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Welcome to Gospel and life. Is there a hope strong enough to face our biggest fears? Luke's Gospel presents the resurrection of Jesus as a historical fact that has the power to transform our lives. In today's sermon, Tim Keller invites us to consider how the resurrection reframes the entire story of the Bible and offers a hope that's greater than our deepest fears and longings.

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The reading is taken from Luke 24, verses 36 through 49. While they were still talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, peace be with you. They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. He said to them, why are you troubled? And why do doubts rise in your minds? Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself. Touch me and see. Ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see. I have. When he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet. And while they still did not believe it, because of joy and amazement, he asked them, do you have anything here to eat? They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate it. In their presence, he said to them, this is what I told you while I was still with you. Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me and the law of Moses, the prophets, and the Psalms. Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. He told them, this is what is written. The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. I am going to send you what my Father has promised. But stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high. The word of the Lord.

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Now, Easter is too marvelous for words, but we're going to have to take a crack at it. Luke chapter 24 is one of the four accounts of the resurrection and of the four in the four gospels in the New Testament. And Luke 24 covers the entire day. The first verses talk about what happened in the morning when the empty tomb was being discovered. The middle of the chapter talks about Jesus appearing after his resurrection to two disciples on the road to Emmaus. And that happened in the middle of the day. It's in the middle of the chapter. But the last part of the chapter, the part that you just had read to you, talks about what happened that evening when Jesus appeared to his disciples. And in that meeting, he said a number of things, and let's draw them out. Here are three things we can learn about the resurrection of Jesus Christ from what happened that night. First of all, we learn here that the resurrection of Jesus Christ is a paradigm shattering historical event. It's a paradigm shattering historical event. Now, it's very common today to say, well, the stories of Jesus resurrection are wonderful stories, but they didn't really happen. They didn't literally happen. We shouldn't try to read these passages literally. They were written to symbolize the kind of life we should live. They were written to symbolize that even though as dark as things get, there's always a dawn. As bad as things get, we must always live in hope. So there's one minister, by the way, who, when he preaches at Easter, he preached at Easter and he entitled it Emmaus Never Happened. Emmaus Always Happens. See that? What he's saying is, well, the resurrection on the road to Emmaus and the story. These stories didn't actually happen, but they symbolize a way to live that we can live now. We can live with hope. Okay, so let's take that theory and say, so if that's the reason why Luke wrote this, then what was Luke trying to tell us about how to live by this incident? Jesus said, do you have anything here to eat? And they gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate it in their presence. Okay, so what are we supposed to learn about how to live from that? Avoid fatty foods. What could that possibly symbolize? What lesson in how to live life could that possibly symbolize? The answer is it doesn't symbolize anything. It couldn't symbolize anything like that. Why did Luke write it? It's evidence. It's evidence. Look, Jesus wasn't hungry. Verse 41. And they didn't believe. He appeared to them and they didn't believe, which makes perfect sense of if this happened. Of course he appears. They don't believe. And he says, all right, just do you have anything here to eat? And they gave him a piece of broiled fish and he took it and he ate it in their presence. You know what he's trying to do? Any why Luke is telling us this, this part of what happened. And you know what Jesus is trying to do? He's trying to say, I am not a symbol. I am not a phantom. I have flesh and bones. Look at me, I'm eating. This is really happening, people. That's what he's saying. It's a historical event. Now, we don't have the time. I don't have the time actually to show you all the reasons why you cannot read these accounts as symbolic representations of principles of Living, but rather you have to take them as they are. Which are. What they are is they're historic accounts, historical accounts in full cry claiming that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead in time and space and history. I mean, there's a whole lot of things about the passages that tell you they were not written as legends. They can't be taken as legends. And the one we often mention, which I think is fair to mention, is if you notice that if you read every single one of the accounts in the Gospels, women are the first eyewitnesses. We know that the ancient readers would have been very prejudiced against women as first eyewitnesses because they had such a low status. And therefore there's no plausible reason why these accounts would have the women as the witnesses unless they were. There's no plausible reason why they would have been included if you were making them up. And there's many, many, many other examples of why you have to take these things as historic records, historic accounts, not as symbols. What does that mean? Just this. This is a paradigm shattering historical event. Why? Because historic events, facts are always paradigm shattering. You know, we want to believe this, we want to believe this, but here's the fact it's very inconvenient. We wish it wasn't there, but there it is. And it shatters our paradigms. What do I mean? Well, for example, is your paradigm that this life is all there is, you know, and when you die, that's it, so you better just live your life the best you can, but when you die, that's it, this life is all there is. This shatters that paradigm. It says, no, that's not true. Or is your paradigm, well, I don't know if there is a God or not, but if there is a God, he or it is remote and I don't have to deal with them. No, if Jesus was raised from the dead, that shatters that paradigm. He's come to you and he wants you to deal with him. Or if your paradigm is, well, all religions are basically alike. They're all alike. They basically all teach that you should live a good life and love people. But this shatters that paradigm that it says, no, if Jesus Christ is the resurrected son of God, then salvation comes through him. See, people are always saying to me, probably to you, people are always saying, well, there's parts of the Bible I just don't accept. There's parts of the Bible I just struggle with. I feel like they're regressive and I just can't be a Christian because there's many things in the Bible I don't like. Well, if Jesus was raised from the dead, your feelings about those parts of the Bible are not relevant. See, facts, historical facts are often inconvenient, often discourage, you know, but, but you can't dismiss them. And so if Jesus was raised from the dead, then you're just going to have to deal with the things the Bible says that you don't like. