Do Not Be Afraid

Christ has risen, he has risen indeed, oh sing Hallelujah. Join the chorus, sing with the redeemed. Christ has risen, he has risen in indeed. Oh Lord, as we have already twice spoken these words and now sung this refrain multiple times, we pray these would not be mere words but that they would find good soil in our hearts, that as we reflect now on this good news, this angelic announcement that Christ is risen, he is risen indeed, that we would not only hear and know and understand the truth, but we would feel what we ought to feel in light of such good world changing, life altering news. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Matthew chapter 28 verses 1 through 10, the account of the resurrection from Matthew’s Gospel chapter 28. “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 and behold there was a great earthquake, and an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightening and his clothing white as snow and for fear of him the guards trembled and became like dead men. The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified, He is not here for He has risen as he said, come see the place where He lay then go quickly and tell His disciples that He has risen from the dead and behold He is going before you to Galilee. There you will see Him, see I have told you,” So, they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy and ran to tell His disciples and behold Jesus met them and said, “Greetings”, and they came up and took hold of His feet and worshiped Him. Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid, go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee and there they will see me.”

I wonder if you’ve heard this poem before. Here are the opening lines, “By the rude bridge that arched the flood their flag to April’s breeze unfurled. Here once the embattled farmers stood and fired the shot heard round the world.” Did you know there was an anniversary yesterday, April 19, 1775? I asked, I think, all of my kids if they knew what the anniversary was, 250th anniversary. One said, “Is that when you and mom got married?” No, not that long ago. Other people were in World War I, World War II, April 18, 1775, the shot heard round the world. Those are the opening lines of a poem from Ralph Waldo Emerson, his poem, Concord Hymn” written in 1837 to commemorate, here it is, the Battles of Lexington and Concord and yesterday was the 250th anniversary of those skirmishes which came to mark the beginning of what we now call the American Revolutionary War. It was originally written as a hymn and it was sung to the tune, Old Hundredth, which is the doxology. Not gonna do that today, Nathan doesn’t have that planned, a little strange to sing the tune of the doxology to the Battles of Lexingon and Concord, especially strange to any of our British friends who are here with us, we’re glad you’re here, we’re all friends now.

In April 1775 the British sensed that they would soon face an uprising in Massachusetts so they made a plan to seize a store of weapons, artillery, gun powder at Concord outside of Boston, but the network of patriot spies got wind of the plan before the British could fully execute their plan and so on the evening of April 18, you may remember the story, Paul Revere and another guy, poor William Dawes who no one sings any songs about, but Paul Revere rode out through Lexington and Concord and he said, or we can hope that he said, “The British are Coming, The British are Coming.” He may not have said those exact words since they were all kind of British at that point, but he probably said “The regulars are coming” the British troops and they arrived at Lexington around 5:00 a.m., surprised by a militia of more than 70 men waiting for them after killing seven militia men the British regulars marched on to Concord several miles away, they arrived there around 8:00 a.m. and the British troops were surprised again to find occupying the high ground several hundreds of militia men who knew that they were coming and as they marched down the hill the British retreated then opened fire. There are debates about who fired first, the Americans, the British, Han Solo, Greedo, who was it who fired. This prompted the Americans to open fire on the British soldiers and that opening volley often remembered as the shot heard round the world. It was the first time that a British province deliberately fired with orders on the British regular army and the British then retreated all the way back to Boston, 12 miles, attacked by minutemen hiding behind bushes and trees and buildings and stones and railings. By the evening of April 19, 1775, it was clear to the British that this had been a disaster, and these shots would mark out now the beginning of America’s 250th anniversary which will go with various commemorations I’m sure until next year July 4, 1776. And it’s fair to say, though I think unless you live in Boston, probably yesterday went on without too much momentous occasion, that those opening skirmishes have had a world shaping significance for at least 250 years.

