Victory And Resurrection

The Disciples' Despair After the Cross 1:01

With that said, think of the disciples. They watched Jesus be arrested, tried, crucified, and died. And at that moment, their faith was put to the greatest test. They had to wonder, what comes next?

Does anything come next? Have we just lost our rabbi, our leader, the one that we hoped was the one to come, the great Messiah, the prophecy that we had expected all these years? If he stays dead, what's to become of us? What's to become of everything we've done in the past three years?

Will it have had any meaning? Christ's disciples feared that what had happened would take their hope and their future to the grave with them. They feared that when Jesus breathed His last, that that was the end. He was gone forever.

When the stone rolled in front of the tomb, that was all she wrote. But it wasn't, because there's chapter 28. See, on the third day, after Christ's death, after His burial, after the stone — a heavy stone — rolled from the tomb, those who went to the tomb, as we're going to see in this morning's text, those who went to the tomb the third day in the morning, bright and early, they got the shock of their lives.

Three days later, they found that the same one that they had watched be nailed to a cross and say, It is finished, breathe His last, and then pass into the great beyond — they found that three days later, where they expected to find His corpse, they found nothing except an angel who told them, The one you seek is not here; he is risen.

Now, that part of the narrative — really, almost everyone's familiar with the crucifixion and resurrection in a generic sense. The culture around us has heard these narratives before. We heard it in Charlie Brown on Friday night.

Applying the Resurrection, Not Just the Cross 2:28

You hear the basics of the gospel message throughout our culture, but not everyone understands how it applies to them. Some folks, if you ask them the basic Jesus story, they'll say, well, he died on a cross and then he rose or is supposed to rise somewhere thereafter. The problem is not so much that our culture doesn't understand the broad strokes of what had happened.

The problem is that they don't have any idea how to apply it to themselves. And if they do, they only apply the first part. If they do, they understand that he was crucified and somehow that paid our debt. The cultural elites might get that.

They might get substitutionary atonement at least 10% correct. They might recognize that what happened on the cross involves some sort of transactional payment for our sins. They might get that. But even if they get that, many times what they miss is any application to draw, not just from his crucifixion, but from his resurrection.

And this morning, that's what we're looking at. See, if Jesus had died and paid our sins and went to the grave and stayed there, if He had paid for our sins and remained in the grave, then at best, you and I — our sins would be paid for. But that would mean that when we die, all we do is we go to the grave not guilty, and that's not sufficient.

If you want to be able to dwell with your maker on high for all time, it's not enough just to not be guilty.

Justification and New Life: Why Both Are Necessary 3:41

Two things have to happen. Number one, you need to be made righteous, which we do believe occurred on the cross. But number two, you have to come to new life. When Jesus is resurrected in today's chapter, when He's resurrected from the grave, this is the first fruits of the resurrection that you and I hope to enjoy at some point as well.

When He bursts from the grave, His victory is yoked to ours, and that's what we're going to see as we look through this passage.

The Earthquake and the Angel at the Tomb 4:02

“And behold, there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat on it. His countenance was like lightning, and his clothing as white as snow. And the guards shook for fear of him, and became like dead men.”

— Matthew 28:2-4 (NKJV)

All right, verses 1 through 4. Let's look at these and work our way through. Verse 1. Now after the Sabbath, as the first day of the week began to dawn, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to see the tomb.

And behold, this is a word that's supposed to bring about great shock, you know, gasping, your eyes go wide. Behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone from the door and then sat on it. And then his countenance became like lightning, and his clothing as white as snow, and the guards shook for fear of them and became like dead men.

All right.

The Sealed Tomb, the Stone, and the Roman Guard 4:34

At the very end of chapter 27, Jesus had been nailed to a cross, died, and His body had been taken down. But what were the options at that point? He's dead. They've got His body.

It's getting towards sunset. This is a Jewish culture. What's coming at sunset? Sabbath.

The Sabbath is coming. So what are the options for the Jews at this time? Well, not many. They couldn't handle the body as they otherwise might if this happened in the midweek.

They didn't have a lot of options. So what happened at that time is there was a rich man named Joseph of Arimathea who permitted his tomb to be utilized for this purpose. And so Christ's body was placed in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. And at the very end of chapter 27, we see that a large stone is rolled in front of the tomb.

