Matthew 28:1-15 While the Dawn Breaks

The Empty Tomb and the Center of History

To the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsak takes us through his series on the book of Matthew called Not Your Average Savior. Let's listen in.

Well, good morning and happy Easter. He is risen. You guys got it right. You got it right. So little test we like to give each other, right? But welcome to Recast. I'm Don Filsak. I'm the lead pastor here, and I'm really glad that we have the opportunity to gather together, that I have the chance to be here with all of you.

This morning, specifically, we focus all of our attention on the center point of history, right? This is the center, the center of all history, the only basis for our gladness, the only basis by which we smile or have any hope, the only reason to think that we can be made whole and complete.

The only reason to think that there is a better future in store for us is what we're going to be talking about this morning, and it's simply this. The tomb is empty. The tomb is empty. We've been through a dark season here, and those of you that call Recast your home and you've been hanging out with us for a while, we have been going through a bit of a dark season, not as a church, but in the text of scripture, going through the book of Matthew.

Here, these last few chapters of Matthew, walking through that has been a season of walking through the dark last week of our Lord and Savior, really the last dark couple of days in these last few chapters.

Time has kind of slowed down as we've talked about all the difficult things that Jesus endured for us. That started in January, by the way. For those of you that think this has felt like a long season, it has been a long season of going through that darkness.

In our texts, just to kind of recap, Jesus predicted his own violent death in that section. Jesus was betrayed by a very close friend. Jesus was arrested by a mob. Jesus was abandoned by his best friends.

Jesus was denied by one of his best friends. Jesus was the victim of injustice through a couple of puppet trials, one Roman, one Jewish. He was sentenced to death by both. Jesus was abused. Jesus was mocked.

Jesus was scourged with Roman whips. Jesus was crucified, and Jesus drank down the cup of the wrath of the Father against our sins, and Jesus died. And then last week, Jesus was taken down off the cross by a man named Joseph of Arimathea.

His body was prepared with ointments and spices, and then Jesus was laid out on a cold stone slab in the darkness of a cave. His body was guarded by a guard, a trained guard of Roman soldiers. According to Matthew, the stone covering the tomb was sealed with a wax seal with the imprint of the Roman procurator, a Roman seal, a Roman seal that was not to be broken by anybody.

And I encourage you all to try your best to hear the words of Scripture this morning as we dive in. Try your best to hear them with new ears and to see these events with new eyes. Let the words here in the text guide your thoughts about the most important event in human history.

And consider that this is true. What we are reading this morning is true. And be warned that if you believe this passage, it will set your life on a significant life-change trajectory, like your life will be transformed by believing that the things that we read this morning are indeed true.

If the tomb was truly empty and Christ was indeed raised, then death no longer has the final word. Amen? It does not have the final word. If the Son was raised to new life by the Father, then He has been vindicated in His sacrifice, His sacrifice acceptable to the Father.

So let's listen to the record of Matthew together this morning, a record that Matthew believed, an event that changed him from a fearful man in hiding. In our text, Matthew is hiding. He's afraid. And Matthew will eventually write this very book that we're reading.

And the events that happen in this text will launch him out onto a bold mission to declare this resurrection to anyone, anyone, anyone who will listen. So open your Bibles to Matthew chapter 28. We're going to read the first 15 verses, 16 verses, 1 through 15, Matthew 28.

Your Bibles, your devices. Recognize that some people have said in the past, like, oh, people feel like it's rude that you're looking at your, you know, phone during that. No, open it up and see that what I'm reading is God's very Word.

The Women at the Tomb and the Angel's Message

Matthew chapter 28, verses 1 through 15, recasts God's holy and precious Word, what He desires to implant in our hearts in this gathering this morning. Now, after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb.

And behold, and behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning in his clothes, white as snow.

And for fear of him, the guards trembled and became like dead men. But the angel said to the women, do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here, for he has risen, as he said, come see the place where he lay.

Then go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead, and behold, he is going before you to Galilee. There you will see him. See, I have told you. So they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy and ran to tell his disciples.

And behold, Jesus met them and said, greetings. And they came up and took hold of his feet and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee. There they will see me.

While they were going, behold, some of the guards went into the city and told the chief priests all that had taken place. And when they had assembled with the elders and taken counsel, they gave a sufficient sum of money to the soldiers and said, tell people his disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep.

