Telling the Truth

Guest (Male): Today, Stuart begins his powerful message, The Empty Tomb, from Luke 24, and gives you a glimpse into the despair and fear Christ's closest followers were experiencing as they approached His tomb Easter Sunday. That's up next on Telling the Truth.

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And while you're there, you can also request this month's featured resource as thanks for your gift of support to help share the abundant life Jesus offers with more people around the world. Visit us online or download the app today and experience life with Telling the Truth. Now, here's Stuart with today's message.

Stuart Briscoe: I want you to try and do something utterly impossible. I want you to try to imagine that you grew up in a primitive village in the equatorial forest, that you'd never traveled further than five miles upstream, that you'd never heard a radio, you'd never read a book, you'd never seen television, you didn't have an iPod, you didn't have the internet. All you knew was the culture of a tribe of 150 people, and that was it. Can you begin to conceive of your concept of the world?

This is totally foreign to us, isn't it? I want you to imagine that into that little tribe came a couple from the outside world who were utterly and totally different in appearance, in demeanor, in every conceivable way. They settled into the village, and eventually the villagers got used to them. As many, many years went by, they became conversant with the language. They began to produce something called writing. They actually then showed up with a book.

Great was the impact of this foreign couple who came into the village that they became absolutely indispensable to the people. They helped them with their gardening and their little farms. They helped them with medical concerns. They introduced them to concepts of hygiene, and this sort of thing. There was absolutely no question about it that many, many things became very, much improved for these people.

Then this couple who'd come in from the outside world did a remarkable thing. They started to gather the people early in the morning before they went out to work in their gardens or went hunting, and they started to tell a story. It was a story that went on day after day, week after week, and month after month. It's what we call a meta-narrative.

It was a fascinating story because it talked about the world. Not the world in which you people had grown up in this little village of 150 people and never traveled more than five miles upstream. It was of a huge world and of a huge God and of a huge plan that He had. They began to tell this story, and the minds of the villagers were expanded almost to bursting point.

They began to convey a sense that these little people living in these circumscribed circumstances actually had a role to play in this grand cosmic plan. Totally mind-blowing. You get the picture, don't you? And then the story took a funny twist after a while because suddenly something was introduced into this idyllic scene, this idealistic scene where the wheel came off and everything started to go wrong.

The people in the village resonate with that because a lot of things go wrong even though there's only 150 people in the tribe. There are other tribes nearby, but there's just terrible, bloody tension with them all the time. They understand things going wrong. They understand hatred. They understand violence. They understand pain. They understand all these things. But now they're getting an explanation as to why these things happen.

The story one morning tells them that this God who created the whole thing has promised that He will take steps to rectify what has gone wrong. And then the story goes on mysteriously to say that the way He's going to rectify it is by calling a certain man called Abraham and that his descendants will become the channel through whom the power of God, this God who created all things, will actually be released and start to put things right.

As the story unfolds day after day, week after week, as the story is told, they realize that God will, through this family of Abraham, send a Son. He will be the deliverer. He will be the transformer. Unfortunately, the people of Abraham don't respond as they ought to this, and they go on all kinds of detours and they get all messed up. But God keeps sending people called prophets, and he tells them how to get back and get back. And the promise comes all the time, "I will send My Son. I will send My Son. I will send My Son."

One day the people come early in the morning for the next exciting installment of this story, and they're told the Son has come. They get the shock of their lives, these little people in the village, for the Son of God who has come to be the deliverer and put wrong things right is a baby. They are incredulous.

The story goes on, and this baby grows up to be a great man, a fine man. But he has all kinds of enemies as well as many, many people who are blessed by him. As time goes on, the enemies plot against him. One day the villagers come and they hear the most awful story that this man has been betrayed by one who is following him, and he's been arrested and he's been given a false trial and all kinds of lying witnesses, and they've sentenced him to death.

They think to themselves, "Well, he'll escape. He'll escape. He is God's Son." But the next morning they come for the story and they find he doesn't escape. In actual fact, the sentence of death is carried out, and he is subjected to the most cruel, inhuman death imaginable. And he dies. And instead of telling the people come back tomorrow morning for the rest of the story, the missionaries say, "Don't come tomorrow. He's dead."

