| A college freshman was expounding on her idea of the perfect mate. "The
man I marry," she said, "must shine among company, be musical, tell jokes,
sing, dance, and stay at home."
Her boyfriend replied, "It sounds to me like you don’t want a husband.
What you want is a television set!
Is not life like that? We often get what we do not expect or do not get
what we expect.
At least that’s what happened with the women in our reading this morning.
The Scripture mentioned that they went to the tomb at early dawn. From what
they brought with them we know what they expected to find at the tomb.
They went to the tomb to see Jesus all right, but what they expected to
see was a body of a dead Jesus, His corpse.
What they expected to see is someone who died at the young age. Someone
in whom they have put all their expectations on, and disappointed them
because of his death.
But that was not what they found at the tomb. When they just arrived,
what they noticed was the stone that covered the tomb has been rolled away
from the tomb. It’s a huge boulder that covered the mouth of the tomb, yet
now it’s rolled away.
Another surprise waiting for them is the body they were looking for has
vanished. Jesus was no longer where they expected Him to be.
And to make them more surprised, suddenly two men appeared to them in
dazzling light. Just imagine what the women had. Surprise after surprise.
May be that what Easter is all about. It is a surprise.
People do not expect Jesus to be alive. His disciples were so sad and
disappointed at His crucifixion.
He was a great Teacher, but apparently He was nothing more than that. He
was dead.
No wonder when they heard that Jesus is alive they were so surprised.
Just look at verse 11.
They could not believe what the women told them. Thomas could not believe
unless he saw Jesus with his own eyes.
That’s why Jesus stayed on earth for forty days after His resurrection
and kept showing Himself to His disciples. It is to convince them of His
resurrection.
Easter is a surprise, a pleasant one of course.
It is a surprise because of our limitation and blindness. We think we
know Jesus, we think we understand the way God operates, and when we really
take a look at how He works, we find surprise after surprise.
That’s why our walk with the Lord can be summed up in one word: WOW.
Day after day in our experience with the Lord is filled with WOW.
The way our Lord works fills us with wonder and amazement. That’s why
Christianity is so wonderful. It’s not about what we know about God but it
is about what the Lord is willing to do in and through our lives.
So what kind of surprises does Easter hold for us?
1. It tells us that our current life is not the ultimate reality.
The real life is what to come, that is after we leave earth and to be in
eternity. That’s where we are heading and that’s where we will spend our
time.
Life on earth is short compared to the eternity we are going to be in.
That’s why it is important for us to prepare ourselves well before we enter
into eternity.
The resurrection of Jesus tells us that. Jesus only lived a short while
on earth, yet it does not matter. Life is too big to be spent on earth.
God designs our life to be spent with Him in eternity, but sin has
disrupted that. Sin has caused us to pay attention more to earthly things
rather than to eternal things.
The empty tomb reminds us about our future. It will be in eternity.
The question is: in which side of eternity are we going to be in? Will we
be in God’s side, to be with Him, or we will spend our eternity in hell, to
be separated from the Lord forever.
That does not mean that our current life is not important. Contrary to
that, the way we live today will determine where we are going be in.
Ephesians 5:15-17 reminds us to live wisely. In this passage, the wise
living is described as the way of life that understands God’s will.
Only by living according to God’s will then our life will be a fulfilling
one. Only by using our life according to the way the Lord designs it to be
then our life can be called a wise living.
The empty tomb hints that we should be careful if we pay too much
attention to the quality of life we are currently in at the cost of
neglecting our eternal life.
We should pay attention to how we are going to spend our real life, that
is the life in eternity.
We should not allow many things to hinder us from making sure that we are
ready to spend time to be with the Lord in eternity.
2. The resurrection of Jesus tells us that His words are true and
He is trustworthy.
Look at verses 6-8. The angels reminded the women of one thing, that is
the words of Jesus before He was crucified.
He has told them about what is going to happen with Him and every thing
that happened, happened exactly as He has said.
You can now see why Jesus’ resurrection came as a surprise to these
people. They did not believe it when Jesus told them.
