and proclaimed the truth of His of his death.

This time we are looking at the burial of our Lord, stages 31 to 36. He still on the cross, He has died physically, but they're not sure that He has died physically because it was rather short. Sometimes they would cause a crucifixion to stretch out, if they could, a couple of days. But there they've got a time crunch here because as we read in John 19:31, this was the preparation day. There's a lot of discussion about what that means but in Jewish literature there is no discussion. In Jewish literature this is not the preparation day for the Passover because the Passover has already begun in the 14th of Nisan. It started the night before, that's when the disciples had their Seder. It extends through that day. They have the morning sacrifice in preparation for the eating of the meal between the two evenings—the evening of the night before, Thursday night, and this would be Friday night, and at dusk they will eat the Seder meal. At dusk begins the next day, which is the beginning of the feast of unleavened bread. That makes that Shabbat, that Saturday, a high Sabbath, and the term preparation day is always used in Jewish literature to refer exclusively to the preparation for the Sabbath, not the Passover.

That is one reason we know that he couldn't be a Wednesday or Thursday. That question always comes up and I spent a lot of years in my life. Let's take decades trying to demonstrate that it was not on a Friday. But again and again, the evidence just kept coming back that you just don't have enough time in the week to fit the chronology. The terminology doesn't fit, everybody wants to jump to Jesus statement in Matthew 12 that as Jonah was in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights, and they say that equal 72 hours. But again and again and again Jesus says he will rise on the third day. That's not 72 hours; that's less than 72 hours.

There are Old Testament passages that use the phrase three days and three nights or so many days so many nights, to refer to a period of time that includes any part of those days. Those of you who have been with me long enough you remember when we went through Kings several years ago and there were all of these different numbers related to the length of the reigns. The big conundrum chronologically there is that at different times in different under different kings, and whether you are in the north or in the south, they counted the years differently. You and I are the products of 2000 years of Western civilization in Roman and Greek thinking, and we count differently than the way the Jews counted. In the ancient world you have to look at the ancient near East to determine how they counted. If you became king on December 31, 2017, 2017 is your first year even though you are only king for one day, and if the previous king died at the end of the year, or even if he died at the first of the year, that whole year is counted as his year. That causes an overlap. So 2017 would count as a year for the previous king and we count as a year of the current king. Then if you died on January 1 of 2019 that would count as a full year. So 2017 would be a year, 2018 would be a year, 2019 would be a year even though it was only 367 days. That is also how they counted days. In the Talmud that it says any part of the day is counted as a full day, even if it's only an hour.

It's the preparation day for the Sabbath and they have to get the bodies down off of the crosses before the sun goes down, because they have to be ready for the Sabbath and because it's a high Sabbath. It's a high day; they're going to need to be back in their homes in order to observe the Seder and the Passover meal.

So they asked Pilate if the legs can be broken night. Jesus has his feet nailed to the cross. We don't know precisely how they did it. The one piece of evidence that we use because there's an ankle bone that was discovered in Jerusalem that had a nail that went through the bone and they couldn't extract it. It had just gotten caught into the bone itself and it indicated that each foot was on each side of the vertical piece, and then the nail was, was driven in from each side. Can you imagine how that felt? Yet Jesus didn't scream out. You and I would've probably passed out, but screamed first, but He did not. His feet are nailed to the cross. The others may not have had their feet nailed they had. It was typical for there to be a small piece of wood placed on the stapes which would give them just a little bit of purchase room to push themselves up and relieve the pressure against their diaphragm. So they asked Pilate to break their legs and they can't push themselves up. They are just going to be hanging were all of their internal organs are being pushed up against their diaphragm and they would be unable to breathe, and would suffocate quickly.

But Jesus legs were not broken because when they came to Him and He was already dead. John 19:34, "But one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear …"

Why did he do that he did that? To make sure He was dead, because it appeared that Jesus had already died. This soldier takes a spear and drives it up under the rib cage towards the heart. And immediately John observes from a phenomenological viewpoint—what it looked like to him—that blood and water came out.

