Ep 169: Resurrection Morning And The Empty Tomb (Part 1)

“There IS no tomorrow” becomes urgent when viewed through eternity; John 20’s empty tomb, Mary’s encounter, and fulfilled Scripture confront us: Since Jesus truly rose, how should we live right now?

We follow the darkness of Good Friday into the sunrise of Resurrection morning, from Mary’s tears at the tomb to the moment Jesus speaks her name. We connect the urgency of “there is no tomorrow” with the gospel logic of why Jesus dies and why the resurrection is the turning point for our salvation.
• listener-supported radio and how partners help fuel the tour and the plays
• the warning against spiritual delay and the call to respond today
• John 20 and the run to the empty tomb
• Mary Magdalene’s grief & the recognition moment when Jesus says “Mary”
• the two angels image and the Ark of the Covenant mercy seat connection
• why perfection is the standard and why all fall short
• substitutionary atonement and Jesus as the true scapegoat and sacrifice
• the torn curtain and access to God through faith in Christ
• relighting the candle and the theme of light overcoming darkness
• Philippians 2 and the promise that every knee will bow
• Genesis “third day” and first fruits as a resurrection pattern
• Isaiah 53 pointing to death followed by prolonged days 

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Transcript

The Third Day Pattern

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Lord, you know you're now listening to play is the best. And it was on the third day that all this went down. We just went through Genesis, so that might remind us of what we looked at in Genesis. In Genesis 1, um, when God was making everything and he saw it was good. Listen to this. And God said, Let the earth sprout vegetation, plant yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning. When? The third day.

SPEAKER_00 1:08

Thank you for joining us on this excursion today. Let's join Pastor Teddy, also known as Fred David Kenny Jr., the founder of Plays on Word Theater, as he does a deep dive into the Word of God.

Listener Support And Tour Plans

There Is No Tomorrow

SPEAKER_01 1:22

Amen. Amen. Well, thank you everybody for listening in to Plays on Word Radio. My name is Fred David Kenny Jr. Thank you very much, Katie Kenny and Josh Taylor, for that spectacular introduction. Welcome to everybody listening. We are 100% grateful that you have taken the time to listen this day. Many of you, it's a Friday morning. Maybe it's an afternoon, maybe it's Saturday, maybe it's Sunday, Monday, or Tuesday, or Wednesday, or Thursday. That is the beauty of this period of time we live in. You know, back in the day, you remember you miss a show and like a radio program. If you didn't have a cassette ready to record it, you were beat. Where were you gonna go? You couldn't replay. There were no replays. Well, actually, there were replays sometimes when they did like reruns. When the when the host went on vacation or something, they would play reruns or the best of. Maybe one day we'll do that with the plays on Word Radio. There's so many. Oh wait, wait, we've done that. Actually, where's my mind? We we did do it like a a a recap with some favorite episodes. That's right. I don't remember what episode it was, but yeah. Either way, 100% grateful that you have taken the time out of your day to just hang out with us at plays on word radio. I I do want to say that this is absolutely this is this is my uh my NPR move right here. Uh this is listener-supported radio. I don't have a tote bag for you. I don't have a stencil set, but uh I have a heart that's that's grateful if you guys want to help out in any kind of way. Uh we'll put a link in the show notes if you want to uh do a one-time uh donation, or if you want to become a monthly partner. We are 100% grateful for all of you that are already, and many of you listening right now are already probably saying, I already am a monthly partner. Hey, praise God for you and thank you. We are about to embark on a another north another Northeast short tour with Pete, and we're gonna be taking the Pete presentation to uh a few different places and then heading back to our Southern Command. And uh so you guys absolutely play a role in that, and you help to play a role in in every every soul that is saved, because every play we do, you know, we we encourage people to make that decision right there on the spot. You know, to seek him while he may be found. And uh to my great joy, I see a lot of p hands go up when I do uh give that invitation. I try to be as crystal clear that it's not a magic prayer or anything like that. It's just listen, this is between you and God, but I'll I'll let me introduce you to him in a way that will save your soul for all eternity. You know, you you turn from everything else and turn towards him. You ask him to forgive you, you ask him to to uh you know you thank him for dying on the cross for you, and you ask him to come into come into your life and fill you with his Holy Spirit and live through you. You know, and we see a lot of people raising their hands, man. And what a joy that is. One time I saw an assistant pastor raise his hand. Woo! All right, amen. I'll take it. I'll take it, man. I will take it. You know, that's what I was like, am I being clear enough here? I will take it though. You know, and the and listen, it wasn't an idea that I had because I didn't originally do that. I would just share the gospel at these plays that we would do. I would just share the gospel and be like, listen, it's between you and God. And it is between you and God. And I felt overwhelmingly the Lord putting on my heart, you need to, you need to have people make that decision while they're there. You need to, you need to He just encouraged me without words. I can't I didn't hear audible voice or anything like that, but he put it on my heart very strongly that I need to not just share the gospel and say, okay, have a nice life, but bring them to the decision. Now's the day. Today's the day. You need to come to Christ today. There is no tomorrow, man. Eternity is an awful long time. And unfortunately, there are people that have gone into eternity thinking that they have plenty of time to get squared away with the Lord. Almost playing that game. You know, it's like I'll get around to it when I can. And that is no bueno. There is no tomorrow, is what Apollo Creed told Rocky when they were training, and Rocky was like he was training to fight Mr. T. And uh, or Clever Lang, I should say. And um and Rocky just he figured he had plenty of time, but Apollo understood what was happening. He saw the sign of the times. And uh you know what? Keeping up with our with our very high and stringent production standards here. Instead of me just telling you about it, take a listen. This from Rocky uh three.

