Seeing And Believing - An Easter Sermon

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.)