If the resurrection of Jesus didn't happen, then absolutely none of this matters. My faith doesn't matter. Our forgiveness to one another or anyone who's done us wrong doesn't matter. Your future certainly doesn't matter, not even the way we love matters if the resurrection of Jesus Christ didn't happen. But Jesus is alive and that changes everything.

In Luke 24, we're told after the resurrection that Jesus appeared to his disciples as a ghost and not as a memory, but alive, flesh and bone, his wounds still visible, his voice kind as always, and yet still some doubted, others, as we can understand, terrified. Who could blame them? I mean, this was not how the resurrection, the victory of Jesus Christ was supposed to look. And how does Jesus respond to them? He doesn't scold them, he meets them. He welcomes their fear, he welcomes their confusion. He embraces their doubt. He says touch my wounds, let's sit down and share a meal together. He teaches them that the death on Friday was not the end of their faith, but it was the fulfillment of the things they believed in. He reminds them by their own scriptures this was always part of the plan. Yes, it was written long ago that the Messiah would suffer and die and rise from the dead on the third day. It was also written that this message would be proclaimed there's forgiveness of sins for all who repent. And you are witnesses of these things Now in Easter's.

Past I've talked about the resurrection in terms of evidence, like why it's historically credible and philosophically coherent and theologically sound, and all of that does matter. But this Easter today with you, I want to ask a deeper question. Not did it happen or how could it happen, but why does it even matter? Why does the resurrection matter? Because the resurrection of Jesus is not just a story for us to believe today. It's an invitation of a life to step into. Consider what Pastor Tim Keller wrote. He said if Jesus rose from the dead, then you have to accept all he said. He did the hard part overcame death. We can believe him, but if he didn't rise from the dead, then why worry about anything he said? If Jesus didn't overcome death, then forget about him. He's just like everyone else.

The resurrection isn't just proof that Jesus is alive. It's a declaration that something new has begun. It's not just about what happened to him Easter's, not just about what happened to him, but it's about what's possible for you and me and us today, because we are not just here to remember something that happened. We're here because something is still happening, but we can't celebrate the light without first naming. The darkness is shattered. So before we move forward, let's pause at the tomb, in the silence, at the end of hope, because before the joy of resurrection of Easter Sunday comes the weight of a cross on what we call Good Friday, before light broke through darkness.

Settled in the cross isn't just about what Jesus did. The cross is about who he chose to be. He chose to be a savior who suffers with us, a God who doesn't avoid pain but who entered into it. Jesus, the one that these disciples and others followed, trusted, hoped in, was betrayed. He was beaten, he was mocked and, like so many other people, he was nailed and died on a Roman cross. He was nailed and died on a Roman cross. You can imagine how they felt. Perhaps the same hands that they saw heal people were now pierced. The voice that could calm the storms fell silent. Hope didn't just dim. They saw with their own eyes hope die. The sky went dark, the earth trembled, the curtain in the temple was torn from top to bottom and with his final breath, jesus cries out Father, into your hands, I commit my spirit For those watching from the ground, for those who loved him. It wasn't just the end of Jesus' life, it was the end of theirs.

And then, early on in the morning, before the sun had fully risen, a small group of women walked quietly to the tomb. But understand, they were not going in hope, they were going in heartbreak. They came carrying spices to anoint a body, a body that was dead and decaying. It was going to smell bad. So they bring spices. They had no hope that Jesus was alive. They were just taking care of a body of their friend, killed by the state, buried in haste. This was all they had left. It was a final act of dignity for a buried Messiah.

But when they arrive, as many of you know the story the stone is rolled away, the tomb is empty and they were understandably shocked, afraid, not sure what to believe. When two men in dazzling robes appear and they ask a question that ought to change us why are you looking among the dead for someone who is alive? Why are you here looking for Jesus? He is alive, he isn't here, he is risen from the dead. And that one question, I think, as we reflect on it why are you here, looking for something that's alive among the dead. Isn't that true of us today? You and me Don't? We often look for hope in the wrong places. We assume God has stopped working in our situation or our circumstances, but he hasn't. He's just moved.

The women run and they tell the disciples what they've seen, what they had seen. But Luke says, their words seemed like nonsense, not just because the story is pretty unbelievable, but because of who was telling it. In the first century, the testimony of women was considered unreliable and in court it didn't count. They were seen as emotional, unstable. They were easily dismissed. Now, if you were making up a story about Jesus and trying to convince people that Jesus rose from the dead, the last thing you would do is have women be the ones to discover the empty tomb and tell everyone about it. But Jesus doesn't just turn death into life, he turns entire systems on their head. The first witnesses of the resurrection weren't priests, they weren't politicians, they weren't one of his 12 disciples. They were overlooked, they were underestimated, they were unheard, and these women became the first to tell the good news. And that's not a detail. That is the kingdom of God. Still, even though there is an empty tomb, the disciples struggle to believe. Jesus had told them, though time and time again, the Son of man must be crucified and rise again. But this resurrection, how it happened, didn't fit in their categories. It wasn't what they expected and so it felt wrong.

