Easter Together

Easter Together

“Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. 2So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!” John 20:1-2

Intro: It was still dark for Mary.

She had just endured the darkest, bleakest Sabbath of her life, because Jesus had died.

Jesus had cast seven demons out of her

Demons that had tortured her for years.

Now he was dead. Jesus Christ age 33. Crucified.

No one else could do for her what Jesus had done.

No one else cared for her,

No one else loved her like Jesus had.

And now he is gone

and she is just sick at her stomach with grief.

It was still dark.

She wasn’t just grief stricken.

I think she was probably disappointed in Jesus..., At least a little bit.

After all he had claimed to be the Messiah

He told the woman at the well if you have seen me you have seen God the Father.

My voice is His voice

If you have heard me you have heard Him.

Mary believed that.

She believed that Jesus was going to liberate Israel.

If He could walk on the water

If He could heal the sick

If He could raise the dead

He could take out some Roman soldiers.

Yet when they came to arrest him Jesus just surrendered.

Then like any other mortal he died.

A compassionate friend? Yes.

The long awaited Messiah? She would have to rethink that on this dark weekend.

Don’t you think she probably felt some anger too?

Furious with the religious leaders who were so jealous of Jesus that they had plotted his death.

Such evil people to say such mean things to try to destroy Jesus’ ministry

Then to plot to harm him and ultimately to kill Jesus.

What haters they were.

How could anyone who claimed to be so Godly share such mean things to try to destroy a man of God?

Mary was probably

Angry at the Roman soldiers who had brutalized the body of Jesus her Lord

They had reduced him to a mass of quivering flesh, then, gloated over it.

Jesus had told her she was supposed to love her enemies

But I doubt that she could bring herself to do that

I doubt there was much love in her heart

On this dark morning.

Early on the first day of the week while it was still dark, Mary went to the tomb.

I think there is a lot for us to learn from Mary about how God can lift us out of darkness and despair.

Mary did something right that first Easter that turned her darkness into daylight.

The other gospels make it clear that Mary did not go to the tomb by herself that morning

Other women by the name of Salome Johanna, and Mary the mother of James accompanied her

And they brought spices to anoint Jesus’ body.

The Jewish people have never believed in embalming,

they just wrapped the body in lien and spices to show respect.

But these women were frustrated because Jesus had died so near the Sabbath

They did not have time to complete the process

So, early in the morning when the Sabbath was over…, they came to tomb to complete the job.

Marks Gospel says as they neared the tomb they began asking each other,

who is going to roll away that huge stone at the entrance?

They had seen Joseph of Arimathea roll a huge stone at the entrance of the tomb

after he had buried

the body of Jesus in his own…, unused tomb.

Evidently the women did not know that the religious authorities had insisted that the tomb be sealed.

Some Roman soldiers were stationed at the entrance to make sure that no one tampered with the body.

The religious leaders were concerned that the disciples might come and steal the body and claim a resurrection

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So early in the morning Mary Magdalene went to the tomb.

and she saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. John 20:1

Matthew’s gospel gives us some details about what happened just a short time before these women arrived.

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“the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone away from the door,

and sat upon it…, the soldiers did shake with fear and became as dead men.”

Now when these soldiers came to,

they saw the stone had been rolled back,

the body of Jesus was gone,

They raced to the chief priest of the Jews to tell him what had happened