Jesus is dead. He's placed inside it. Remember, the Jews didn't bury people in the ground. That's something we do.

The Jews put them in tombs. So He's placed in the tomb. The stone is rolled in front of it. And then there was scuttlebutt.

They were saying, you know, we got to do something. These disciples have been saying He was going to rise. They might come and steal the body and say it's what happened. So they went and told Pilate, the governor — they told that this might occur.

And so a Roman guard was set — a Roman guard was set and placed in front of it. So you have the tomb, you have a stone, a formidable stone, and then you have Roman guard as well. So that's where things sat for the bulk of this time while Jesus was in the tomb.

The Women Come to Anoint the Body 5:50

But, but then we see the crack of dawn on the third day. Crack of dawn, verse one says that some of the women went to the tomb to do the thing that they couldn't have done before, and that was to anoint the body. Remember, that was one of the things that they weren't able to do the previous Friday when He died.

There was no time to properly anoint His body for burial. This was customary, it was traditional, and it was a way for loved ones to show their love and affection for the deceased one last time. That's what the women came to do. They came to show their love and affection, not simply to do the functional act of preparing a body for the tomb, but to demonstrate one last bit of love and affection for He who they missed.

Even just to touch His cold flesh, to them, had significance. And so they came to the tomb, and they probably came to the tomb not knowing if they'd even be allowed in. Remember, there's a stone. They probably had to wonder, how's the stone going to move?

And number two, there's the guard. So they went to the tomb undoubtedly with some fear this morning on the first day of the week, as verse 1 says. And yet, whatever anxieties and fears they had about what was about to go down, whatever they expected would go down when they came to the tomb, they did not expect what happened in verse 2.

In verse 2, it says this. Now, did the women see the angel roll the stone back with their own eyes? Well, we don't know that much. The various other Gospels seem to suggest that the stone was removed just prior to their arrival at the tomb.

So they might not have seen the stone move with their eyes. But you know who did see the stone move with their own eyes? The guards. The guards saw exactly what went down.

They're standing there. It's dark. It's getting towards dawn. You can see the sun sort of cresting on the horizon over there.

And at this moment, something happens. The angel appears, begins to move this stone on his own. In verse four, we see that the Roman guards beheld this. They saw the stone moved at the hands of an angel.

The Terror of the Guards Before the Angel 7:46

Now, these are Roman soldiers. These are trained Roman soldiers. They'd seen warfare before. In all likelihood, they'd taken the lives of others.

These were trained, bloodthirsty men guarding the tomb. So when the angel comes down, you know, there's this earthquake and the angel comes down. Did they go, aha, you know, and get out there, you know, bring out their swords and prepare for battle? Not based on what we see.

That's just not how you react to angels. We have this image of angels like the cute little cherubs on the Hallmark cards. That's not what an angel is. When angels appear, the reaction of the people who see them is to do what?

They fall down. They freak out. Well, in verse four, we see that's exactly what happened. These trained, bloodthirsty skilled, manly men fell down.

Scripture says they were like dead men. It's like their very confidence and the next breath escaped them, and they just, they were flattened. And all this was accompanied, again, by this significant earthquake. I think I've mentioned in the past, in the 1980s, my family, for several years, we lived in the Bay Area in California, and we were there for a number of different earthquakes.

Now, one of the earthquakes that struck while we were there, I was in my bedroom. I was maybe 10, 11 years old. I'm there in my bedroom. I had a bed that had, you know, the bed frame had rollers on the bottom.

And I remember the earthquake hit. And I remember the way I knew the earthquake hit was that my bed started to move. I said, isn't this odd? So the bed starts to move.

And the second hint you have in California for earthquakes is any light fixtures, because that's usually the next thing that'll start to move. But then your mind tells you this much. You know you're supposed to hunker down, but get away from any mirrors or glass. So I tried to do all of that, but the whole time I did it, I was, again, just petrified.

I thought, this is the end. At 10 years old, and he's coming for me. I thought that was all. I expected this to go down, because earthquakes, it only lasted maybe 25 seconds, but oh man, that was a lifetime for me.

And my folks were in some other room trying to take care of themselves as things are going on. So here I am, all by myself, about to go. Now, obviously, I made it, but at the same time, if at that moment an angel had appeared with the earthquake, I don't know what would have happened.

