LUKE 24: 36-49

WHAT’S IMPORTANT?

In our passage today we read some of Jesus’s last words of his earthly ministry.

Last words are really important. Stan Laurel on his death bed said to his nurse: “I’d rather be skiing than be doing this.” The nurse replied “Do you ski Mr Laurel?” “No” said Stan Laurel “but I would rather be skiing than be doing this!”

Columbo, the TV detective, would ask all sorts of insignificant questions to the person who he would think was the criminal, but then as he would turn to go he would say: “Sir, just one more thing…” and that would be THE important point. You will know if someone wants to chat with you, they will often chat about all sorts of things – then they will get to the point. And that would be the thing – the really important thing – that they wanted to talk about.

So when we read these words of Jesus, these are particularly important.

  1. Important fact No 1: Jesus rose again and lives today

We need first of all to deal with the elephant in the room. The whole of Christianity hinges on whether Jesus died and rose again. St Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15: 14: And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile. In other words, we are wasting our time if Jesus did not rise again.

So this is a really important question. Did Jesus rise again? Our culture would say many things on this. The atheist would say: people don’t rise again. So it didn’t happen. And of course an atheist would say that.

But our culture would also say: “Ah, Jesus may have risen for you: that’s your truth. But he didn’t rise for me: that’s my truth.” However that cannot be true. How is it possible for Jesus to have risen from the dead for one person but not have risen from the dead for another person? Either he rose again or he didn’t. So this is really important.

But we may therefore ask – how can we know whether Jesus rose from the dead?

There are probably two ways to gain a knowledge that Jesus rose again. Firstly through the evidence that we have. Now, there isn’t time to go through all the evidence – but maybe I can just make a couple of points:

  1. The case for Christianity rises and falls on whether Jesus rose again. So therefore the tomb needs to be empty. If the early disciples were going round saying Jesus had rose again, all the Jewish authorities would have to do is to point to the tomb or indeed exhume the body of Jesus and at a stroke the disciples claim would be swept away.
  • The first people to witness the empty tomb and Jesus being alive were women. Our 21st century minds do not appreciate the significance of this. According to the 1st century Jewish historian, Josephus, the testimony of women should not even be admitted into court as it was considered unreliable.  Now if you wanted to convince people that something was true (when it wasn’t) you certainly would not use what was considered unreliable testimony as your principal evidence. So why use the testimony of women therefore? Because this is what happened.

The second two way to gain a knowledge that Jesus rose again is that they have experienced him.

When I was a teenager, I lived in Wareham and in the evenings I started going to a church with my two friends – Neil and John. Now time does something to your memory – but my impression was that everyone in this church seemed to have this connection with Jesus. Sometime after that, I went with my dad to a Methodist Evangelical conference near Derby and the same thing again. Everyone seemed to have this knowledge of Jesus. They seemed so happy! But I felt miserable and useless. I can remember even now feeling so tearful and forlorn. But they had something.

Now – what was it they had? Well, they knew that Jesus was alive. They were alive! So what does that mean? Well – that comes next….

  • Important fact No. 2: repentance for the forgiveness of sins (v 46-47)

Now in verses 46 and 47 Luke writes:

..the Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name…

The word “And” links two statements:

Statement 1: Jesus will suffer, die and rise again

Statement 2: there will be repentance and forgiveness of sins

We can conclude that somehow, what has happened at the cross has something to do with the stuff we do wrong: sin.

Our culture doesn’t like this. Our culture says we should free from all external authority – so we are free to be yourself and define yourself. The strapline of our culture is: “Be yourself.” The heroes of our culture used to be those who sacrificed themselves for the common good; now our culture reveres those who say: “I am who I am.”

There’s a problem with forgiveness in our culture. And the problem is that if forgiveness is to be given it implies that there was something wrong done in the first place. And that involves admitting doing something wrong.

We have a real problem admitting we are in the wrong – don’t we. I read a quote recently which said of our culture: “Everything is permissible but nothing is forgivable.” But without forgiveness we knowingly or unknowingly carry around the burden of mistakes and errors and things we have said and done and thought that are wrong which are totally against the utter spotlessness of a perfect God. We end up being burdened by it all.

