Now, if you would, let's give our attention to the reading of God's word lidiastically. It's going to come now and read the account of the Resurrection from St. Matthew's Gospel. As she comes, let me pray for us. Our Father, we thank you that in the midst of all the changing words of this generation, you give us your unchanging word. Help us to hear it and respond to you, Lord, as we ought with faith and understanding and obedience. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. A reading from the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 28, verses 1 through 10. After the Sabbath, at dawn, on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb. There was a violent earthquake for an angel of the Lord who came down from heaven, and going to the tomb rolled back to stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning and its clothes were white as snow. The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men. The angel said to the women, do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus who has crucified. He is not here. He has risen just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples he has risen from the dead. And is going ahead of you into Galilee. There, you will see him. Now I have told you. So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid, yet filled with joy and ran to tell his disciples. Suddenly, Jesus met them, greetings, he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee. There, they will see me. The Word of the Lord. Have you ever noticed that in all the accounts of the resurrection, the first witnesses of Jesus' resurrection are always running. The women who come to the tomb, hear the message and they run. Peter and James, the two men on the road to Emmaus, everybody who has an encounter with the risen Christ runs. There is a sense of what you could say. They are all running from Jesus. I choose that amusing title because I think there are a lot of people who are running with excitement on Easter day. There are plenty of people who are excited about the resurrection of Christ. And there are also plenty of people who could more identify with the idea of running from Jesus. That is the claims of the resurrection, the claims of having come into your life and require something of you. You can be a very frightening thing. These people are running. They are running with joy. And yet, many of us, I think some of us at least, I know, would probably run the other way. And now that is not necessarily because of Jesus Christ. It is often because of the followers of Jesus Christ and the kind of experiences some of us may have had with organized religion or being around people who claim to be Christians. I recently heard a comedy routine, an old, old comedy routine of Woody Allen's. And he told a story that went this way. He said, when I was a young man, my mother gave me a bullet. She said, son, put this bullet in your pocket. Keep it with you always. And so I did. I didn't know why, but I did. I kept that bullet in my pocket. But I knew one day, as I was walking down Madison Avenue, an evangelist leaned out of a hotel window and he hurled a Gideon Bible at me. And it struck me and had it not been for that bullet. And my pocket, I would be surely dead. Some of you are old enough to get that. Mom and dad, you can explain that joke the other way. Very often, I encounter with people who claim to have been changed by the risen Christ is not positive. But here you see a different kind of running. And what I want you to see is this, these women are running. They are running with joy. And there's really two things. They're running first of all. They are running from the wrong ideas about Jesus. And secondly, they're running because their relationship, because of their encounter with him, has transformed their lives. Let me just unpack that over the next few minutes for you. They're running from the wrong ideas about Jesus. Now, what I mean by that is this. These two women, Mary Magdalene and Mary, who is called the Mother of James, or the Mother of Joseph, and older translations. There were kind of confusing, but among the 12 disciples there were two James's. And this is one of the James's, the name James, the side of Altheus. His mother and Mary Magdalene come to the tomb on that Easter morning. Now, when they come to the tomb, you have to understand these are deeply disillusioned women. These are women who had ideas about Jesus that have completely collapsed. And because they had oriented their life around Jesus without really understanding him, when he fell, they became radically disoriented. So, they come to the tomb and their lives have fallen apart. In fact, all the disciples we were told began their running on the night of his betrayal. Everybody ran away from him. And when they saw him fall, they became disoriented. Now, they come. And their views of Jesus are, basically, they see him as a great prophet. They see him as the great teacher. In fact, they would have said, he's the Messiah. He is the promised deliverer of Israel, but their notions were that he was a revolutionary. He was going to change their experience of life politically and culturally. So, when he went down, they're completely disillusioned. Now, some of those ideas actually are still some of the most popular ideas about Jesus. It's a great prophet. It's a great teacher. And his ideas are revolutionary. If you put them into practice, your kids won't get undrugged. Or you put them into practice. Good things will come your way. Great ideas. But, risen Son of God probably doesn't enter in the category for a lot of people. And at this point, it doesn't enter into the categories for the two Mary's when they come to the tomb. Now, I used to be a pastor at a church in Greenwich Village in New York City. And I've been in touch with a lot of my friends over the past six months with all this happened in New York. And one of the interesting things about life in New York City still that has not changed is that people are still disoriented. And