But then you think about the far greater event reverberating not just 250 years and forgotten by most people even in this country, but 2,000 years ago celebrated on every continent by millions and in fact by billions of people hours before us for hours after us and you think about the contrast on that Sunday morning there were no brave patriots galloping on horseback, just a few tearful frightened women approaching a tomb, hoping that maybe they could catch one last glimpse of their dead friend. In fact, bravery was nowhere to be found on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, all of the disciples had deserted Him, Peter denied Him, Judas betrayed Him. One by one and in groups they scattered and fled and even those who had not given up the faith were cowering in silence, no bravery to be found, not even the Roman soldiers, they don’t cut a very impressive figure in this story, they’re just left for dead, cowering at the site of one angel. And most importantly we celebrate on Easter a hero, a divine hero who conquered not by killing, not by calculating whether He had killed more than had been killed and wounded, but He conquered by being killed and not only that, because of course lots of people in history have died for some great cause, people have died for terrible causes, and people have died for noble causes, the cause of their country, their family, their friends, some ideology, but Jesus didn’t just die. If He were just a martyr, there had been lots of martyrs in history, no we celebrate and we worship this morning because He did not stay dead and not only that He came back from the dead, but never to die again. It wasn’t just that someone that they loved, wonderful, He was dead and now He’s alive, but never to die again and that He had conquered death as John’s Gospel tells us, He folded the grave clothes there in the tomb as if to signify, I won’t be needing these again, all done with those. There has never been anything like this event in history and mark very well that we are talking about history, the Gospel writers want us to be very sure of that, we are not dealing with mere metaphor. You notice back in Matthew chapter 27 you can flip the page back, the passage I read on Good Friday, it says rather curiously 27:36, “They sat down likely the soldiers and kept watch over Him there.” Why are they watching Him, He’s on the cross, He’s not going anywhere, but they had heard some of the rumblings and they knew some of the grandiose claims He had made and perhaps they wanted to make very certain that He would really, really die, that there were no shenanigans at the last minute, that He might fake some death, or His disciples might come and take Him down, but they were there, the soldiers. Roman soldiers know how to kill people, let’s make sure He’s really dead, and then we see at the end of chapter 27, you see the heading above verse 62, “The Guard at the Tomb.” The Pharisees gathered before Pilate and said, “Sir, we remember how that imposter said while He was still alive, after three days I will rise, therefore order the tomb to be made secure until the third day lest his disciples go and steal him away.”

See Matthew’s account wants us to know we are dealing not with fiction, not with a feel good story, but with fact. The Pharisees knew Jesus had said at least three times it’s recorded that I will die and on the third day I will rise again. The Pharisees said, now let’s be very careful, let’s get some soldiers at the tomb, let’s make sure nobody comes and takes this body and then they announce to the whole world that He was risen when they just stole Him away. And then in this passage in verse 7 and again in verse 10, the women are told, give the message to the disciples and make sure they know that Jesus is going to appear to them in Galilee and He appears many times and appears on one occasion Paul says to more than 500 brothers at one time. This did not happen in a corner somewhere, this was not some game of spiritual telephone, one person or a handful of women came from that morning and just started passing around the word, hey there was an angel and there’s no body in the tomb. And then they told another and another and another and no one actually saw this Jesus, it just started like some vicious rumor, no he wants to be absolutely clear that Jesus appeared to them on multiple occasions and then did you notice the language in verse 9, “They came up and took hold of His feet”, His feet, real feet, flesh, blood, bone, skin, feet. This was no ghost, no apparition, this was not a hallucination, these women were not having some vision just imaging that a long-lost friend had appeared to them, they knelt down and grabbed his real physical human feet. All four of the Gospel writers want us to know that this happened, He has risen just as He said. So let us not recount the story with any patronizing nonsense about mere metaphors of light and darkness. You hear this every Easter, people say, well I love the Easter story, it tells us that the darkness does not win and that good triumphs over ever and all of that is, yes and Amen, it’s true, but it’s true first of all because of facts, because of history about a heart that stopped beating and then started beating again.

I wonder if you’ve ever read John Updike’s famous poem, you’re getting more poems than you usually get from me, John Updike’s famous poem, Seven Stanzas at Easter. It’s not very long, just read a few of them, it’s well worth reading, written in 1960. He says, “Make no mistake: if He rose at all it was as His body; if the cells’ dissolution did not reverse, the molecules reknit, the amino acids rekindle, the church will fall. It was not as the flowers, each soft Spring recurrent; it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled eyes of the eleven apostles; it was His flesh: ours. The same hinged thumbs and toes, the same valved heart that pierced-died, withered, paused, and then regathered out of enduring might new strength to enclose. Let us not mock God with metaphor, analogy, sidestepping, transcendence; making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the faded credulity of earlier ages: let us walk through the door.” Such an arresting phrase, “Let us not mock God with metaphor,” as if to say that this happened in some earlier age when you know people back then in the first century, they just believed anything. You know how often people in the first century saw dead people come back to life? About as often as you and I do, maybe a few more times if they followed Jesus around, and they saw Lazarus, but those were as it were resuscitations, men, women and children who would come back and would die again, this was something different. Let us not think that they were used to miracles just dropping from the sky, day after day, resurrection, no, they had the same incredulity that we would have had.