I knew a youth leader burdened by all that had gone wrong in her life. And I said to her that when I saw her, it was as if she was carrying over her shoulders two large brown hessian sacks. And in the sacks were all the mess of life.

Well what I should have said was: you can give this great burden to Jesus. Notice the order of the passage: Jesus dies (for our sins); we repent (that is to turn to him and admit it all) and forgiveness is received.

You will remember the days of apartheid in South Africa. As the apartheid system was being dismantled, the Truth & Reconciliation Commission was set up. This was set up as part of the healing of the nation. Those who had committed atrocities were invited to attend and admit their part in any wrong doing; those who had suffered would also have an opportunity to speak. There would be truth – and then (hopefully) reconciliation.

In post-apartheid South Africa the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was set up to make sure that the oppressed didn’t become the oppressor and that the two sides agreed the truth of what happened and sought reconciliation.

Mr. Van der Broek, was a white policeman and had just been tried and found implicated in the murders of both a woman’s son and her husband some years before. Van der Broek had come to the woman’s home, taken her son, shot him at point blank range and then set the young man’s body on fire while he and his officers partied nearby.

Several years later, Van der Broek and his men had returned for her husband as well. For months she knew nothing of his whereabouts. Then almost two years after her husband’s disappearance, Van der Broek came back to fetch the woman herself. She was taken to see her husband, bound and beaten, lying on a pile of wood. The last words she heard from his lips as the officers poured petrol over his body and set him aflame were “Father forgive them…”

The woman now stands in the courtroom and listens to the confessions offered by Mr. Van der Broek. A member of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission turns to her and asks, “So what do you want? How should justice be done to this man who has so brutally destroyed your family?”

“I want three things,” said the old woman. “I want first to be taken to the place where my husband’s body was burned so that I can gather up the dust and give his remains a decent burial.”

“My husband and son were my only family. I want secondly, therefore, for Mr. Van der Broek to become my son. I would like for him to come twice a month to the ghetto and spend a day with me so that I can pour out on him whatever love I still have remaining in me.”

“Finally, this is also the wish of my husband. I would kindly ask someone to come to my side and lead me across the courtroom so that I can let him know that he is truly forgiven.” As the court assistants came to lead the elderly woman across the room, Mr. Van der Broek, overwhelmed by what he had just heard, fainted. As he did, those in the courtroom, began to sing, softly, “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me”.

  • Important fact No. 3: there is a life to live in the power of Jesus (v 49)

Now….another way of looking at all of this is: imagine a land we all used to live in. In this land we lived for ourselves. We did what we wanted. But somehow this didn’t quite do it for us. We thought the next relationship, the next job, the next promotion, the next this or that would do the trick. If I just got this THEN I would be happy. But somehow there was something missing. And then we found what was missing. The person to live for was Jesus. And now rather than looking inwards for satisfaction or here or there or anywhere, we find that to leave for Jesus gives life meaning and purpose.

We realise that the burden of everything can be given to Jesus. There is a lightness in life. It doesn’t mean life is problem-free but the sting has been removed.

I heard this week of a father and son who were in the car and suddenly a bee came into the car and the son started screaming as he was terrified of being stung. The father, seeing this, put his hand out and caught the bee and then squeezed the bee in his hand. He then let the bee go and it still buzzed around the car. The son screamed again but the father said: “look at my hand.” And as his son looked, there in the father’s hand was the sting. And he said to his son: “My boy, you have nothing to fear – the sting has been removed.”

And for Christian people – the sting has been removed. Ultimately of course in death but in so many other ways. Nothing is so desperate that God can’t deal with.

So we go from the old land into the new land. But we are not alone. And in verse 49 we see what Jesus promises:

“I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.”

And in this new land we are given power to live in the way that Jesus would want us to live. Let us not be too hasty in getting on with the business of the day; but be filled (be clothed) with the Holy Spirit.

So these words of Jesus are important: He died and rose for you so that you would turn to him and seek his forgiveness so that you can live for him in his power for the rest of your life.

May God add his blessing on our reading today.


Category: Family Service , Sermons