Looking For Life In All The Wrong Places

There is something unsettling about realizing you can be very close to the truth…

and still completely miss it.

Not far away.

Not opposed to it.

Not rejecting it.

Just… missing it.

You can be in the right place…

at the right time…

looking in the right direction…

…and still not see what matters most.

I think all of us know what that feels like.

You walk into a room looking for your keys—

and they’re right there on the counter.

You scan the whole place, growing more frustrated by the second,

until finally someone says,

“They’re right in front of you.”

And suddenly—you see them.

Nothing changed.

The keys didn’t move.

The room didn’t shift.

The lighting didn’t improve.

The only thing that changed…

was your recognition.

Now take that simple idea…

and bring it into the deeper places of life.

Because there are moments—serious moments—

when what we miss is not a set of keys…

…it’s God.

We don’t deny Him.

We don’t walk away from Him.

We’re not even hostile toward Him.

We just don’t see Him.

Not in the moment.

Not in the circumstance.

Not in the situation we’re standing in.

And the result is that we interpret everything wrong.

We misread the moment.

We misunderstand the situation.

We draw conclusions that feel completely logical…

but are entirely off.

Because we’re missing the central reality.

And when you miss the central reality…

everything else gets distorted.

That’s exactly what happens in John chapter 20.

This is resurrection morning.

The greatest moment in human history.

The moment that all of Scripture had been pointing toward.

The moment that would change death, eternity, hope, everything.

And right in the middle of it…

stands a woman named Mary.

She is not a skeptic.

She is not an outsider.

She is not someone casually interested in spiritual things.

She loved Jesus.

She followed Him.

She had been changed by Him.

If anyone should have recognized what God was doing…

it should have been her.

And yet—on that morning—

she missed the whole point.

She comes to the tomb expecting one thing…

and because she expects the wrong thing…

she cannot see what is right in front of her.

The tomb is empty…

and instead of rejoicing… she weeps.

Angels are sitting where His body had been…

and instead of worship… she questions.

Jesus Himself is standing right in front of her…

and she assumes He’s the gardener.

Think about that.

She is looking directly at the risen Christ…

and calling Him something else.

Not because He isn’t there.

But because she isn’t seeing Him for who He is.

And before we move too quickly past that moment—

before we shake our heads and say, “How could she miss it?”—

we need to slow down…

and realize something uncomfortable.

Mary is not the exception.

She is the picture.

Because the truth is—

there are times in our own lives when Jesus is present…

working… speaking… moving…

…and we miss Him.

We interpret His presence as absence.

We interpret His work as confusion.

We interpret His voice as something else entirely.

And just like Mary—

we can stand in the middle of what God is doing…

…and miss the whole point.

So the question this morning is not simply,

“What did Mary miss?”

The real question is—

Where might we be missing Him… right now?

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Part One — You Can’t See Clearly Through Your Tears

One of the simplest—and most human—reasons Mary missed the point that morning…

is this:

She couldn’t see clearly through her tears.

John doesn’t just say she was crying.

It says she was weeping.

The word carries the idea of loud, uncontrollable sorrow.

This wasn’t quiet grief.

This was deep, shaking, overwhelming pain.

She had lost Him.

The One who had changed her life…

the One who had brought her out of darkness…

the One who had given her dignity, purpose, hope—

was gone.

And now… even His body was missing.

So she stands outside that tomb…

and she weeps.

And here’s what’s so striking about the passage:

Everything she needs to understand what’s happening…

is already there.

The stone is rolled away.

The tomb is empty.

Angels are present.

Jesus Himself is standing nearby.

All the evidence is there.

But she can’t see it.

Why?

Because grief has a way of narrowing your vision.

Tears don’t just fall from your eyes—

they can cover your eyes.

They blur things.

They distort things.

They make it hard to interpret what you’re actually seeing.

And if we’re honest—

we know exactly what that feels like.

There are seasons in life when the tears are so real…

so heavy…

so constant…

that everything else fades into the background.

You don’t see clearly.

You don’t think clearly.

You don’t interpret things correctly.