When you believe, when you think, when you're holding on to something for years and years and years, and you expect it to be this way and it's this way, you have to deal with all of the space between questions, doubts, curiosities. It makes me think how, sometimes, what God is doing, it doesn't feel obvious to us. Oftentimes, the way God moves is unsettling, it's confusing, it's frightening. There's what we expected and there's what's happening, but faith, that's how it goes. Faith usually doesn't begin with clarity. Faith often begins in confusion or with mystery, with half-formed hope. The resurrection doesn't wait for you to figure everything out. The resurrection meets you at your lowest.

If I'm honest, the past year and a half in my own life it has felt like a really long walk to the tomb. There have been moments of loss, misunderstandings, unfair accusations, quiet disappointments I just did not see coming. People I've cared about deeply in my life have walked away. My trust with others has been strained. Some days I carry more pain than clarity and most days I have felt more like a wounded child than the strong leader I'm supposed to be. It's felt at times that my hope was taken away, that my direction was killed on a cross and that my confidence was buried and sealed up. But as I reflect on Easter and my own life, I start to get glimpses of what God is doing in it. And God is already moving in prayer, community and therapy and in the stillness and the quiet. And every now and then I get to see a glimpse and flashes of the person I'm becoming, not the person I was a year and a half ago, not the person I am right now, but who God is forming me to be through it all, and I love that person, even though I don't feel like him most of the time.

Yet For there to be a resurrection in my life, for there to be new life, there had to be death. Something had to die first Things. I didn't want to die and I share that with you today because maybe you're walking through something similar, maybe you're walking through misunderstanding. Life isn't being fair. You're dealing with grief, loss, quiet, disappointments, but your story isn't tied up yet. It's not tied up with a bow. Yet it's not over, you're just in it and that's okay.

The resurrection and new life. It never begins with certainty. It begins with carrying spices to a tomb, expecting nothing and discovering God's already moved. So if you're unsure today and you're still piecing things together, you are not behind, You're not forever broken, you're not damaged goods. You're just standing where the first believers once stood, right on the edge of something new.

When we go back to the story, we see the two followers of Jesus are walking away from Jerusalem and they're trying to make sense of it new. When we go back to the story, we see that two followers of Jesus are walking away from Jerusalem and they're trying to make sense of it all, everything that they had seen. So they're processing out loud together the betrayal, the trial, the crucifixion, and now all of these rumors. Where is Jesus? Did the Roman government take him? Did his followers take him and hide him? Did he really come back from the dead? But here's the thing they're not just reflecting and processing.

The Greek word that Luke uses implies a strong debate. They have different opinions about what has happened. They were wrestling with each other, arguing and processing the grief the only way they knew how. Because, just like you today, you know people who are tortured and beaten and hung on a cross and died and buried don't come back from the dead. How is this possible? And if it is possible, how could it be true? I mean, in all likelihood the women were probably just confused, right? You can hear them arguing Maybe somebody did take the body. Yes, that's the most logical explanation.

When a stranger or so they think a stranger joins them, they don't recognize Jesus. But Jesus walks beside them, he listens to their debate, he asks questions. They're actually kind of dumbfounded. How have you not heard about what has happened the last few days? But then he teaches and he traces the story from Moses to the prophets and he shows how the entire Old Testament was pointing to this very weekend. He doesn't offer them a shortcut, no pithy statements. He gives them context and then later he shares a meal with them and he disappears.

And it's at this moment they realize who he was and they say they realize, didn't our hearts burn within us as he talked with us on the road and explained the scriptures to us? Didn't our hearts burn? You see, something had been happening inside of them before they even recognized it. Do you get that Something happened inside of them that they didn't realize was happening on the wall, what didn't happen until later, where they were thinking about it like wait, I was being changed and I didn't even realize it.

And that's how the resurrection works Quietly, patiently, stirring something in us long before we're able to name it, label it, call it something. Jesus walks with us, jesus listens and he teaches, and sometimes he doesn't reveal himself on purpose, because spiritual growth does not come from getting answers. It comes from walking on the road with Jesus. Discipleship isn't about learning more. It's about walking with Christ and that burning heart, that we feel something inside of us. It's not just a feeling, it's a call, not just to be moved, but to move, oftentimes in faith. We want the big fireworks, the big emotions, the big scene, but more often than not, jesus works through the slow burn forming us before we're even aware that he's near us.

Easter isn't about going to heaven when you die and it's about heaven crashing into earth while you live. That's why Easter matters. This day is not for spectators, but it's for responders, for people who don't just walk on the road, but they recognize who Jesus is on it and they follow him. And again, we're not just here to remember something that happened 2,000 years ago. We are here because something is still happening. The cross was not the end of the story, it was just the beginning.

And, as NT Wright says, the resurrection stands at the heart of the Christian faith, as a light and hope in a sometimes dark and hopeless world. And that same spirit who raised Jesus from the dead is still at work today, calling you and me to new life, reshaping our hearts and setting them on fire. And so, for those of us today who find ourselves in the waiting that painful part of life, I want to invite you to join us next week as we continue through Luke's writings. We're going to talk about what happens after the resurrection and what do the disciples do before the Holy Spirit comes. Jesus says now I will send the Holy Spirit, just as my Father promised. And that's a promise not just for his first disciples, not just for your first few hundred years of Christianity, but it's a promise for you today. And that's where we'll pick up next week, because the resurrection, once again, was just the beginning of the story.