Three days after the Nazarene carpenter was crucified, assuredly killed with a spear thrust, and buried, three days after that freak black-out in the middle of the day, three days after everyone saw ghosts, three days after the earthquake, there was another earthquake, as reported in Matthew 28.
This earthquake was caused by an angel who rolled away the stone that blocked the entrance to the tomb in which the body of the carpenter was laid to rest.
But the carpenter got up out of that tomb and greeted the mourners. The mourners fell at his feet, grabbing them, and worshipped him. As we are told in 1 John 1, he was touched with hands, handled even, seen with eyes. He was really back!
And he accepted the worship offered. That carpenter was really God, and he did not refuse the claim. God the Son had died in our place and got up out of the grave, just as he had promised at least four times before in Matthew’s account. Jesus, who would save us from our sins, was Immanuel, God among us, working as the Father’s Christ, the anointed and submissive prince (see Matthew 1), resurrected from the grave!
And the tomb? It was empty. Our manuscripts of Matthew’s gospel go all the way back to that time. This account by Matthew was written at this time. It is not some legendary account written centuries later, as Homer did of Achilles, as Malory did of King Arthur.
So the tomb was empty, and if they wanted to kill the religion, they could have produced the body. But God’s earthquake had burst it open, and God the Son had crushed the grip of death about his divine life. The tomb was empty, and the rejectors could do nothing about it.
And so all authority in heaven and on earth was his, proven beyond doubt to multitudes of witnesses. The authority promised by that wretched Satan in Matthew 4 would have been illegitimate. The authority claimed by the Son from the Father was through victory.
And we enjoy that victory. We are told to go out as his messengers. (This is the famous “Great Commission” in verses 18-20.) He has authority. We should share the message, confident that he will call those for whom he spilled his blood. Confident that he will be with us for the rest of time. He is lord of all, and sends us confidently.
Application: So let’s go and tell, right? Right!
Read from God 