John 20:1-18
“The Hinge of History”
By: Kenneth E. Sauer, Pastor of Parkview United Methodist Church, Newport News, VA
www.parkview-umc.org
A few years after the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, there were several thousand Christians living under Nero in the Roman Empire.
And it is reported that Christians were regularly “crucified or set on fire so that when darkness came they burned like torches in the night.”
Three hundred years later, there were 34 million Christians or 56.5% of the total population.
And according to a recent NEWSWEEK Poll, 81 Percent of Americans say they are Christians, and there are currently 2 billion believers in the world.
This is 33% of this earth’s population.
Christianity is now the world’s largest faith!!!
What are we to make of all this?
Christianity began in obscurity.
The first missionaries were commoners, whose message appeared to be nonsense to the sophisticated.
With some exceptions, Christianity’s chief appeal was to the outcaste and the marginal elements of society…
…people like Mary Magdelene and a small band of uneducated fishermen and hated tax collectors, prostitutes, lepers…
These were people with no political clout, little money—outcastes, who from the beginning, were violently persecuted.
Again, I ask, What are we to make of this?
As the sun set on the Friday of the execution, Jesus appeared to be a failure.
His promises about the Kingdom of God were little more than provocative but powerless rhetoric.
No matter what Jesus had said about sacrifice and Resurrection during His lifetime…
…well, His disciples obviously did not understand it, and did not expect Jesus to rise again.
On the night He was arrested, even Simon Peter, Christ’s most loyal disciple, crumbled to dust as he denied even knowing his Lord three times.
And after the Resurrection, “On the evening of that first day of the week,” the disciples were huddled together, “with doors locked for fear of the Jews.”
What are we to make of this?…
…well, certainly, without the Resurrection, it is virtually impossible to imagine that the Jesus movement would have continued!!!
And yet, here we are, over 2,000 years later, brothers and sisters in Christ…declaring with faith and boldness: “Christ, our Savior is Risen from the dead!”…
… “Hallelujah! Jesus lives!”
Many, if not most of us here this morning, base our entire lives on this fact!!!
It is the reason we do not fear death.
It is the reason that so many of us have put our whole trust…our whole lives into the hands of Jesus.
It is the reason that so many of our lives have been changed so radically and continue to change, as we deny ourselves each day, take up our cross and follow Christ!
It is the reason that billions of people around the world are able to face this terribly difficult life with courage, hope, faithfulness, and thanksgiving!!!
It is one of the main reasons that we have so many hospitals, so many schools of higher education, and of course…a church on just about every corner!!!
It was Christ’s Resurrection that made the Christian Church.
It was Christ’s Resurrection that transformed a huddle of dispirited and frightened people into that valiant band who were willing to risk anything for the sake of Christ!
It was Christ’s Resurrection that brought into being and set in motion this mighty Gospel which has been proclaimed to nearly the entire world and has changed the face of humanity!
And the Words of the New Testament itself leap for joy first of all, most of all, and last of all over the empty grave!!!
The Resurrection of Jesus Christ is most certainly the hinge on which the doorway of history swings.
It is also the hinge on which the doorway of so many lives swing!
What hinge does the doorway of our lives swing on?
What gives us hope and meaning?
What makes this nearly unbearable life, worth the living?
It’s worth noticing that the first person to see the Risen Christ was Mary Magdelene.
For her, maybe more than anyone else, Jesus Christ was the hinge of her life.
Jesus had changed her world something fierce!!!
It’s more than likely that Jesus was the first person to ever treat her like a human being—a person of sacred worth…
…someone as worthwhile as any one else.
Someone worth loving.
And so Mary, loved Jesus right back.
So “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.”
And this caused all kinds of chaos as she ran and brought back two other disciples…telling them: “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb…”
For as we read in verse 9: “They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.”
And after the disciples went back to their homes, Mary stayed “outside the tomb crying.”
How many of us have found ourselves standing outside the tomb of our lives…crying?…
…feeling all alone…
…betrayed by the world…
…with no hope?