There are different studies that have been done today by medical professionals who have observed that if a person is crucified and is in this position, what would happen is the blood would collect above the diaphragm and would separate out into red blood cells and also what would appear to be a clearer fluid. The fact that it had separated into these different properties would indicate that death had already occurred. When John observes this he just notes what he sees looks like blood and water coming out. But what that tells us is that Jesus had already died physically.

The fact that no bones were broken is a fulfillment of prophecy. It is pictured in typology because the legs of the Passover lamb were not to be broken and it is foretold specifically that no bones of Him were broken.

John 19:35 And he who has seen has testified, and his testimony is true; and he knows that he is telling the truth, so that you also may believe.

What we will see several times here is that the issue in salvation is to believe that this is true. It is not emotion; belief is a function of the mind. It is to look at a set of facts and say that's true. You are assenting to its veracity, that it is real, and that is evidence that you believe it. John is saying that salvation is by faith; is by believing, it's not by works, it's not by anything else. Over 95 times in the Gospel of John, John uses this term without qualification to express the condition for salvation. He never says truly believe, sincerely believe, genuinely believe; it's always just believe, because you either believe or you don't. It's a function of the mind, and instantly when you believe God the Father knows when you believe or not. And when you believe, when you say in your in your heart, in your mind in the center of your being, that that's true, that instant God regenerates you declares you just; you are saved and it is by faith alone in Christ alone.

John 19:36 For these things came to pass to fulfill the Scripture, “NOT A BONE OF HIM SHALL BE BROKEN.”

And again, another Scripture says they shall look on him whom they pierced and that's from Zechariah 12:10. So you have two prophecies that are fulfilled here on the cross: that He is pierced and that none of His bones are broken.

Then we come to the 32nd stage, and this is when Joseph of Arimathea will request His body, that it come down from the cross.

Matt 27:57   When it was evening, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who himself had also become a disciple of Jesus.

He is a prominent councilmember we learn that from Mark 15:43, that he was waiting for the kingdom of God as worthy of the disciples. We also learn from John that he was a secret disciple. He took courage and went into Pilate. He's going blow his cover because he and Nicodemus were both disciples, but they were secret disciples.

He came to Pilate were told in verse 44, "Pilate wondered if He was dead by this time, and summoning the centurion, he questioned him as to whether He was already dead." Pilate was amazed that He was already dead and has to have this confirming testimony that Jesus has already died.

The reason this is important is because if the resurrection of Christ is the linchpin, the chief cornerstone, the foundation of our faith, and without it we are fools, as Paul says in first Corinthians 15, then this is an attack point for those who reject Christianity. How do you know Jesus died? Well, if He did die then He just somehow regained consciousness and recovered, and was simply resuscitated but without any physical death. Pilate calls the centurion who's in command of the crucifixion detail and summons him to see if He's dead. This man would know because this man had witnessed numerous crucifixions and he had not only the experience to know, but he was also there when the soldier pierced Jesus side with the spear. He has seen the physical evidence that Jesus is dead. So when the centurion confirmed that yes He was dead then Pilate granted the body to Joseph.

In Luke 23 were told that Joseph was a councilmember. That means he was a member of the Sanhedrin. He is called a good and just man, and that he had not consented to their decision and deed. Neither he nor Nicodemus had consented to that, and we are told again that he was waiting for the kingdom of God. He knew he was a believer and what his future destiny was. John 19:38 tells us that not only was he a disciple of Jesus, he is more than a believer. A disciple is someone who is become a believer and then wants to live and learn in serving Christ through his life. So Joseph gets the body.

What we learn about Joseph is that he is a rich man from Arimathea, so his grave that he will put Jesus in is a rich man's grave. That fulfills prophecy from Isaiah chapter 53. He is a prominent member of the Sanhedrin; he didn't consent to the Sanhedrin's decision. He's a good and just man, he is personally observant of the law, but he is a believer as well and a disciple of Jesus Christ.

That brings us to the 33rd stage where they take Jesus' body down from the cross, and what we simply read at the beginning of Matthew 27:59 and Luke 23:53 is that the body was taken down from the from the cross.

The next thing that happens in the 34th stage is the burial of Jesus. He's wrapped in a clean linen cloth. We are told in Mark 15:46 that Joseph had bought fine linen. He took Him down and wrapped him in the linen, laid Him out in a tomb, which had been hewn out of rock, and rolled a stone against the door of the tomb.