Next week, Lord willing, come to verses 11 through 15 and we will talk more about the intellectual defense of the resurrection and that’s one way to approach Easter, but rather than talking apologetically about the intellectual defense of the resurrection, this morning I want you to notice in our text the emotional reaction. I want you to think about what it felt like for Mary and Mary to come to the tomb, and I want you to then reflect on your own heart, if it is a heart of faith this morning. Think what do you feel in your heart as you receive again this good news that He has risen just as He said. I want you to notice three visceral gut level reactions from the women on Easter morning. We read in verse 1 just before the break of dawn on the first day of the week or as it says overly literally translating from the Greek day one of the Sabbath, day one of a new week and day one of a new age. The women approached the tomb. Matthew mentions two women. The other Gospel accounts will mention sometimes more than two women perfectly able to have the various eyewitness accounts cohere. If I was at a scene of an accident and told you about two ambulances that rushed in and someone else said three ambulances came in, the two accounts would not be mutually exclusive to tell you about these two and then there was another so Matthew is mentioning simply these two women and in fact it’s some measure of the honesty and the trustworthiness of the Gospel account so there’s no sense that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John all came together and said, let’s try to come up with a story, everybody on the same page, okay now what are you going to do, what are you going to do, what are you going to do. These accounts developed by eyewitness testimony either from themselves or from others who shared it with them, and they all agree on what is most important. They agree that the tomb was empty, that there was an announcement to the women that Jesus would meet with the disciples.

Here Matthew mentions two of the women, Mary Magdelene and the other Mary. I have a daughter named Mary, I told her, “Wouldn’t you feel a little bad if you were in the story as just the other Mary”, but there’s a lot of Marys and it’s hard to keep them all straight. John 19:25 says, “Standing by the cross of Jesus were His mother and His mother’s sister Mary the wife of Clopas and Mary Magdelene.” Now even that passage it’s difficult to know are they talking about four women or three women, I think it’s three that at the cross you have His mother Mary, you have her sister, which could be her sister, it could be a sister-in-law, her name is also Mary the wife of Clopas and then there’s the friend Mary Magdelene. So, we have Mary and the other Mary, but this other Mary isn’t one of those other two Marys. It’s not Mary the mother of Jesus, doesn’t seem to be Mary the wife of Clopas, but if you go back to chapter 27, look at verse 56, those ministering to Him among whom were Mary Magdelene, and Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of the sons of Zebedee. Verse 61, Mary Magdelene and the other Mary which seems to be this Mary the mother of James and Joseph. So, it’s this Mary, another one of these friends. There’s lots of Marys, lots of James, lots of Joseph, lots of Jesus, these are all very common names. These two Marys come to the tomb, they had come to anoint His body with spices, Mark’s Gospel tells us. Whether it was necessary or not perhaps they wanted to prevent an odor, perhaps they just wanted to have one last remembrance just like you might go and lay a wreath on the gravestone and even if there are other flowers there you don’t mind putting another bouquet on the grave of your loved ones. So, they come with spices to anoint the body, and we read in Mark’s account and it says they discussed with one another who would roll the stone away. So, it was a plan that was much more well formed in the heart than in the head. We wanna see Jesus one more time. You’ve got the spices, and they’re saying but there’s a stone. They may not know that there’s going to be a guard also, they think, I don’t know, maybe there’s a group of people, maybe there’s some strong men, maybe there’s some way we don’t know, we’ll figure it out when we get there, but when they get there of course they don’t have to worry about the stone, it’s been rolled away.

