Reboot                                                      Luke 24:1-12

Today we are at the end of a journey. It started on Christmas with the birth of Jesus. I see this as the happiest day in the Christian year. It’s the day God put his plan for our redemption into motion, the day the world’s savior is born. Our journey continues with Good Friday. This is the holiest day of our Christian year, the day God’s plan for sin is completed; the day Jesus who is sinless was beaten, bled, and crucified as punishment for our sins. Through our faith and trust in Jesus and the cross God gives us his grace and mercy.

Today is Easter, Resurrection Sunday, and it’s the most joyful day of the Christian year. Today we see by the empty tomb that God accepted Jesus’ sacrifice. We see Jesus did what he said he would do and we see God fulfilled the promises he gave us. This alone is the greatest news for each of us but as I read through the accounts of Good Friday and Easter Sunday I started to see them not just as how God restores us but as the way God restores all of his creation back to its original design. In our modern technological world we can say God gave creation a reboot.

 I started to see this right in our readings first verse, “On the first day of the week at early dawn…” (Luke 24:1) At early dawn equates to that very moment when light enters the day, the day’s first light.

Ok it’s early and the sun is just coming up but look at what it references, Genesis 3:5, “And God said, ‘Light be’ and there was light.” And Genesis 5 also tells us this happened on the first day of creation. At early dawn on the first day of the week references the first of creation and I don’t think this is by accident.

Staying in Genesis we come to Genesis 3:8, “Then the man and the woman heard the sound of the Lord god as he was walking in the Garden in the cool of the day…” At creation God and man would walk side by side. They knew each other and shared existence together. After the fall God and man existed separately and man’s fallibilities were unable to stand before a perfect God. God still interacted with men but not face to face; Genesis 15:1, “the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision,” Exodus 3:2, “There the angel of the Lord appeared to (Moses) in flames of fire from within a bush.” And later when God spoke to the people at Mt Sinai in Exodus 19:18, “Mount Sanai was covered with smoke because the Lord descended on it in fire.”

Man’s fall created a barrier, a curtain between us and God. This barrier was not as God designed things to be. Mark 15:37-38, “With a loud cry Jesus breathed his last. The curtain of the Temple was torn in two from top to bottom.” With Jesus death comes our redemption. God himself tore apart the barrier we put up between him and us. God’s reboot allows us to approach and stand with him in peace and without fear.

Looking again to Exodus, the nation was led out of bondage, given manna and quail,

water from a rock; and rather than being thankful for blessings they didn’t deserve the nation says in Exodus 19:8, “We will do everything the Lord tells us to do.” Rather than understand they couldn’t earn God’s blessings men basically told God “We will do whatever you say to procure your blessings.” In the very next chapter God gives man the Ten Commandments.

In the Garden men had one law, do not eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, everything else, any mistakes made fell under God’s grace. Now because of man’s boasting the Commandments of God had to be adhered to perfectly or we would be condemned. God’s grace was removed.

Luke 24:2, “They found the stone rolled away from the tomb.”

In the New Testament, stone often represents the law written on stone, the Ten Commandments. Jesus’ death allows us to be forgiven of our sins but would that be such a great thing if the law still could cause us to suffer.

After the resurrection Jesus appears to his disciples in a locked room, John 20:19, “On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together with the door locked…Jesus came and stood among them.” Jesus didn’t knock, he didn’t climb through the window; he was not there and then he was. When Jesus was resurrected, he could have just appeared outside the tomb, so the question is, why roll away the stone?

Our inability to keep the law condemns us to a spiritual death. It creates our eternity outside of God. It imprisons us in hell. By rolling away the stone from the mouth of the tomb Jesus tells us that God’s grace is reinstated, that the law cannot condemn us, it cannot confine us, it no longer can keep us separated from God. Remember man caused God’s grace to be removed and the law instituted. Rolling away the stone is God’s reboot, his restoring his grace in the world and in the lives of mankind.

In our reading we’re told how women were the first to see the empty tomb, why? A lot has been said about this over the years. I have gone over this again and again, and then I started to see it as another easter reboot.

Genesis 1:26, “Then God said ‘Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness…” Our image; Father, Son, Spirit; one in three, three in one, all the same, all equal, one perfect union. Genesis 1:27, “So God created mankind in his own image…male and female he created them.” One in two, two in one, equal and the same.

The original Hebrew word that we get Adam from is Ha-Adam, Eve isn’t given a name until after the fall.  God uses this one word, Ha-Adam, to describe all of mankind, two parts of the whole. It’s also after the fall in Genesis 3:16 that men change this design.     

Luke 24:5, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?” Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. Jesus is not some stone statue; Jesus is not locked away in some inaccessible temple.

 We start each service reminding ourselves Jesus says where two or more gather. Jesus is alive and here with us. More than this, The English translation of the Aramaic bible says in 1 Corinthians 3:16, “Do you not know that you are the Temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells within you?” By giving the news of the risen Christ to these women to bring to the eleven disciples and the world, God reestablishes his original design. Telling the women first reboots God’s original creation of mankind; all equal, all relevant, all the same. Man or woman, American or New Zealander, French or Nigerian, President or pauper; we are all equal, redeemable, and worthy in God’s eyes.

As I was going over my notes on this, I came to feel I needed to address something in Genesis that I believe relates to this idea. In genesis 11 God takes the people from the Tower of Babel and in Genesis 11:9 it says he “…scattered them over the whole earth.” For centuries men used this to say God made some superior to others. No. God did this because it fit into his plan for mankind; that with diversity comes great growth. God’s plan always was equality, and the resurrection reestablishes this.

As I was doing my research for today, I came across one of Jesus parables that I feel shows and confirms this idea of a reboot. But before we look at the parable, we need to look at Exodus 3 where Moses encounters the burning bush. Exodus 3:5,”’ Do not come any closer,’ God said, ‘Take off your sandals, for the place you are standing is holy ground.’”

Exodus says Moses approached the burning bush out of curiosity. God tells him not to come closer because Moses is still a man of sinful flesh and he’s not coming to God in repentance. God tells Moses to remove his sandals due to his sin and shame over those sins. Moses was lessened by his sin station in life therefore, he was required to approach God in submission; this is why it’s recorded that the slaves of Egypt needed to approach their masters barefooted.

Now we can look at Luke 15 and Jesus parable of the Lost Son. Here the sinful son was repentant when he returned to his father. Luke 15:20, “But while he was still a long way off his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son and threw his arms around him and kissed him.” When we approach God in repentance we can embrace him, in fact God embraces us.

Luke 15:22, “Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.” When we accept Christ we are no longer seen as sinful, we are seen in the light of Jesus and we are worthy to stand before God.

Let me say again that in the garden God walked among mankind. That was his plan, but our lack of repentance prevented this. Good Friday and Easter Sunday is God’s reboot, his restoring creation to its factory settings. Through our faith and trust in the events of Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday and our acceptance of Jesus, we no longer need to fear God’s presence, we are now able to stand in front of the throne of God.

Happy Easter to you all. God has rebooted creation through the events of Good Friday and Easter Sunday and through your faith and trust in Jesus you are the beneficiaries of that reboot.

God bless,

Amen.