Something that we see here is that in this process Joseph has going to Pilate and requested the body, then on the way to the cross he stops and buys linen. Then he goes to the cross. Some have argued that that is one reason why you have to have a crucifixion on Wednesday, that there wasn't enough time for Joseph to go back and forth and run all over Jerusalem to buy all these things. But there was, because from the Praetorium to the Golgotha was only about 100, 250 yards at the most. There could have been shops along the way, but the whole area of this part of Jerusalem was not that large, so it would not have taken him much time to secure this on the way to the cross to prepare the body for burial.

He lays it in a tomb, and this tomb is very close to the site of the crucifixion. It is a tomb that no one had ever lain in before. One of the problems with the area around the so-called garden tomb which is on to the north of the city that was, among many other things, never thought of as a site for the crucifixion until Charles Gordon came along in the 1880s. The reason he said that was because he thought that the Church of the Holy Sepulcher couldn't be the site because it was inside the wall and Jesus was crucified outside the wall. But since then we discovered another wall that was next to or near the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, but it was to the east, making Golgotha and the site of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher outside the wall at that time. The wall that we knew up until about 40 years ago was a wall that was built in 40 AD, some seven years after the crucifixion.

Also the tombs that surround the area where the garden tomb is located are all first temple period tombs. That means they all date to around 600 to 700 BC. That doesn't fit the scenario of a tomb here that no one had ever laid in before. Because the garden tomb has no body and it doesn't mean no one ever laid there. As Jerusalem expanded they typically would have to move all of the bodies out of the graveyards to another site to get them outside of the bound boundaries of the city.

So it's a new tomb and would learn in John 19:41 that in the place where He was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid. So there's a garden right there, and what we learn is that this had been this site where the Church of the Holy Sepulcher is located had been a quarry. But the rock there wasn't good enough for the construction and the reconstruction that Herod was carrying out on the Temple Mount. It was not stable enough so it was abandoned. There were many caves in that area and so it became a graveyard. They decorated it with flowers and made it a comfortable place to go and be near the graves are tombs of loved ones.

If you go into the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and look about 30 feet to your right, that's where that rock wall for Golgotha was located. You move about 60 feet to your left and that's where the edicule is located today, which is sort of like a tent that's constructed over the site of where Jesus tomb had been located. They are very close together. Then if you go just behind the edicule and go through a couple of low hanging doors you can go into a small room and you can see all these little tombs that were located there. So it fits the site.

Jesus goes into an unused tomb that was the tomb for a rich man, and this is emphasized in Isaiah chapter 53.

Stage 35 is a preparation for the embalming. This is described in Matthew 27:61, Mark 15:47, and Luke 23:55. And there are witnesses. Mary Magdalene is there, the other Mary—the mother James and Joseph, as an identified Mark 15:47. These are among other women who came from Galilee, and they are observing the preparation of the body, then taking that body—all of those 60 or 70 feet—to the tomb that belong to Joseph of Arimathea, and then placing the body into the tomb. So they are watching; they are witnesses to His death, witnesses to his burial. And they stayed there until they have to leave as sunset approaches and Passover approaches.

One of the things that they don't observe their is the sealing of the tomb. This is the 36th stage where we are told in Matthew 27:62, "On the next day which followed the day of preparation …" So Friday is the day of preparation. The next day is Saturday so this is the next day. "… the chief priests and Pharisees gathered together to Pilate again … they said Sir, we remember while he was still alive how that deceiver said after three days I will rise." They say, "after three days", and what you discover is that with these phrases, "on the third day, the third day, after three days" the prepositions can become interchangeable. We think with the Western mindset that that always means the same, but people in other languages have a fluidity (we do too) among the meaning of prepositions, where they overlap. I have made a number of friends in Ukraine over the years and what I have noticed when I say, "I will meet you someplace in 30 minutes", they will say, "I will be there after 30 minutes". They are saying the same thing I'm saying. I'm saying I will be there in 30 minutes, and for them they translate the way they think. They always use the phrase after but they mean the same thing. They'll be there in exactly 30 minutes.

