Have you ever tried to help someone who doesn’t want to be helped? Pretty frustrating, amen? Just ask Jesus. It’s hard to help someone who doesn’t want help … difficult to heal someone who doesn’t think they’re sick … impossible to fill a cup that’s already full ... impossible to teach a mind that already thinks it knows everything, amen?
Mary Magdalene was an empty cup … not because she lacked intelligence but because she wasn’t full of pre-conceived notions or expectations. She was evidently a wealthy woman because she was one of the women who supported and gave material help to Jesus and His disciples. As she followed Jesus and His disciples, she listened to His teaching and Jesus’ words fell on her soul. She rejoiced in His gracious promises and the tender compassion that He showed to those in need of healing, mercy, and comfort.
Mary was “empty” for another reason. If you think women were ostracized in Jesus’ day, consider this … Mary was a spiritually unclean woman with … not one … not two … not five … but seven demons living inside her until Jesus drove them out of her.
In the eyes of the world, Mary Magdalene was an outcast … a ghost … virtually invisible … until Jesus “saw” her … healed her ... took her in … accepted her … taught her … filled her with love … and changed her life forever … until …
She watched as Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a little donkey. She had heard the cheers … cheers that would turn into shouts of “Crucify Him! Crucify Him!” She heard of His betrayal, His arrest … His sham of a trial. She witnessed His public humiliation … his pain … and His torture.
She was there with Jesus’ mother at the foot of the cross. She watched as the one person in the entire world who loved her and accepted her for who she was die a horrible, horrible death … stayed with Him until they took His lifeless body down … and followed Him to the tomb. She watched from a distance as they placed His body in a tomb and sealed it …
And she was empty again. Hope was gone. So she did the only thing she knew to do … she continued to stand by her Lord and Savior and serve Him in her emptiness. When the Sabbath is over, she goes and pays tribute to her teacher by preparing His body for the grave … washing and anointing His body with spices as they did for royalty … for king. Please open your Bible to John 20. [Read John 20:1-13.]
“They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid Him” (v. 13). Mary was already empty inside … used up … washed out … emotionally drained … but now this!
On that Sunday morning so long ago … the sun rising … the mist fading … she finds the stone rolled away. The tomb … empty. His body … gone. Her heart sinks and the emptiness she had been feeling for the past three days just got emptier.
Imagine her utter despair. Her grief. And that hollow feeling in her gut. The emptiness of the tomb pushing the emptiness of her heart to a whole new level. She stands outside Jesus’ empty tomb weeping (v. 11). She doesn’t shed tears of silent grief. She cries out! She wails at the top of her voice! Her whole body is wracked by deep, inconsolable sobs. Her love, her pain, her fear, her grief pour out of her heart uncontrollably. And then … with a word … her broken and empty heart was filled to over-flowing. [Read John 20:14-18.]
The word that caused her broken and empty heart to over-flow with joy? The word was “Miriam.” After Mary expressed her desire to take care of Jesus’ body, Jesus spoke to her personally, affectionately. He addressed her in Aramaic … “Miriam.” He uses the name that she grew up with … the name that her family and friends called her … and it spoke directly to her heart. “Miriam.”
This was the voice of the Good Shepherd calling one of His sheep by name … “Miriam.” And her heart recognized that name … that accent. How often had she heard that sweet voice speaking to her personally … “Miriam.” That one word from Jesus removed the darkness from her soul and replaced it with eternal light. Her heart was filled with rejoicing. “Miriam.” The sound of that sweet voice that had comforted her and guided her was still speaking to her. One word from Jesus removed the sorrow that filled her heart and replaced it with great joy.
He speaks to her personally and her response is equally as personal … “Rabboni.” You often see it translated as “Rabbi” or “Teacher” but it is a term or a title of affection … “Rabboni” … “my dear Master” … a term she probably used when speaking to Jesus during those happy days of fellowship that she had enjoyed in His presence.