SPEAKER_03 7:10

What are you doing? This guy will lock you on your rear end. Come on, Rocky, it's not a game. You wanna live in the hospital for five weeks, this nigga? You thought I was tough, this jump will kill you. Come on, come on, get your head on your shoulders, man. Think about the fight, think about the fight. Come on, legs, he's trying to hurt you, Rocky. He's trying to hurt you, okay. Here it comes. What's the matter with you? Come on. There is no tomorrow. There is no tomorrow.

SPEAKER_02 7:45

There is no tomorrow.

Resurrection Day Focus

Mary Finds The Empty Tomb

Two Angels And The Mercy Seat

Why Jesus Had To Die

Relighting The Candle Of Light

Every Knee Will Bow

SPEAKER_01 7:48

Man. Oh, that's heavy. When you look at it in the context of eternity, there is no tomorrow. A lot of people are like, uh, tomorrow. Uh yeah, there and uh you got people like me pleading like Apollo is pleading with Rocky. There is no tomorrow, man. What are you doing? I don't know. I think this message this might be for somebody. Uh not might be. Somebody listening right now has been like, eh, tomorrow, tomorrow. Listen, man, you need to take those words from Apollo Creed to heart. There is no tomorrow, man. Today is the day of salvation. Amen? Okay. Well we we just had to sidetrack a little bit, but uh sometimes that's really important. And uh the Holy Spirit, he'll do that to me sometimes when I'm preaching on Sunday, and just he utilizes my ADD. Um and uh we go we go down certain, I don't want to say rabbit trails, but Holy Spirit led trails sometimes. It's a disaster when it's not led by the Holy Spirit, though. Yeah, when it's just straight TDD. My brother Ben, he calls it TDD. I've got my own version of ADD. Um so we listened to, we checked out uh, you know, this whole Good Friday, why did he have to die last last week? And considering that we are about to kick off our Pete tour and go do our um Pete presentation and what we do, it surrounds the events of or the events are in encompassed within the play of what we call Passion Week. And we we talked about what happened on Friday, and today uh don't know if we have time to do the whole thing, but we're gonna do what as much as we can of what happened on Sunday. Hey, and I believe you will be blessed by this. Uh welcome out on this resurrection day. We the the only announcement is that he is risen. Yeah. Amen. Amen to that. Okay, praise God. And this is this is gonna be a short message, not super long. It's really a celebration about what happened and why it happened. Now, I want to read to you from the Gospel of John. I'm gonna read something. It says, Now on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb while it was still dark. That's today. That's what happened today, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don't know where they have laid him. Verse 3. So Peter went out with the other disciple, and they were going toward the tomb. Both of them were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first, verse 5. And stooping to look in, he saw the linen cloths lying there, but he didn't go in. Then Simon Peter came following him and went into the tomb. You gotta love him. He saw the linen clothes lying there, and the face cloth which had been on Jesus' head, not lying with the linen cloths, but folded up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple who had reached the tomb first also went in, and he saw and believed. For as of yet, he didn't they did not understand the scripture that he must rise from the dead. Then the disciples went back to their homes. Now, this is what I want you to look at here. But Mary, yeah, Mary stood weeping outside of the tomb. Just think about this for a second. This is like before the sun came up, and this is you know, there was an earthquake, the disciples went back to sleep. Mary went to the tomb, found it empty, like opened up and everything, and she couldn't find Jesus. And so Peter came in, the tomb's empty, and Peter and John go back, and Mary just stands outside the tomb weeping. This has already been a tragedy for the disciples because they didn't under and they didn't completely understand. So it's already a tragedy. And now Mary's thinking, oh my goodness, they somebody stolen the Lord's body. We couldn't even protect his dead body. And she stands outside the tomb weeping. And as she wept, she stooped down to look into the tomb. And when she and when she and then and she saw two angels in white sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head, one at the feet. So she stoops down, and imagine, she's already distraught, she's up, you know, she's already upset, and she looks, and she sees two angels, one on one end, one on the