So this phrase "after three days" and "on three days", if you work it out, it's synonymous. They say to Pilate, "After three days I will rise. Therefore command that the tomb be made secure until the third day." Notice, first they said after three days; then they said until the third day. As far as they are concerned they are saying the same thing. Those are synonymous prepositional phrases in their thinking. The reason they want it secure is, "lest the disciples come by night and steal them away and say to the people that He is risen from the dead. So the last deception will be worse than the first". How prophetic they are without knowing it. They realize that if this happens, it will really be tough for them to overcome a belief that He has risen from the dead.

So Pilate gave them a guard who went away to make it secure as they could. That guard is a Roman guard that would have consisted of at least 16, maybe 20—some people think it's even more than that, but it was at least 16—soldiers who would be punished by death if anything happened on their watch. They are told to make it secure, and they do this by sealing the stone—the same word that use for the ceiling of the Spirit. It is the idea of marking it in such a way that that seal cannot be broken and they could watch it and secure it. One artist's conception is a rope stretched across the stone and then secured in the middle with an vertical piece of rope that was sealed.

So this is a way to secure it to show that that there was no way that Jesus could come out. In fact the large rock that is rolled in front of the tomb is secured in place by a smaller rock, so that it can't be moved. If you were on the inside you couldn't push and roll the stone out of the way because it secured by this smaller stone. Of course if you've lost all this blood and you've been beaten and tortured and gone through crucifixion you really wouldn't have the strength to do that. So you just can't get away with saying that Jesus is passed out on the cross, or something like that, and with his guard detail surrounding it you know that that nobody could have gone there and stolen the body.

Pilate gives them a guard; the guard secures it. It's a Roman guard that he provides for them and he commands that it be secured as much as possible.

In Matthew 28 we are told that after the resurrection some of the guard came into the city and reported to the chief priests all that happened. And so the Sanhedrin got together and paid them off, they bribed them to tell that the body had been stolen away by His disciples, and then they would cover for them if he came to the governor's ears or the ears of Pilate, so that they would not executed. Jesus died physically and that He was buried. There were witnesses, and there were witnesses all along the way to the security of the tomb.

The Sabbath passes. The Sabbath ends at sundown on Saturday. We are talking Jewish time; we are not talking Roman time. If you are talking Roman time Sabbath would not end until midnight. Matthew is writing to Jews and Mark is writing from a Jewish perspective as well, describing what happens. Mark 16:1, "When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the {mother} of James, and Salome, bought spices, so that they might come and anoint Him". This is not early the next morning. When the Sabbath passed, which that year was about 6 pm on April the fourth, which would've been the date of Shabbat. Christ was crucified on the third, Friday; Shabbat was the fourth, and Jesus is resurrected on the 5^th of April. After that the shops would open. According to Jewish reckoning, they would have to see three stars in the skies. This is what Arnold Fruchtenbaum says about this:

However, in a Jewish context the word dawn meant the beginning of the new day. For Jews the new day began after sunset, when three stars were visible in the night sky. Since Matthew was addressing Jews, dawn toward the first day of the week meant late Saturday afternoon or early evening, shortly before sundown. The Greek text literally reads, "late of the Sabbath or in the lighting to one of the Sabbath". That is the idea of as it's getting ready to make that progress from the Sabbath to the day after, which is about 7 o'clock at night. That is the time that we are talking about.

And once you can see those three stars in the sky and Shabbat is over, then the shops could open, and that's what's happening here. They don't go to get up early, early in the morning and go buy spices. So Mark says, "When Shabbat was passed, Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices that they might come and anoint him". They are getting ready for the next day. Matthew says, "After the Sabbath …" Same thing as the Sabbath ended on Saturday evening. "… as the first day of the week began to dawn …"— so that is as it begins, which is about 7 o'clock on Saturday night— "Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to see the tomb". So they are checking. They are grieving; they want to go to the tomb. All of this is taking place on Saturday evening.

Then what we see is a series of events, and I want to break this down for you. I think I've done a lot of work on this. Most commentators never even think about the fact that this is a Hebrew timescale and that it's not on Roman time, so it gets quite interesting searching things. But A. T. Robertson, who wrote the Harmony For the Gospels, in his commentary on Matthew says, "Matthew 20:1 of Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Joseph went to the tomb. They'd seen the burial site Friday evening. They rested and grieved on Saturday, then they go to the tomb".

