Transcription of the Video: Roll Away the Stone

The ancient land of Israel is a testimony and evidence of the greatness of what God did in that country, a testimony to the truth of the words that we find in the pages of the Bible. 

The defining event in the New Testament story is the death and Resurrection of Jesus. In Jesus' own words, commitment to the reality of his Resurrection is a measure of one's faith in God. It's a statement of the power of God, his ability to overcome even death itself. 

But along with that, the Resurrection of Jesus was also a declaration by God himself of his love for us. It was God's way of saying, "I love you. I love you enough to suffer with you, and I love you enough to grant you the power to overcome even death itself."

We don't know for sure where Jesus Christ was crucified or buried or raised again from the dead. But there is a place right outside the city wall of the old city of Jerusalem called the Garden Tomb that's certainly a lot like that place. It's a place where we can go to remember and to understand the greatness of God's love for us. 

We've spent about two weeks traveling all over this very beautiful country. Every place we went, in a sense, pointed us here. It's a place that's been set aside for people like us to come to remember. Behind me is  a rock-cut tomb with a place where a stone rolled - a place that beautifully reminds us of what it was like where Jesus came to finish his work here on earth. 

So we come here to visualize what that was like. I'd just like to focus your thoughts on several small aspects of the great work that God accomplished. The first is that in this place - Jerusalem - out of all the places in the world, God chose to come, to complete a promise that he had made to Abraham 50/60 miles south of here. 

God had said to Abraham, "Someday, in my time, in my place, I'll shed my blood for your sins." And he walked barefooted on that blood path and symbol between those cut-up animals as a way of saying, "When you break the covenant, I'll pay the price."

Let me read from Matthew. Jesus had been condemned. He'd been brought through the city streets. He felt the crush of people on the busy day, the shopping day which it was then. He stumbled. Someone else had to carry the cross. And then he's brought to a place outside the city gate to a place of execution, and he's nailed to a cross - an absolutely brutal way to die.

"From the sixth until the ninth hour, darkness came over the whole land. About the ninth hour, Jesus cried out in a loud voice. 'Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani," which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"(Matthew 27:45-46)

If I can put that in more everyday English, what Jesus said is, "My God, my God, why have you left me all alone?" There he hung, forsaken by people and forsaken by his Father. 

"When some of those standing there heard this, they said, 'He's calling Elijah.' Immediately, one of them ran and got a sponge. He filled it with wine vinegar, put it on a stick, and offered it to Jesus to drink. But the rest said, 'Leave him alone. Let's see if Elijah comes to save him.'" (Matthew 27:47-49) And the people stand around and they watch as the life of Jesus drips away.  

We know from Jewish tradition and Jewish writers that at 3:00 in the afternoon, the afternoon sacrafice is made. The priest climbs the pinnacle of the Temple and he blows the shofar. And everybody in hearing distance - certainly in this place - hears the shofar and knows that at that moment, the lamb dies for the world. 

For many years, that had been practiced - maybe since the time of Moses. At 3:00. And as Jesus hangs here and the time moves on, 3:00 arrives. And amazingly, the Bible says, at the ninth hour - 3:00 - at the moment when the lamb is killed for the whole nation, Jesus looks up to Heaven and he says, "It is finished. Into your hands I commit my Spirit." (John 19:30)

Now you an almost picture the whole city busy like it is now. Suddenly, the shofar blows and those who believed in that God stopped a moment. And in the quiet, the lamb of God dies at the instant of the sacrifice.

What a profound way of describing for us what it was that Jesus Christ came to do. And he died. Then it came time for burial. There are many tombs around here in the city of Jerusalem. Tombs like this one were very, very expensive. It took a lot of work to make a tomb like that. And you can imagine what kind of an investment somebody had. 

In the Old Testament, God says, "Don't mix things that aren't alike." Don't mix two kinds of seeds. Don't mix two kinds of animals in pulling a plow. Don't mix a believer and an unbeliever in marriage." 

That also means that in your tomb, you can't mix unrelated people. If I have a tomb and you are buried in it, and you're not related to me, that tomb is no longer clean. I can no longer use it. So there was a man who had a tomb. It's intriguing that the Bible says no one had ever been put in the tomb. 

The moment Joseph put Jesus in the tomb, he had given the tomb away. Because he could never use it again. I want you to think about this unknown person that we simply know from that tradition who took his tomb worth many thousands of shekels (sheqels) and said, "Because of my love for Jesus," on the spur of the moment, without a second thought, he said, "It's yours." 

And I'd like to think that as we walk through all this country and we thought about God walking the blood path and his promise that someday he would come to do that for you and for me would lead us to the same kind of act of being willing to say, "God, whatever I have at this moment, it's yours."

Fortunately, Friday wasn't the end. Sunday's coming. Let me read from Matthew again. "There was a violent earthquake. For an angel of the Lord came down from Heaven and going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning and his clothes were white as snow. The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men. The angel said to the women, 'Do not be afraid. For I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here. He is risen.'"(Matthew 28:2-6)

The stone was rolled away, not to let Jesus out, but to let the disciples look in. People, there is no tombstone, no grave, no cross, no Roman soldier big enough and strong enough to stop the work of Jesus Christ. He was not bound in that tomb by a big stone but by his willingness to give his life.  So he came out in power.