I would have expired on the spot, melted into a puddle. Well, again, that's what these guys did prior to scampering in to tell the leaders a little bit later.

He Is Risen, Just as He Said 9:58

We'll get to that in verses 11 through 15. All right, let's look at verses 5 through 7. Now, then the angel answered and said to the women. It's almost as if they said something that's not recorded, or they gasped, or there was shock or surprise.

We don't know what they said, but the angel answered in verse 5 and said to the women, Do not be afraid. You see those Romans there, like those guys? Don't be like them. Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified, but He's not here, for He is risen, just as He said.

Come, see the place where the Lord lay, and then go quickly and tell His disciples that He has risen from the dead, and indeed He's going before you into Galilee, and there you will see Him. Behold, I have told you. If I was to send you a text saying, I'll meet you at Walmart Monday afternoon — now, when Monday afternoon rolls around, where do you expect to find me?

Well, probably at Walmart. But what if I died on Friday? What would your expectation then be for Monday's appointment? If I died on Friday, would you expect to see me Monday at Walmart?

Unless the afterlife throws me a real curveball, I hope not. The only way you'd see me at this point going forward — the only way you'd see me on Monday at all — is if I was in a casket or something along these lines. In the same way, the women, they did expect to see Jesus again.

They had some level of expectation that they would encounter him again, but their expectation was wildly skewed from the reality of what was about to happen. They expected to see him, but they expected to see him dead. They expected to see him, but the crucified version of him — the crucified version of him marred by scars and spears and the like.

That's what they expected to see. But in verse 5, the angel addresses that expectation and he turns it. He says, Do not be afraid. I know what you're looking for.

You came to seek Jesus who was crucified. That's what it says in verse 5. Do not be afraid, for I know you seek Jesus who is crucified. I know your level of expectation.

I can see the spices in your hands. I can see what you've brought, and I know why you brought it. You came to see His body and to assist with the body. However, I got two surprises for you — as a rough way of what the angel says here.

And the first is this. Number one, Jesus — he's not here. In fact, go take a look. He says, You want to see?

You want to see where He lay? He's not there. So Jesus is not here. That's the first surprise.

Now, as you're processing that, let's say you're standing there and you're processing that. You're like, all right, well, where is he? Your expectation is that there's still a body, right? Mary Magdalene would ask that of the gardener.

She'd say, Where is he? Tell me so I can go help. So the angel said he's not here. That's surprise number one.

And again, they don't know how to parse that. So they wonder if maybe he's just been moved. Do we have the wrong tomb? Did something happen?

Maybe he was stolen. And maybe he wasn't just stolen by his disciples, but maybe the people who hate him took his body and did something terrible to it. So they don't know the answer to that, to this question. Where is he?

There's a lot of people who are going to wonder that in today's chapter. But the angel answers, and this is surprise number two. He says he's not here where you came expecting to see him. And the whole time you imagine an angel smiling or beaming, or just the joy in even the angel's eyes at sharing this news.

He's not here, but He's risen just as He said He would be. In fact, He's going ahead of you. Go tell the disciples. Tell them the good news.

Tell them rejoice. They're cowering somewhere in fear this very moment — go tell them their fear is for naught, because He is risen and they're going to see Him. In fact, they're going to see Him today. He's risen.

Rejoice is the message of the angels. Now, if you're the various Marys that are here, if you're the Marys, if you're any of the women, if you're anyone here and you hear that news, what's your reaction to that? If someone came around and told you that and you'd just watched the guy die three days before, what would be your reaction?

Well, the natural reaction is incredulity, to be shocked, surprised, saying, No, this can't be. And that's really — that's what the reaction of some is. The women here in particular — remember the end of chapter 27? We saw that it was they — the disciples had largely fled for fear of being nailed to a cross right next to Jesus.

The disciples — remember even Peter — this whole time they were anxious and trying to keep it down low. But the women had watched. The women largely had watched everything go down right to the end. You see that in chapter 27.

And these women knew what death was. They knew exactly what death was, because they lived in a disease-ridden, violent age in which the life expectancy was not that high. They knew what death was, and they knew Jesus had died. And here an angel, for all of the majesty and light and earthquakes and all that, he says something that did not compute.