And if this comes to the governor's ears, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble. So they took the money and did as they were directed. And this story is spread among the Jews to this day. Let's pray.

Father, as we have an opportunity to gather together on this Sunday, not just any Sunday, but a Sunday that is marked in our church calendar, marked in our culture to remember the resurrection, this changes everything.

This is the center of my faith. This is the center of my hope. And this is the only center of hope that I know to offer to anyone, that the grave was empty and that there is hope beyond this life. If our trust is only in the cross with no resurrection, we have no Lord to reach out to.

We have no one to forgive us. We have no one to love us. Father, we rejoice that you have made a way, a way to newness of life, that I think on a day like today, many of us can reflect, many of us have cemeteries that we visit regularly.

Many of us have said goodbye to departed loved ones. Many of us know individuals that we have hope to see again because of the truth of these things, that we have a promise of eternal life through Jesus Christ.

And Father, I pray that you would allow us to worship you with enthusiasm, with joy, with vigor, and with our entire lives, Father, not just for these next few moments in song, but as we depart from here, in the way we drive our cars, the way that we respond to our families, the way we talk to our spouses, the way we speak to our children and our parents, the way that we discharge all of our responsibilities to our employers.

Father, all things for your glory, all things wrapped up in this newness of life that you have given to us through your son, who now sits at your right hand, where he intercedes on our behalf. He's alive and he listens to anyone who would call out to him.

Father, I pray that today would be a day of excitement, a day of rejoicing, and for some, even a day of salvation. Please accept these songs as the seeds of worship for our next week. All right, go ahead and get seated.

I do, as I say every Sunday, encourage you, some of you, this is your first time here, I encourage you to get comfortable, keep your Bibles open to Matthew chapter 28. That wasn't just a Bible reading, that's going to be the passage we're going to talk through.

So having that open in front of you is going to help you and be of benefit to you because you're going to be able to see that the things that I'm talking about are coming straight from God's word. I also just would encourage you, if you need to get up and get more coffee or juice or donut holes while supplies last, take advantage of that back there.

Your getting up isn't going to distract me. And if you need a restroom, they're out the double doors down the hallway on the left-hand side. There you go. Well, Recast, we made it. We've made it. We've endured the long night of this Lenten season, walking through the darkness, following the dark footsteps of our Lord and Savior on his road to suffering.

We've experienced that darkness. We've watched him endure so much agony over the past couple of months. We saw him endure relational agony. And I mean, some of you can testify that that's some of the hardest pains that we experience in life, is broken relationships, betrayals, where we thought a relationship was going this way and then all of a sudden it takes a sudden dive, right?

And we know what that's like. We've seen him endure injustice. Yes, there is injustice in this world and our Lord and Savior endured it. We watched him endure physical torture through scourging and crucifixion, terrible, terrible physical torture.

But we have also taken in and observed his spiritual torture as the very Son of God was the propitiation of the wrath of the Father toward our sins, the appeasement of his wrath toward our sins there on that cross.

That's what he was doing. That's what he was doing on the cross was appeasing the wrath of God toward our sins so that we can be set free. And last week, we were left in the darkness of a cold, lifeless tomb.

And our text begins with these words. Now, after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day. Now, after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day. If you know, you know, church. The narrative seems to open with a mere time designation.

Dawn is about to break on the first day of the week. It's Sunday, but it's not just any Sunday, church. If you know, you know. Now, we read it earlier, and I don't expect to catch anybody off guard by what I'm talking about this morning.

What is about to happen, we know. But I hope that even if you can't be surprised this morning by the resurrection, that you can still be moved. I hope that glory floods your hearts in these moments together this morning as we have an opportunity to discuss what our Lord and Savior has done for us, and that he is indeed alive.

I will give you a very simplistic outline, and it parallels our outline from last week. Last week, we saw friends in the darkness and enemies in the darkness. This week, I think Matthew writes in a very stylistic way, and this week, we're going to see friends in the light and enemies in the light.

We'll see those same parallels that we saw last week, verses 1 through 10, our friends in the light, and verses 11 through 15, our enemies in the light. And here in the early morning hours, we see his friends, a couple of ladies mentioned by Matthew.

Now, we know from the other accounts, he zeroes in on these two for a specific reason that I'll explain later, but there were more than just the two ladies, but he zeroes in on his account, these two ladies on their approach to the tomb near the dawning of the first day of the week, Sunday.