The second thing that he says is that from there they went to the market and they bought spices. Then if you look at Matthew, Matthew reads in the English as if verse two and the earthquake, takes place immediately after verse one. But in the Greek there's no chronological connection there. He's just telling us that Mary, who had gone to the tomb, and he says because it happened sometime during the night when nobody is there, "And behold, there was a great earthquake". This is shifting gears to explain what happens overnight. "… for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone from the door and sat on it". So here's our first angel. This is the third event.

So the stone is rolled out of the way by an angel, not by the earthquake, and then the guards see this and they just pass out. This is the first angel; there are going to be two other angels. I think in total we have three angels here.

Fourth, the women arrived at the tomb early. In the Greek it says "in the deepness of the dawn". Before daylight even breaks, before you have false dawn, before you have astronomical dawn, early the next morning. And the next morning sunrise would have been five about 5.17 in the morning. So they are getting there, probably around 4.30 or so in the morning on Sunday. We have Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Joses. No others are mentioned in Matthew. Mark includes Salome, the mother of James and John, along with them. That doesn't mean there weren't any others, but those are the ones that are named. Mark 16 talks about what happened the night before when they bought spices. And then 16:2, very early in the morning, in the deep dawn of the morning, literally, on the first day of the week, they came to the tomb when the sun had risen. It's very early and along the way, Mark alone records that they have a conversation, because they are concerned about being able to move the stone. Apparently, from what Mark reports because he doesn't say anything about the guard or the seal, they may not be aware of the guard to the sealer, they are just more concerned about moving the stone when they arrived.

Point number six, when they arrived they discovered that the stone has been rolled away. Mark 16:4 says, "when they looked up they saw that the stone had been rolled away for it was very large". At this point in Matthew the angel who was sitting on the stone makes a statement to the women. If that statement occurred, and Mary Magdalene is with them, then what happens in Luke and John doesn't make sense.

Apparently what happens is that as soon as she sees that this that the stone is back and she assumes the tomb is empty, Mary Magdalene ran off to talk to John and Peter. And that is what happens in John 19 because when she gets there she says the tomb is empty, the body we don't know what they did with. You have to understand that in the telling of the stories some of the other writers are collapsing events, they are giving summary statements, and they're telling from different perspectives. They were getting the information from different people, but you can put it all together with without a problem.

After this sixth event Mary is going to leave—point 7. John states that Mary Magdalene saw the stone was taken away and ran to tell the other disciples. She doesn't know that He is risen, she knows nothing else; she just knows that the body is gone. The tomb is open, the body must be gone, what did they do with it, and she is sort of in a panic mode.

The eighth point is that at that point of the story, if you look at John 20, there is what appears to be a conflict with the other Gospel accounts. She ran and came to Simon Peter to the other disciple Jesus loved, and said to them they have taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we don't know where they laid him.

Peter and the other disciple took off running immediately, they don't hear anything more. In John 20:11 and it says that Mary was standing outside the tomb weeping. As she wept she stooped and looked into the tomb. She still doesn't know that Jesus has risen by the time you get to verse 11 and so how do you put this together? I've spent hours reading different commentaries and there was one that summarized four different positions. After I got through reading those four different positions I was more confused than anything. I sat down with the text and just went through this step-by-step on my own and put this order together, and it makes more sense to me that this is at least closer to being right. Everybody seems to throw up his hands at one point or another and say it's impossible.

What we see first of all, though, is John is writing and he follows the storyline of what happens to him and Peter, because before he goes back to Mary Magdalene he wants to get his testimony out there because he is the first one who believes in the resurrection. He wants to drive that point home, and then he will come back to pick up the storyline with Mary Magdalene.

My ninth point is, Mary returns to the tomb separate from John and Peter, and she still doesn't know that the Lord has risen by verse 11. She is standing outside the tomb weeping and is completely unaware of what has happened.

