Easter Sunday Online Sermon April 12, 2020 - Seeing and Believing
It is Resurrection Sunday. It is a day that we
Remember Jesus’ triumph over death
Renew our commitment to the One in Whom we believe
Proclaim that light is greater than darkness
That God is stronger than Satan
That we are people of the resurrected King
Who live resurrected lives
Remember that in Him we are a new creation. The old is gone. The new has come
2 Cor 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!
Today I want to talk about seeing and believing.
To do this we’ll look at our passage for today
20:1 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.
This is the morning of the 3rd day after Jesus died
Mary Magdalene was in shock still from the death of Jesus
She goes to Jesus tomb, that belonged to joseph of Arithramea.
Why? She goes to mourn.
Have you ever gone to a gravestone to mourn? Soon after a loved one died?
I have.It’s a wrenching experience.
Did it with my brother and my parents.
You don’t do it without a lot of tears, overwhelming grief.
While dark, Mary goes to the tomb. Heart in turmoil. Soul deep in grief.
Then she arrives and sees something she’s not expecting to see. Not a welcome sight.
She sees the stone has been removed, rolled away from the tomb.
“Oh no. Grave robbers! How could they. O no!”
2 So 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!”
So she runs and she runs. Tears likely blowing in the wind.
She runs, and she runs to Peter. Peter and the other disciple. The one Jesus loved. The one who wrote the gospel of John.
And she says:
“They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!”
THEY...someone, grave robbers. Someone. Someone terrible robbed the body of Jesus, Mary thought.
We don’t know where his body is. How can we grieve when we don’t know where he is?
3 So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. 4 Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first.
So Peter and John hightail it for the tomb. I mean they are running, panting, adrenalin flowing, hearts pounding. Peter’s running REALLY fast. Really fast. But John outruns Peter and reaches the tomb first.
5 He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in.
He gets there and bends over and looks in to the tomb and sees
What?
Strips of linen that Jesus has been wrapped in. Just lying there. He is stunned and motionless.
He’s trying to make sense out of what has happened. Guards had been stationed there. A huge rock had been set in place to block the tomb
6 Then Simon Peter came along behind him and went straight into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, 7 as well as the cloth that had been wrapped around Jesus’ head. The cloth was still lying in its place, separate from the linen.
Then Peter, always with a little too much bluster runs straight in to the tomb. Sees what John sees. And he sees the cloth.
The head cloth. The fabric that had been tenderly wrapped around Jesus’ head.
The cloth was still where it would have been as Jesus was laid there in the tomb, separate from the linen.
8 Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. 9 (They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.)
John shakes himself and goes into the tomb. He looks around. His heart is racing.
His mind is flooded with emotion. His spirit is bursting with revelation. And so, He saw. And he believed.
What does he see? Well, nothing.
He didn’t see Jesus. He doesn’t see His body, he doesn’t see the corpse of his best friend, his Rabbi, his teacher.
The one who had healed so many of their diseases and affliction, the One who had raised Lazarus from the dead.
He sees the death-cloths of Jesus. But still he sees something very important. He sees that Jesus isn’t there.
He sees and believes. He saw and believed.
Now at that moment it wasn’t what we know as the gospel that he believed. Verse 9 says that 9 (They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.)
So what did John see and believe? He saw with spiritual sight, we say he saw with his heart.
He saw and believed that God was doing something. He wasn’t believing in human potential. Nothing like that at all. But he knew...
God was up to something. Something wonderful. “I don’t know what is happening, precisely.
”I can’t put words to it, but I see and believe that God is doing something here.
Seeing and believing is what we think it is. Many saw Jesus’ miracles plain as day, up close and personal.
Some liked what they saw and chose to follow Jesus. Others were threatened and chose instead to plot to kill him.
“If I see it, I’ll believe”, people say. Not true. You’ll only see what is plain as day in front of you if your heart is soft, if your heart is open.
Otherwise the heart will find a way to alter the narrative and close the door on God’s revelation.
John saw and he believed.
10 Then the disciples went back to where they were staying.
Walking back with wonder. John and Peter. John, believing. His heart wide open to what was happening that morning.
His mind filled with wonder at what he had seen, or rather what he did not see. John believed.
Now that same John was the one who wrote this gospel account, so of course he knew what was going on in his own heart and could write of it here in his gospel.
Peter, who he walked back with to where they were staying, he was wondering too.
He was trying to grasp as well what this all meant as the twigs snapped as his feet shuffled their way.
And Peter was hurting. He was still reeling from a very personal guilt at having betrayed Jesus, denying - swearing up and down. that he even knew Jesus.