The light we've been waiting for was about to dawn on the dark, dark world. And here, Matthew records women traveling to the tomb. Mark tells us more detail why they're even going there in the first place.

They are carrying spices to finish the work of final burial. They fully expect, church, they fully expect to find a dead body. They fully expect this morning to be the last time that they will see the face of their beloved Jesus.

That's their full expectation as they walk this road in the early morning hours. But Matthew lets us know something else has happened. Amen? Something else has happened. And he starts verse two with a favorite word of exclamation.

I love Matthew because you get a little bit of a feel for him. He loves this word, and we translate it in English in a word that we just pass over in our minds. We just think of it as filler. It's the word behold.

It's an exclamation. It's kind of like a word that characterizes some of these New Testament authors as kind of like they're excited, they're amped up. And the word behold is an amped up kind of word.

It's like when you say, check this out, or you gotta hear this, or you gotta see this cat video. We would say, behold the cat video. Check this out. This is really cute. This is really funny. This is really amazing.

You've gotta see this. You have to take a couple minutes out of your time to see this. But this, church, is one of the biggest you gotta hear this moments in history. You gotta, church, you have to behold this.

You have to see this. There was a great earthquake. And the earthquake, it's said in the text for an angel of the Lord. It's the cause of the earthquake is the arrival of the angel. There's a great earthquake caused by the arrival of the angel of the Lord.

And he descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. The rock, the stone that was there that bore the Roman seal. The one right in front of the guards. The one that only the guards were allowed to roll back.

That stone. And he takes up a space on the top of that stone sitting there. This angel apparently has no problem with this heavy, heavy stone. And I want to point out something that might not be apparent.

And that is that the physical manifestations that we're reading about in this text must accompany what's happening in order for a very, very physical humanity like us to discern the significance of these things.

The rolled back stone was not to let Jesus out. It wasn't so that he could get out. He rose from the dead. He was like, no, now what do I do? Can't get the stone out of the way. At his resurrection, he wasn't trapped in the tomb.

So why is the stone rolled away? Not for his benefit, but for ours. Why the earthquake? For our benefit. Why the visible angelic manifestation? How many of you know angels can do what they want without us seeing them?

Did you know that? They don't have to make themselves visible. But in this case, God allowed the guards, allowed the women to see the angel. Why? For our benefit. For us to highlight the uniqueness and make it clear that something different is happening here on this morning.

The appearance of the angel was like lightning, and his clothes were as white as snow. He was bright and shiny, and his clothes were all bright white. And it's always interesting to me whenever I read in scripture that someone's clothes were as white as snow, it's always like the manifestation of either Jesus, like on the Mount of Transfiguration, and his clothes are transformed to bright white as snow or something like that, or bright white.

It stands out to them, and there's a reason why it stands out to them. It might be something strange to consider how often a lot is made about that whiteness of clothes, but consider how hard it is to maintain white clothing.

In a world of entropy, dingy white is common. It's hard to get bright white. Even in our modern day, it's like hard to keep something bright white, is it not? So it's always emphasized. Anytime that it happens, it's emphasized by the authors because it stuck out to them.

It was like a white they hadn't really seen in clothing. They weren't used to this kind of white. Bright white like newly fallen snow. To their eyes, this was otherworldly. It wasn't common. It wasn't something that was an experience that they had regularly.

And remember that we left last week with a guard set against the theft of a body in a tomb, and it can be assumed that the guard was meant to be sufficient to keep out the thieves. Any thieves that might show up, this Roman guard was like, we can handle anybody that comes and tries to steal this body.

All we got to do is guard this one little entrance. They would have to roll the stone back. We got this, guys. But Pilate had sent enough troops to manage thieves, but he did not send enough troops to manage a single angel of God.

A single angel of God is all that he needs to send to take care of this. They respond, the guards respond in a way that is most common in scripture where humans encounter angels in visible form. What's the first response usually on the part of the people?

Fear. I heard it. Yes, absolutely. Fear. Not just fear, like code brown, wet themselves, knees knocking kind of terror, right? Like that's, yes, I just said that on Easter Sunday. Can't believe I just said that.

