Our bible reading today is one that is full of feeling, faith, compassion and emotion. It is one of the base lines and benchmarks of the Christian faith. We have Mary Magdalene making her way, in sorrow, to the tomb of her Lord and Master. She is distraught, her eyes are full with tears and her heart is heavy with grief. She has a solemn job to do. She has come to anoint the body of Jesus.
She and all the other followers of Jesus have gone through the ordeal of the crucifixion on Good Friday. They feel as though their hearts have been torn from their bodies. The one that had meant everything in the world to them had died and left them and was now laying in a cave. Their faith was being tested to the full. Jesus had told them that he would rise from the dead but did they really believe it? Through knowledge of our bible we know that some did have the faith to believe and trust but there were some who had a nagging doubt, even if it was only for a split second and then there was Thomas of course. Oh dear doubting Thomas he’s another sermon on his own.
But Mary was going to be in for a magnificent surprise. What she thought was going to be a great ordeal and a hard task to carry out was in fact going to be a triumphant and joyful moment and a memorable point in her life and in Christian history.
Jesus had risen from the dead. Alleluia.
Today I would like to spend some time with you looking at three important points:
1. To accept the resurrection you must meet Jesus
2. To have faith is the key to the kingdom of
God.
3. To receive Jesus we must listen for him
calling
To accept the resurrection you must meet Jesus
The resurrection from the dead of Jesus is a hard and difficult aspect to understand and for non-believers or new Christians it is somewhat hard to accept. Indeed I am astounded to know that there are some ministers who do not accept the resurrection how they can believe this and be ministers is beyond me. They ask how can anyone be brought back from the dead, after they have been nailed upon a cross and certified as being dead. There was no mistaking it Jesus had died. The Romans were experts at crucifying people. It was something they did day in and day out. They were experts and knew their trade well. Jesus had been an important and very prominent public person and had caused the authorities some embarrassment. They had to ensure that this was one crucifixion, which was done properly otherwise they would be in big trouble.
Many people met with Jesus on the day he was nailed to the cross. The Roman soldiers met him. Firstly they mocked him but as the day went on they changed their attitude and said, “Surely this is the son of God.” The thief that was on the next cross to him met him. He asked to be accepted into the Heavenly Kingdom. Mary Magdalene met him on the resurrection morning but did not recognise him. People today meet with Jesus. Some have wonderful experiences where their lives are changed. They are given a new sense of direction. What has previously been confusing suddenly makes sense. With others it may be hard to understand that the meeting with Jesus is happening. They may not recognise him as he comes to them.
Mary was a person such as this she was meeting with Jesus and yet she didn’t realise it. She was in the garden, she was pleading with a man who she thought was the gardener asking him to tell her where her Lord and master was. But when he spoke she recognised his voice she knew then that this was her Lord. How many times have we met with God and have not recognised him. We need to open our eyes and see that the presence of God is in the bird song, the sunshine, the garden and the breeze.
But how do we meet with God. What can help us to bring us closer to an encounter with his presence?
Pray. Our first duty to God, ourselves, and to the world around us each day is to pray. Pray that we can feel what David in the Psalms felt. Pray that we can be set on fire like Paul. Pray that God will remove sin from our heart and our life and in the lives of others.
Praise. Sing to the Lord! Privately praise the Lord. Publicly lift our hands and our voice to him. God is pleased to ignite the hearts of those who worship him.
Meditate. Focus our mind upon deep spiritual truths. Meditate upon the cross and the wounds of Christ. Let the eyes of our hearts gaze upon the hands, the feet, the side, and the face of the crucified Son of God. Let the cross set us on fire! Meditate upon our eternal judgment, and upon our future in our resurrected body.
If we do these then we will move closer to God than we are now.
Read. Read the Bible and other great Christian classics, which show the strength of faith and what that faith can achieve.
To have faith is the key to the kingdom of God.
To have faith is to believe in something or someone, to fully trust, to be so confident that you base your actions on what you believe. To have faith is to be fully convinced of the truthfulness and reliability of that in which you believe.
Faith in God then, is having the kind of trust and confidence in God and in Christ that leads us to commit our whole soul to Him as our Saviour
Faith is a spiritual substance. When we have this spiritual substance in us, it communicates to us a certain inner knowing that the thing we are hoping for is certainly established, even before we see any material evidence that it has happened.
Faith is a spiritual force. Faith in God is a response to God’s Word, which moves God to act. Jesus said in Mark 11:23, "For assuredly I say to you, whoever SAYS to this mountain, ’Be removed and cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but BELIEVES that those things he SAYS will be done, he will HAVE whatever he SAYS." Words mixed with the real, pure faith can and will move mountains or any other problem that we face.
Faith in God must be from the heart. It is not merely intellectual. It is spiritual. Faith causes us to know in our hearts before we see with our eyes. "For we walk by faith, not by sight." (2Cor 5.7)
Hope is a condition for faith. Hope is "a positive unwavering expectation of good". Hope is an anchor for the mind and the soul. It keeps us in the place where we can believe, but it is not in itself "faith". Yet, without hope there are no "things hoped for", and therefore there cannot be faith.