And that after vowing that even if all were to abandon Jesus in His hour of need - that he - he alone, Peter, the Rock, would stand by Jesus, even to the point of death as necessary.
And then when push came to shove, he tucked tail and ran. Such shame Peter felt. Perhaps that shame made it really tough for him to believe, to believe that something marvelous was happening.
11 Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb 12 and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.
13 They 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.” 14 At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.
Mary has stayed outside the tomb. She is weeping. There is such strength, I’ve observed, in tears.
She has the courage to allow what is happening into her heart and mind. It is something very strange. Disturbing.
Mary is weeping and she bends over to look again into the tomb.
She wishes to see the cloths that covered Jesus again.
Instead she sees 2 angels. And they are sitting right where Jesus’ body should have been. One is sitting where Jesus’ feet should be. The other where His head should be.
These 2 angels inquire. Why are you crying?
Mary speaks through her tears. “They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.”
That’s my problem. That’s why I’m in grief. I don’t know the location of my beloved. I want to know where His body is.
Then Mary suddenly turns. She turns and she sees Jesus standing there, but she doesn’t recognize him.
15 He asked her, “Woman, 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.”
Jesus inquires. Why the tears, woman? For whom do you weep?
Mary, overwhelmed with sorrow, thinks He’s the gardener. “If YOU’VE taken Him, just tell.
Just tell me where He is and I will get him. I will give Him the proper honour. The honour that is His due. He is due such honour.
16 Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”).
“Mary” he says. Shocked, she turns to Him and cries out: “Rabboni! Teacher! A dozen emotions are shaking her body.
Her teacher had been tortured and died, brutally on the cross, at the callous hands of men. All because some others had lied, given false testimony. It was all so wrong. So unjust.
And then his body had been stolen. Such a horrendous indignity. And now...
He stands in front of Mary.
He speaks her name. She knows His voice. She knows His voice so well.
That voice had told parables of the kingdom, of God’s new order.
That voice had spoken the beatitudes to many on the Mount of Olives.
That voice that had called Lazarus, dead Lazarus out of the grave in his own graveclothes.
That voice that she loved spoke her name. Mary. And she wanted to cleave to Him.
She wanted to hold Him. To live in that moment; that moment that was so surreal...how could she know if it would end as strangely as it had begun.
17 Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”
Jesus has something bigger on His mind. He has yet to ascend to the Father. He has His apostles in mind.
And He wanted Mary, Mary the one who would bring the good news to the apostles, who would be the apostle to the apostles, to go to them and tell them. Tell them that Jesus is alive.
Tell them that she has seen the Lord.
18 Mary 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.
And so she went, bearing the good news that Jesus who was dead is now alive.
She told the news to those who would also take that same message to many others. And so on and so on around the world for centuries...
Until this very day when I have the joy to share this same truth, this same reality...that Jesus has risen. He is alive.
You know this story is my story. It is the foundation of my own life. It’s the reason for being for every follower of Jesus, who is the very ground of our being.
This story is your story. It’s how the Creator of everything came to dwell with us. Clothed Himself with human skin.
Became fully acquainted with the amazing beauty of human existing, and with the suffering of life, it’s profound misery.
He dwelt among us and He taught us what God thinks and how God behaves.
And He called us to love God with everything that we are and all that we have,
and to show that love by how we treat our neighbour. How I treat you, how you treat me.
So. Easter. Resurrection Sunday. What is your response to the story of Jesus? Where are you in relation to the living God?
Have you begun your journey with Jesus, loving and serving Him as a disciple?
Or might your journey begin today? Would you come to Jesus today and place your faith in Him?
Will you take a moment right now to speak to God in silence? In your thoughts, will you quietly and reverently consider the goodness of God?
Will you embrace the fact that when you trust Jesus’ Christ and believe in His sacrifice for your sins, you are forgiven, and reconciled to God.
Will you carefully consider the love of God and the promise of that love…that He wants you, that He forgives you, and that He has given us together a mission to fulfill.
Let’s pray in silence for a moment.
Holy God, the events we mark on this weekend…the bleakness and sadness of Good Friday and the power and joy and glory of this Easter Sunday…
they are such a gift to us…to remind us of Your humility and Your love and Your mighty power.
Turn our longing hearts and thirsty souls to You once again, that we might live joyfully for the One who laid down His life and took it up again on that first Sunday of resurrection.
May each of us here this Easter Sunday come to be embraced by the living God as we choose to believe and receive God’s greatest gift to us…
that of His Son Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit, One God over all. Amen.