Her response is a vivid illustration of true faith which requires recognition, rejoicing, and submission. Recognition is the response of our minds, rejoicing is the response of our hearts, and submission is the response of our wills. There is recognition when He calls her “Miriam.” There is rejoicing and submission when she calls Him “Rabboni” … “my dear Master.” She is virtually saying the same thing that the Apostle Thomas does later on when He addresses Jesus as “My Lord and My God.”
When we meet Jesus in Heaven, there will be no formalities nor will we need anyone to introduce us. Through the Bible, through His Holy Spirit, through His work in us, through us, and around us we get to know Jesus as our Savior, Redeemer, Guide, Teacher, Intercessor King … and best of all as “Rabboni” … our Dear Master and Friend. As His sheep, we will know His voice. He called Mary “Miriam.” She called Him “Rabboni.” I wonder what He will call us and I wonder what we’ll call Him when we meet Him face-to-face.
Jesus invites each and every person to faith personally. Mary was looking for a lifeless body … a deceased Jesus. What she found ... or, more accurately, WHO found her was a Jesus who was anything but lifeless or deceased. His invitation to her was a beautiful invitation of grace … “Miriam” … and faith … “Rabboni.” She would not have found Him had He not sought her. Mary was the first believer in the resurrection of Jesus! And I believe this was not accident. After her encounter with our resurrected Savior, He sends her to tell others. She is the first to experience the Risen Lord … and the first to tell the world about Him. “I have seen the Lord” (v. 18).
Like so many encounters we’ve listened to during Lent, we notice that Jesus didn’t chose the most prominent, the most successful, the wealthiest. He chose shepherds. He chose a virgin from a nowhere town. Ordinary people. Working class people. And a formerly demon-possessed woman from a society that gave women no rights. That, my sisters and brothers, is the “Gospel” … the “Good News” that we are saved … not based on our worth or our works but by the work of Christ through grace.
Mary Magdalene was an empty cup and an empty cross and empty tomb filled her up. And if you are an empty cup this morning, let me tell you how an empty cross and an empty tomb can fill you up.
First … the empty cross and empty tomb can fill you with truth. During His trial, Pilate asked Jesus: “What is truth?” Jesus did not answer Him because it is impossible to fill a cup that is already full, remember? The truth was standing right there before Him. Jesus is the truth, remember? The way, the truth, the life. He is the only way to the Father. He alone is the name we call on for salvation. He alone is true and unconditional love. He alone is the only one who can offer us true forgiveness for sins. He is Truth … and His truth sets us free, amen?
Jesus’ death and resurrection had been written about for hundreds of years before they happened. Jesus Himself had proclaimed the truth of His death and resurrection. And now the empty cross and empty tomb are proof of His truth.
The empty cross and empty tomb can fill you with truth … and the empty cross and the empty tomb can fill you with hope. When Mary saw Jesus die on the cross, her hope died with Him. Nothing but emptiness remained … until she reached the empty tomb. Her hope was resurrected because He was resurrected. Her hope was no longer dead because Jesus was no longer dead. He had overcome the grave. He had overcome Death. And because He had overcome the grave and Death, because He lives, our hope lives too … and not just our hope but our bodies too. Because of the empty tomb, we have the truth and the hope that we will rise too … that we will be with Christ in glory … that we will be forever with our resurrected King!
Because of the emptiness of the cross and the emptiness of the tomb, we are filled with the truth and we are filled with hope … and we are filled with forgiveness. Because Jesus was born, … because Jesus lived as a man, a human being … because He died, … because of the cross and the empty tomb, we have the full forgiveness of God. Everything Jesus did, everything He endured, all of the pain, all of the torment, all of the rejection, all of the abuse … He did all of this … He took all of this … for you and for me. He did all this … He went through all this … to buy our forgiveness.