Through faith we can know we have the answer to our prayers before we have prayed. Jesus said, "Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them." (Mk 11:24). God expects us, even commands us, to believe that our petitions are heard by God AT THE MOMENT WE MAKE THEM. We must believe that the response is immediately sent WHEN we pray. Faith is like the confirmation slip in our hearts that the goods are on the way. We have that confirmation slip instantly from God. We sense it in our hearts. The manifestation of those goods, the answer received, comes later as long as we are patient and do not throw away our confidence. (Hebrews 10:35-39; Hebrews 6:12)
Faith is like a cheque. All you have to do is hold on to the cheque, go to the bank to present it and you can confidently expect the money to appear in your account after a certain time. If you throw the cheque away the money will not be put in your account. God is trustworthy and always has resources to back his promises.
Living faith always has corresponding actions. You have to walk the talk. We talk what we really believe, and we act according to what we really believe. The heroes of faith like Abraham were considered men of faith because they acted on what God showed them. They acted on their faith. They did walk the talk.
To live in faith means to do and say what you believe is right, without doubting.
Faith is a rest. It is compatible with inner peace. It is not "trying to believe". To say that you are "trying to believe" God is to say that you don’t believe Him. The man who is "trying to believe" may be sincere, but he does not have faith in that area yet.
To receive Jesus we must listen for him calling
Until we take time to be quiet, we’ll not hear God. God cannot be heard in noise and restlessness; only in silence. He will speak to us if we will give Him a chance, if we will listen, if we will be quiet. "Be still," the psalmist wrote, "and know that I am God."
"Listen, listen to me," God pleads, "and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare. Give ear and come to me; hear me, that your soul may live"
Listen to Him. There’s no other way to take Him in. "When Your words came, I ate them,” said Jeremiah. Sit at His feet and let Him feed you. That’s the "better" place to be.
The problem with many of us is that though we read God’s Word, we’re not feeding on God. We are more intent on mastering the text, finding out its precise meaning, gathering theories and theologies, so we can talk more intelligently about God. The main purpose of reading the Bible, however, is not to accumulate data about Him, but to "come to Him," to encounter Him as our living God. Jesus said to the best-read Bible students of His day, "You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me"
The scholars read the Bible, but they didn’t listen to God; they "never heard His voice." We should do more than read words; we should seek the Word exposed in the words. We want to move beyond information to seeing God and being informed and shaped by His truth. There is a passing exhilaration, the joy of discovery, in acquiring knowledge about the Bible, but there’s no life in it. The Bible is not an end in itself, but a stimulus to our relationship with God.
Start with a desire to meet Him in a personal way. Select a portion of Scripture, a verse, a paragraph, and a chapter and read it over and over again. Think of Him as present and speaking to you, disclosing His mind and emotions and will. God is expressive: He speaks to us through His Word. Meditate on His words until His thoughts begin to take shape in your mind.
Thoughts is exactly the right word because that’s precisely what the Bible is "the mind of the Lord." When we read His Word, we are reading His mind, what He knows, what He feels, what He wants, what He enjoys, what He desires, what He loves and what He hates.
Take time to reflect on what He is saying. Think about each word. Give yourself time for prayerful reflection until God’s heart is revealed and your heart is exposed.
Listen carefully to the words that touch your emotions and meditate on His goodness. "Feed on His faithfulness." Think about His kindness and those glimpses of His unfailing love that motivate you to love Him more. Savour His words. "Taste and see that the LORD is good."
Spend time in adoration of the Lord and you’ll be all right. So much depends on our temperament, our family and job demands. The state of our health, our age and level of maturity. At first 10 or 15 minutes may be all we can manage. Then perhaps we will be ready for an hour every day. It’s not important how much time we spend at first. The important thing is to make a beginning. God’s Spirit will let us know where to go from there.
Our reading should be toward relishing God and delighting in Him "to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD," as David said. When we approach God in that way, it inclines us to want more of Him. "I have tasted Thee," Augustine said, "and now I hunger for Thee."
There’s no need to worry about texts that we don’t understand. Some meanings will escape us. Everything difficult indicates something more than our hearts can yet embrace. As Jesus said to His disciples, "I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear." There’s much that we will never know, but some of the hard questions will be answered when we’re ready for them.
God can never be understood through the intellect. Insight arises from purity of heart, from love, humility, and a desire to obey. It’s the "pure in heart" who "will see God," Jesus said. The more of God’s truth we know and want to obey, the more we know.
George MacDonald wrote, "The words of the Lord are seeds sown in our hearts by the sower. They have to fall into our hearts to grow. Meditation and prayer must water them and obedience keeps them in the light. Thus they will bear fruit for the Lord’s harvesting."
We shouldn’t worry about our doubts either. How could God possibly reveal Himself in a way that would leave no room for doubt? The best thing is to take our questionings and doubts directly to God, as David often did. His psalms are filled with discomfort and disagreement with God’s ways. He fills page after page with confusion and disbelief. It’s good to do so. God can handle our hesitancy.
If we’re having a hard time with God, if we don’t yet trust His heart, we should read the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. There we hear what Jesus said and did and what was said about Him. There we see Him making visible the invisible God. When Philip asked to see God, Jesus replied, "Don’t you know Me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ’Show us the Father’?"
The main use of the Gospels is to help us see the character of God made real, personal, and understandable in Jesus. What we see Jesus doing, caring, suffering, weeping, calling, seeking is what God is doing and has been doing all along. If you can’t love God, try to see Him in Jesus. There He’s revealed as one who has no limits to His love; one to whom we can come with all our doubts, disappointments, and misjudgements; one "whom we can approach without fear and to whom we can submit ourselves without despair." So on this resurrection day rejoice and accept God with the faith and love that will allow us to come close to him. For God so loved the world that he gave his only son.