The 10th point. Matthew tells us that when the women approached the tomb, the angel told them that Jesus had risen, and then to come into the tomb to see where He had been late. Remember, there are these women, at least three, and they're coming to the tomb. They see the stone rolled back. Mary immediately runs to tell John and Peter before she finds any more information. The other women stayed there and the angel told them that Jesus had risen. Mary missed that piece of information obviously, because in John 20:11 she's weeping at the tomb; she still doesn't know it. They hear the message from the angel who is sitting on the rock that Jesus had risen. He invites them to come into the tomb to see where Jesus' body been laid, and then he tells them to go tell the disciples that He is risen. This is seen in Matthew 28:5-7.

Mark has a slightly different perspective. Mark tells us what happens when they looked into the tomb. Matthew's angel says, "Look in the tomb", but he doesn't tell us what happened when they looked in the tomb. Mark's account tells us what happens when they looked in the tomb. They see another angel who repeats what the first one said, and then instructs them to tell the disciples. It's not the same angel because this one is inside the tomb. Mark 16:5 says, "Entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting at the right, wearing a white robe; and they were amazed." Later will see one at the head, one at the feet. I think one of those two is the same one is this one, but it could've been three different ones, I don't know; but probably only two.

In Mark 16:6 he says something very similar to them. Remember, when you're in a state of shock and you never heard of anybody—of course they had seen Lazarus, and they had seen Jarvis's daughter raised from the dead—how do they fathom this, that He's risen from the dead? They need to hear the message to her three times before it starts to sink in. You and I may need to hear eight or nine times before it's sunk in. This angel says, "He is risen, He is not here; see the place where they laid Him". The emphasis on empirical data here; this isn't some mystical event where they just think that this must have happened, it is not some psychological response to the trauma; it is hard and fast evidence. They can see the grave clothes that are lying there, and place as if the body just be materialized in place.

The 12th thing is that Luke adds another aspect regarding their entry into the tomb. He tells of two angels instead of just one. This isn't a contradiction, he's just adding another angel that was not seen, or Mark just left it out. This often happens in these accounts where one tells only part of the story, another one tells something else.

Luke 24:3 "but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. [4] While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men suddenly stood near them in dazzling clothing; [5] and as {the women} were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, {the men} said to them, 'Why do you seek the living One among the dead? [6] He is not here, but He has risen. Remember how He spoke to you while He was still in Galilee, [7] saying that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again'.”

At this point they are going to remind them of the many prophecies that Jesus made in telling them that it was necessary for Him to go to Jerusalem, that He was going to suffer, He was going to die, and He was going to rise on the third day.

Number 13. In addition to telling the women that Jesus has risen they add a reminder about Jesus' own prophecy about His resurrection. I'll just give you the Matthew references in Matthew: 12:40; 16:21; 17:22, 23; 20:18, 19. Those are just four places where Jesus predicted His resurrection. There are at least four. The other Synoptics have additional places as well, so this was something they should have learned.

"Then they remember these words".

The 14th stage. The women returned to tell the disciples. What were going to see is, after Peter and John come and they go back, they tell the disciples who don't believe in him and the disciples all go to their homes. I think that one way to put this together is when these women go back to tell the disciples they are not all in one place anymore. They are scattered so they have go find them and that takes a little time, which helps us to understand why here it's just the two women. Luke talks about Mary Magdalene being with them, and so that gives the time for Mary Magdalene to make her trip back to the grave, come back and rejoin them, and then they tell all of the disciples. The disciples' response is that they don't believe it. They say you're just telling nonsense tales.

Luke 24:10, 11 Now they were Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the {mother} of James; also the other women with them were telling these things to the apostles. But these words appeared to them as nonsense, and they would not believe them.

The Greek word that is used here for idle tales is a word that was used in medical writings in Greece, and Luke was a doctor, and so he very well is using his word and referred to someone who is having hallucinations, someone who is in hysterics. So that could very well be why he's using this particular word.

In the 15th stage at this point, Luke tells us that Peter ran to the tomb. That sort of fixes it for us that this is where John 20:4 comes into play. At this point Peter runs to the tomb. He doesn't tell us about John in Luke, but in John's Gospel, John has the whole story of the order and the focus of what happened. When Peter heard Mary Magdalene's initial report of the empty tomb he just took off right away. She didn't have the right explanation at that point.