As Mary wept she peeped her head inside the tomb for another look.
Could this really be happening?
Could things really be this bad?
Have you ever felt this way?
Have you ever felt as if things were so bad you had to take another look…just in case…just in case?
And it was then that Mary “saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.”
Sensing that someone was behind her—Mary “turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she didn’t realize it was Jesus.”
“Woman,” He said, “Why are you crying? Who are you 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 said to her, ‘Mary.’”
And as soon as Jesus called her name, she knew that it was Him!!!
For all her searching, it wasn’t really Mary Magdalene who found the Risen Christ, it was Christ Who found her!!!
And this is the normal experience.
This is the whole point of the Gospel—that God is seeking us…and that it is God Who finds us and calls our name!
When God found me, I wasn’t even looking for Him…
…and at first, I wasn’t even sure I wanted to be found.
It was only when I allowed Him to come into my life and begin the journey of the Christian life…that I realized how glad I was that He had searched me out!!!
“Here I am!” Jesus declares in Revelation chapter 3: “I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him [or her], and [he or she] with me.”
Do you hear Jesus knocking on the door of your life?
Do you hear the Risen Christ calling your name…asking to come in and live in you?
This is how it works with God.
As we are told, it is God Who first loves us…not the other way around.
Remember the parable of the lost sheep?
It is Christ, the Good Shepherd, Who goes after that lost sheep until it is found.
Or how about the parable of the lost coin?
It is Christ Who lights a lamp, sweeps the house, and searches carefully until He finds it.
We are the lost sheep. We are the lost coin.
If you are lost, you might very well know it.
What we don’t always understand is that Christ is searching for us, and that, as the Scripture promises, He searches “until he finds.”
Are we willing to allow ourselves to be found?
Although Mary was seeking Christ with her whole being, she didn’t recognize Him when she saw Him.
Instead, she thought He was the gardener.
And this is often the way life is for all of us.
Sluggishly or bravely we might accept some future for ourselves that doesn’t look so bright.
And this is all we see in it.
Yet, God Himself is in it…
…and has come very close to us…
…and is calling us to some kind of service for Him…
…He is calling us to something which will give our lives ultimate meaning.
But so often, our eyes are not looking for a Risen Christ, so we don’t see Him.
Saint Francis of Assisi was terrified of leprosy.
And one day, he was traveling down a narrow path, when he saw—horribly white in the sunshine—a leper!!!
Instinctively his heart shrank back, as he recoiled from the idea of being contaminated by that horrible disease.
But then he became ashamed of himself, and ran and cast his arms around that leper’s neck and kissed that leper and then kept going.
A moment later he looked back, and there was no one there…
…only the empty road in the hot sunlight.
For the rest of his life, Saint Francis was sure that it had been no leper, but Christ Himself whom he had met on that narrow path.
So often, when we look at others, all that we see is some needy and perhaps not so attractive soul…
…someone who does not appeal to us…
…but someone who lacks friendship just the same…
…or someone who needs some assistance.
“Did you not recognize Me?” asks Jesus.
“That was Me.”
“Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.”
“Thinking he was the gardener…
… Thinking he was the gardener…”
How blind can we be?
As someone put it long ago, “We have no cause to be ashamed of the gospel of Christ, but the gospel of Christ may justly be ashamed of us.”
Nevertheless, Jesus Christ is not ashamed of us!
We are His prize possession, that He seeks out until He finds!
What are we to make of this?
The Resurrection has radically changed the past, the present, and the future.
The tomb in which Jesus’ corpse was placed after His execution was empty; if it were not, then Christianity’s opponents could have produced His bones!
The Resurrection is the defining moment of history.
It is the hinge on which the doorway of history swings!!!
After Mary saw the Resurrected Christ she “went to the disciples with the news: ‘I have seen the Lord!’”
The world has never been the same since.
Millions upon millions of lives have never been the same since.
The Resurrection of Christ is the hinge on which the doorway of so many lives swings…
…how about your doorway?
…how about your life?