My wife can't believe I just said that. But they are paralyzed with fear. She said, yes, I can. She actually does live with me, and she knows me, so she expects that kind of stuff. But here in this text, dawn isn't even here yet.

These soldiers are paralyzed with fear. The word that's used there almost as if they are dead is either they're paralyzed and unable to move with the terror, or some scholars actually think that the word there might be a Greek word for passed out, like they might actually just fall over, like, oh, I'm out.

But I want us to pause for a second here at what we see right now in the text, because we know what's coming, but they don't. All we know from Matthew so far is that the women don't have to break the Roman seal.

For all we know, the body is still there. The stone is rolled back. The guards are on their way. The angel is sitting on the stone. Dawn isn't here, and Matthew is teasing us. We don't have the privilege of reading this for the first time, but it would be awe-inspiring to see your reaction if we were reading this together for the first time, if we were talking about this for the very first time.

You'd be like, what is happening? You wouldn't know that the body wasn't there yet. Are you getting what I'm saying? Matthew is kind of teasing it out. He already knows the glory, and he's holding it back for a certain point.

And so whatever time lag there may have been between the descent of the angel and the arrival of the women, whether that was simultaneous or whether that there was a little bit of time that transpires there, he sits.

There sits the angel on the rolled away stone, and he calms their fears immediately. He doesn't calm the soldiers' fears. He lets them pass out. But he calms the fears immediately of the women as they take in the scene of the already open tomb.

Well, there's one problem out of the way. How are we going to get that stone? We're going to have to put all of our effort into it as a handful of ladies trying to roll that stone back. But now that's taken care of for us.

But I also wonder if there wasn't fear, like, who's this guy, this bright, shiny thing? And then further, like, the stone is rolled away. Like, did somebody take the body? Where? What's going on? And so here are the friends of Jesus arriving to pay respects and show him a last act of kindness and say their final goodbyes.

The angel lets them know that he's aware of their mission. He says, I know why you're here, which is miraculous in itself, right? Have somebody tell you, I know what you're doing here. What? How did you know that?

You spying on me? Are you working for Google? Like, what's? He says, I know that you've come to find Jesus. I know that you've come to find not just Jesus, but the one who was crucified. Still teasing, still awaiting the glory of verse 6.

The angel's words in verse 5 would call their minds back to what they had seen back in the previous chapter, recorded for us in verse 56 of chapter 27, that they were present at this. Matthew emphasizes these two women because these two women were for sure there at the crucifixion.

They were for sure there at the burial site on the night that he was buried in this cave. They were there then, so he emphasizes them, and therefore emphasizes that they were there on this day as well.

They watched him crucified. They heard his words from the cross. They watched him die, and they watched him be buried, and probably participated with Joseph and Nicodemus in his burial. And so when the angel says, I know that you seek Jesus, who was crucified, their minds would have gone to that violent scene as they stood a ways off in grief and mourning just a couple of days ago.

How many of you think that those women, when the angel used the word crucified, had a little bit of a start, like, oh yeah, that's what happened to him. They might not have slept well the previous two nights, just primarily because they were thinking about it.

They had just taken in that scene of somebody that they love, brutally tortured to death. And here the angel brings it up again to remind them that the one who is not in the tomb is the very one that they saw die.

And so the words of verse six from the angel comes with simplicity, the words come with force, and they come with a level of directness that is, it's like, it's like a sudden flashlight in the darkness.

Now how many of you ever went to summer camp when you were a kid? There was always that kid that waited until your eyes adjusted to the darkness. You know where this is going, don't you? And then all of a sudden, blast a flashlight right in your eyes, right?

You know what I'm talking about? It's like, boom, that kind of brightness, like, that's kind of the impact of the words of the angel here, like, what? Like, it's a twist, and it just changes everything around it.

This is the arrival of the light that we've been waiting for. And there's four things that the angel says that change the world forever here in verse six. Four simple statements that I declare to each one here in this gathering, echoing the word of the angel, four things that call us all to a decision this morning.

Either believe and trust these things and live, or deny or ignore these things and walk away from a newness of life that is held out to you this morning. The first thing that the angels say, he's not here.

He's not here. Now, that might be cryptic at first, but coupled with the other three things, it's going to make sense. But you're in the geographically wrong location if you want to see Jesus. You're not going to see him here.

