How do you cope with the idea of death without the resurrection? Walt Disney made a stab at it in the cartoon classic, “The Lion King.” The little lion’s father died. But you don’t have to be afraid. You don’t have to be sad. Because after all, it’s all about the “circle of life.” Life and death is just a marvelous process, and we live on through our children and in their memories. And isn’t this a wonderful thing? I suppose that if you have nothing else to hang on to, calling death a “natural process” might at least allow someone to accept it. But does it offer any comfort? Any hope?
Please don’t call death a natural process in my presence. There is nothing natural about death. When God created Adam and Eve, he created them to live forever – first on earth and then in heaven. Death wasn’t part of the plan. Death stole into God’s creation on the shirt tails of sin. Paul wrote, “Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned.” (Rom 5:12 NIV) The Bible also says that death is the last enemy to be destroyed (1 Corinthians 15. 25). If death is the final chapter in the “circle of life,” what hope is there in that? Or if death is just a natural process, what comfort do we find in that?
Our text this morning is a tender story of a woman who was close to Jesus and who deeply mourned his death. What joy she found in the resurrection! Do we want to struggle with death with or without Jesus?
Death – With Or Without Jesus?
I. It means the difference between living with hope or despair
Who was Mary Magdalene? We find Mary Magdalene at the tomb, and she was crying. She was shedding tears of hopelessness, tears of despair and frustration. For some time now, she had been following the Teacher, Jesus Christ. She had thought that perhaps he was the Messiah. He had healed her of demon possession, and more importantly, he had shown her how to have peace with God. He had made so many promises. He had said so many good things. He had even performed miracles. But now he was dead. And all the things he had said and done were dead with him. How can you hope in someone who is dead? For Mary Magdalene, the world had become a very cruel place – a place of broken promises, unfulfilled dreams, and big disappointments. And to top it off, it seemed that someone had stolen the body of Christ – could things get any worse? It’s no wonder that she’s crying.
What did she think would happen at the cross? Did she think that there would be a last minute reprieve, and the disciples would take him down, and she would bind up his wounds? When our loved ones are very ill, we always hope for that last minute miracle. Maybe the doctor’s diagnosis was wrong. Maybe they’ll find a miracle cure. Even after our loved ones have died, we sometimes imagine that they are going to walk right through the kitchen door and say, “What’s for supper?”
But the reality of death eventually sinks in. We stop hoping that our loved one is going to pull through this. We stop looking down the driveway to see if his car is pulling up. With every little bitter realization that death is real comes tremendous pain. That’s what Mary was experiencing on Easter Sunday. She had helped bury him. WHAM! She had seen them roll the stone into place. WHAM! She was going out this morning to finish making his body ready of the grave. WHAM! She looked at the stone rolled away from the entrance, and she imagined that they stole the body away. WHAM! Not even the angels could lift her out of her despair. Her eyes are so filled with tears, she did not even recognize Jesus when he came up behind her.
Friends, what Mary was experiencing was more than sorrow or sadness. Her heart was filled with despair. It was empty of hope. She believed that Jesus was the Messiah that God promised. She had even seen him raise people from the dead. But how can you believe in a Savior who himself died? I can honor Abraham Lincoln, but I don’t believe in him because he’s dead. I can honor George Washington, but I don’t believe in him because he’s dead. Mary loved Jesus and wanted to honor him now, but how could she believe in him, if he was dead?
And then Jesus spoke her name. “Mary.” Why was it that she was able to recognize the voice of the Savior when he called her name? I couldn’t help but think of what Jesus said about himself as the Good Shepherd. “The watchman opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out… My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.” John 10:3,27 Jesus called her by name, and Mary recognized the voice of her Good Shepherd. He was alive! He had risen! Her faith was not misplaced! The despair in her heart flew away in an instant and was replace with hope!
Dear friends, will you choose to face death without or without Jesus? With hope, or with despair? Because if you face death without Jesus, then you can only imagine the worst. You must imagine that you will stand before God in all his glory, and that he will ask an accounting of the life you’ve lived. Have you obeyed his commands? Have you kept even ONE of his commandments? Oh, let’s pick an easy one, like the Fifth Commandment. Surely, you haven’t murdered anyone, have you? But the Bible says that whoever hates his brother is a murder. The Bible says that if you even call your brother a bad name in anger, you are in danger of the fires of hell. What would it be like to face death without Jesus?
