The Resurrection Changes Everything!
Easter Sunday, April 9, 2023
John 20:1-18
Some of you are here this morning because you received one of or several of our Resurrection Sunday Mailers. The last of them declared, “Easter Changed Everything!” And so I have taken that as our theme for this morning.
And I want to ask each of you here this question. “Has Easter, that is the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, changed everything for you?” I’m inviting you to answer that privately for yourself. And for some of you, I imagine the real question is this, “Has the Resurrection of Jesus Christ changed anything for you? Is it relevant at all to your life.” And if you’re really asking those kinds of questions and wondering how it is relevant for you, then I invite you to listen carefully this morning. Because this message is especially for you. I want to explain how and why it should be very relevant to you, and how it can change absolutely everything for you.
So, another question that you might be asking is this, “Well, how would it or should it make a difference for me?” And that’s a great question.
And I have two answers for that question.
The first answer should be obvious. Because of your mortality, the fact that you will one day certainly die. As I’m often fond of saying at this time of year, the last I checked, it’s still true, one out of one people die.”
Now think about this for a moment. You’re doing your best like all of us to make the most of your life, to not merely survive, but to thrive. And yet some day, despite all of your best efforts, despite all the advances of modern science, all the hustle and bustle of life, you know where your life is going to end up. Yes, in a cold hole in the ground. Unless there is some divine intervention of some sort, you, as well as everyone else you know and love is going to end up in the same tragic condition--dead.
And I don’t know about you, but when I think about that reality, apart from God and Jesus, you know what it makes we want to say. I want to agree with the pop singer Brenda Lee when she sang the song, “Is that all there is? Is that all there is? If so, bring in the clowns, amuse me, distract me, do anything to keep me from contemplating the tragic and seemingly meaningless nature of life.”
What I want you to know is that Jesus’ Resurrection can make all the difference in the world and in eternity with regard to the tragic and reality of your certain death. Because of Jesus’ resurrection, you can live again, and live forever if you respond as He wants you to.
The second answer to the question, How should Jesus resurrection make a difference for you, has to do with the human condition.
Have you ever noticed that life just isn’t ever quite what you hoped it would be? How rather than there being peace on earth and goodwill toward men, we have powerful nations the world over bristling with hostility toward one another so that today it appears were on the verge of yet another world war, just like 1914 or 1939. And now we’re sitting on a powder keg—many of these nations are armed with weapons of mass destruction. This time it could end civilization and human life.
And then on a more local level, how the moment we begin to believe we can get by without armed policemen, crime takes over, and in certain large cities in America, no one, or their loved ones or their possessions are safe.
Or on a more personal level, there are shattered dreams, broken lives, broken marriages and broken relationships.
What’s the problem? Well, it’s called sin. It’s human nature, according to the Bible. We could say, “We have seen the enemy, and he is us.” The unending self-serving pride that destroys human relationships continues to raise its ugly head in so many circumstances in our personal lives. .
And 2000 years ago there was a man who had all the credentials of the Son of God, who did the things that only God could do, who said only the thing that God could say, who in one weekend solved both of your and my greatest problems. He died on the cross to forgive and deliver us from the consequences and experience of our sins, and he rose again to defeat death, and prove that He was indeed the Savior of the world. His name: Jesus of Nazareth.
His resurrection alone was unique, but he was unique among the very few who have ever been resurrected in this way. He was the only man to ever predict his own resurrection and fulfill it—to the day. More than that, He was the only man in all of history to be raised from the dead never to die again. And finally, He was the only man who claimed that He was the source of resurrection life for every other man who would depend on Him, and He claimed his own resurrection, and the resurrections of others whom He resurrected proved this.
Pretty impressive, isn’t it? Pretty relevant to you as well—if you’re interested in living forever!
Don’t you think you ought to wonder for a moment how it came down, how He actually came back from the dead, and whether it’s possible to believe these incredible events really took place. Well, I invite you to join me as we take a close look at three people who were very close to Jesus in life, and in death, and whose lives weren’t changed until they really believed Jesus was raised from the dead.
How did they come to that conclusion? Three simple steps, then four. Three simply steps that most of us learned in kindergarten and first grade about how to respond when danger presents itself. Stop, Look and Listen. Stop, and remember Jesus’s incredible, life-altering promises. Second, Look. Look at the overwhelming evidence for Jesus’ resurrection. And then, listen, Listen as Jesus speaks to you about how to overcome your sin and your death.
