I. Introduction
A. Read Matthew 28:1–10
B. In order to understand more of the first moments of the morning of Christ’s resurrection, I would like to reflect on the day before it, the Sabbath day before the resurrection.
C. There is nothing in the Bible about what happens on that Sabbath. But you can tell it was a day of tears. Even if the day was bright and sunny, it was a dark night of the soul for Christian believers.
1. Now maybe it shouldn’t have been.
2. Sure, they should have had hope and expectation. Jesus had, after all, told them over and over that He was going to die on the cross, and then be raised on the third day.
3. They should have believed it, but they didn’t. And surely Jesus knew they wouldn’t when He kept telling them.
D. Imagine for a moment what these people have been through on Friday.
1. Imagine the impact on them to watch what they watched.
2. It is deeply disturbing to watch someone die.
3. It is much more disturbing to watch someone die on a cross. It was meant to be disturbing.
4. The cross was Rome’s way of warning people not to buck Rome.
5. It was ultimate torture combined with ultimate humiliation.
6. Watching a crucifixion was the kind of thing designed to give strong, stable people nightmares.
E. Now let’s add to this pain the grief of who they saw crucified.
1. Many of us know how hard it is to lose someone we love. Even when they’re 90 years old, it’s painful to watch them die.
2. But we all know it is even more painful to lose someone in the prime of life.
3. But let’s add to this how much they loved Him.
a. He was the most loveable man who ever walked the earth.
4. And let’s add to this also how they had staked all their hope on Him.
a. So they were not only losing their loved one, they were losing their Savior — and their salvation.
5. It looked like the bad guys had won. It looked like the hypocrites had won. It looked like the forces of evil had won.
6. And added to their pain was their confusion. It looked like Jesus had let them win. He was so strong. He stood against storms. He stood against the Jewish leaders. He stood against evil spirits. He did not back down. And then all of a sudden, it’s like He melted. It’s like He gave up. He stopped resisting. He stopped fighting.
F. Adding all this up, you have a heap of grief, agony beyond description, beyond imagination.
1. Their hearts were raw. Their hands were shaky. Their minds were in shock.
2. These are the people who woke up that Sunday morning.
G. And boy was God about to turn the tables! Was He about to bring light out of darkness!
1. Was He about to turn their mourning into dancing! Was Psalm 30:5 about to come true in a big way: “Weeping may last for the night, but joy comes in the morning!”
2. Was God about to snatch victory not out of the jaws of defeat, but out of the belly of defeat.
H. In light of all this, think about what it was like for these women when the angel met them and said, “He is risen.”
1. For two days they’d been dying. And now in a moment’s time they gained far more life than they had lost in two days of heartbreak.
I. Think about what it was like for them when the Lord met them and said, “Greetings!”
J. No wonder “they came up and took hold of his feet and worshiped him.”
1. And this wasn’t just about what it meant for them but what it meant for the whole world.
2. This was the rebirth of mankind!
3. These women represented mankind beholding its hope, its Savior, its victory over death.
II. Explanation
A. Do you see what God is like here?
1. God had not only prepared a super-dramatic, super-climactic triumph, but He had masterfully set the stage for it.
2. Surely one of the things that made the resurrection so exciting, so thrilling, was the deep darkness and gloominess of the saddest Sabbath ever.
3. Our God has impeccable timing. He a master drama engineer.
4. He can even tell us what He’s going to do, and still our minds are blown when He does it.
B. All this means that when God plans out every day of our lives, He knows exactly what He’s doing.
C. He schedules days of weeping, some days when you feel like your heart is being ripped right out.
1. But — “weeping may last for the night, but joy comes in the morning.”
2. The night may last longer than you want it to, maybe longer than you think you can endure.
3. But He knows what He’s doing. And He does it right, just right!
D. In one sense a lot of their grief was unnecessary. There could have been so much less pain, so much less trauma, so much less suspense.
1. But it would have made the triumph more tame, more mild.
E. He’s setting things up for great triumphs, not just little ones.
F. We need to trust Him. God doesn't want us to figure Him out, He wants us to trust Him.
1. God loves to hear us say, “Nothing is impossible with God.”
2. He loves for us to be constantly mindful that, though we can’t see Him, there is a very big God Who is acts on behalf of His people.
3. It doesn’t matter how dark life gets. It doesn’t matter how hopeless things look.
4. If you are in Christ, you have a triumphant Savior who never forgets His own, and who never loses — in the end.