Matthew 28:1-10
An Earth-Shaking Experience (vv. 1-2)
- Rocking the world
- Rolling away the stone
A Mind-Blowing Experience (vv. 3-4)
- The angel’s arrival
- The angel’s appearance
- The angel’s affect
A life-Changing experience (vv. 5-10)
- Death changes to life
- Grief changes to joy
- Weariness changes to worship
More to Consider
It is fitting that a supernatural person should enter and leave the earth in a supernatural way. This is in fact what the New Testament teaches and the Church believes. His birth was natural, but His conception was supernatural. His death was natural, but His resurrection was supernatural.
Perhaps the transformation of the disciples of Jesus is the greatest evidence of all for the resurrection. It was the resurrection which transformed Peter’s fear into courage and James’ doubt into faith. It was the resurrection which changed the Sabbath into Sunday and the Jewish remnant into the Christian Church. It was the resurrection which changed Saul the Pharisee into Paul the apostle and turned his persecuting into preaching.
John Stott
As Jesus’ enemies placed a guard armed with swords before the sealed tomb to see that His friends did not take His body out, so His friends, armed with faith and fact, must ever stand guard before the empty tomb to see that His enemies never again place His body therein.
Herschel H. Hobbs, My Favorite Illustrations (Nashville, TN: Broadman Press, 1990), 227.
A dead Christ I must do everything for; a living Christ does everything for me.
Andrew Murray
The devil, darkness, and death may swagger and boast, the pangs of life will sting for a while longer, but don't worry; the forces of evil are breathing their last. Not to worry...He's risen!”
Charles R. Swindoll
Take away the stories of Jesus’s birth, and you lose only two chapters of Matthew and two of Luke. Take away the resurrection, and you lose the entire New Testament and most of the second-century fathers as well.
N.T. Wright
What was Easter like in the early Church? Well, to begin with, they didn’t call it “Easter” — that word would be meaningless to them. The early Christians believed that Jesus’ passion and resurrection were the central part of the whole story of God’s saving activity in the world. These events were not seen as a single, isolated moment in history, but part of the great trajectory of God’s providential interventions. Not coincidentally, the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus happened at the time of the festival of Passover, so when the early Christians referred to the annual commemoration of Jesus’ passion and the celebration of his resurrection, they simply called it Passover.
James Papandrea, https://www.oursundayvisitor.com/what-did-easter-look-like-in-the-early-church/