Sin has a price and that price must be paid … and Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, paid that price for you and for me and for all humanity. The tomb is empty and so is our past. It is behind us. Our debt has been paid … forgotten by our Father God as far as the east is from the west. It has been thrown in the ocean and has sunk to the bottom of the sea … never to be seen … never to brought up again.
The empty tomb means our sins are gone … poof! Vanished. Our wickedness, our stupidity, our mistakes, all the bad things we did on purpose … poof! Gone! All forgiven … if we, like the thief on the cross, acknowledge who He is and ask for His forgiveness … forgiveness bought with the blood sacrifice of Jesus on the cross and guaranteed by an empty tomb.
Because of the empty cross and the empty tomb, we are filled with truth … we are filled with forgiveness … and we are filled with love. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him may not perish but may have eternal life” (John 3:16). Jesus is the fulfillment of God’s love. Jesus is God’s love incarnate … a love that knows our mistakes and our past … a love that knows us like no other and loves us anyways … a love that understands us even when we don’t understand ourselves or understand why we do what we do … a love that knew us before we were born … a love that carefully and tenderly knit us together in the womb … a love that makes us whole … that fills us like nothing else can … a love that chases away emptiness … a love that chases away darkness … a love that chases after us… a love, the only love, that can satisfy your souls.
God sent Jesus because He loves us and He showed us how much He loved us by accepting our lashes, by accepting the pain and punishment that should have been mine and yours. He showed us how much He loved us by stretching out His arms and accepting our nails. Because He loves us, He took the humiliation. Because He loves us, He took the ridicule and the spit. Because He loves us, He took the beatings and the rejection. Because He loves us, He took everything we deserved.
On Friday, Jesus declared: “It is finished!” They took Love off the cross and laid Him in a tomb. On Saturday, Mary lost all hope. But on Sunday, Love got up and walked out of the tomb, amen!? On Sunday, Love overcame Death. On Sunday, Jesus went back to Heaven to plead our case.
Because the cross and tomb are empty, we know that we are loved …
Because the cross and tomb are empty, we know that we have hope …
Because the cross and tomb are empty, we know that we are forgiven …
Because the cross and tomb are empty, we know that we have the truth …
Because the cross and tomb are empty, we no longer need to fear death …
Death had no hold, no power over Him …
And it has no hold or power over us because the cross and tomb are empty …
Death … no power
Death … no sting
Death … no victory
Death … not the final word!
Because the cross and tomb are empty, prophesy is fulfilled …
Because the cross and tomb are empty, truth is fulfilled …
Because the cross and tomb are empty, hope is fulfilled …
Because the cross and tomb are empty, Love … true love … life-changing love … soul-satisfying love … is fulfilled.
Are you still empty? Jesus can fill you …
Are you still living with your mistakes? Your past? Jesus can forgive you …
Is that emptiness stealing your hope? Jesus can restore your hope …
Are you struggling to find what is true in your life? Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life …
Here’s some good solid truth for you: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things came into being through Him, and without Him not one thing came into being, what has come into being in Him was life, and the life was the light of all people” (John 1:1-4).
Jesus Christ is, was, and will always be God. He came to earth, born of a virgin, just as He said He would, lived a sinless life, and then suffered and died for your sins and mine.
The Bible says that we were all sinners and that the penalty of sin is death. And because of our sin, we would be facing an eternity separated from God were it not for an empty cross and an empty tomb! While we were yet sinners, says the Apostle Paul, Christ paid the price for our sins and died for us.
He was sealed in a tomb and three days later the tomb was empty … but He was gone! He showed Himself to Mary … then the disciples … over the next 40 days, He showed Himself to many … then He went home … back to His Father where He is patiently waiting to come back for us.
This is the truth of the empty cross and the empty tomb. Jesus came to provide a way to Heaven and He is the only way. By dying, by being resurrected, He has provided us with life … full life … abundant life. Thank God for the empty cross and the empty tomb, amen? Because of the empty cross and the empty tomb, our hearts, our lives, our future is full.
Let us pray …