the reason is the World Trade Center, particularly if you live downtown Manhattan, the World Trade Center was how you oriented yourself. In Greenwich Village, it's not like the rest of New York, the streets, they get old wiring. They move around in strange ways. And so, you always had the World Trade Center there. You could look at it. And in a sense, it was to the south, but it was how you found your true north. It was how you knew which way was up. And I was speaking to a friend just a week ago. And he said, you know, one of the reasons I think I'm still so sad. Because he said, as I get lost all the time, every time I go out, I go to look. And it's not there. But you see, these women, in the same way they had oriented themselves around the strength of the one they knew as Jesus. And when he fell, they were completely lost. They were completely lost. And so, to that end, that they come to the tomb. And who knows what was in their mind when they came to the tomb? God had a purpose for them to be witnesses. But when they come to the tomb, maybe it was just a way of saying, did this really happen? It's just really true. And so, the two women come out in the early hours. They come to the tomb. And then their reorientation begins. And it's a powerful thing they experience. Which whole really two things happen. There's an earthquake. And there's an angel. Now, in the Bible, these are sort of favored special effects throughout the history of Scripture that are special ways of saying that God is intervening in the affairs of humans. And so, here they come. The ground rumbles. The stone rolls away. And there's an angel giving an announcement. Now, it's very important. Many people misunderstand this as the resurrection of Jesus. It's not the resurrection. And in fact, in some ways, it's more powerful. What it is, in fact, is a display of the power of God to witness to the empty tomb. You see, the risen Christ did not need the stone rolled away. Part of the glory. Part of the transcendent new beginning that his flesh possesses, that his body possesses, is that there's no such thing as a door anymore. There's no such thing as a barrier. There's nothing you can't overcome. There's nothing you can't transcend. He's already risen. But it shows the power of God, the commitment of God, to say, I want you to see what I've done. And so with great power, there's a rolling away to say, look, it's empty. And at this point, they get a message. The angel gives them the message. And he says this. Come and see. He is not here. He is risen. Just as he said, come and see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples. He is risen from the dead. And is going ahead of you in the Galilee. There, you will see him. So the angel says, look, what are the special effects for? He's not here. He's risen. Now go. Now the women begin to run. Now remember, this is a very different running than on the day, the dark day of the crucifixion. Now they're beginning to run from their wrong ideas about Jesus. They're first beginning. And there may be some of you. You can identify with this. There's something beginning to break into your life. Maybe an openness. Just a concept that says, maybe there's more to this than I ever thought or realized. Maybe there's really something to it. So they're beginning to run now with a message. And the way you can tell they're in process is that what it says about them is this in verse 8. The women hurryed away from the tomb, afraid, yet filled with joy and ran to tell the disciples. So now they're beginning to run. But Easter is changing them. And they're in process. They're full of joy. They're open. But they're also terrified. You can imagine the processes are just sort of slowly trying to take in what's going on. And it's at this point that they encounter the risen Christ. Now when they encounter the risen Christ, he gives the most undramatic and back in the Greek language. He basically says, hello. You know, just I just love that. You know, what style? They encounter the risen Christ. And he says, you know, the translators just can't even go there. They have to at least put greetings in there. But he says, hello, or good morning. And he greets them and they fall to the speed. They grab him and they worship him. You know, Jesus speaks to them. And he says, greetings. Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee and there they will see me. And they go and they hurry and they run again. Now this time, the running is even differently because now you see they're moving from running from just a wrong idea about Jesus. They are now running with a transformed relationship with Jesus because of the realities of the risen Christ. And that's what I really want you to see. I want you to say that it is in fact possible for you and me this Easter day to lay our hands spiritually by faith. But very much, as you'll see in just a moment, just as much truly and really lay your hands, lay your life on Jesus Christ, the living one, so that same transforming reality can come into your own life. You see, these women were changed. That is the fear left them because of what they experienced in the resurrection. Now really two things about the transformation I want you to see and then I'll be done. First of all, they're free from fear and secondly, they're truly filled with joy. They're free from fear and they're filled with joy. Now imagine that. These women come. They experience Christ and like so many others who would encounter Jesus over the next six weeks, people who've either been completely radically disoriented, completely devastated by his fall, decide and become convinced that he'll never fall again. There's something about his resurrection that says he is spoke glorious. There's something so real here. There's something I taste and see and experience that is so true that it doesn't matter what comes my way. I'll believe it because he'll never fall. And because I'm his and he's mine, it means I'll never fall. It means I'll never crumble. And that's why