other end. Two angels in white, where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the one at the head and one at the feet. That should make a couple light bulbs go off in your in your head and should remind you of something. That picture that we're given there, it should remind you of something from the Old Testament that was built 1,500 years before this. Yeah, they're sitting. The Ark of the Covenant has two cherubim, two angels, and they sit on the mercy seat, on a mercy seat. It's just something to take note of. It's amazing. And it's it's actually it's designed like a coffin, the the um the Ark of the Covenant. It's it's absolutely amazing. So I just wanted to drop that on you, and now we'll continue with the text. Uh verse 13. They said to her, uh now the angels speak. Woman, why are you weeping? She said to them, They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him. Having said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing, but she didn't know that it was Jesus. And Jesus, just you gotta picture this. She's already all distraught. Now she sees an angel, and they're talking to her, and then she turns around, she sees this guy. She probably had tears all in her eyes anyway, and she sees Jesus just standing there, and Jesus said to her, Woman, why are you weeping? First words recorded. Why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking? And supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, Sir, if you've carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I'll take him away. And Jesus said to her, Mary. She turned to him and said in Aramaic, Raboni, which means teacher. Jesus said to her, Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father, but go to my brothers and say, My brothers, isn't that interesting? He said before, you're my friends before the resurrection. You're my friends if you do what I tell you. You know, you're my friends and you're my disciples. Here, he after the resurrection, he says, Go to my brothers and say to them, I am ascending to my father and your father, go to my God and your God. Mary Magdalene went home, no doubt, hysterical, announcing to the disciples, I've seen the Lord, and that he had said these things to her. So that with that text in mind, and this actually happened. We've Friday we talked about at our Good Friday service, we talked about the light of the world. Jesus is the light of the world. And the light was put out on the cross on Friday. We asked the question, why did he die? We asked that on Friday. Why did he why did he die? Why did he have to die? And we answered with overwhelming, we answered with overwhelming evidence from the scripture. We looked at Genesis, where God gave Adam the first basically word of God that God gave to Adam. He gave him the word of God that was don't eat of, you can eat of anything, but don't eat of the tree in the middle of the garden. That was the word of God Adam had. And in Ezekiel, he said, the soul who sins shall die. And we get in the book of Romans that the wages of sin is death. And then we looked at Leviticus. Because, well, actually, before that, we looked at how Jesus says in Matthew 48, listen, the bar is set at perfection. You have to be perfect the way God in heaven is perfect. That's the requirement to get into heaven. Nobody's getting into heaven unless you're perfect like your heavenly Father. Okay. Is there any type of way, you know, any wiggle room? No, there's no wiggle room. You must be, that's that's the demand. You've got to be perfect as God in heaven. Your heavenly father is perfect. Meaning you can never have made a mistake. And sin means missing the mark. You can come close. But that only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. That does not count when it comes to, it does not count when it comes to the things of God. Coming close isn't cutting it. So that's the problem. We have to be holy and righteous like him, and he's not mean because that's because he's perfect. He's not about to lower his standards. So everyone around him needs to be perfect. Okay. But the Bible also says, if you go a few blocks over in the book of Romans, the Bible says, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. This is the problem. Jesus says, you gotta be perfect. The Bible says, nobody's perfect. That's the problem. That's mankind's problem. What do we do with that? We've sinned. Every single person, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. So he didn't leave us in that messed-up situation, though. This is where the gospel message comes in. This is where the cross of Christ comes in. He came and lived the perfect life that nobody could live. And he met the requirements of perfection that