The three people I’m talking about are the three we read about this morning in John 20. The first was Mary Magdalene. Almost everyone knows she was a friend of Jesus, perhaps the most prominent female follower of Jesus. She had likely been the victim of terrible abuse, or involved in horrendous sin, because according to the Gospel of Mark, Jesus had delivered her from seven demons.
Now she had become a devoted follower of Jesus, one of probably a half-dozen people closest to Jesus, her devotion to Jesus among women was only rivalled by that of his own mother and Mary of Bethany.
And in Luke 24:1-10 along with the other Gospels, we have the rest of the story with regard to Mary Magdalene’s experience on that fateful Sunday 2,000 years ago. Despite the fact that Mary along with all of Jesus’ other followers had heard Jesus predict his own death and resurrection on repeated occasions, she, along with all of his other followers had been terribly disappointed and disillusioned at His crucifixion. She, along with every other single follower of Jesus, on now the third day after His crucifixion, was totally convinced that death had won again, even over a man like Jesus, and that he was, despite His prediction, dead and gone for good.
And so, she and perhaps another five or six female followers of Jesus set out on that Sunday morning before dawn for the tomb, not because they expected to see a resurrection take place, but because they were going to honor Jesus one final time. They were going with additional burial spices to anoint Jesus’ dead body just one more time before finally sealing up that tomb that belonged to Joseph of Arimathea—the tomb where she had seen his body laid by Joseph and Nicodemus late that previous Friday afternoon.
However, according to Luke 24, strange things began to happen as the sun peaked over the horizon and the day dawned. . The women had wondered who would move the large stone that blocked the entrance to the tomb which had been hewn into solid rock. A great earthquake took place. When they got there, they encountered a scene from the Twilight Zone. The stone had been rolled away from the entrance to the tomb by an angel in dazzling white garments, the soldiers guarding the tomb were standing there like dead men frozen in fear, and the angel asked Mary and her companions a searing question which is found in Luke 24:5-7: “Why do you seek the living One among the dead? 6 He is not here, but He has [a]risen. Remember how He spoke to you while He was still in Galilee, 7 saying that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again.”
And so, all the women, being in shock, fled. Mary Magdalene, as John 20 tells it, ran straight to where Peter and John, two members of Christ’s inner circle of there disciples, were hiding. She had been told by the angel to tell them that Christ was risen. But what did she say? John 20:2: “They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.”
It Didn’t matter what Jesus had promised? It didn’t matter what she had seen at the tomb! It didn’t matter what the angel had said to do. It’s as though in a crisis, she had completely forgotten what Jesus had promised repeatedly as it is found Luke 18:31-33: ““We are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written by the prophets about the Son of Man will be fulfilled. 32 He will be delivered over to the Gentiles. They will mock him, insult him and spit on him; 33 they will flog him and kill him. On the third day he will rise again.”
Isn’t that what so often happens to us in a moment of crisis, when everything seems to have fallen apart and our hopes are dashed? Don’t we at first forget the promises of Jesus. And when it comes to a loved one’s death or our own, do we remember what Jesus said would happen if we believe: “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; 26 and whoever lives by believing in me will never die.
In life’s worst moments, especially as we ponder our own mortality, the first thing we need to do is remember the promises of history most credible and incredible man. Stop, and remember Jesus’ promises. O what grief it would have saved Mary Magdalene. What peace she had forfeited in her resilient and unfounded unbelief.”
What can we learn from Mary’s Magdalene’s struggle here? To do exactly what the Angel told her to do. Stop and remember Jesus’ promises. Stop and remember Jesus’ promises. If we will only believe and repent, His resurrection guarantees our resurrection.
Because, that’s what he had said when he had only a few weeks before raised Lazarus from the dead, in John 11:25-26: ““I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, 26 and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die.
This morning, if Jesus’ resurrection seems irrelevant to you, then stop, and remember Jesus’ incredible promises, and how it was fulfilled for him and the people who doubted him back then.
And so she made her erroneous, unbelieving report to none other than Peter and John. Today, we know them as the outstanding apostles among the twelve who were with Jesus throughout his ministry. But at this point in their lives, despite being two of the three apostles who were part of Jesus’ inner circle of disciples, there is nothing impressive about them.