He's risen. Now, here's the interesting thing. The Jews of this day, or this — many of Christ's disciples — they did have some expectation of future resurrection even for themselves. Resurrection was not an unusual idea.

The idea of someone rising, he is risen, that was not foreign to them. But when they thought about resurrection, they always threw that at the very end, the last, last, last, last day. An example is Jesus comes and he talks to Martha. Remember Mary and Martha?

Who was their brother who died? Lazarus. Lazarus died. And Jesus came to Martha, and he told Martha, he says, Your brother will rise again.

What did she say? She says, I know. She says, I know he will rise in the resurrection at the last day. Jesus comes to her and says, Your brother's going to rise again.

She says, Yes, yes, he will rise at the last day. They had some expectation that somewhere, somewhere, somewhere down the line, that Lazarus and others and even Jesus — that then, the way to some future — then he might face resurrection. The talk about rising and so forth, they telegraphed that to the far end of the timeline.

What they didn't expect was that He would be risen that very morning. That was different. That was unusual. That defied their expectation.

And that's what the angel said in verse 6.

The Power to Lay Down His Life and Take It Up 15:50

“I lay down My life that I may take it again. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.”

— John 10:17-18 (NKJV)

He says, the Jesus you watched die, the Jesus you saw cry out and breathe His last, say, It is finished, then hang His head — the one you saw taken into the tomb — he is not here. Now, as a side note, who can do that? Can you? If mortality were to come creeping into the picture in the next 24 hours and you and I went cold as could be, do we have the ability at that juncture to flip a switch and somehow come on out, you know, jump to life?

Well, no, of course not. That'd be silly, which is why the notion that Jesus would rise of His own volition seems silly to them, because no one did this. Jesus had done mighty miracles. He'd done all sorts of impressive stuff, but that — they found ways to argue how he made the bread and the fish and water and wine.

I mean, they had all sorts of naturalistic explanations to explain anything away. But it would be really hard to explain away someone dead and then up and at it, especially of their own volition. And Jesus had always said, It will be My volition. Jesus said, It will be My choice.

It is my choice. He took full ownership of it. He says, No one's going to take My life from Me. You think Pilate and the Jews and the high priests and the Romans and this whole world combined could come at My doorsteps and take Me down if I didn't allow it or didn't will it?

Wrong. What did he say in John 10? He says, I lay My own life down that I might take it up again. I lay my life down that I might take it up again.

No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up. He told this to his disciples. I don't know if they all believed him, but he told them.

He told them exactly what was to happen. And that's why even the angel reminds the women, He's risen just as what? Just as he said he would. Remember when Jesus in Luke 24 comes across the two on the road to Emmaus, and they're sad and they're disconsolate about what has happened?

Jesus comes and they don't recognize him at first, and he just walks with them. And then he explains from Scripture. He goes way back and explains from the Old Testament why this had to happen the exact way that it happened. All of the Bible anticipated this very outcome.

And Jesus Himself had told from His own lips to their ears, to the disciples and Mary and the others, what would happen. But it was so impossible and hard to believe that they just didn't. So the angel reminded them, He is risen just as He said He would. All right, they're still probably confused a bit.

The Risen Christ Meets the Women: Fear and Great Joy 18:09

So let's see what happens as we get to verses 8 through 10. So they went out quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy. That's an interesting complex of different emotions. With fear, great joy, and they ran to bring His disciples the word.

And as they went to tell His disciples, behold, Jesus met them, saying, then, rejoice. The ESV says greetings. It's not greetings. It's rejoice.

Rejoice. They came and they held Him by the feet and they worshiped Him. Then Jesus said to them, Do not be afraid. Go and tell My brethren to go to Galilee, and there they will see Me.

So the women go out and they've talked to this angel and they don't know what to make of that. I mean, that was mind boggling. So they have these two emotions. The fear — they're still probably shaking from this whole encounter.

The great fear about everything that's happened to the world in the past few days and everything that appears to be going on right now. They have fear, but they also have a sense of joy. What if it's true? What if the angel's right?

What if He has risen just as He said? And so they go out and they got these different emotions just probably competing against one another. For those of you who've had children — the moments in my own lifetime, the moments of my own lifetime when I had the greatest range of emotions in a single day and even in a single hour: with the childbirth of both of my kids.