they devote themselves to it. Now the two women do this. And in fact, I don't know if you see, this is kind of the one of the more extraordinary things about the biblical accounts of the resurrection. If you look at ancient literature, anytime you see historical records, one of the things you won't see are women used for credibility. Now this is not in my view. Please understand. But in the ancient world, in the Jewish world, in the ancient Greco-Roman world, women were not considered to be credible. As a matter of fact, a woman could not even give evidence in a court of law, in any court in the ancient world. And yet, and I don't know that the disciples would have been so freed and having their mind changed about women so much that they would have chosen to forge and fabricate and say, hey, let's let the women be the one upon whose testimony we base this. And yet, God, you know, I think this is one of the great evidences of God's hand at work in the resurrection. If something happens that no man at the time would have ever dreamed up, the first word to testify, the first witnessing is given to these two women. They're given the word, and they run, and they tell about what they've seen. They tell about what's changed their life. He's never going to fall again. He's risen. Now, consider this just for a moment. For six weeks, Jesus Christ appears in Galilee and Jerusalem. And people, you know, please don't think they would be more inclined to believe than you and I would people who are not at all likely to believe, believe. For example, his family. All right, you know, one of the things very honest about the gospels is they say that Jesus family doesn't buy it for a minute. There are references that say, you know, come on, your brother says he's God, right. Jesus, brothers don't believe. He's the son of God. They even see miracles. They even see things that can explain and they don't believe. And yet, after the resurrection, there's something so credible that the brother who wouldn't believe, the other things he saw encounters a reality that is so inexplicable that the one who had posed at his brother James believes converts and is called a pillar of the church in Jerusalem. Paul can write the letter of 1 Corinthians just a few short years after the time of the resurrection. And say listen, there are over 500, you write a public circular letter. It says there are over 500 people who encountered the risen Christ. They encountered and they saw him go speak to them. Now, are these delusional people? Let me tell you something. Those 500 who bore witness and it was such a credible witness that within a few short years historians say upwards of 10,000 Orthodox Jews begin to launch a new movement, a radical new understanding throughout the world. That in fact becomes the most significant social religious movement in the history of the human world. It is launched based on the testimony of the resurrection. It's not that these gospels lost the story of the resurrection. It's more that this reality of the resurrection launches the story of the gospel. These are people. Imagine this. Imagine these 10,000 lives. These are people who for 1500 years have oriented themselves around what they viewed as an unchanging thing. They're strong tower. They orient themselves around what's their temple. There is sacrifice in the temple. They also orient themselves around Sabbath. We know the God that created the world. He tells us to commemorate that on the sixth day. And then by the hundreds, there's a new encounter with Jesus Christ. And what they actually do is they say I have encountered something in him that tells me that the final sacrifice has been offered for sin. And it was offered on the cross that day when I was one of those saying crucified. But I see that he loved me. And it was offered for me. And there's no more sacrifice for sin. They don't offer sacrifices anymore. Do you know what the odds are sociologically if convincing that many people to change something that deeply ingrained in your psyche and in your culture. Not only that, Sabbath, something so hardwired centuries of centuries of practice. People begin to say yes, God created the world. But in Jesus Christ I have actually seen the curtain drawn on the last act. There really is, as the prophet said, there's going to be a new creation. And it's already started. I've already seen it. And they literally begin to take that most basic way of ordering time. And they begin to reorder their lives and their time. Do you have any idea how much it takes to work around an off day. And yet by the thousands, they completely reoriented because of what they encounter in the risen Christ. Your family believes. People who are unlikely to believe begin to believe. They begin to reorient because there is something so inexcapable, something so powerful. This new creation in Jesus Christ, Jesus is an advanced copy of everything the Bible promises that would come. The tears wipe away from our eyes. All of our hopes and all of our longings fulfilled. And you see, that's why it's not just that Jesus says don't be afraid and they're longer afraid. It's because they see him and they touch him. And there's something so real and powerful about him personally that they're freed from their fear and they run with joy. And that's the second thing I want you to see is that they are, they're transformed by the risen Christ also because they're full. They're full of joy. Now you see this again in verse eight, where it says the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy. But then you begin to see their joy and their fear melting away in verse nine, where he speaks to them and they clasp his feet and they worship. Now worship is what you offer to God. Do you see the transition that's happening in their lives, the resurrection right there in a moment, the entire paradigm shifts, the entire view of Jesus begins to transform. They take hold of his feet and they worship him. Now I know a lot of you through various means you maybe you've