And this brings us to the first gut level reaction and it’s the one that’s most prominent in this passage, fear. First, we see it with the soldiers. There’s a great earthquake, an angel came down, rolled the stone away, sat on it. You just wonder what this was like, how big was the stone, you don’t, you can’t help but smile, just there’s an angel just “mornin”, just sitting up there, angels can do that, he’s dazzling white with brilliant clothes. Now we are used to big hundred-million-dollar movies on screens, multiple stories tall with CGI and all the special effects and yet I bet this would have frightened even us. Not many of us I think have seen a blinding angel drop down out of the sky and so the guards become like dead men, so much so that we don’t even know exactly where they are in this scene. It could be that by the time you get to verse 5 the angel talking to the women that those things had happened earlier, maybe they’re off the scene, or maybe they’re still there in the corner rolled up in the fetal position on the ground. In any event the angel ignores them, they’re irrelevant at this moment. The angle wants to talk to the women. And we don’t have a record of them saying anything and perhaps it was simply written on their faces, verse 5, the angel said to the women, “I can see, do not be afraid.” It is understandable that they would be afraid. It is the occasion all throughout scripture when human beings encounter some sort of divine theophany or even like this an angelic encounter, they’re fearful, they don’t get chummy, they don’t say, hey how are you, they’re afraid, why because something surprising, something unfamiliar, something strangely powerful is happening. We have this even as adults, we’ll have sometime this summer I bet you’ll be awakened out of sleep one might with a flash of light and some summer thunderstorm. I bet for some of us even though we tell us, that’s fine, these things happen, yet you’ll find a kid come into your room or maybe you’ll worry about a tree blowing in the wind. We’re easily startled even today. Anything that seems strange, unfamiliar, strangely powerful like palmetto bugs, like, I don’t know if any of you have heard coyotes. I read a report in the Charlotte Observer recently from someone in Mint Hill, which is where I live, says it sounds like a hoard of demonic coyotes fighting each night. It’s bad out there. The Mint Hillbillies where we live. My wife is certain that every beach in North Carolina, South Carolina, the entire Atlantic seaboard teeming with sharks. In fact, I think that when you get east of Fayetteville all sharks. The rivers, the tributaries, open the toilet, sharks. Everywhere, everywhere man-eating sharks. We were at the beach last summer and we saw one about yea big, people were out there fishing at night and causing a little shark and it was enough to say, oh really, there really are sharks. You come up to Michigan where I’m from, there are beaches there, you get a nice t-shirt, “Great Lakes, No Salt, No Sharks.” Then it should also say in parentheses, “Freezing Cold.”

We’re easily frightened by anything that seems unfamiliar, a power that we can’t contain. We understand why these women with these events in the sight of this angel would be immediately fearful and his response is necessary to them, don’t be afraid, I know you’re looking for Jesus, He’s not here, He’s risen, just as He said, come see where he lay. Notice this, notice, the stone was not rolled away so that Jesus could get out, the stone was rolled away so that the witnesses could come in. Jesus didn’t need any help getting out of the tomb. It says in the Bible this heading that is just the translators put, The Resurrection, and that’s a fine title, but do you notice technically there’s no account in any of the Gospels of the actual resurrection. What I mean is, there’s no account and then Jesus was lying there then he opened his eyes, He struggled to get free from the grave clothes and stripped them off and folded them and put them there in the tomb, then He moved the stone or perhaps he passed through. We see later with his resurrected body there are certain qualities that our bodies don’t have and maybe he just passed through the wall. We’re not given the blow-by-blow details of how he rose. What we’re told is the stone was rolled away that the visitors might come in and see for themselves that He lives. It wasn’t as if there was a struggle and that He came to life only by fits and starts like Wesley in the Princess Bride, He’s only mostly dead and they had to breath into Him and then He sort of came and someone had to carry Him around for days, nothing like that, He’s raised by the power of God and that was power enough. Death could not hold Him. The grave could not contain Him. Follow the logic, the wages of sin is death so when those wages have been paid and sin has been atoned for, then death no longer has a claim on Him, He literally could not stay dead. He did not just come back from the grave, He conquered it. And again, when they see Jesus there is fear and again, He says to them in verse 10, “Do not be afraid.” They were face to face with a person and with a power that they could not explain. It was either something too terrible or too wonderful for words and when Jesus says to them, “Do not be afraid”, it was His way of testifying it is the latter. Too wonderful for words.