That’s what Jesus’ resurrection means to you and to me. It means that we will never face death without Jesus. We won’t face death without his forgiveness, because if Jesus died and rose again, then certainly all our sins have been paid for. We won’t face death without someone to hold our hand. Even if we die alone in the middle of the night, we will still not be alone. Because Jesus promised to be with us to the very end of the age. He will be with us when we go through the valley of the shadow of death, just as he promised. How can we be sure? Because Jesus died and rose again. We have a living Savior. We have one in whom we can believe in life and in death. And by faith in Jesus, we choose to live and die in hope and not in despair.
And if the death which has caused us sorrow and despair is not ours, but a loved one? Here also Jesus’ resurrection gives us hope. Because it means we can dwell on the future instead of the past.
II. It means the difference between dwelling on the past or the future
Mary Magdalene found hope on Easter morning. She looked into the tomb, and found that it wasn’t empty after all – two angels were in the tomb, and one of them asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?” “They have taken my Lord away,” Mary said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” Then she turned around, and there was Jesus, standing right behind her. She didn’t recognize him right away. Jesus asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”
Mary wasn’t thinking clearly. She thought that Jesus the gardener. She said to Jesus, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.” At this point, Mary still believes that Jesus is dead. She still believes that his body is missing, that she must find the body so that she can give it a proper burial. The Messiah was still dead. There was still no hope.
But Mary was wrong – there was hope. Jesus said to her, “Mary.” So many times, Jesus had called her by her name while he was alive. And now she heard that familiar voice call her name called again. She looked up, and realized that it was Jesus. The Bible tells us that she was so excited that she called out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” which means teacher. She grasped Jesus’ legs and did not want to let him go. Somehow, he was alive! Jesus told her that she need not to hold on to him like that any longer. He wouldn’t be leaving her in death, like he had done before. Soon he would be returning to the Father, but he would be with her and his followers always. “Go, and tell the brothers that I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” Mary quickly returned to the disciples and told them that she had seen the Lord.
Why did Mary want to grab on to Jesus and hold him? Because she was thinking of Jesus in the old way, the way it was before Jesus’ resurrection. She was thinking of the pleasant days when they sat and listened to Jesus teach on the mountainside. She was thinking of the wonderful meals they enjoyed together with Jesus and his disciples. She was thinking of the one who had driven out the evil spirits from her, who gave her life again. Mary was thinking about the past, but Jesus was thinking about the future. "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.’"
Dear friends, isn’t our comfort in the future, and not in the past? When we’ve experienced the death of someone we’ve loved, we like to remember. We want to hold on to those memories, and that’s all right. With the memories, though, there is also sorrow. We remember how we used to celebrate a birthday together. We remember that he or she used to wear their hair in a certain way, or smile and laugh at certain things. We have bittersweet memories because we enjoyed those moments, but we are sad because we wont see that smile or hear that laughter ever again.
Wait! That’s wrong! That’s dead wrong! If Jesus rose from the dead, then it means that someday our loved ones will rise again, too. We will see them in the resurrection. Paul comforted the Thessalonians with these words. (1 Th 4:14-18 NIV) “We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. According to the Lord’s own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.” You will see that smile again. You will hear that laugh again. You will know the joy of being together again in the resurrection.
So don’t grieve without Jesus. Turn in your despair for hope, your sorrow for the past for the joy of a wonderful future. There was a man once who wanted had two sons who were sad because life had taken one of those rotten turns and hurt them badly. So he told them a story. When he was in World War II, he was on Iwo Jima when they landed. Mortar shells and artillery kept them pinned down on the beach. When it seems that all would be lost, a sergeant jumped into his fox hole. “Cheer up, men,” he said. “See that mountain up there? It’s called Surabachi. Tomorrow you’ll see the flag on Surabachi.” He went from one fox hole to another, encouraging his men. They fought like crazy. They refused the give up. They wanted to see the flag flying on Surabachi. Though it didn’t happen that next day, and even though the sergeant died before he could see the flag flying, it happened on the day after. “Boys,” the man told his father, “whenever life is rough and I feel like giving up, I just remember that tomorrow I’ll get to see the flag fly.”
Dear friends, our Surabchi was a hillside outside of Jerusalem. Instead of a flag flying, it was a stone rolled away. When life is rough and filled with sorrows, just remember the resurrection. Maybe, just maybe, it will be tomorrow. Amen.