Can you imagine? This story has been going on for weeks and months, and day after day the tension has been building up, the anticipation, the excitement. I'm not making this up. This is what we call chronological teaching. It has been developed by New Tribes Mission and it is used now in many, many places to begin to unfold the great story.

Instead of having the early morning gathering to hear more of the story, there's nowhere to go. There's nothing to say. Everything is hopeless. In some of the villages, the people go away in tears. There is mourning in the little village.

That is precisely where we are in the story of Luke's gospel. Let me read to you from Luke chapter 24, the first few verses. On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. And they were wondering about this. Their grief, their disappointment, their utter dismay is now married to overwhelming confusion.

Who are these women? Well, we're told the names of two or three of them. We're told that one was Mary Magdalene. Mary Magdalene, we are told in another part of Luke in the eighth chapter, was well known because she had been healed of demonic possession. It says that she was possessed by seven demons. Now, somebody here may say, "Oh, come on, don't give me that. She probably had schizophrenia or epilepsy or a mixture of both or something."

Ancient people didn't understand medical science, and no smart, civilized people in the 21st century believe in demons. Well, put that on the back burner for now. Let's just look at what the scripture says. The scripture says that whatever the explanation was, her life was being ruined and wrecked by dynamics for which she had no answer.

Jesus had come into her life in some way, had counteracted the dynamics that were totally destructive in her life, and had delivered her from them. He had shown that He had power greater than the powers that were destroying her, and she had been delivered and she had been transformed. It was a gracious ministry on the part of Jesus because He had taken the initiative. He had seen her plight. He had reached out in compassion and He had done the deed.

Grace begets gratitude, and Mary of Magdala, she became intensely grateful to Jesus because He had changed her life. I can imagine she's looking for ways to express her gratitude, and somewhere along the line, she says in effect, "Jesus served me. How can I serve Him? How can I express my gratitude?"

She quite naturally begins to do little things that are helpful to Jesus, and eventually, she joins His growing retinue. He has 12 men who work with him all the time. And then there are other people that they seem to collect going along the way. Blind people whose eyes are open, lame people who are able to walk again. They don't go home. They join the retinue.

Some of them are women. Now the women like Mary Magdalene joined the group as well. The retinue explodes in number, and she becomes absolutely indispensable in caring for Jesus and the disciples and the women who have been blessed.

You'll notice what happens here. Grace is the initiative that Jesus takes. Gratitude is the response, and the expression of gratitude is service. That's how it's supposed to work in the Christian economy. Grace of God is the initiative. Gratitude is the response. Loving service is the expression. And that is what happens as far as Mary Magdalene is concerned.

It's too bad that Mary Magdalene's character has been besmirched because the Pope many, many, many moons ago decided that she was an immoral woman and a prostitute, and that has stuck until relatively recently the Catholic Church has redressed that error.

The next lady in the list is Joanna. She is totally different from Mary of Magdala. Joanna is married to a man who actually is the manager of the palace where Herod lives. He is part of the elite. He is living high on the hog. He is in a position of tremendous responsibility and authority, and Joanna is his wife. But she has different needs from Mary Magdalene.

Grace begets gratitude. Gratitude longs for expression. Expression shows itself in loving, sacrificial service. And Joanna, incredibly, is seen supporting this group financially and giving of her time in ministry as well. These are the women.

Devoted were they to Jesus out of gratitude for grace received that they couldn't bear to see Him taken away and tried and falsely accused. So it's really no surprise that we find them incredibly at the foot of the cross. The men, for the most part, are not there with the exception of young John.

Mary of Magdala, Joanna, they're there. They actually converse with Jesus while He's writhing in agony on the cross. He actually talks to them. And they hear Him in the end say, "Father, into Your hands I commend My spirit," and He dismisses His spirit and He bows His head.