You're in the wrong place. The grave is not the place of Jesus, the one that you love. No, the angel doesn't say you've come to the wrong tomb. The angel thinks it's sensible that they are here, and so he showed up to set them straight.

He thinks it's sensible that they came here looking for the crucified one, but he says, in essence, he gone, he gone. This is a loose translation. The second thing that the angel says, first, he says, he isn't here.

And the second thing clarifies, he was raised, he is risen. The phrase is risen is not really common in English. Any of you ever kind of want to correct it every time that somebody on Easter morning says, he is risen, and you want to say, well, he was risen, or something like that?

Anybody with me on that? There's kind of a little bit of a grammar Nazi on that. We understand that some of you are looking at me like, wait a minute. I don't know. No. The phrase is risen comes from the King James version of the Bible.

New King James retains it. So when we say, Christ is risen, and people respond with, he is risen indeed, we are evoking the tricky part of translation from a Greek tense that we don't have in English.

There's a way of speaking of using verbs that we don't use in English called, and I'm going to geek out for just a second, it's called the aorist tense. We don't have an aorist tense. We have passive, participle, past perfect, pluperfect, all that weird stuff that some of you just like kind of like, oh, had a little mini seizure as I'm talking about, like parts of speech and stuff like that, right?

He is currently, what the angel is saying here in Greek, is he is currently at the point of my statement, at the point of the angel speaking, he is in a state of having been raised. It's passive indicative status.

He's in a state of having been raised by the Father. The active nature of the translation of the English Standard Version in IV and so many of the translators is muddy. He has risen is more active than what the angel actually says here.

He is right now having been raised, but that's a mouthful, so the translators don't like it. So, they say something like he is risen or he is raised or he has risen is what most of them have. So, I need to explain it in English, but these ladies at the tomb have no problem with verb tenses.

They're getting it, and they get the point that should settle on us. All the technical things of language aside, what ought to settle on them ought to settle on us too, and that is this phrase, he's alive.

He's alive. They get that out of it, and the angel says a third thing. I think it's kind of funny, and I think it's kind of tongue-in-cheek. He is raised as he said. He's not here. He is raised as he said, just as he prophesied many times that he would rise again, just as he said that like Jonah was in the fish and came back out again, and so will the son of man be in the grave and come back out again.

They didn't get it, but this ought not to be an unthinkable surprise to these ladies this morning, nor to his disciples who are going to hear about it in just a little bit. The disciples, as the spirit guides them in recording these historical accounts, by the way, has them self-reflect on their own ignorance, has them share their own ignorance.

These disciples who write these accounts of the gospels make themselves look dumb in their writings. They didn't get it when he said it, but after the resurrection, they're like, oh, so that's what he meant when he said he would be turned over to the authorities, flogged, mocked, crucified, but rise again to meet up with us in Galilee.

That's what he meant. Like, what did they think was going to happen? Have you ever wondered that? But I think we can do this with scripture too. We love metaphor. We love to make it spiritual. We love to take the actual words and turn them into some kind of metaphorical meaning that just makes us feel the feels.

So do they think he was going to be metaphorically crucified, like roasted by the religious leaders, rise again like a phoenix from the ashes of a crumbling reputation? Like, is that what we thought was going to happen?

Is that what the disciples thought was going to happen? Is that, yeah, he's going to go through some tough times and a little bit of persecution, and people aren't going to like him very much in Jerusalem, but he will rise up from that, right?

Oh, literal crucifixion. Oh, like flogged like that. Oh, actually rise from the dead, literally. Like, literally rise from the dead. I think as the angels say, as he said, I picture a little eye roll to it.

Like, as he said. Like, as he said, guys or ladies, as he said. And the fourth thing that he says is he commands the ladies to come and see the very place where his body was laid. He wants to be sure that they behold the emptiness, that they see with their own eyes the actual vacancy of the tomb itself.

Come and enlist your own senses in case you doubt. I know this is a lot to take in with so few words, says the angel. Come and see for yourself. Hearing these four statements of the angel has found the heart of hope and victory for us.

Ours is not some kind of faith based on wishful thinking, not some ethereal good sacrifice, and no, now go and live like his example. Not like he gave his life for others, now you go do likewise. More than a model to follow, our Lord and Savior is one who rescues.

More than just merely a model to follow and go live like he lived, he is a Savior who rescues from death. And he saved us in the midst of history and science, in a real place of true events, and in the midst of the laws of nature.