The two of them had been there at the Lord’s supper the night before Jesus's crucifixion. Both had participated in the petty debate among the 12 disciples about who among them was the greatest. Both had refused along with all the others to serve one another by washing each other’s feet. Both were among those 12 who all claimed they would never abandon Jesus no matter what befell him, and then immediately abandoned him upon his arrest by Judas and the Jewish authorities on the same night. And now both of them, instead of showing up at Jesus’ tomb expectant of His resurrection, were cowering and hiding some place in Jerusalem, unbelieving and fearful that they themselves, if they showed up publicly, would experience the same fate as their leader Jesus had.
But as they heard the erroneous unbelieving report of Mary, they were one step ahead of her. Despite their obvious total unbelief to this point concerning Jesus’ promised resurrection, they did remember His promises. And so when they heard Jesus’ body was missing, it did occur to them that something incredible might have happened after all. And that it might be just a little relevant to their future in this life and after this life. Was it possible, after all, that their Lord Jesus had actually been raised from the dead? And it was this question that spurred them to action. They decided they would find out for themselves. So, they took off for the tomb. Verse 3: “So Peter and the other disciple (this is how John the writer of this Gospel refers to Himself)
Went forth and they were going to the tomb. The two were running together; and the other disciple ran ahead faster than peter and came to the tomb first.”
Do you sense the urgency of the matter for these two men? They were running, and they were running with all their might, because of just how incredibly important to them and to everyone else this whole matter was and is about whether Jesus had actually come back from the dead. And they did something here that all of must do who have doubts. We must look. We must investigate and find out for ourselves whether Jesus really did come back from the dead, because everything in our future depends on this one huge question. Did Jesus really come back from the dead as He promised?
And so that’s our second point this morning. First, Stop, and remember Jesus’ promises. Second, Look, Investigate for yourself the overwhelming evidence for Jesus resurrection.
And that’s what these to-this-point unbelieving apostles did. They arrived at the tomb, John, who was faster gets there first. Verse 5, “And stooping and looking in, he saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. And so Simon Peter also came, following him, and entered the tomb, and he saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the face-cloth which had been on his head, not lying with the linen wrappings, but rolled up in a place by itself. So the other disciple, John, who had first come to the tomb then also entered, and he saw and believed.”
Now did you notice how incredibly detailed the account becomes at this point. The reason for the detail is that the details are incredibly important. They reveal the truth to these disciples that Jesus had truly been raised from the dead.
How so. Well, there are some details here that are not revealed in the English, but only in the original Greek. Three different Greek words for “to see” are translated as either see or saw in verses 5-8. The first words, used by John as he stopped and looked into to the tomb and saw the linen wrappings tells us that he caught a glimpse of them. There was simply the physical and mental recognition that the wrappings that had enclosed Jesus’ body were there, left behind in the place Jesus had been. The second word describing Peter’s act of seeing in verse six is the Greek word theoreo. It indicates that Peter not only saw, but he theorized, he wondered about what he saw. And the third use of the English word “saw” is actually now again a different Greek word which means to see and understand, or perceive, to draw a conclusion. So John came first and caught a glimpse and recognized merely that Jesus had left his linen wrappings behind. Peter then followed, went inside, and saw and wondered, theorized about how these wrappings had been left behind. And then John came in and understood, he fully concluded that Jesus from what he saw there, that Jesus must have been raised from the dead so that he believed.
So, the big question then becomes, “exactly what did they see?” John 19:38-40 provides some of the details. After Jesus had been crucified, Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, members of the Sanhedrim, the ruling council of the Jews, the only two among them who had believed in Jesus, came and took Jesus’ body, and wrapped Jesus’ body linen and about 100 pounds of myrrh and aloes. The Jews had learned their burial customs from the Egyptians according to Hal Lyndsay, while they were in Egypt, so they essentially mummified Jesus’ body. The Myrrh and Aloes were like shellac that hardened over time. So, what John and Peter were observing there in the tomb was the hardened shell, the cocoon which had hours before surrounded Jesus body. Only the body was now missing. This is what caused them to wonder and in John’s case, at least, to conclude that the only explanation for what he saw was a supernatural one, that Jesus physical body had somehow supernaturally passed through the hardened cocoon which had encased it, as would only happen in the case of a miraculous resurrection. If thieves had come and stolen the body, they likely wouldn’t have taken the time to remove the grave clothes in their rush, nor would they have been able to do so with such precision. And if the authorities or the gardener had removed the body, as Mary had supposed, they would likely have taken the whole package, body and mummy, away to wherever they had intended. Only a supernatural resurrection could account for the now empty cocoon in the empty tomb!
