Sermon Notes: Luke 24:1-12 - Resurrection Sunday

Easter Sunday, 2026

The day you eat of it, you will die. This is what the Lord Jesus told his human image-bearers. 

When Adam and Eve rebelled and sided with the Serpent Dragon, death was introduced to all of creation. 

What exactly is death? We get to know the curse of death through the second law of thermodynamics. Entropy. The degrading of all things from order to disorder. 

Sin introduced entropy to all of creation from the humans to the sub-atomic system of how things work. 

Think about that. One of our laws of physics seems to be a fruit of the rebellion. 

Because of the curse of sin, creation would no longer be in order and grow in its orderliness in super-maxing human flourishing and enjoyment. Because of the curse of sin, creation would move from order to disorder. From order to chaos. That is death. 

The curse of death is the only way we know life. We live in a flow of entropy that makes everything from personal health to the management of life very difficult. It’s all a fight to stem the tide of death.  

Order to disorder. Sleep is a fight against the chaos of disorder in resting. Labor is a fight against the chaos of disorder. This worship service is a fight against the chaos of disorder, and I can guarantee you there are a thousand things going on to introduce chaos into an order that is designed to bring life to everyone not just a few. That’s the curse of sin at work against the restored order of the kingdom of God. Everything in life is a sub conflict reflecting the big meta-conflict at the root of the rebellion because of the curse of sin. 

Think about the curse of sin’s impact on the human. Order to disorder in the body. Jesus absorbed this on the cross. 

Every living cell in the human body is working against the chaos of entropy. They are a tiny, temporary counter-rebellion against the second law of thermodynamics. 

Life in a human being is a system that constantly imports low-entropy energy in the form of food and oxygen. The body then exports high-entropy waste in the form of heat, CO₂, and other waste. Our DNA, proteins, body temperature, the whole system, are all intricately organized to rebel against the chaos of disorder, death.  

In the chaos of the curse, everything is working to disrupt the order of life. 

Order to disorder is our only experience of life. Wow. The day you eat of it, you will die.

And if you are not careful, you gut will experience the chaos of entropy. Like, say, you choose a smoothie at an establishment in Leh, India because you’re not that hungry. Your gut may move from order to disorder evidenced by the inability to maximize that nutrition because it contained some high-entropy matter. The chaos leads to the need to visit a public “facility”, and one discovers that this facility itself has been moving from order to disorder for quite some time. You know what I mean?

Can you imagine what it was like to witness creation with no entropy? No chaos? Adam and Eve enjoyed such a creation, and they sold that for Turkish delight.  

The Father preached to them the first good news in Genesis 3. The Father said there would be One from the descendants of the woman, Jesus the Son of God, who would come and crush the head of the Serpent Dragon who has introduced this entropy into creation. He also told them that the One, Jesus, would be bruised (Genesis 3:15), but that bruising would be what crushes the Serpent’s head.

Isaiah the prophet would say it like this: Isaiah 53:4-5 (ESV) 4 Surely he (speaking of Jesus, the One) has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. 5 But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.

Jesus is the One. Jesus is the One the Father preached in Genesis 3:15. Jesus is the one Isaiah preached about. Jesus took on flesh, and he lived perfectly fulfilling his own law. He was wounded and murdered at the cross by the Serpent’s evil hoard acted out in the hands of the Roman Empire under the sovereign direction of the Father for your sin and mine. Jesus tasted the full force of entropic chaos that we deserved.

Every bit of just wrath and the resulting deadly entropic chaos broke out on Jesus, and he absorbed it. Jesus took all of that for anyone who would trust in him. 

Jesus takes it, and Jesus defeats it. Only Jesus could do that because he’s the eternal Creator Son of God who designed this plan from the foundation of the world with the Father and the Spirit. He knew we could not handle that, so he takes it for us. 

Entropy, chaos, and death cannot defeat the Mastermind of the plan of restoration.  

Because Jesus defeats the chaos of death, Jesus offers to all who come to him in faith the full measure of his saving grace in rescue to a life calling to be God’s ambassador of his kingdom that restores order, peace, life, and the return to Eden with no curse of sin. 

Let’s read about Jesus’ resurrection that defeats death and makes life available: Luke 24:1-12.

1. Jesus is alive! 24:5-6

The women went to the tomb to care for Jesus’ body, and they find that Jesus is not there. 

They went to care for Jesus’ body because that’s how God’s people bring order to death because God’s kingdom is full action that counters the chaos of death. 

Christian tradition from Genesis to Revelation is that we lay the body down carefully in death. We treat it gently and with care. 

Why? Because even our bodies are made in the image of the eternal Son of God, and they will be raised to their redeemed state of Edenic existence with the Lord. Whether the ladies had a full-blown understanding of the resurrection of the body to redeemed life is a matter of debate. 

Regardless, they understood that the body, as created by the Lord, was to be laid down to rest in care and respect unlike the pagans who treated the body harshly. 

