Celebrating the Grand Openings of Easter Sunday

One of the most important and highly celebrated events in American history was the "grand opening" of the transcontinental railway that bound our nation from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The last rail was laid on the borders of Colorado and New Mexico. The two governors from these respective states drove two special silver spikes into a special laurel wood tie completing the construction work and opening up a three thousand mile way of transportation from East to West. When those spikes were driven in place, news flashed around the world via telegraph that a nation had been "cross-tied" together!

Almost two thousand years ago iron spikes were driven through the limbs of the precious Lamb of God into an old rugged cross. Before the day passed a message was shouted to the ends of the universe - It is Finished!  And the "Grandest Opening" in human history was made possible by the "cross-ties" of Calvary! Three days later the official "Grand Opening Celebration" took place before a select audience in front of an open tomb. Two heavenly representatives called angels, declared the greatest news ever to fall on mortal ears - "He is not here! He is risen just as He said!" He's alive and heaven's gates are open wide! He's alive!

Luke 24 records a series of “openings" that bring into focus the fact, force and fruits of the resurrection of our Lord Jesus.

1. An Opened Tomb - 24:1-2

A Confirmed Historical Event – “an open tomb and a missing body…” There are only three possibilities – (1) Jesus’ friends opened the tomb and took his body; (2) His foes opened it and stole the body; (3) the Father in heaven opened it and raised the Son.

A Clear Theological Explanation – 24:5-7

The resurrection gave explanation to the virtue of His life - Acts 2:24, “whom God raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that He should be held by it.” The word translated “pains” means “birth pangs,” suggesting that the tomb was a “womb” out of which Jesus was “born” in Resurrection glory. “It was not possible that the chosen one of God should remain in the grip of death; ‘the abyss can no more hold the Redeemer than a pregnant woman can hold the child in her body’” (F.F. Bruce).

It explained the value of His death - The resurrection of Jesus was the shattering of history by a creative act of God Almighty. God was doing something comparable only with what He had done at the first creation. This was the beginning of a new era for the universe, the decisive turning-point for the human race. In the resurrection the new age had arrived, and this stupendous miracle signified the storming of history and the transforming of the world.

The Resurrection was evidence that there had now appeared, in the midst of time, life of a new dimension and the baptism of eternity. The heralds of the Resurrection were not merely preaching it as a fact: they were living in it as in a new country. They had received a Kingdom which could not be shaken.

After they had been instructed by Jesus, and learning of the hope of the new life, the new understanding, the new man, and the new power, the disciples began the new creation with new worship: "And they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and were continually in the temple blessing God." (Luke 24:52-53)

As Luke's Gospel begins in the Temple of God, so it ends in the temple. The disciples are now worshipping Jesus not through signs and symbols and types as they formerly did in the Temple of God. Now they are worshipping Christ, the one all of the Old Covenant signs and symbols and types pointed to. The disciples' worship is now in Christ and for Christ and Christ-Centered! The Temple of God was now present in the people of God because of the Spirit of God. The disciples would no longer go to the temple for circumcision of children and to offer bloody sacrifices, but would now practice the worship of the New Creation through preaching, baptism, the Lord's Supper, and they would offer continuous sacrifices of praise for what Jesus has done!

In His resurrection, Jesus of Nazareth did not usher in a new religion, a new morality, or a new way of salvation, but a new creation. The old creation began to come to an end, as the new creation dawned on the third day! The resurrection of Jesus didn't merely occur on the first day of the week (Luke 24:1), but it was literally the first day of the new creation characterized by resurrection life!

It explained the victory of His labors - The Lord Jesus was sent forth from and by the Father on a designated mission with the assignment to clarify God’s nature and to clear His name, defeat God’s enemies and deliver His people

When the SON came out of the grave on that first Easter Sunday, the stone tomb became like a womb out of which the new creation was born into this world on the third day in the Person of Jesus Christ - the glorified and resurrected God-Man. This new day was filled with fantastic new things and unbelievable new surprises. For the first century church, experiencing resurrection life brought a new impulse, a new vitality, a new power, a new vigor, a new movement, a new momentum, a new excitement, a new and unbelievable joy, and a new exhilaration to life.

Jesus’ resurrection initiated the New Testament version of the kingdom of God, which brought, “good news to the poor, release for the captives, restoration of sight to the blind, and freedom to the oppressed” (Luke 4:18).

To live as a Christian is a call to be part of the victorious labors of Christ. By the work of the cross and the empty tomb, Jesus produced a new, radical, creation. He cut the “new” and “better” covenant of which all believers have become members. We are not passively awaiting a place in the clouds in the sweet by and by, but having been redeemed by Christ, we join Him in the nasty now and now, as co-partners in the Family Firm of Kingdom Enterprises Unlimited – extending His kingdom and seeing His will done on earth as it is in heaven!