And then John in His Gospel adds this note in verse 9, speaking of Old Testament prophecy, “For as yet they did not understand the Scripture, that He must rise again from the dead. So despite what Jesus said, and despite what their own Jewish Scriptures had predicted, this was absolutely not what they expected. This all came as a total surprise to their heretofore unbelieving minds.
So, want to know if the resurrection really happened. Stop, remember Jesus’ promises, even the Old Testament’s promises. Then, Look, investigate for yourself the overwhelming evidence for Jesus’ Resurrection. And then, listen to Jesus’ own words. That’s what the resilient skeptic Mary Magdalene had to do to ultimate be convinced.
So Mary followed Peter and John back to the tomb. The disciples had gone away by this time, and Mary was standing outside the tomb weeping, because she couldn’t find the dead body of her Lord.
Verse 11 tells us what happened next. She also stoops and peeks into the tomb. And what did she see this time? Verse 12, Not one, but two angels. “And she saw two angels in white sitting, one at the head and one at the feet, where the body of Jesus had been lying. And they said to her, Woman, why are you weeping? She said to them, “Because they have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid Him.” Mary’s sticking to her story, no matter what! She’s hardly gullible, or superstitious. Man, it seems like she’s a hardened skeptic, no matter the evidence before her. And this attitude of persistent unbelief will continue in the face of the most persuasive evidence possible, until Jesus breaks it when she finally listens to His startling words.
The angels again ask her a very good question in verse 13: “Woman, why are you weeping. In other words, in light of the obvious fact that the tomb is empty and Jesus is alive, you shouldn’t be weeping, you should be rejoicing” But she stubbornly sticks to her story, “Because they have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.”
So she turns around and actually sees Jesus, but still does not believe: “When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, and did not know that it was Jesus.” The reality and ultimate proof of the resurrection is standing right before her eyes, but her utter unbelief blinds her to the facts she up to this point refuses to believe.
And Jesus even speaks to her, and she doesn’t get it. verse 15: “Jesus said to her, Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking? Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried Him away. Tell me where you have laid Him, and I will take Him away.”
Now consider all the evidence that has been placed before Mary. She has seen three angels on two different occasions who have all announced that Jesus is risen. There’s the stone that has been rolled back. There’s the petrified Roman soldiers. There’s the empty tomb, with the now empty cocoon. And then there’s Jesus Himself standing visible before her very eyes, and then there’s Jesus speaking to her, and she still does not believe.
Hardly the gullible and superstitious woman that skeptics would have you believe Mary was.
Finally, Jesus has to startle her with “Mary!” in verse 16. She turned and said, “Rabboni’ which means teacher.” Finally, she gets it, she believes, and she recognizes Jesus now as both her Lord and her Savior—the risen Lord Jesus Christ!
Now may I be direct with some of you this morning. There are likely a few of you who are just like Mary this morning, just like John and Peter. You are surrounded by the overwhelming facts of Jesus’ resurrection. You’ve heard about his death and resurrection over and over again. But it’s like you are sleep-walking spiritually. You persist in your skepticism even when there is absolutely no good reason for it. It’s time to wake up. To listen to Jesus calling your name this morning, and really believe. And when you do, just like Mary Magdalene, and Peter and John, suddenly the resurrection of Jesus will change everything—your present life, your eternal destiny and who and what you are all about in life, and you become, as they did, New Creatures in Christ. You will recognize this one fact about your life, that the Resurrection of Jesus Christ is life, and new life for you and all those whom you love, if only you will, Stop, remember the promise of Jesus, Look, sincerely investigate the overwhelming evidence for His resurrection, Listen, to Jesus when He speaks to you this morning, and believe!
Don’t you think it’s time to do so this morning? For Jesus says to you, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will never die and will live even if he dies. Do you believe this?
Let’s pray.