Two beings, showing up as men who are in clothes that shine, ask the women the rhetorical question of eternity: “Why do you seek the living among dead?” 

It’s not like Jesus had not been clear, but in their heavy state of grief, it was hard to believe and hope, so they came with all that familiar expectation of defeat to do the work of caring for Jesus’ body. 

What they found was the glorious reality that Jesus had already risen. 

When they heard the messengers’ word and remembered that Jesus had told them this, they went in joy and announced the good news to the apostles. 

Jesus is alive!

NOTE: Jesus in his death and resurrection brought the full-on invasion of the kingdom of God, and in that he upended the deadly chaos of treating the women as property. Jesus chose to have the women be the first to hear the news of the resurrection and the first to go tell the good news of the resurrection to the apostles as eyewitnesses of his resurrection. In a time when women’s testimony was not considered believable, Jesus chose to upend that chaotic ethic of death and entrust the eyewitness account of his resurrection to the women who followed and supported him. One of the first fruits of his victory over the chaos of death is the application of his kingdom healing to the deadly chaos of how his women image bearers would be lifted to the correct place of being believed and honored with the good news to be shared of his resurrection. 

Jesus in his resurrection upended the curse of sin that had been worked out in the chaos, the entropy of death, and he gives us as the first example of life overtaking death by sending the women as the first eyewitnesses of the resurrection. 

Jesus’ resurrection did more than give us a holiday. 

Jesus’ resurrection produced the foundational power our gospel work springs from. 

Let’s turn our thoughts to that a little. 

This sermon, these thoughts, have been rolling in me for years as TRC has chosen to do hard work in our city and around the world that is not typical of local churches. 

I don’t want to run up on the resurrection and let it be merely a feel-good thing. It is. We celebrate it, and it has deep implications all over every square inch of Jesus’ glorious creation. It has implications I can see in my mind, but I don’t yet have vocabulary for. 

We receive the resurrection, and we are to implement the healing of the resurrection also. 

2. Because Jesus is alive, death and chaos are defeated. 

By rising and conquering death, Jesus reversed the curse of sin and made victory over chaos the reality that all things are moving toward. 

Our eyes are trained by the curse to default to mostly seeing the chaos and default to living in it or just give in to it, even though we don’t actually enjoy it or want it. We can’t imagine we can have or do better. 

Make no mistake, there are battles we will lose. The resurrection does not remove all suffering. But we don’t lose hope because Jesus is alive. Because of the resurrection, everything will be ok, even the things that are hard and seemingly have no resolution on this side of life. Because Jesus is alive, everything will be ok. 

In the meantime, in spite of suffering, we must fight to defeat the chaos of death, because Jesus is alive. I don’t have actual vocabulary for what is sitting in my soul here. That’s the best I can do for now. 

When Jesus came at Christmas, the curse began to break. When Jesus rose, the curse was broken. 

Jesus is alive! Chaos no longer has to have its way un-resisted. We can resist entropy. 

Some chaos we can’t beat even though we fight. We are all going to die, unless we make it to the second coming. That’s the long-term fruit of sin that won’t be fully done away with until the full restoration of all things when we will be raised to life, like Jesus. 

Make no mistake, it’s a fight to just resist the defeatable chaos, but Jesus’ resurrection makes a winning fight possible. 

If we let defeatable chaos have its way, it’s because we choose chaos rather than order, and that tells us something about our state. We are either shackled to sin and tied to dark tactical worldviews tied to the dark team and need to repent and believe the good news. Or we are immature in the faith, have adopted the practices of darkness in ignorance or by default, and so unfamiliar with ability to fight for life that we hang out in chaos and entropy because we refuse to live in the Spirit fruit of self-control and produce order and life. 

Because Jesus is alive, all of creation is being brought back under the rule of Jesus Christ through the proclamation of the good news of the kingdom, people’s repentance and belief in that good news, the holiness of God’s people, and the healing and preaching ministry of every disciple everywhere all the time in all of creation.

We don’t have to submit to chaos. We can resist chaos. 

Even our attempted resistance of the chaos of death that we lose to is evidence that resurrection life is springing up because of the resurrection hope that produces such resistance. 

3. Because Jesus is alive, we can do the work he has given us to do in the great commission. 

Listen to Luke 10:1-9: Luke 10:1-9 (ESV) 1 After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them on ahead of him, two by two, into every town and place where he himself was about to go. 2 And he said to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. 3 Go your way; behold, I am sending you out as lambs in the midst of wolves. 4 Carry no moneybag, no knapsack, no sandals, and greet no one on the road. 5 Whatever house you enter, first say, Peace be to this house!’ 6 And if a son of peace is there, your peace will rest upon him. But if not, it will return to you. 7 And remain in the same house, eating and drinking what they provide, for the laborer deserves his wages. Do not go from house to house. 8 Whenever you enter a town and they receive you, eat what is set before you. 9 Heal the sick in it and say to them, The kingdom of God has come near to you.’