But then came the people, and they needed to see that he was really alive. They needed to know that this wasn't just a report of soldiers or of some of his closest friends. And so the angel came to a tomb with a stone in front of it, and he rolled the stone away so people could say, "He's not here. He's risen."

The same thing has to happen to each of us. It's not enough to say, "There's a tomb. He died as he lived. And he was buried." We've got to have the vision to look into the tomb and to say, "I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that he's not in the grave. He's alive."

And I think that means we both have to believe that, and we have to live like it. Now I think knowing this group, we all believe it. Every one of us knows that just as surely as this tomb is empty, Jesus' tomb is empty. We know that. The stone has been rolled away. But do you know what? You're going to meet a lot of people in your life for whom the stone is still there. They have not discovered that Jesus is alive. And as far as they're concerned, when he died, he's still in the tomb. And your mission and mine becomes to be an instrument of God to roll away the stone so that those people, too, can see that it's empty. 

Sometimes we live like he's still in there. We live as if his power is not really real. We act, in our Christian life, as if the power of Jesus Christ, which raised him from the dead, which God offers to us is not really available. And I think God says, "You've got to roll the stone away. You've got to come in your mind to the tomb and you need to look in and you need to say, 'He is alive. And that power is real. That's not pretend. It's available for me.'"

I'd just like to have you reflect on the fact that everything God did in this land, everything that he's challenged you to do is made possible by what this place represents. It is only through the blood of Jesus that anything that God asks of us can be accomplished. So I ask you for yourself, is Jesus Christ the risen Lord of your life as he is of mine?

Back at the time of Jesus, when a young man wanted to be married, he and his father would go to a young woman's house that they thought was appropriate to be his wife. And they would sit together with the young woman and her father, just the four of them. And they would negotiate this new marriage. And as part of the negotiation, they would decide on what was called the bride price. And the young woman's father would ask a great deal of money or physical things for his daughter, because she was a very, very valuable possession.

When at last they had decided on the price - and it's fair to say that the price that was paid for a bride would rival what you would pay for a new home - the young man's father would pour a cup of wine and hand it to his son. The son would take the cup and hold the wine out to the young girl and say to her, "This cup, I offer to you."

In other words, "I love you, and I offer you my life." 

At that moment, the young woman had a moment of decision. She could say, "No. I don't want to take that offer. I don't want your life." Or she could take the cup, and she could lift it to her mouth, and by drinking it, say, "I accept your life, and I give you mine."

On a hill, not very far from here, Jesus and his disciples sat down for the Passover. In the Passover celebration of the time, there are four cups of wine at different points that they drank. The third cup, called the Cup of Redemption, the Cup of Salvation, is given near the end of the Passover celebration. And the cup is lifted, and the host of the Passover says a brief prayer over the cup. "Blessed are you, oh Lord, king of the universe, creator of the fruit of the vine." And then he gives it to the people to drink - either out of his cup or out of theirs.

Jesus sat in that upper room very close to here. He came to the Cup of Salvation. And the Bible says he took the cup, and when he had given thanks - "Blessed are you God, king of the universe, creator of the fruit of the vine," - he said to them, "This cup is a new covenant in my blood." (1 Corinthians 11:25)

And in the middle of his Passover liturgy, suddenly, completely out of the norm, Jesus turns to his disciples and he says, "I love you. Will you marry me? Will you be my spiritual bride?"

He holds up the cup, and he says, "Drink from it, all of you."

Now Jesus comes to you today through the symbol of what we call sacrament. Nothing more than God's promise, God's guarantee. And Jesus says to you, "I love you. I love you. Will you marry me?" 

I've often thought when the minister takes the cup and holds it up and says, "This cup is a new covenant in my blood," I always knew that was a serious moment. I never realized how incredibly personal that God looks down at that moment, and he looks at you and you and you and you and he looks at me, and he says, "I love you."

Do you know what I never realized? I never realized that when I take the cup and I drink it, in effect I'm saying to God, "I accept your gift. I'll take your life."

Maybe I could say often grooms pay very high prices for their brides. Not many of them thought when they offered the cup, they really would have to give their life. The price Jesus had to pay to be your husband spiritually was so high that not a half a mile from here, he said, "Please, let this cup pass from me." That's how high that price was. 

Now he says to you, "I love you. I want to be your husband." And as you take the cup, you need to decide what you will do with that. I never realized that for me to take the cup and to drink it was to say, "God, I accept your gift. And I give you my life in return."

If you remember, we stood around an altar at Tel Arad. One of the things we said on that blood stone was after the blood of an offering was offered and God was reminded of his promise to forgive. And God, in effect, said, "Take the body of the animal home. Sit down at your table. Have a wonderful meal together as my family, and I'll join you."

The Lord's supper is like that. The elements represent the sacrifice of our lamb, the body and blood of Jesus. And in effect, having said, "I kept God's promise of the blood path, and I love you. I want to be your husband." He says now, "I'd like to have dinner with you. Will you join me?"