I tell you what, in the hour, the 30 minutes, the 10 minutes, the five minutes, the 30 seconds leading up to the child's birth, you have this incredible mix, these different emotions. There's still the great trepidation and fear. That's why men faint in the delivery room. They just can't take it.

I stood my ground. But that's why you get overwhelmed. You have this sense of, oh no, things could go bad. And part of the reason you think things might go bad is you look at all the white-coated people walking around, and you say, if there's like eight white-coated people around, this must be really significant, this must be really kind of dangerous and the like.

And so, you know, I didn't know what to expect the first time, and on the second time I probably wasn't in much better shape. So there was this fear, but at the same time there's great joy. Especially, especially, especially — we didn't know what the sexes of our kids would be. So I got to hear on both occasions the great words, and I heard both versions.

It's a boy, and it's a girl. Both phrases at both intervals melted my heart, not only because I understood the nature and gender of my children, but because in the doctor's voice, I heard the confidence that it was going to be all right. Congratulations, it's a boy. Congratulations, it's a girl.

At that moment, I knew things were going to be all right. Well, that's what we see here in this text. They're still freaking out. They go down the road.

They're around a corner, and they hear the word rejoice. It's a familiar word, but more importantly, it came from a familiar voice. And then they see this familiar face, and what do they do? All their fear dissipates.

There's no more sense of fear. All there is is the joy that my eyes finally beheld what I've been longing to behold. Someday that'll happen to you. Someday all your fears will dissipate and your eyes will finally behold what you've longed to behold.

Great joy. In this case, verse 9 — familiar face, familiar voice, spoke a familiar word, rejoiced in response. They took Him by the feet. Their reaction is so strong they fall down before Him, and Scripture says that they worship Him.

And they worshiped Him because they anticipated and understood correctly that the only one who can lay down your life and take it up again is the Son of God Himself.

The First Fruits and the Breaking of Death's Wall 21:32

And so they offer Him the worship that He is due. And in that moment, His resurrection was no longer a far-flung possibility, but it was real. It was a stone cold lock right in front of them. And you have to think of that moment — that their own future resurrection, at such times as they would die, also became a stone cold lock.

Why? Because if one man can defeat death, if the first fruits can defeat death, then that gives hope to the whole lot of us. Let me ask you a question. Have you lost anyone that you love?

It's a rhetorical question. I know the answer is yes. Have you lost someone that you love? When you experience that loss, has death seemed like a wall between you and that individual?

There's someone that you love, someone that you miss, someone that meant the entire world to you, and now they're gone. And now what you see is a wall. There's something between you and them. And it seems impenetrable by your own efforts.

It seems like a wall you can't break down. Well, these women might have thought the same thing on Saturday. They might have thought the same thing earlier on in the text, maybe in chapter 27. And yet, in chapter 28 — the word rejoice from the familiar sound, the familiar word from the familiar lips — the wall of death came crashing down in front of them.

The most basic implication of today's text is this: that death is beatable. Death is beatable, but not by you. See, you'll undergo it, unless He comes back first. You'll undergo it, but it can be defeated through your faith in the one who defeated it first, in Christ Himself.

If you ever look at a gravestone, there's a reason over the centuries, at least in Western cultures, gravestones are often bedecked with a cross. Why? It's not so much the recognition of the death of Jesus Christ; it is the hope that He who underwent resurrection and went into a similar grave didn't stay there.

And if He didn't stay there, we won't either. And that's true, presuming we have hope in He who defeated death first. Death's sting, such as it is, does not have to be a lasting one to we who have hope in He who defeated it first.

The Lie of the Chief Priests and Guards 23:37

All right, let's look briefly at our last verses, verses 11 through 15. Verse 11. Now, while they were going, behold, some of the guard came into the city and reported to the chief priests all the things that happened. This is interesting.

So all the neat stuff with Jesus and the women, all that, all the joy and such — that's happening somewhere down the road, somewhere outside the city, what have you. But here, the guards have come to their senses. Verse 11, they come into the city and they report what went down in verse 11.