God demands. Right? He met those requirements. And just like in the Old Testament, when the high priest would once a year take a, they'd bring a goat in and into the tabernacle there, he would lay both hands on the goat and confess the sins of the whole nation of Israel on that goat, and that goat would be taken away from the camp out into the middle of the desert to die. And it ceremonially took the sins away, and the sins were transferred. There was a substitution. Christ became our substitutionary atonement. Right. In fact, Katie reminded me of this on Friday. We often, I don't know if any of you guys are basketball fans or anything like that, but there's a debate whether LeBron James is better than Michael Jordan. I'm a Jordan guy, okay? I'm old school. To me, Jordan is the goat, the greatest of all time. And we just talked about the scapegoat that all the blame was placed on. Christ is our goat, the greatest of all time. He is the scapegoat, the picture and the type in Leviticus. He's that scapegoat. He's the bull. He's the ram. He's uh he's all of the he's not just the high priest, he's the sacrifice. This high priest uh presented himself as a sacrifice of atonement. No priest ever could do that. The priest had to, he had to find a bull or a goat for his own sins before he even walked in on the Day of Atonement. He had to, there was a whole ceremony that he had to do. He had to go bathe and change his duds, and he had, and he better not go in there without blood. Christ is all every one of those things. And he is our He's our greatest of all time. Can I get an amen on that? Amen. So the temple, in the temple, on the cross, when Jesus said it's finished, the curtain, there was a thick curtain, a real big, heavy curtain, and it was torn from the top to the bottom. When the earthquake happened, when he said it is finished on the cross, it was torn from the top to the bottom. And no one, that curtain prevented access. You had to, you had to be only the high priest could go behind that curtain into the Holy of Holies, representing access to God. But it shows when it's torn from the top to the bottom, it's torn by God. Because now there's access to God through faith in Christ. No longer a need for this temple. Because Christ is the greater temple. And today we celebrate the fact that death absolutely had no whole death had nothing on him. It had nothing on him. I hope you guys did did did you did everybody relight their candle this morning? Anybody? Just show a hand. Yes, this was sent to us from Chris and D. It it let me tell you, it was it was really special this morning. We got up before the sun came up, and uh the first thing we did was Find the candle, light it, and say a prayer of thanks. And we thanked the Lord. We thanked him for what he did so long ago, and that the light of the world was not out, is not out in our lives. Like we have access to the light of the world. It's absolutely amazing. And I on Friday, I read from, you know, this light of the world. It was impossible for death to hold him. He could not stay in the grave. Peter, in his speech in the book of Acts, he says, God raised him from the dead, putting an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for him to be held in its power, in the power of death. Impossible. Not possible for death to hold him. We sang that in the what a beautiful name. Death could not hold you. And then Paul would say in the book of Corinthians, you know, God who said, Let light shine out of darkness has shone in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. That's a sandwich right there, a word sandwich. But the light shin out of the darkness. Two thousand years ago, 2,000, something years ago, on this day, what we remember, what we commemorate is that the light of the world shined once again out of the darkness. And in the book of Philippians, on Friday, we stopped. We didn't finish it. So I'm going to read the whole thing section this time. So it says, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, and being found in human form. He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. That's where we stopped on Friday. Okay? Even death on a cross. He humbled himself. This remember the undercover boss. He came and he humbled himself to the point of death. He tasted, he actually tasted death. And then here's the continuation of the passage, different background, but a continuation of it. Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name. So that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, and every on earth and in heaven and under the earth, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Amen to that. And you know, in the Greek that word every, you know what that means?

