The Greatest Comeback In History

On Sunday, August 5, 2001, one of the greatest comebacks in sports history occurred in Cleveland, Ohio. The then Cleveland Indians were facing one of the best teams in Major League Baseball history, the Seattle Mariners. But the Indians were, after the third inning, trailing the Seattle Mariners 12 to nothing. It looked like the Indians were done. The Indians finally scored two runs in the fourth inning. But the Mariners came back and scored two more in the fifth inning. Trailing 14 to 2 after five innings, Cleveland Indians fans began to leave the stadium. But then something happened. The Indians scored three in the seventh, four in the eighth. They tied the game with five more runs in the ninth inning and sent the game into extra innings. In the 11th inning, Cabrera came up to bat for the Indians. Kenny Lofton was at second base in scoring position. Cabrera swings his bat, hits a single to left field, breaking his bat. You see his bat flying out to left field along with the ball. He hits the single, sends Kenny Lofton around third, and sliding into home, and just barely safe for the Indians to win the game.

How many of us love a comeback story. We love the underdog. We love when things like that happen in baseball games and football games, all that. We love a comeback story.

In 2001, same year, Sports Illustrated Magazine ran an article entitled “Bouncing Back Big Time.” It listed the greatest 10 comebacks in all of history - not just sports, but all of history. Let me give you a few of the ones, and we'll get to number one. Number 10, Elvis Presley. Number five, Muhammad Ali. Number three was Michael Jordan. And number one, “Jesus Christ, 33 AD, defies critics and stuns the Romans with his resurrection.”

Folks, Jesus is alive.

In John chapter 11, we see Jesus go to a town called Bethany. He's standing outside the tomb of one of his closest friends. And Lazarus had just died. And Jesus is standing out there talking with one of his sisters, Martha. And Jesus tells Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me, even if he dies, will live.” And on a Sunday morning in the spring, almost 2,000 years ago, Jesus proved that he is the resurrection and the life by coming back from the dead. He is alive.

Now the question I want to ask this morning is: How does something that happened almost 2000 years ago really make an impact in our lives today? As we sit here today, what does that look like? And I suggest that because Jesus has a comeback story, we can have comeback stories as well. So I'm gonna give you four things this morning.

1. Because Jesus is risen, I can come back from despair.

You know, it's really sad these days. Many people seem to be struggling in deep despair. Some are without hope. Some seem to be discouraged. Some are afraid. How do you bounce back from losing your home? How do you bounce back from losing your job? How do you bounce back from your marriage ending? How do you bounce back from a death in the family? How do you bounce back from a broken relationship, a broken economy, a broken culture? What does that look like? Who do you count on when those things happen?

In America, we think we can count on the economy. We think we can count on employment. We think we can count on the government to get us through. People put their hope in a lot of stuff here, don't they? In money and wealth and job status, politics, people, possessions. But we know these things don't last. These things run out. These things will let us down from time to time. We know that, right? So the question is, is there any foundation solid enough that can hold my life together so that it can't be taken away when I am in despair? Is there something that can hold my life together?

In the New Testament book of Matthew, we find a couple of women who are in deep despair as Joseph of Arimathea wraps up Jesus’ lifeless body in a burial cloth and places it in a tomb. In Matthew, chapter 27, verse 61, it says, “Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were seated there facing the tomb.” Can you imagine what these two women are going through in this moment? What they're thinking? What they’re feeling? They had followed Jesus around for three years. They supported his ministry. They were there through thick and thin. They watched Jesus heal people and Jesus teach people and Jesus give hope to a hurting people. And now here they are on a Friday evening after they watched him die, they're here sitting across from his tomb, watching their friend be buried.

On Sunday morning, they go back to the tomb prepared to embalm Jesus’ body properly. They think he's still dead. But then everything changes. The women get to the tomb, they find the stone is rolled away and there's an angel sitting on top of it. And in Matthew 28:5 it says the angel told the women, “Don't be afraid because I know you're looking for Jesus who was crucified. He's not here. For he has risen just as he said…”

He has risen. These three words are the reason millions of people gather every Sunday around the world to celebrate and worship. These three words separate Jesus from every other religious leader in history. Buddha, Muhammad, Joseph Smith and all the other ones. They all have one thing in common. They're all still dead. They never came out of their tombs. But Jesus, his tomb is empty. And Jesus is alive. He has risen.

These three words give people of every generation hope. And when you really think about this, you know, people don't gather together and say, “The stock market has risen. It has risen indeed.” They don't gather together to say, “The gross domestic product has risen,” or “The Ford Motor Company has risen.” We don't greet each other by saying, “Man, the value of my 401k has risen. It has risen indeed.” We don't do that. But people all over the world gather together to proclaim, “Christ has risen and he has risen indeed.”

Now, what do the women do when they hear these words from the angel? In Matthew 28:8, it says they were filled with great joy. They were filled with great joy. And so what do they do? They run. And they have to tell everyone else. Let's go tell Peter and James and John, all the disciples. They gotta know Jesus is alive. In an instant, their lives are changed just like that. And they go from this disappointment and despair to hope and great joy.

That's what Jesus does. That's what a risen Savior does. We too, can be lifted from despair to hope in Jesus Christ as an anchor for our souls, as Hebrews 6:19 says, as an anchor for our souls, that we have this hope in him that cannot go away. So, I pray you find hope and not despair in Jesus Christ.