They are invited in to see with their eyes. Yes, their ears hear, but their eyes also see that vacant spot. They are eyewitnesses. They see where the body was laid just a few days ago, where they sat right opposite the tomb and watched.

They behold with their eyes the shiny angel. And now the mission of their day and the mission of their very lives is suddenly and jarringly shifted. What did they come to do, and what are they leaving to do?

Think about that radical shift in these ladies that morning. Look at the calling on his friends here in the light of his resurrection. Go quickly. You got a message now. Go quickly and tell his disciples that he has raised.

He is raised. And tell them, tell the disciples when you see them, when you find him, from wherever there's hiding, check this out dudes, he is planning a meet and greet up in Galilee. You will see him for yourselves.

The angel commissions these ladies with urgency. Hurry up, quickly go. These ladies are the first faithful friends of Jesus to know that the grave has not held him. Death has swallowed hope, but instead through the dark places of the grave, hope finds a way out and is born anew.

The king isn't dead. He died for his people. He was the sacrificed lamb for us. And he has now not only defeated our enemies of sin and separation from God on the cross, but he now has also conquered death at the empty tomb.

So says the angel, what are you waiting for? Go tell his boys, get out there, says the angel to the ladies. How gracious is God to let these fearful men back in? Where do the women have to run to, to go find the men on this morning in hiding?

Was it like this that morning? Ladies, you go out, check out the tomb, make sure it's safe. Then we'll come out. Like is that, is that, is that what the guys did? Like, like women and children first. I don't know what these guys are thinking.

I think I do. I think they're trying to save their own skin. I think they're, they're fearful. They are in hiding. They are terrified that what they saw happen to their Lord and Savior is also going to happen to them.

How many of you would not love to be crucified? Like just literally, like not love that, right? That's why they're hiding. So the ladies leave the angel and the empty tomb in haste. They woke up with a mission that morning.

They woke up early that morning. If they slept at all, they, they went out at first dawn to finish preparation of the body of the dead, going through the cemetery to get to the grave. And now they are recommissioned with a glorious task to share the light of hope.

They are sent out with a message. He is raised. Now I find comfort that right from the beginning, these women who carry that good news nearly 2 ,000 years ago, carry it with the same sense I often feel when I carry it to others.

And if you had an experience, and I pray that every Christian in this room has the experience of carrying this light to someone, that you feel it too. That you feel what these ladies felt. Look at verse 8.

How do they carry the good news? With what heart and what attitude? They carry the good news with fear and great joy. Fear and great joy. How many of you can relate to that feeling when you think about sharing that with a co-worker, or your neighbor, or your aunt that has been belligerently against the faith, and you want to share the truth with her that the grave is empty?

Fear and great joy. We're in good company when we carry that same message with great joy coupled to fear. Will anyone believe us that our Lord has been raised? But how can we not share it? Great joy. And on the way, on the way, Jesus meets the women face to face.

So they're there commissioned by the angel, but now they're going to receive a secondary commission from Jesus Christ himself, and his first statement is something akin to, well, hello there. Some of you know.

Well, hello there. Greetings does just fine to capture the humorous return of the king in this text. Greetings. Hey, it's me. I wonder, what? And in verse 9, they do what was only to be done for deity according to ancient documents and the recordings to bow.

The word that's used here in Greek is a straight-up worship of divinity. That's the way that this word is used all throughout. I mean, it would be for the worship of Zeus, the worship of Hermes, the worship of all of the Roman gods and goddesses, the Greek gods and goddesses.

It was the word for worship. And coupled with groveling at his feet, there's no question that what they do here cannot be twisted away from the actual worship of Jesus. This doesn't mean when it says that they worshiped him and that they bowed before him and they, you know, in obeisance and worshiped him, it doesn't mean that they grabbed their instruments and the lights faded and the fog descended and then the laser lights came up and the rock and worship set, you know.

Like, what do you think of when you hear worship? Their posture and likely their words ascribe to him great worth there in that moment. And he accepts it all without a smidge of correction. Now, John in Revelation is given a vision of an angel and he bows before the angel and grovels at its feet and says, get up, dude!

Like, are you kidding me? Bro, I'm just, I'm just an angel. I'm a creative being like you. Save that for God. And any time that you see people bowed before in scripture, like, they're like, dude, for real?