When Jesus sent the seventy-two out, he was giving them a practice run on how they were to operate after his resurrection, the giving of the Spirit, and the birth of the church. 

The fact that Jesus sent his disciples out for ministry work before the resurrection should bolster our confidence. It’s pretty presumptuous to send folks for work they would ultimately need Jesus’ finished work in order to fully execute unless his resurrection was a foregone conclusion, and they couldn’t have some success by his present power in the meantime. 

How powerful and good is Jesus to do such for them and us. They experienced powerful success in doing Jesus’ mission because he was present, even before his resurrection. How much more now that he is alive and ascended to the Father and empowered us with the Spirit can we experience resurrection success in stemming the tide of the chaos of the curse of death?

Because Jesus is alive, he made possible what he told us: John 14:12-14 (ESV) 12 “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father. 13 Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.

Jesus told us to heal the chaos and tell folks the good news of the kingdom. 

Jesus’ defeat of chaos by resurrection and giving us the Creator Holy Spirit to dwell within us empowers us to heal by bringing order and life where there is chaos and death. Jesus’ defeat of chaos by resurrection and giving us the Creator Spirit to dwell within us empowers us to preach the good news of the kingdom. 

He’s alive, and in his life, he has entrusted to the church this glorious message and work. 

Application: What can we do in application of the resurrection?

1. If you have not believed the good news, believe today.

Jesus is alive, Acts 4:12 (ESV) 12 “And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”

Believe today. Today is the day of salvation. 

2. If you have believed the good news, you have a ministry. You can heal chaos by bringing order in every part of creation. (And there is plenty to do.) 

Remember: Jesus has won by his resurrection our ability to have victory over the chaos of the curse of death. 

Start with yourself. 

Identify chaos and combat it in all things pertaining to yourself. 

Put to death lack of discipline in all things. Begin with an honest self-evaluation. Eating. Drinking. Study. Journaling. Relationships. Mental discipline. Emotional self-control. 

Bring order to the family. 

This one is hard because the curse of death has been given so many access points through how we have to live or choose to live and parent. Do you let chaos in by how you choose to parent? Do you let chaos from your family infect others? 

Death and chaos are like water. They will find the cracks and low points and get in if we let them. 

How can we close off all those places of access to the best of our ability and then live in faith that God will do in his good time what we can’t?

How can you bring order and discipline with great joy to your home?

Bring order to creation through every domain you have been given access to. 

As Scott and I were riding around Leh on our motorcycles, and as Gulzar was driving us to meet with various folks in the city, he was describing Leh’s water problems. 

Scott and I have learned, through experience, how to navigate our way through this city, and the order and reason is as mysterious as it can be. 

It hit me while pondering on water management, which is a given for us in most of western civilization, that the tension I often feel in that city is the conflict of a western civilization that is rooted in a Christian ethic (whether one acknowledges it or not), and thus that ethic has built in order and life and human flourishing because of Jesus’ resurrection and empowerment of the application of his ethic. 

Western civilization works because it’s rooted in Jesus’ laws and Jesus’ resurrection empowers his realities to make for human flourishing. 

NOTE: Anytime a civilization simply observes and lives according to general revelation, it produces human flourishing. When a civilization embraces the special revelation of the good news, it has the potential to flourish even more. When a civilization ignores general and special revelation, it produces chaos that boils it’s people down to mere survival. 

This city is founded on Buddhist ethics and full of chaos and confusion and the ethic of death and mere survival due to the evil spirits that sit in their Psalm 82 position and for which they will be judged. 

Our job is to heal and preach. 

Build order, discipline, life, and preach the good news of the kingdom for the flourishing of and salvation of a civilization and a people. 

This is hard, but it is Jesus’ way. It is the tactic. 

AND this is empowered by Jesus’ resurrection. He defeated death, chaos, entropy. And we can and will learn how to bring order into chaos as we tell the good news. 

We all can affect that work by simply learning and implementing God’s order over all chaos right here and applying that learning to everywhere God allows us to set our feet. 

But if we let chaos reign over our personal lives, homes, and work, how can we tell an entire city how to repair the chaos of death? 

3. If you have believed the good news, you have a ministry. You can preach the good news everywhere you go. 

If you have a voice, there is no reason for you to not tell of Jesus, his life, death, burial, and resurrection. 

Jesus is alive! It’s not like we have a dead message. Our message is empowered with resurrection life. 

Don’t hold it back, unleash it. 

There is power in the name and news of Jesus. It is the power of God for salvation for all who believe. 

NOTE: I presented these in a way that looks like a menu, and you can pick either healing or preaching. Let me be clear: Your ministry is both of these together. Which leads to the last application. 

4. Heal chaos. Preach the good news of Jesus. 

He’s alive and empowered us to do the work of the church which is both of these together. 

Start with yourself and work out from there. 

5. Pray

Save the lost.

Heal our chaos.

Help us apply the power of the resurrection to ourselves.

Help us apply the power of the resurrection to Rome, GA, Nations.

Thank you for the resurrection!