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Sixty-four-year-old Herzlinde Eissler had been admitted to a hospital in Austria with stomach pains. Several days later she left the hospital and was shocked when she discovered why her family had not visited her during her stay.
The hospital had made a mistake and told her family that she had died. Her son Leopold said, “I could not believe it when she walked in through the front door and the whole family was all sitting around dressed in black and planning the funeral. At least it explains why we could not find the body when we wanted to pay our last respects.”
The disciples couldn’t find the body of Jesus either. But it wasn’t because of a mix-up, it was because He has risen from the dead! (www.ananova.com)
10The disciples went back to their homes, 11but Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb 12and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.
13They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?”
“They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” 14At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.
15“Woman,” he said, “why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”
Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”
16Jesus said to her, “Mary.”
She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means Teacher).
17Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”
18Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them that he had said these things to her (John 20:10-18).
DEATH IS NOT THE END OF THE STORY
“Why are you crying?” (John 20:13, 15).
This question was a gentle rebuke. “Why are you crying when Jesus is alive?”
We all would have reason to weep if Mary had been given what she was weeping for—the dead body of Jesus.
Why didn’t Mary recognize Jesus? It’s possible that her tears blurred her vision. But there seems to have been something different about the risen Jesus so that He was not always recognized.
· The two disciples on the road to Emmaus were “kept from recognizing him” (Luke 24:16; cf. Mark 16:12).
· The disciples in the boat on the lake of Tiberias did not recognize the man on the shore (John 21:4).
· When the disciples saw Jesus on a mountain in Galilee, they worshipped, “but some doubted” (Matthew 28:17).
· On other occasions, the disciples seemed to have recognized Jesus fairly quickly (Matthew 28:9, 17; John 20:19, 26-28; 21:7, 12).
“I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him with my own eyes—I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!” (Job 19:25-27).
“I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die” (John 11:25-26).
1. Our resurrection is GUARANTEED because of Christ’s resurrection.
But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep (1 Corinthians 15:20).
2. Our resurrection will be a TRANSFORMATION, not a restoration.
Christ’s resurrection was not simply a coming back from the dead. Rather, when He rose from the dead, Jesus began a new kind of human life, a life in which His body was made perfect, no longer subject to weakness, aging, or death, but able to live forever.
The raising of Lazarus from the dead (John 11:44) was a restoration, not a transformation.
What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else. But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body (1 Corinthians 15:36-38).
So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body (1 Corinthians 15:42-44).
And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so shall we bear the likeness of the man from heaven (1 Corinthians 15:49).
Christ’s resurrection body:
· Old qualities: Jesus’ resurrection body could be touched and handled (John 20:27; Luke 24:39), bore the marks of the wounds inflicted during the crucifixion (John 20:20, 25, 27), and could eat fish (Luke 24:41-43).
· New qualities: Jesus’ resurrection body apparently rose through the grave clothes (John 20:6-8), appeared in a locked room (John 20:19, 26), and was sometimes not (at least initially) recognized.
3. Our resurrection will happen when Christ RETURNS.
Jesus said to her, “Do not cling to Me, for I have not yet ascended to My Father” (John 20:17 NKJV).
After [Jesus] said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.
They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven” (Acts 1:9-11).
But each in his own turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him (1 Corinthians 15:23).
Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed—in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality (1 Corinthians 15:51-53).
4. Our resurrection is the final stage of our SALVATION.
For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified (Romans 8:29-30).
The hour has come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed (Romans 13:11).
JESUS IS ALIVE. PASS IT ON.
Chris Moretz decided to ride out Hurricane Katrina alone at home. After the worst of the storm had passed, his house was flooded and destroyed. Chris needed to let his family know that he was still alive. But they were in Tucson, Arizona, and there was no way to contact them. So Chris painted the following message on the roof of his house: “C. MORETZ IS ALIVE. PASS IT ON.” Also included was the phone number of Chris’s brother Gerard.
Finally, Chris’s rooftop message was shown on TV and posted on some websites. Chris’s family began getting phone calls from all over the country that Chris was alive (USA TODAY).
The message of the first Christians was “JESUS IS ALIVE. PASS IT ON.”
Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!” (John 20:18).
[Jesus] said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:7-8).
Thankfully, the message “JESUS IS ALIVE” has been passed on to us. Now it’s our turn. We must pass it on to others.
RESOURCES USED
James Montgomery Boice, The Gospel of John, vol. 5
D. A. Carson, The Gospel according to John
Gordon D. Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (NICNT)
Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology
Craig S. Keener, The Gospel of John, vol. 2
Leon Morris, The Gospel according to John (NICNT)