You wonder if the women had any hope against hope, some faint glimmer. The Pharisees knew of Jesus’ prediction that He would rise again three days later. Surely the women knew as well. Do you think any of them as they walk there said Mary you have the spices, yes, I have the spices, how do you think we’ll get in the tomb, I don’t know. Do you think any of them dared to whisper to one another, do you think, remember what he said, do you think, no, no Mary, no I’m not even going to think that, I can’t dare to think that and now in this moment they say that it’s true and surely they realized when He says to them, do not be afraid, He is speaking not just in that moment, but He is giving a word for all time. Hebrews 2 tells us Jesus came to destroy the devil and to deliver those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. That’s the bondage that the devil wants to have in your life. He wants you to sin of course, and he wants you to fear death. He wants you to say but what will this God do for you, but you’ll die, but maybe He’ll hold out, you can exercise right, you can eat right, maybe there’s a way you can live forever, maybe you don’t have to face it. He wants you to be afraid of death and death is an enemy that’s for certain, the last enemy, and as an enemy we are right to hate death, we are right to fight against death, we are right to weep over death, but remember, always remember, it is a defeated enemy and one of the reasons Christ died is so that you and I don’t have to be afraid. You don’t have to be afraid for yourself, and this is the harder part, you don’t have to be afraid for your spouse, for your parents, for your child, if they die in Christ it’s not just a general blanket, everything turns out well for everybody, but this is a promise for those who know Christ, that the thing you and I fear most, that unknown, that life might be cut short, or even if we live three score years and 10 or we make it to 80 or 90 or we have a few here to 100, you die, it’s an enemy, it’s a vanquished enemy that the worst thing that can happen to us is also the best thing that can happen to us. You know when Paul says in first Corinthians 15 that famous refrain, you just picture it like a boxer, put em up, put em up, except of course Jesus is no cowardly lion, he’s a lion of the tribe of Judah, “Oh death where is your victory?”, come on death, oh death where is your sting, the sting of death is sin, the power of sin is the law, but thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. No reason to be afraid anymore.

Fear, their second response is joy. Do you see how these two are mingled together. They often are per se, so they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy. On one level of course they’re joyful, their friend is alive, everything went from unbearably sad to majestically happy in a few short moments. Who wouldn’t be happy to go from a funeral to a miracle? There’s more to it than that. They left the tomb with fear and the Greek hear “Caras megalase” mega joy. They too knew what Jesus had said about himself, they knew what He had predicted. They heard the audacious claims that He had made. So, this joy, I think is not only the joy of, well how about that, we get some more time with Jesus. No, even in the midst of their confusion, their fear, it is hitting them for the first time, what if this is bigger than just one man coming back to life. What if they had flooding back at this moment, all of his vast and outrageous promises. He had promised eternal life, in His name he had promised the gift of the Holy Spirit to come, He had promised that He would take away their sins and He would give his life as a ransom for many. They wouldn’t be guilty anymore. Could all of that be true? It’s hitting them that all of the promises are yes and Amen in Christ.

We read in verse 7, “Then go quickly and tell his disciples”, we read in verse 8, “So they departed quickly”, there’s a sense of urgency, abounding excitement like when you hold your Golden Retriever by the collar, and you just threw a ball into the field, and this is the greatest day in his life. There’s a ball and he is just ready once you release to go and fetch that ball and bring it back. There’s a bounding overflow of joy. Christians here in this room, God tells us to bear witness, to share our faith which is hard to do for most of us. The secret to evangelism is not more willpower though it does take an act of the will sometimes to do it whether you feel like it, but no, no the secret is not willpower, the secret is more joy. Good news has to be shared. You think it was hard for the women to go run quickly, tell his disciples, of course they want to share this news, it’s not hard for you to want to talk about your baby when she starts crawling or when he takes his first steps or to show pictures of your grandkids, that’s why you get the 256 gigs on your phone, you need a lot of grandkid pictures on there, it’s why your excited to tell someone when you’re pregnant or you post online when you got engaged or have you noticed if you’re watching a movie or television show and there’s something funny people often instinctively look at each other. There’s just something even in that moment of mirth that you want to share it with one another, you wanna see the expression, the joy, it’s why you come across a funny YouTube video and you rush and you say, “Kids look at this, it’s so funny”, and they say, “Dad, it’s not funny.” And you’re like, I’ve got a wife, she has to laugh, honey this is really funny. That was pretty funny. You wanna share it because it’s mega joy.