They didn't take His life from Him. He dismissed His spirit. He had said, "No one takes My life from Me. I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it again." They saw Him do it. They saw that He was dead. Everything that motivated them, everything that had been at the very core of their being, at the very core of their lives was suddenly taken away. The rug was pulled from under their feet, and they're devastated.

Devastated enough to see what's going to happen to his body because the normal thing would be for the soldiers who crucified him simply to cut down the body and dig a hole there and just let the body either fall into the hole or lie there and rot and be eaten by scavenging dogs. They said that can't be allowed to happen.

Relieved when two men, Joseph of Arimathea and his friend, wealthy men, they've talked to Pilate, they have an in with the authorities, and they're secret believers. They take the body and they bury it in the tomb. Mary and Joanna and Mary the mother of James and the other women, they follow to see where the body is buried.

They're distraught because it has never been prepared for burial. This man who's done nothing but blessing, they've allowed him to be killed like a criminal. They're allowing him to die like a dog. The least they can do is prepare him for burial. They don't know how they're going to do it. But they go home.

Sabbath starts on Friday at sunset, goes through Sunday at sunset. They are observant. So they will not do any work at all on the Sabbath. They simply spend the time in utter rank despair. But as soon as they can, as soon as Sabbath is over, long before it is light, they are there busy preparing spices, and they make their way to the tomb.

As they make their way to the tomb, what are they discussing? They're discussing, "How are we going to get in the tomb? We can't move that stone. We're not strong enough." They feel so helpless. They feel so vulnerable. They feel that they don't really count at all in that culture. They certainly are put on the bottom of the totem pole. And incredibly, they go anyway.

They get to the tomb, and they're in for a surprise. I think these women show up considerably better than the men in Luke 24. Luke 24 shows the women exhibiting something I call feminine courage, while the men are not exhibiting any courage at all. The reason, of course, is that there's a different kind of courage that is exhibited by men and exhibited by women.

Luke 24 shows the women exhibiting something I call feminine courage, while the men are not exhibiting any courage at all. The reason, of course, is that there's a different kind of courage that is exhibited by men and exhibited by women.

Masculine courage actually dominates our thinking of courage in our culture. Masculine courage was exhibited by Simon Peter in the Garden of Gethsemane where an armed group came to arrest Jesus.

Simon Peter, who is a red-blooded he-man, the kind of guy that men love, he sees what is about to happen and he says, "Over my dead body." He sees danger, and he instinctively reacts in a physical way. He whips out a sword and he's ready to take on the whole armed group single-handedly. Masculine courage. Red-blooded, chest stuck out, set of the jaw, fist clenched, "Over my dead body." Don't you love it? Men, come on, don't you love it?

Characteristics that we see in these women? Well, we know that they have to be frightened. But they know also what is the right thing to do. They simply operate on a spiritual principle of what is right. They know that they are relatively weak. They can't move this stone. They know that they have absolutely no answers. They know that they don't have access to the authorities. They're women in that particular culture.

But they go anyway. They have a sense of rightness. They have a sense of fortitude. They are patient. They are unrelenting in their commitment. They are working quietly. There's no bravado. There's no braggadocio. They are simply persisting, and all in the context of unrelieved, unremitting pain. Courage. Courage.

Guest (Male): Here's a note from Steve, a listener in Arizona, who says, "God continues to bless us. Our prayers are with Stuart and Jill to continue telling the truth to all who need the truth of Jesus in their lives. Thank you, Stuart and Jill." Thanks, Steve.

tellingthetruth.org and the Telling the Truth app are great resources to help you grow in your spiritual life. Packed with videos like Ask the Briscoes, articles from Stuart and Jill, and encouraging audio teaching content, you'll find a treasure trove of resources to encourage you and others in your faith.

And while you're there, you can also request this month's featured resource when you give a gift to help more people around the world experience life in Christ. So visit us online or download the app today. We look forward to connecting with you.

Thanks for listening to Telling the Truth with Stuart and Jill Briscoe. Come back tomorrow as Stuart concludes his message and reveals contrasting responses to the news of the empty tomb of Jesus and what they say about our responses today. You don't want to miss it, here on Telling the Truth.