Sermons Preached In Moody Texas

Moody First United Methodist Church

Matthew 28:1-10

After the sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. And suddenly there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. For fear of him the guards shook and became like dead men. But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.’ This is my message for you.” So they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples. Suddenly Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!” And they came to him, took hold of 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.”

In the fifties, in China, there was a devastating earthquake. As a result of the quake, a huge boulder was dislodged from a mountain thus exposing a great cache of wonderful artifacts from a thousand years ago. A new world suddenly became visible.(1)

Matthew, in his Gospel, writes of an earthquake in his description of the events at the tomb on Sunday morning. All four gospels tell the Good News of resurrection on Easter morning. Matthew describes this earth shaking event in terms of an earthquake.

Have you ever been in an earthquake? I remember sitting on a bed in my hotel in Quito, Ecuador talking to Diana on the phone. I thought I felt the bed move. I wasn’t sure, so I reached over to touch the wall. It wasn’t long until I was sure. The bed was moving. The next day I asked a resident if they had earthquakes in Quito. He said, “See that mountain over there. On the other side is a volcano. They say if it goes off Quito will be buried. Yes, we have earthquakes. Boy, did that get my attention.

I was in Long Beach, California when the earthquake hit during the baseball playoffs in Oakland. Eating breakfast at the hotel restaurant, I couldn’t help but notice all the glass on the outside wall. I couldn’t help but think about what would happen if an earthquake hit while I was sitting there.

Then there were the times I was in Bakersfield and Calgary. All my experiences were just mild tremors. I can’t imagine what a “real” quake would be like. I have no doubt that it would get my attention.

Matthew wants to get our attention. He is not writing about some incidental occurrence in the life of Jesus. He is writing about an event that will FOREVER change the course of history. He is writing about an event that will shape the hopes of the 67 generations to follow. That is 67 generations and counting. Matthew is writing about an event so big that following it, life will never be the same. Matthew is writing about the resurrection of Jesus, and he wants to get our attention.

Life is full of attention getters. There is the blue light special at K-Mart, or the red light special that comes from a police officer. T.V. folks make a living by getting your attention during breaks in programming.

But those aren’t the only kind of attention getters. Tornados rip through a town totally destroying everything in its path. Flood waters gush through what use to be someone’s home. Hail beats your home and car until they are barely recognizable.

We feel inconvenience as the security at our airport is increased. Getting there two hours early is a pain. Did you notice this week that one of the suicide bombers in Israel was stopped by security guards at the doors of the grocery store?

It has been a week of waiting. The test results are finally back, and we have an appointment with the Doctor. We get to the office and the waiting continues. Finally in the Doctor’s presence we get the results. The diagnosis is breast cancer, or prostate cancer. He says you have had a heart attack. She prescribes a medication for the seizures or diabetes or glaucoma or depression. We are sent directly to the hospital with Guillain-Barre syndrome, renal failure, heart disease, double pneumonia, or pancreatitis.

Our husband, wife, son, daughter, grandson, granddaughter, brother, sister, or best friend die. Whether it is expected or totally premature, we are not ready.

Those are the things that get our attention. We live in a broken world. It’s been that way since Adam and Eve. We are constantly assaulted by circumstances that cause us to ask Why? How do we respond to such attention getter?

The good news is God responded for us at a tomb near Jerusalem.

Lee Strobel is a teaching pastor at the Willow Creek Community Church. In his book, The Case for Christ, he tells of his conversation with Dr. Gary Habermas, professor of theology and philosophy and author of numerous books and articles. The question Strobel posed concerned the importance of the Resurrection for Christians. He assumed he would get a stock answer about its centrality to the faith. And he did. But he got something more. Habermas went into a reflective mood in which he referred to the death of his wife Debbie in 1995 of stomach cancer.

Habermas said, “As I would sit there, I’d picture Job, who went through all that terrible stuff and asked questions of God, but then God turned the tables and asked him a few questions.

“I knew if God were to come to me, I’d ask only one question: ‘Lord, why is Debbie up there in bed?’ And I think God would respond by asking gently, ‘Gary, did I raise my Son from the dead?’

“I’d say, ‘Come on, Lord, I’ve written seven books on that topic! Of course he was raised from the dead. But I want to know about Debbie!’

“I think he’d keep coming back to the same question - ‘Did I raise my Son from the dead?’ - until I got his point: The Resurrection says that if Jesus was raised 2,000 years ago, there’s an answer to Debbie’s death in 1995. And do you know what? … If the Resurrection would get me through that, it can get me through anything. It was good for A.D. 30, and it’s good for 1995; it’s good for 1998, and it’s good beyond that …. I believe that with all my heart. If there’s a resurrection, there’s a heaven. If Jesus was raised, Debbie was raised. And I will be someday, too. Then I’ll see them both.”(2)

When the stone was rolled away, and the earth shook, we got our first glimpse of a new world, a world where death doesn’t have the last word, a world where injustice is made right, and innocent suffering is vindicated by the intrusion of a powerful God.(3)

Billy Graham once said, “Jesus stopped dying on the cross long enough to answer the prayer of a thief. He stopped in a big crowd one day because someone touched the hem of His garment; and He’ll stop to touch your life and change you…”(4) Let me add, Jesus rose from the dead so that we might live an abundant life in a broken world. Christ is Risen.

1. William H. Willimon, Pulpit Resource, Vol. 30, No. 1, Jan, Feb, Mar 2002, p 60.

4. Richard Donovan, SermonWriter for Easter (Mar31), e-mail service.

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