2. An Opened Home - 24:29

An invitation extended – 24:29a (“constrained” – the Greek word means “to force contrary to (nature), i.e. compel (by appeal”.)

He indicated that He would have gone farther: Jesus acted as if He might continue on farther, not wanting to force His company on these disciples. “But they constrained Him” shows that even though they didn’t know this was Jesus the Christ in their midst, they knew they wanted to spend as much time as they could with this man.

 "It is a very strong word that, ''they constrained him''; it is akin to the one which Jesus used when he said, ''The kingdom of heaven suffers violence.'' They not only invited him, but they held him, they grasped his hand, they tugged at his skirts, they said he should not go" (Spurgeon). Dear friends, even though we do not walk physically with Jesus like these two did on the Emmaus road, he still awaits our invitation, yea, strong urging, to invite him into our company for sweet communion. And if we don’t he will pass us by as far as the enjoyment of his presence is concerned.

A communion experienced – 24:30 – As soon as the Lord has accepted the invitation and entered with them, He does not take the place of Guest, but of Host. What normally is done by him who invites, the Lord does of His own accord, without asking permission. He takes the bread for dinner, He blesses, He breaks it, and He distributes it to those who have invited Him and with whom He is a Guest.

This is not the celebration of the Lord’s Supper, because that happens when the church comes together, i.e. in church context. The Lord also says nothing about thinking of Him, doing in remembrance of Him. He simply breaks the bread for the meal.

The moment He breaks the bread and gives it to them, their eyes are opened and they see who He is. At the same time He vanishes from their sight. With this He indicates that their relationship with Him has now come on another basis. Namely, He has become the object of faith (2Cors. 5:7 ). It is no longer a visible Messiah, but for faith He is as real as if He were physically, visibly, present.

3. An Opened Eye – 24:31

We look with our eyes but see with our minds. Acts 10:40-41, “Him God raised up the third day, and showed him openly; Not to all the people, but unto witnesses chosen before of God, even to us, who did eat and drink with him after he rose from the dead."

“I’ll believe it when I see it” is a favorite line of so many people. Like many today, historians in Jesus’s day placed a high value on seeing: “I’ll believe it if you saw it” would have been a fitting motto for their society. With this no doubt in mind, the Gospel authors repeatedly make the women in their final chapters the subjects of seeing verbs. As Richard Bauckham notes, “The women “saw” the events as Jesus died (Matt 27:55; Mark 15:40; Luke 23:49), they “saw” where he was laid in the tomb (Mark 15:47; Luke 23:55), they went on the first day of the week to “see” the tomb (Matt 28:1), they “saw” the stone rolled away (Mark 16:4), they “saw” the young man sitting on the right side (Mark 16:5), and the angel invited them to “see” the empty place where Jesus’ body had lain (Matt 28:6; Mark 16:6).

“It could hardly be clearer,” Bauckham concludes, “that the Gospels are appealing to their role as eyewitnesses.” In light of this, Mary Magdalene’s announcement, “I have seen the Lord,” is doubly significant. Like a modern-day journalist with photo footage to back up her story, she’s standing as an eyewitness of Jesus’s resurrection, not only to the apostles but also to the reader.

Eph 1:18-20, “I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places,”

4. An Opened Bible - 24:32

Jesus is the Key to the Scriptures - 24:27,32, 44

Luke 24:44, “Then he said to them, "These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled."

What Luke records Jesus saying is that all the Scriptures are about the Lord Jesus Christ, even where there is no explicit prediction. Jesus was not merely listing certain proof-texts which in some way or other pointed to Him. Jesus was seeking to show the Emmaus road disciples how the whole of the earlier part of the story of Israel told in the Old Testament had come to a climax in Him. "So that the Scriptures might be fulfilled" cannot be reduced to those scattered predictions which land on target in Jesus. Jesus is, in effect, drawing the whole of the Old Testament story onto Himself.

Graeme Goldsworthy correctly asserts: “The meaning of all the Scriptures is unlocked by the death and resurrection of Jesus.” All the promises of God in the Old Testament are fulfilled in Jesus Christ. That is, when you have Christ, sooner or later you will have both Christ himself and all else that God promised through Christ. 2 Corinthians 1:20: “For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory.”

Jesus' preaching was not only biblical; it was totally self-centered, i.e., Christ-centered. Jesus is the criterion by which all scripture is read. In other words, Jesus fulfills and interprets the entire Bible for us. In Luke 4:21, Jesus said in essence on that day in the synagogue, as he quoted from Isaiah 61: "I am going to fill up with meaning everything you read here. I am it. Without me in your life, this book is locked shut."