Point16, John and Peter ran to the tomb. John arrived first and then Peter just blows past him and goes right in the door, and then John will follow him into the tomb, and they're looking. What is interesting in John 20:5-8 is that we have three different words for seeing. When John got there he stooped down and looked in. That's BLEPO, he just glanced in. It was enough to tell him there wasn't a body there. He saw the linen clothes but he didn't go in.

Then Peter runs past him in verse six and goes in the tomb, and he saw—and this is the word that THEOREO, which means to look intently at something. He is just standing there looking and looking. John just glances; Peter is really looking at it, and then he tells of what he sees: the handkerchief that's been around the head. This was just a linen cloth that was tied over the head. You'll get these emails were people say, oh this word is word for a napkin and at the end of a meal if you were leaving and you were coming back you would fold at the napkin and put it there. That's just garbage; don't buy that. I checked with several archaeologists like Randy Price and others, and this is just stuff that ignorant Christians believe in. But Peter looks at it. He sees the grave clothes lying there, and that they are they look folded. They just collapsed because the body disappeared.

Then John comes in and it says, John went in also and he saw, and it's a different word. It's HORAO; it means he looks and he understands. It's like when someone is trying to explain something difficult to you and finally you say, I see. You've got it; you understand it. That's what's happened. John looks at it, he understands, and he believes. He is the first one that stated that he believed that the resurrection has taken place.

Then we come to the 17th event. John appears to suggest that they returned and told the disciples, but then the disciples did not understand the resurrection, and they go to their homes. This is in John 20:9, 10. verses nine and 10. The disciples went away and went to their homes, they're not believing it yet.

Now we get back to Mary. Remember the last time we saw her, she had told John and Peter. They took off running and she's on her way back to the tomb. She arrives in the tomb, John. 20:11, 13. Mary, who is still ignorant of the situation, returns to the tomb, weeping, and she sees the two angels. One is at the head and the other is at the feet were the body of Jesus had lain.

John 20:13 And they said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “Because they have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid Him.”

At that point, Jesus appears to her. What must that have been like? Jesus appears to her, but she doesn't know it. She just thinks is a gardener. Her eyes are filled with tears. He has probably cloaked his identity a little bit, and she turns around and sees Him and doesn't know that it's Jesus. He says, "Woman, why are you weeping?" And thinking He is the gardener, she says, "Well somebody has carried His body away. If you did it tell us what you did with it and I'll take Him away". And then Jesus said to her, "Mary". He just called her name and instantly she knew who He was, and she says "Rabboni", that is, my teacher. She knows that it's the Lord.

Why is all this important? We have to know, first of all, what happened, what took place, what transpired that day. We have these witnesses. It's incredible the number of witnesses. Paul says in 1 Corinthians15:3-4, "For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures." That's the core of the Christian message.

1 Corinthians 15:5-8 "and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep; then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles; and last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also". There is a difference between this use of "apostle" and the technical use which refers to only the eleven plus Paul.

So there are these witnesses. Mary Magdalene is a witness. The two women are witnesses, and probably more women. The witnesses of the guards; how were they witnesses? In Matthew 28:11-15 they had to go back and tell the chief priests and the Sadducees and the Romans that the tomb was empty. So they are witnesses to the empty tomb. Jesus appeared to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. In Mark 16:12, 13 He appears to Peter. In Luke 24, 33-35. He appears to 10 of the disciples. That's what Paul refers to in terms of the 11. He later appeared all the 11. He appeared to the 500. He appeared to James—lots of witnesses of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This isn't a myth that is made up. That is why Paul says in first Corinthians 15:13, 14 "But if there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain".

Now where he goes with that is, if Christ is been risen from the dead, then we are new creatures in Christ, and we are and not bought but we are bought with a price and we are not our own. We belong to God. There is an implied conclusion here that if Christ is risen from the dead, then that changes our whole life and we are now to live for Him and not for ourselves. That's the challenge that Matthew will come to. The last thing that Jesus says is to the disciples, and through them to us that we are making to make disciples; not just believers, but to challenge people to be a true student and disciple of Jesus Christ. And that means to develop a passion to know the Word to understand the Word, to apply the Word in all of its dimensions so that we can grow to be mature believers and truly be useful to the Lord and to serve Him.

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