We did not know what they think when they heard Jesus talking about His
sufferings and resurrection, but one thing we do now, they did not believe
Him.
They did not believe that He has to suffer. They did not believe that He
has to die. And when he did die, they did not believe that He is going to
rise again. That’s why they were surprised.
Can we blame them? Well… we are taught not to take people’s word at the
face value, are we not?
Are we not taught to interpret what people said to us, to have them in
writing, to have them give us something a guarantee, etc., etc, are we not?
What we really believe is no one can be trusted.
Easter is a surprise. It is a surprise that Jesus lives up to His
promises.
He passed the ultimate test of promises, that is even death cannot hold
Him from fulfilling what He has promised.
His resurrection is a proof that He holds unto His Word, forever. He
never fails to do so. The Lord is faithful and all things that He has said
will come true.
Is not it true that often times we doubt what the Bible says to us? We
think that many things in the Bible are too good to be true, or even too
farfetched.
We do not think that the Bible is real although we never say it aloud, or
at least we think that the promises in the Bible is not for me, it is for
someone else who is more spiritual.
We doubt it when the Lord asks us to put Him first and He promises to
bless us because of that. It’s nice to hear that, but to believe it?
We heard Him asking us to cast our worries to Him and to be dependent to
Him, yet we continue handling our situation our own way and to be
independent of Him.
For us all, Easter should teach us this lesson. The Lord can be trusted,
and He must be trusted.
He said that He will rise again on the third day, and He did. Not a day
sooner or later. He has risen, just as He promised. The resurrection of
Jesus tells us that His words are true and that He is trustworthy.
3. Experiencing the risen Lord will make us do surprising things.
In verses 9-10 we are told that these women went back and told the
apostles about what they were experiencing.
They are not alone. After the disciples themselves met the resurrected
Jesus, they went around telling others what they have found out.
When Paul met with the resurrected Jesus, he turned from persecuting
Christians to become a Christian preacher.
These people did what were not expected of them. And to add to that,
after they experience the resurrected Jesus, they did what they were
incapable of doing before, that is to change the life of others.
They were doing great things; and it all happens because of Jesus’
resurrection.
Jesus’ resurrection causes life to change. It motivates people to go and
to become His witnesses despite of the obstacles and persecutions they are
facing.
Nothing can stop them. They have met Jesus personally and their life will
never be the same again.
We have never met Jesus physically nor seeing Him with our own eye; but
that is not an excuse for our life to remain just the same.
After we believe in Jesus, our life should change. It may be gradual, but
it will change.
Our motivation, our values, our priorities, they all should change when
we experience the resurrected Jesus.
Not only that, but we may begin to do things that we may never imagine
before and we may begin to see amazing results.
We begin to be concern about the salvation of others, we begin to learn
to pray, to share the Gospel.
So many people experiencing life changing process after they met Jesus
and feel surprised to find that the Lord wants to use them to do the same to
others.
When you go out and share your faith, you will be surprised to see how
receptive people are, or how people who seem to be rejecting the Gospel,
suddenly becoming receptive.
You will be surprised to see what and how God is changing the life of
people.
You will not see this if you do not begin to go out and share the Gospel.
Try it. Do not go with your own ability. Go out by depending on His
power, and you will be surprised to see what will happen.
Easter is a surprise because it gives us what we do not expect because of
our limitation and unbelief.
The living Jesus, instead of the dead one. The resurrected Jesus should
change our life.
We should continually to be reminded that life is not on earth. Our life
is heavenly. Heaven is our real place.
Do not spend time worrying about our temporary life on earth and
neglecting our real life after we live earth. Make sure you do not spend
eternity in the wrong place.
Be sure that in eternity you are with the Lord. Make sure that you are
saved by accepting Jesus as your personal Savior. Be clear about that.
The resurrected Jesus is trustworthy. His promises are true and can be
counted. Trust Him with your life and obey Him.
The resurrected Jesus should motivate us to go and share the Gospel and
to be amazed at how the message of salvation changed the life of many.
|