We are in the middle of our Glass Houses Lenten series. We have been sharing a lot of information about our faith and trying in this season of repentance not to judge. It has been an incredible learning time for all of us. The title of the series comes from the old saying about judgment; “People in glass house shouldn’t throw?…..stones.” Right. The reality is we are almost always judging. We judge everything from the clothes someone wears to the way a person eats. We are creatures who judge and sometimes our judging comes back to teach us a lesson.
Today, I would like to throw a really big rock through the window of a traditional Easter scripture by asking the question, “Why didn’t the disciples camp-out near the tomb?” I mean really Jesus tells them a number of times during their three years with him that he was going to die and rise again. Before we go there, let’s take a review of the scripture and unpack it a little. If you have your bible or an app on your phone, please open with me to John 20. We will be covering the first 18 verses this morning.
Verse one opens with an early morning visit by Mary Magdalene who was there at the place of the skull where Jesus was crucified. She and some others were wandering up to the tomb on Sunday morning only to find it opened. She runs back to tell the other disciples. John and Peter have a foot race back to the tomb. John wins. But he waits for Peter to enter. They find the burial linens with the head covering folded and now can verify what Mary had told them. If someone did steal the body they would have taken the linens to. They wouldn’t have taken the time to fold the head scarf either so it must have Jesus. Peter and John are flabbergasted by what they’ve seen. In fact, the event crystallizes their belief after which they return home not knowing what to do. Mary, however, stays outside the tomb crying. In her tears she meets a couple of angels and a gardener who use the same words, “Woman, why are you crying?” And then Jesus adds, “Whom are you seeking?” Mary is really struggling at this moment and when Jesus uses her name, she recognizes him. He she calls out as the “rabboni” – what would soon become the highest category of Jewish leader. She then grabs on to him. To which Jesus instructs her let go and go to the brothers and tell them what she has seen. It’s interesting to me that Jesus would use the words whom are you seeking because the word’s are very similar to the words Jesus used with the calling of his first disciples in John 1:38 where Jesus says, “What are you seeking?” After all, Mary is the first evangelizing Christian – a woman in a male dominated society, a reformed mental patient in a world of bright people, a support team member and not a leader in the Jesus tribe.
The scripture screams the question, “Why were they so dull?” How come the rest of the disciples didn’t recall what was told to them so many times over the past 3 years? The answer is simple but telling. They had their own rational and culturally acceptable ways of knowing how God and the messiah would intersect the world. They believed the Messiah would be a conquering king. They had faith in what they had seen and knew his power. However, they couldn’t see that real faith requires daring the soul to go beyond what the eyes can see. George Mueller, a nineteenth-century evangelist who aided over 10,000 orphans and helped over 100,000 poor children receive a Christian education said, “Faith does not operate in the realm of the possible. There is no glory for God in that which is humanly possible. Faith begins where man’s power ends.” – Today in the Word (moody) 3/24/14 Daniel study.
Let’s just say faith is a different level of trust. A trust we, as failed and flawed human beings, aren’t capable of creating or even knowing without God’s intervention. Jesus physically shows up to Mary Magdalene outside the tomb to comfort her in her hour of need only to once again have her grab a hold of his tangible body thinking that’s what’s best. Jesus has to instruct her to let go because without his ascension, the rest of the world and the future world will never be able to grasp him, to be in relationship with him through the power of the Holy Spirit.
My journey has been a continual process of encountering Jesus in new ways. I’ll never forget 21 years ago when I was holding my new son in the shower and when the water came upon him he grabbed on to me for dear life and I immediately understood that if God loved me even half this much, he really did die for me. Or there was the time at the end of seminary that I had to quit work for a year to finish my degree and chaplaincy. I had no idea how we would make ends meet but we stepped out in faith knowing He would provide and He did. We never missed a monthly payment. I went on a three week mission trip that summer. And at the end of the year, when I tallied the expenses for the tax man, we had spent $20,000 more than we brought in but we still had money in the bank. It didn’t make sense. Jesus was real in that moment: providing, loving and standing in front of me asking me “what are you looking for?”
So who is Jesus to you? The answer to that question will tell you a lot about you. It will explain why you judge and it will tell you about your everyday decisions. It will tell you how you will face challenges, handle success, love others or smite people. Most importantly, it will tell you how big your God is?
To really find out who God is, we have to let go like Mary who was clinging to the physical form of Jesus. Jesus says in verse 17: “Don’t cling to me for I haven’t yet ascended to the Father. But go find my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and to your God.’”
In many ways Jesus is repeating to Mary the same words he spoke to the disciples earlier. In John 14:10-12, Jesus says: Don’t you believe that I am in the Father and the father lives in me? The words I speak are not my own, but my Father who lives in me does his work through me. Just believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me. Or least believe because of the work you have seen me do. “I tell you the truth, anyone who believes in me will do the same works I have done, and even greater works, because I am going to be with the Father.”
(Personal Story of a leap of Faith needs to be added that results in allowing God to be bigger than we could have imagined)
No two people come to faith in Jesus the same way. Like the disciples, we all require different portions of evidence mixed with experience and willingness to move closer to the king. However, once we admit to being sinners, repent of the sin and begin walking with God, the life of faith begins at the edge of what we can do on our own.
There is a popular story by Danish Philosopher Soren Kierkegaard of a man trapped on the edge of a cliff. There is a roaring fire just a few yards away that certainly will reach him in minutes and he will consumed by the flames. As he looks over the edge, a voice calls out to him, “Jump!” He glances down, seeing nothing but smoke and darkness and replies, “But, I can’t see you!” The voice from the bottom of the cliff responds, “Jump, anyway, I can see YOU.”
What is your story? Maybe God is writing your story right now. Maybe you are on the edge of making a decision and a wrestling with allowing God to lead. Is this your day to let God be the God of your unbridled trust in the unseen?
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