Easter Message
Written by Elinor Montgomery – em*********@****co.ca
March 31, 2015
Now, it was the first day of week, very early in the morning that the women came to the tomb (see Luke 24:1). It would appear our brave men, the apostles, were in hiding. This was a tomb hewn out of rock, in other words, the tools of man had cut and shaped it. No one had ever lain there before. It had belonged to a Pharisee called Joseph of Arimathea who had not agreed to the action of the high priest and other Pharisees in their plot to condemn Jesus to death.
He buried Jesus and then rolled a very large stone over the mouth of the tomb (see Mark 15:46 and 16:4). When the women arrived, the stone had been rolled away, and a young man in a long white robe was seen seated inside on the right side, and they were alarmed. But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He is risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid Him (Mark 16:6).”
So much of Bible prophecy is tied up in these words and it continues through every aspect of the crucifixion and the resurrection. The women had been greeted at the tomb by two angels who asked the women why they sought the living among the dead (see Luke 24:5). Though in the tomb among the dead, Jesus could not and would not die, as the very tree of life Himself. He was in that tomb, not because Pilate had determined it. He was there by choice because He was in love with His creation of man, but could never co-exist with sin or unrighteousness. By His own condemnation, man would die for his unrighteousness, but by Jesus’ righteousness and willingness to take the place of man in the judgment, man would live. But there was a stipulation.
Man would have to be part of the church of stones (the apostolic church) of which Jesus was the large Cornerstone, the same Stone, which, by His own choice, was rolled over the mouth of the stone tomb of tooled stones. Now, there were not the rolling, natural stones shaped by the creating hand of God. The tomb was like a temple of man carved right into the face of the earth, which God had created. The tomb is as the works of man created for the religious man who worships idols and depends on the works of his hands. He is a man tied to the government system acting together as one, as did the empires of Satan, and, in this case, they were the religious, Judaic priesthood promoted by Rome to their office and having the power to influence government action.
They were also part of the economic system that bartered and traded in the temple grounds for the money they depended on for power. Could this tomb of religion hold Jesus? Never in a million years, for He had a firm foundation of truth that never submitted to the lie or the religious beliefs of men, which came from the devil in the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Good works were the cover-up for disobedience to God. A tooled tomb of works might hold them, but never Jesus. He is seated on the right of God, as are sheep seated on the right of the Good Shepherd and goats are on His left. He had prepared the way for His stones of the church, His spiritual Israel, to likewise enter the tomb of death as the consequence of sin, but as the consequence of the cross and resurrection of Jesus, there would be no condemnation due them before the throne of God.
Their Advocate had pleaded their case long ago in heaven when God set up the Way in the Garden back to the tree of life. All that was needed was the full payment of the price of the sin. Jesus, whom we spat on and mocked on the sacrificial cross and still ignore to this day, said, “Yes, Father, put Me on the altar, as your Son of the inheritance and I will pay the ultimate price of the pain and suffering that come with a sinful nature, if I can share My throne with My beloved bride of mankind.
What a deal! Are you wise enough to recognize this deal, or are you more concerned about power here and now and a hit on the stock market? The temptation of the world is always there to claim you while the unseen riches of the next await you at the door of an open tomb. The Way is perfectly opened to you through the pages of the Bible, but what have you done with it? Are they the books of worldly wisdom that sit by your bedside or is it the Word of God that sits there?
If you had understanding there would be common ground and one language between you and Jesus. He would pour understanding into you, if you only had time for Him like you do for the thoughts of man, which are worthless in the end. Truth never alters for the beliefs of men who can be as fickle as the latest breeze that blows their way to change their minds. It is somewhat like ‘global warming’ becoming ‘climate change’. If one doesn’t seem to work, then man can jump on the bandwagon of the other while 76 trombones pave the way.
Never forget that Jesus said on the cross that He thirsted, but only after He knew that all things were not accomplished that the Scripture might be fulfilled. The Samaritan woman at the well prepared us for this understanding. If one, like Jesus, has the spiritual water of life in Him, one need not thirst for life. He has the ultimate desire of those lost to sin. But Jesus, born of this Spirit, had completed His task on earth and it was now time to take on the death penalty for man who had lost this Spirit. He would become as that man before God as thirsty as any man could ever be; He would bear all the sin of all men who ever lived and for the three remaining days as well of those to come with a day being as a thousand years. He died not only for all the seed of Adam, Noah and Abraham, but He died also for those born again of the seed of the Spirit, His own, those who repent of their sin and trust in the cross and resurrection for salvation.
What a glorious day of liberty followed the first Passover. A much greater day followed when Joshua crossed over the Jordan with his wilderness survivors and the twelve men appointed, one for each tribe, carried a stone each from the water on their shoulders as the memorial when the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the covenant of the Lord and piled up all the way back to Adam (see Joshua 3:16). The water that went down into the Sea of Arabah and the Salt Sea were cut off. This was as the crossover point where the Spirit of the living water again was made available to man for the asking. One need never thirst again anymore than the Samaritan woman who dropped her water jug of worldly water on hearing the words of Jesus. She became as a bride of the church, witnessing to the truth of who Jesus is.
How, may I ask, is it possible to attend church and tear down the cross at the same time? It is only because it is not the true apostolic church, but rather a derivative of the twelfth apostle called Judas, which has the mark of the beast all over it, 666, the number of man, against which the gates of hell will prevail.
Is it not time, not for the old but the new wine, when Jesus changes the waters in our lives, those large vessels of washing water, with the best saved for the last, at the time of wedding feast right here in today’s land of Cana, to which Jesus calls His apostles as witnesses to the miracle?