SPEAKER_02 24:59

Every.

First Fruits And The Third Day

Isaiah Predicts Life After Death

Next Week And The Blessing

SPEAKER_01 25:06

Every single person that has ever been born, ever will be born, will find themselves before the Lord. And the best thing we can do is say, Amen, Lord, I'm one of yours. I'm one of your brothers. Or sister. You know, I am one of yours. We don't want to find ourselves. Every road leads to God, but there's only one that leads to eternal life. And that's through Christ. There's only one. This is not an image that was taken 2,000 years ago, but this is just like, you know, just an imagination of what walking out of the tomb would have been like for him. The tomb was definitely empty. And it was on the third day that all this went down. And that should, we just went through Genesis, so that might remind us of what we looked at in Genesis. Let's see if I have the slide up there. I don't have my monitor. Yes. In Genesis 1, when God was making everything and he saw it was good, listen to this. And God said, Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit. In which there is their seed, each according to its kind on the earth. And it was so. The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning. When? The third day. So you're telling me the first fruits came forth on the third day. Is that not something? The feast of first fruits happens on the day. So you have Passover, which is like Thursday, Friday, then Saturday is the unleavened bread feast, and then Sunday, the first day of the week, starts the feast of first fruits. Christ is the first first, he's first preeminent over all creation. He was, is, and always will be. But, you know, he's the one. He's the goat, the greatest of all time. Do you guys follow me on that or am I off in the weeds again with the first fruits? Christ is our first fruits. Isaiah 50. Okay, we we read we read from uh Psalm 22. We also read from Isaiah 53, and I didn't finish those. And um in Isaiah 53, let me just read, I'll read the continuation of Isaiah 53. Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him, he has put him to grief. And that's where we stopped on Friday. You know, he he he his grave was made with the transgressors, right? And that's where we stopped on Friday. But look at look at the continuation. When his soul makes an offering for guilt, and that was our guilt, not his, he was innocent. He shall see his offspring and he shall prolong his days. The will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. This is someone that's alive. This points to the resurrection of this servant that goes to death, poured out his soul unto death, but yet he's alive. And this right here we see as the resurrection. So the world scoffs and like rolls their eyes. Ah, the resurrection. Well, come on, man, whatever. Let me tell you something. The resurrection of Jesus is the greatest feat ever. It's the greatest feat. And remember that as an acronym. Alright, y'all. That's all the time we have for this episode of Plays on Word Radio. But hey, we're gonna continue this, okay? We will continue this next week, God willing, if the creek doesn't rise and the Lord tarries, okay? And even if the creek does rise, we we're gonna continue this. Amen. Until we meet again next week, and we'll we'll be on our tour next week, too. So we'll be collecting some more goodies for you. Uh until we meet again, the Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you.

SPEAKER_00 29:50

The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.org.