It is the teaching of God’s Word that Jesus is the true Israel of God, that his incarnation, obedience, death and resurrection was not a by-product of Israel’s rejection of the offer of an earthly kingdom, but the fulfillment of God’s plan from all eternity. This is what Jesus told the disciples on the road to Emmaus in Luke 24. One of them said, “We had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel.” In response our Lord said in essence, “All the expectations and longings of the Old Testament are fulfilled in me and by me. I am its focus and fulfillment.”

We must come to the Bible, not to learn a subject but to meet our Savior; not to discover rules that will make us successful, but to recover relationship and deepen fellowship with the God who wants to make us joyful in Jesus forever!

We must understand that without the Holy Spirit’s revelation or illumination to our heart’s we will miss Jesus every time. The letter of the law always kills - the Spirit gives life.

The Bible is the menu that leads us to the meal. Far too many mistake the menu for the meal.  Why? Because it’s easier and much more comfortable to relate to a book than it is to a person! It’s much easier and more comfortable to defend God’s miraculous workings in ancient history than it is to expect to experience his miracles now or be the vehicle through which he performs one.

“Beyond the Sacred page I seek Thee Lord, My spirit pants for Thee, O Living Word.”

5. An Opened Mind - 24:45

Col 2:3, “in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge."  In the resurrection there is not only a confirmed historical event with a clear theological explanation, but a continuing personal experience of His resurrection life. Jesus has translated the mind of God, interpreted the will of God, displayed the love of God, expressed the goodness of God, revealed the power of God, and unveiled the heart of God.

Thomas a Kempis wrote, "Jesus said, I am the way, the truth and the life. Without the way there is no going; without the truth there is no knowing; without the life there is no living. I am the way which you must follow; the truth which thou must believe; the life for which thou must hope. I am the inviolable way; the infallible truth, the never‑ending life. I am the straightest way, the sovereign truth; life true, life blessed, life uncreated." He is the way to tread in, the truth to trust in, and the life to treasure. Christ's work as the way brings man to God. Christ’s word as the truth brings God to man. Christ's will as the life brings God to live in man.

6. An Opened Heaven - 24:51

Jesus marred and scarred by the stigmata of the cross, enters Heaven, mounts the throne which He had abdicated 33 years before to the shouts of all the inhabitants of heaven - as they cried, "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain!” God has enthroned His King upon the holy hill of Zion and says reign until I give you your request - the heathen for your inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for your possession!

7. An Opened Mouth - 24:53

This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It's adventurously expectant, greeting God with a child-like "What's next, Papa?" God's Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who He is and we know who we are: Father and children."

The resurrection life of Jesus indwelling me brings a new impulse, a new vitality, a new power, a new vigor, a new movement, a new momentum, a new excitement, a new and unbelievable joy, a new exhilaration to life. A saving meeting of the Risen Jesus results in being given beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. We go out with joy and are led forth with peace.

All of the early church went forth as power‑filled soldiers of the cross confronting pagan darkness and depravity, powerful demons, and painful diseases, not with just a word of proclamation but with a demonstration of the power of God.

In the resurrection of Jesus the Christ there is power over Disbelief; power over Demons; power over Disease; power over Death - (Death may seem like an ordeal for us but it's no Big Deal to Him!)

The resurrection of Jesus is something to shout about. It is an explosive event whose fall-out affects the whole human race.

Herb Hodges said, "When it became known that Jesus was risen from the dead, suddenly, a radical change abruptly occurred in his followers.  The best symptom of it was the rapid succession of foot races that were set in motion by the resurrection and their discovery of it.  All of a sudden, disciple after disciple seems to get winged feet as they run and run.

Matthew 28:1 says, "Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to see the tomb."  Verse 8 adds, "So they went out quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy and ran to bring His disciples word.”

Luke 24:12 says, "But Peter arose and ran to the tomb;”

John 20:1‑2 says, "Now the first day of the week Mary Magdalene went to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. Then she ran and came to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple, whom Jesus loved…”

John 20:4 says, "So they both ran together, and the other disciple outran Peter and came to the tomb first. 

It is no accident that all four Gospels show us bright‑faced, breathless runners as the practical expression of the resurrection.

But we should never leave these pictures stored away in the dim and dusty past as an exciting but momentary fragment of history. God intended that the resurrection set men and women to running regularly and continually throughout the remainder of human history. These foot races that carried the early disciples in all directions like spokes of a wheel from the hub of the empty tomb are to be duplicated by Christian disciples in every generation. Oh, how we should run!

The rocky tomb was never intended to merely be a private chapel for the individual soul who is electrified by the resurrection.  The same irresistible impulse that set the disciples' feet flying is to disengage us from our apathy, lethargy, and idleness, and set us tirelessly running to crisscross the world with a network of testimony about the wonderful Person and Victory of Jesus

The open tomb and the Living Lord declare that my life is not futile, my failures aren't fatal, and my death is not final!

Hallelujah! That’s good news!