read the Gospels and you know the story of Mary Magdalene or you saw Jesus Christ superstar or somewhere along the line, we learn who these characters are. Now Mary Magdalene is historically she's associated with another story in the Gospels and that is the story of a woman who's called a simple woman. She's got a, she's got a, she's got a pretty broken past when it comes to men. And yet she's always looked for love in the wrong places and it brought great pain into her life. And yet we're told that she was invited in and because of Jesus love and because of Jesus forgiveness and radical acceptance of her and spite of her mistakes. We're told that she weft on his feet. Mary Magdalene. She's not called that in the Gospel but historically it's always been associated with that. She's from the town of Magdalene but the word Magdalene which that English pronunciation of the word Magdalene is a word that means you know sentimental or weepy. And we use it of course for something that's really, really cheesy melodramatic but it comes from that idea of this woman just pouring her tears out on Jesus feet because of the sweetness of his forgiveness. Here she is. Here's the first person, the first man if you will, whoever showed her true dignity, showed her true respect, whoever really showed her what love and respect were all about. And she lost him. And now she comes to him and she sees him in his risen glory and she lays hold to him. She grabs his feet. Can't you just see her heart saying, I lost you once. I am never going to lose you again. I'm holding on. Now you have to go to the Gospel of John to sort of unpack a more of a microscope of what the conversation is because in Matthew it simply says they clasp him and he told him and go. But in John Jesus actually speaks to her in the 20th chapter of the Gospel and he says stop holding on to me. And that may seem a little odd to you at first. And someone finally realizes you're the risen Christ. They realize they can finally hold you and never lose you again. They grab your feet and he says stop doing that. And it's even more odd because with someone like Thomas the doubter he says come hold me. Come touch me. Come put your hand in my side. So for some people he says touch me. For some people he says let go. And actually what he says is this. Stop clinging to me because I have not yet ascended to my father. What does that mean? And what does that have to do with our joy? You see Jesus is saying to Mary Mary you are never going to lose me again. You're never going to lose me but this is not how you hold me. You see I am going to my father and as we know as the Bible impacts the story Jesus goes and he promises to return so that someday we will touch him. Some day we will see him but he says Mary you won't lose me because I'm going to ascend to my father and I'm going to come to you. I won't leave you as orphans. I'm going to send you my Holy Spirit. And because of that not only can you lay hold of me but anyone who believes can truly lay hold of me and experience me in my risen power and life. Now that is what happens. Mary lets go and she begins to run because now she realizes that she is going to experience a relationship with Jesus through the Spirit that actually transcends anything she could have known knowing and face to face, sharing meals with him, sharing friendship with him. There is actually going to be a transforming friendship that will exceed that. That is in fact what Easter is all about. Easter is all about saying you know what you can be free from fear. Once you realize some of you may need to go like Thomas. You actually need to touch some of the data. I really challenge it. Look at the evidence. Look at the stories. Look at what lies behind. We even have some resources here you can look at. Look at what lies behind the claims of the resurrection of Jesus. I think they are extremely difficult to simply brush aside. There have been many many great minds, many many great skeptics who decided to blow away the evidence of the resurrection who became extremely reluctant converts. Look at it. They like Thomas. But the main thing I want to say is light Mary Magdalene. If you begin to look at Jesus Christ you will realize that there is freedom from fear. When you realize he is raised he will never fall. If I hold him I will never fall. I will never crumble. There is joy that says because God has shown his love for me in Jesus not only forgiving my sins on the cross but guaranteeing me this new life. It means as I get older I don't have to suppress my hopes and dreams and joy. I don't have to say they are real. This is all there is and it is not going to be as good. I can cultivate my longings. Because the resurrection tells me that these are not lies. I was created for this and in the risen Christ I know that I has not seen. Ear has not heard. It is not even entered in my imagination. The things that God has created for those who love him. You see there is simply no comparable joy to the joy of Easter. It is the rising sun that puts all other suns to shame. Would you be willing if you are not part of the Christian community I would really encourage you to consider being part of this community just for a while if for no other reason than to hear the stories. Because you see Jesus has been transforming lives for two thousand years and throughout the world there are millions of people in places like China and Africa and India and in this country as well who say I have class hold of him and it is not a delusion. In fact it is the greatest reality I have ever laid hold of. Would you be willing to just spend time getting to know some of the people in this community who say this is my story because maybe you can lay hold of him too. Let me pray. Lord we pray that each one of us pray for each person here that on this Easter morning we would know maybe for the first time or maybe for you in deeper way what it is to lay hold of the one who is no longer among the dead but is risen for we pray this in Jesus name. Amen.