Matthew 28:1-6- “Now after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. 2 And behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. 3 His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. 4 And for fear of him the guards trembled and became like dead men. 5 But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. 6 He is not here, for he has risen.”
When my daughter was four, she would welcome me home from work every day. I would pull into the driveway and before I could open the car door, Adele was in a dead sprint, yelling: “my Daddy, my Daddy, my Daddy, my Daddy is home.” Big hugs and a hero’s welcome every day will always make you feel amazing, no matter what your day looked like. The power of a pronoun is hard to estimate, with one small “my, our, or your,” we communicate ownership, possession, and the uniqueness of a relationship. Of all the dads out there, I am the one that belongs to my daughter.
You know the feeling: “this is my wife, this is my husband, this is my best-friend, this is my grandpa, this is our family, these are my sons.” Pronouns are game changers. Martin Luther thought the same, he famously said “the Christian faith is a matter of personal pronouns.”
He urged, “read with great emphasis these words, ‘me,’ ‘for me,’ and accustom yourself to accept and apply to yourself this ‘me’ with certain faith. The words OUR, US, FOR US, ought to be written in golden letters”
Today is Easter and we celebrate the reality of the empty tomb. Christ has risen, this changes everything for you and for me and you. I want to encourage you to embrace it, to see yourself in the text of Scripture, to know that when we read us, it actually means you and me.
Here are 8 things the resurrection means for you. Listen for the pronouns, put yourself in these passages. Jesus fiercely went to the cross and just as fiercely took on death in that tomb—for us. These 8 things are gospel gifts for you and me.
1. His resurrection gives you new birth
1 Peter 1:3- “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”
Jesus told us that no one enters into his kingdom without being born again, this text tells us that no one is born again without the resurrection. He gives us new birth through the resurrection. In other words, the only hope of leaving our old life and having a new one is an empty tomb. Kory Capps version 1.0 was not a pretty sight. Kory Capps version 2.0 is still messy, but new. 2.0 for you and me is a result of God’s mercy provided through the resurrection of Christ. You are new because of the resurrection.
2. His Resurrection means forgiveness for you
1 Corinthians 15:17– “And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.”
There is a reason that Jesus taught us to pray for daily bread, daily forgiveness, daily leadership away from temptation, and daily deliverance from evil…because these are our primary needs I need help daily with my sin, with temptation and with evil. Without the resurrection, the guilt of our sin, the shame of our failures and the consequence of our wrongdoing would rest on our heads. But the tomb is empty, which means your account before God is settled if you have trusted his Son. Romans 6 tells us that our sin was buried with Christ, which means the only thing Jesus left in that tomb was my sin and yours. You are forgiven because of the resurrection. As long as that stone is rolled away, there is nothing hanging over your head; and that stone is never rolling back.
3. His resurrection means your justification
Romans 4:25- “He was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.”
Justification is the other side of forgiveness—it is a forensic term that means to be declared righteous before God. The Reformers called it the “great exchange;” God takes my sin and puts it on Jesus (delivered up for our trespasses) and he then takes Christ’s perfection and gives it to me. It’s a bit like marriage, when I got married what was mine became my spouses and what was her became mine. With Christ, he takes the bad and gives me his good; he takes my disobedience, idolatry and sin and gives me his perfection and righteousness. There is no condemnation over you because the tomb is empty. You are justified because of the resurrection.
4. His Resurrection delivers you from God’s wrath
1 Thessalonians 1:10– “You turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come.”
In Noah’s day, God’s wrath was poured out in a flood. Everyone who got into the ark was delivered from God’s wrath. 1 Peter 3 connects the ark to the resurrection. God delivers us from the wrath of judgment and hell through the empty tomb. That’s what this text is also saying, the risen Jesus delivers us from wrath and judgment. Believer in Jesus Christ, hell is not your destination. The tomb is empty. You are safe from God’s wrath because of the resurrection.
5. His Resurrection means his intercession for you
Romans 8:34- “Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.”
The ascension wasn’t Jesus’ retirement ceremony. The Risen Jesus has not stopped working for you. He does not pass his days sitting back on the throne. He sits at God’s right hand—right next to him and there He intercedes for you—he represents you to the Father, he prays for you, he goes to God on your behalf. Dorothy Pranger was the woman that brought both my parents to Christ. I received a letter from her a year or so before she died, in it she wrote that she had been praying for me every day for years. It brought me to tears, who knows what her prayers produced…but I know it meant a ton to me. Think about the fact that Jesus is doing the same for you, every day.
6. His resurrection guarantees your resurrection
Romans 6:5- “For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his.”
Jesus is called the first-fruits of the resurrection. He was the first ripe pear falling off the tree guaranteeing more ripe fruit to come. Notice, the text said “certainly.” This is happening. Death will not have the final word over you. The empty tomb means that no coffin will hold us, no coffin will hold our loved ones who trusted Jesus…death will not win. I will rise. You will rise. We will rise.
7. His resurrection gives you a reason for faith and hope
1 Peter 1:21- “God raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.”
God had your faith and hope in mind when he raised Jesus. This text tells us that it was one of the purposes of the resurrection—that we might lean into God to trust him, to hope in his promises and to follow him. He is the God who raises the dead. If we sit at the empty tomb long enough we will recognize that nothing is to difficult for him—he creates life out of the nothingness of death, he enters into hopelessness itself and turns it inside out, he turns a symbol of despair into a symbol of hope. If he can do that, nothing is impossible for him.
If he is the one who stands behind the promises, “I will raise you from the grave, I will forgive your sin, I will make you new,” how is it possible to not receive assurance and comfort from his promises. The resurrection is the foundation all faith and hope.
8. His Resurrection is your hope in the midst of despair
2 Corinthians 1:8-9- “We were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.”
Hope has an address, it’s the empty tomb. Have you ever felt like giving up, completely. This text is deeply encouraging and real, as sometimes we all despair of life. Ever felt or said: “it’s unbearable, it’s too much, I can’t go another day, even another moment.” Even in this space, friend, you are not alone and God is at work. The empty tomb transforms our despair into a guide post for hope. Did you hear it, in his despair God was stripping him of all self-reliance and pushing him toward reliance on the God who raises the dead. God uses our despair to direct us to the only hope: the resurrection of Christ. In our lostness, he tells us to plug hope into our GPS and he takes us to the empty tomb.
God not only went to the cross for you, he went to the grave. He did it because he loves you and he wanted you to know new birth, forgiveness, justification, rescue from wrath, intercession, resurrection, faith and hope…and we are just scratching the surface. He is risen, this changes everything for us.