Then verse 12, when they had assembled with the elders and consulted together — funny how this works, they all lean in and start talking to one another. Well, what are we going to do about this? Verse 12, when they assembled with the elders and consulted together, they gave a large sum of money to the soldiers, saying, Tell them his disciples came at night and stole him away while we slept.

Lie to them is what they say here. And if this should come to the governor's ears, we will appease him and we will make you secure. We got your back. You go lie for us, and we got your back.

And so verse 15, they took the money. They did as they were instructed. And then this saying is commonly reported among the Jews until this day. There's an old saying that sin makes you stupid.

There's a lot of sin and stupidity in verses 11 through 15. Think of what this generation had seen go down on Friday. Think of what they all commonly understood to be the most surreal, even supernatural series of events that went down just a couple days earlier. They all understood.

This was the talk of the town. Three days earlier, what happened? Well, they'd had the crucifixion of Jesus and the other two, so there was that. But, but at the same time, especially at noon on that very day of the crucifixion, the sky had grown dark.

And not just dark, like cloudy dark. The sky had grown supernaturally dark for at least three hours of time there. Beyond that, beyond the darkness that they had never seen in their lifetimes, beyond that, there was an earthquake — another earthquake. There was an earthquake that occurred at this time, which would have gotten their attention as well as with the darkness.

And then, as if, you know, that they might be able to explain away — and people do. They say, well, it's an eclipse, you know. It's an eclipse, an earthquake, and the moon was at a certain orbit. They do stuff like that.

But you know what you can't explain away? What else happened on Friday, which is this: The veil in the temple was rent in two from the top down. The veil in the temple was ripped in two. This 60-foot tall — calling it a veil doesn't even do it service.

It's a huge curtain, four inches thick. Light cannot penetrate this thing. And it ripped in two as easily as that from the top down. And as if that weren't enough — we saw this last week — some graves, some graves were opened at this time.

The dead were raised even then, indicative of what was about to happen on Sunday. These men, as they're all gathered and cloistered together and trying to talk about how they're going to put down this thing — they're all grumpy and we're going to deal with this issue and so forth — as they're all consulting what to do, it happened on the heels of events that should have told them they're not fighting against men, they're fighting against God.

These elders, these chiefs, these scribes, these Pharisees, these Sadducees — they weren't fighting against men. They weren't fighting just against the humanity of Christ. They were fighting against the divinity, not only of He, but of the Father Himself. And all the signs and wonders that had occurred in recent days should have told them, Be careful what you do, because this entire window of time has the stamp, the tattoo, the fingerprints of God all over it.

And yet, what do they do? The guards come and say, We saw an angel. Oh, boss, you wouldn't believe it. We saw an angel.

Most amazing thing we've ever seen in our life. And he spoke, and the stone, and all that. And if you're a priest, you think you'd say, boy, well, wellity, what are we going to do here? But what the priest's reaction is — meh.

You don't go telling that story around. No more talk about no angels. No angels. We're going to come up with something different here.

Let's tell them this. When people ask what happened to Jesus, let's just say his disciples came. Never mind the stone. Never mind that you guys were there.

Let's just say his disciples came and stole the body. That work for you? Works for me. Here, here, I got some money.

Here, you take this, and you take this, and this is a down payment, and we'll get you more later on. And if the governor gets upset, we'll appease him. We'll pay him too, and this will all go away. Dear heavens.

The guards came and told them about angels and earthquakes and resurrections, and the priests and others couldn't explain it, so they lied about it. They crafted a series of lies to cover something they couldn't explain. Then they tried to bury what happened because they couldn't stand, for the life of them, the implication of it.

The World Still Explains Away the Resurrection 28:23

As we close this morning, let me say this. In our day, nothing has changed. In our day, the world explains away everything in this book. In our day, the world explains away things like creation with what?

Evolution. The world explains away all those fulfilled prophecies, you know, we see in the book, as what? Coincidences. The world explains away all the overt miracles and signs and wonders.

That's just natural phenomena. This happens all the time. From the first century to now, From the first century to now, Christ's resurrection, which is the capstone event of all of them, the biggest sign of what it was. From the first century to now, Christ's resurrection is treated as false, as a non-event.

It was treated that way by these priests, it's treated that way in institutions around our land this very day. That is to their shame. But for we who believe, this story, this narrative, chapter 28, it's our greatest hope. Let's pray.