I think suddenly in a surprise of this Sunday morning the women are experiencing for the first time a burst of other worldly happiness. I wonder if you’ve ever felt that. You’ve all had the joy of a good meal, you’re gonna have a roast or a ham or something later. Maybe you’ve had a family vacation at the beach or the mountains or a great sports season to cheer about, but have you ever had this paradoxical experience, it’s a joy that tastes so good, a happiness so deep at the same time there’s a sense that it cannot be fully satisfied here. It’s pointing you to something else, it’s unspeakable, it’s beyond words. Do you have something of that joy, the father spared not his son that he might spare you, to think that someone and not just someone but God Himself loves you in Christ with an everlasting love and He looks upon even your imperfect deeds and because of Christ He is pleased, He is pleased with you, He loves you, dare we say he even likes you. In the end because of Christ for those who belong to Christ we can truly say everything is going to be okay. As a parent you have those times you wanna say that to your kids and yet you know you don’t know the future, you can’t always guarantee that everyone gets better, that nothing sad happens, that no tragedy strikes even though everything in you wants to say don’t worry, it will all be okay. But it is true through many valleys and shadows, it is true for the Christian that everything in the end is going to be okay. It’s going to be better than okay. Jesus wept that He might wipe away all of your tears. He carried the burden of the cross that you might live in freedom. He was given a crown of thorns that you and I might rein with Him in glory. Such joy awaits us.

And their final response is worship. You see it there in verse 9. Jesus meets them and he says, “Greetings” in the Greek chairete, greetings is a fine translation, but that sounds a little more formal. I mean who goes around saying greetings and salutations all the time? But it’s an ordinary expression, it’s like turning around. They’ve already had the shock of an empty tomb, they’ve had a shock of an angel, they’re going to tell the disciples and then there on the road is Jesus. Just imagine the astonishment on their faces and I imagine Jesus smiling at them, hello, hi, howdy, y’all, we’ll make him southern. Mary, Mary, nice morning isn’t it? And their instinctive reaction, not a long discursive process, it’s not a syllogistic conclusion at the end of some ornate theologizing, it’s their instinct right there to fall at His feet, grab those human feet and worship him. Is there anything in you this morning that feels that same sense. If Jesus were here flesh and blood, you wouldn’t even have to think about it, you would fall on your face and worship. If there’s nothing, nothing, no spark of that in you, I wonder if you know Him, this Jesus of Nazareth, this teacher, this preacher of unrivaled authority, never spoke a man like this before, to the humble, to the penitent, He was all gentleness, lowliness, tender, patient, a friend of sinners and tax collectors, and to the proud and to the arrogant, to those deceived about their sin, to all who are full of themselves He was fierce, fiery, implacable. The New Testament could hardly contain itself in heaping up names and titles and epithets for Jesus. The word made flesh, Emanuel God with us, the lamb of God, the bread of life, the king of the Jews, comforter, the great I am, the way the truth and the life he is the image of the invisible God, the radiance of the glory of God, the exact imprint of His nature, He is our advocate, our great high priest, the founder and perfector of our faith, Jesus is the faithful witness, the first born of the dead, the ruler of the kings of the earth, He is alpha and omega, the one who is and who was and is to come, the almighty. He is the first and the last, the living one Jesus is king of kings and Lord of Lords.

Now you may say to yourself, look it’s still morning, I’m thinking about dinner, I’m a little tired, I’ve got a busy week ahead of me. Pastor, I’m just not an emotional person really, I don’t have these sort of highs and lows, I can’t reach this fevered pitch. Well, maybe, maybe not. I wonder what you’re like when you’re cheering on your team. I wonder if you get emotional at a nice rom com. Wonder if you can be ecstatic when you watch your kids or grandkids, but be that as it may, okay perhaps it’s not your personality or it’s your cultural background. You have the fortune and the misfortune of being Dutch perhaps. Your emotional register is not expansive. You say it’s just not my personality; I just can’t feel that this morning. Okay, but you can still bow, you can still lay low before Him and in your heart grab hold of His feet with abject poverty over your sins, humility, contrition knowing that He is Lord and you are not, He alone can forgive your sins, He alone is the way to eternal life and you can bow before Him and you can worship. The angel announced on that morning, “He is risen just as He said, quickly now go tell his disciples Jesus Christ is no longer dead.” What amazing, good news, what earth shattering good news, you might even call it the shout heard round the world. Rise oh church and lift your voices, Christ has conquered death and hell, sign as the earth rejoices, resurrection anthem swells, come and worship, worship Christ the risen king. Let’s pray.

Heavenly Father, would you so work by your spirit through your Word such affection in us that we might humbly instinctively bow right now maybe for the very first time in our hearts for someone here or perhaps recommitting or perhaps we’ve been wayward or we’ve grown up in the church and by your own sovereign mercy this morning we really heard the message, not as a preacher speaking, but your very voice and the sheep know your voice and so we bow before you and we ask that you forgive us our sins and we ask that you would give to us the hope of eternal life which is ours in Christ and that we might be worshipers now and forever in spirit and truth. We pray in His name. Amen.