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is not a symbol. It is a paradigm shattering historic fact. Point 1. Second thing we learn, we learn that from the very beginning where he's eating the fish and he's saying a spirit doesn't have flesh and bones. Second thing though he does is he shows us that the resurrection of Jesus Christ is the key to understand the message of the entire Bible. See, in the beginning, in the middle, he says, he says the law of Moses, the prophets and the Psalms are all about me. And then it says, then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. Verse 45. What do you mean then he opened their mind to understand the Scriptures? Huh. He'd been with them for years. Why didn't he teach them this before? And the answer is, not until they saw him risen from the dead could they understand the message of the whole Bible. You say, why is that? Well, let me show you and let me give you a case study. The Apostle Paul, now Paul, before he became named Paul was Saul. He was a Jewish theologian. He was a religious leader. He knew what we would call today the Old Testament. He knew the Hebrew Scriptures inside and out. He knew the law. He knew the of Moses, the prophets and the Psalms inside out. And when he heard that they the claim that Jesus was the Messiah, he thought it was crazy. And most Jews thought it was crazy. Why? Well, it's understandable. The Hebrew Scriptures are all about a Messiah coming. But the word Messiah means anointed one, means chosen and loved by God. So whoever the Messiah was, that Messiah would be blessed by God. God would support him. God would be with him. But this Jesus Christ was crucified. He was hung on a tree. Wasn't he hung on a tree? The Romans and the Jews both said that only the lowest of the low were hung on a tree. The book of Deuteronomy, the Old Testament says, cursed is he who is hung on a tree. And when Jesus was dying, didn't he cry out, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Didn't he cry out that God had abandoned him? No. How could he be with the Messiah? The Messiah. God would not abandon the Messiah. God wouldn't curse the Messiah. He would bless the Messiah. He'd be with the Messiah. So what kind of fools do you take us for? The Jews said the idea that Jesus Christ could be the Messiah, he couldn't be the Messiah. He was cursed. He was abandoned. What kind of salvation could he bring? And then on the road to. The road to Damascus. Excuse me. On the road to Damascus, Paul met the risen Christ. The divine glory flashed around him. He heard the great voice and he said, who are you, Lord? And to his absolute astonishment, his eternal astonishment, the voice said, I am Jesus. And he was struck blind, if you remember the story. And he struck blind. And he was. He ended up spending several days in Damascus just thinking about what had happened until he was healed. And he became a great preacher of the gospel. And he began to immediately preach that all of the law of Moses and the prophets and psalms all pointed to Jesus Christ. Which means when he was blind and he had that time to think, he was thinking. And you know what he was thinking? This is a little speculative, but it must have been something like that. Like what I'm about to tell you, because we know it because of the way in which he preaches from the rest of the New Testament. He's sitting there saying, wait a minute. Jesus has risen from the dead. I saw him. So God vindicated Jesus. He blessed Jesus. God was with Jesus. He is the Messiah. But wait a minute. Then what was he doing dying on the cross? And what was he doing being cursed and abandoned on the cross? He couldn't have been being cursed and abandoned for his sins. He must have been for someone else's sins. And then suddenly, probably Paul started thinking through everything else in the Bible that he knew. Look at the book of Isaiah. The book of Isaiah is all about the Messiah. But the first half of Isaiah is about a strong, kingly Messiah. But the second half of Isaiah is about this suffering servant figure who suffers for the sins of his people. Wait a minute. How could they both be the same person? Oh, wait a minute. And Jesus, who was a suffering servant, died for the sins of his people and then resurrected Lord. And what about all the Old Testament sacrificial system of the tabernacle in the temple and all the sacrifices? And how could the blood of bulls and goats and animals and lambs atone for sin? Well, they really couldn't. Unless they were pointing to something. Oh, to this. And what about Jeremiah and Ezekiel? They prophesied for a new covenant, that someday God would make a New covenant with his people. And the spirit of God would be put right into us and we would know him personally. We wouldn't seem to need high priests anymore or sacrifice their temples anymore. How could that be? Oh, oh, Jesus. And then what about the promise to Abraham in the Old Testament where God comes and says, abraham, I'm not just going to bless you and give you descendants, but through your descendants, all the nations of the earth will be blessed. How could that be? Through Jesus. Paul expected a strong messiah for the strong. He expected a messiah to come and get together an army and to, you know, break skulls and do things. And the strong who followed him and were faithful and were good and virtuous, they would be rewarded with salvation. He expected a strong messiah for this song. Strong. But when he saw that Jesus was risen from the dead and from the vantage point of the resurrection, we rethought everything else in the Bible. The whole Bible started to hang together and make sense. It was a weak messiah who was going to come in weakness and go to the cross and die as our substitute, die in our place, take our sins upon him and die in our place so that the weak, those who admit they're weak, those who admit they're sinners, that they need to be saved by sheer grace, can receive that salvation.