Lighten the Load

 Read John 20

We remember the exchange between Mary and Jesus on that morning of the first day. I will pick up at the point where Peter and another disciple—likely John—have left the tomb and Mary looks in and sees two angels.

They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?”

 

“They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.

 

He asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are 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.”

 

She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”).

 

Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”

 

Jesus told her to go and tell the disciples what she had seen.  In other gospels Jesus adds meet me in Galilee or to remind Peter that this message is for him too.

It seems that Mary was the first person to see the resurrected Lord.  She couldn’t give him a big hug because he told her not to—he had yet to ascend to the Father.

Mary did as instructed but it appears nobody returned to the tomb after this. Jesus appeared to them—all except Thomas—on the evening of that same day.  We know the story of Thomas having to see for himself and he got that opportunity a week later.

We remember Thomas not needing to put his finger in the holes in the hands of Jesus or in his side.  Thomas was convinced immediately—my Lord and my God.

I love the words of Jesus that followed.  You believe because you have seen.  Those words applied to all of the disciples not just Thomas. Jesus continued, blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.

What wonderful words that followed the resurrection, but I would like us to consider what happened to kick this day off.

Mary had gone to the tomb.  The stone had been removed.  Evidently, she didn’t look inside, or maybe she did. She ran back to tell the disciples and told them that they have taken the Lord and we don’t know where he is.

So, maybe she did look in the tomb or maybe she drew her own conclusions. In either case, it was enough to prompt Peter and John to race to the tomb.

Long ago and far away, I was the commanding officer assigned to train and prepare a reserve infantry company to mobilize and go to war.  That day came with the first Gulf War.  When the reserves returned, their first sergeant remained on active duty for a few months.

Every day at noon we would go for a 5, 6, or 7-mile run.  As we were returning to my office and nearing the end of our run, I would ask if we were going to the sidewalk or the flag pole for the end of our run.  The first sergeant would say one or the other and I would sprint ahead of him to that point to make sure I finished first. Yes, I have always been that ornery.

After a couple months we entered the Dam to Dam 20 K Run.  It was 20 kilometers as you might suspect.  We paced each other for the duration.  This probably helped us go a little faster than we might have on our own. 

As we neared the end of the race, there was tape along the sides of the route that narrowed our running lane so the person at the finish line could take our tags and record the order of finish.

As we approached that point, the first sergeant asked me, is that the finish line? I said, I think so. I had never run this race before so his guess was as good as mine, but he sprinted in front of me so the person at the end of the funnel took his tag first.

He got me.  When it counted and our names would be listed, his should appear first. Years later, I googled the run and the year and found a list of finishers.  I was listed as something like 1,012 of over 9,000 runners (maybe more, maybe less—a whole bunch of people) and the first sergeant was listed as 1013.  Somehow, my tag got put on top of his. So for all posterity, I got to the finish first, not that anyone will ever check or care.

John—this gospel’s author notes that the other disciple—probably John himself—beat Peter to the tomb. He stopped but didn’t go in. Peter caught up but didn’t stop.  He went in.

John followed.  Jesus wasn’t there but his burial garments were.  The gospel says:

They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.

So what did these two disciples do?  They went home, or at least to their home away from home in Jerusalem.

Upon hearing Mary’s report and seeing for themselves that Jesus was not in the tomb and his burial clothing was left behind, they rejoiced in his resurrection and started singing He lives! He lives! Christ Jesus lives today!  Not exactly!

They still didn’t get the big picture, even though Jesus told them more than once what had to happen.  Jesus even chewed out Peter when he said he wouldn’t let it happen.

These two men who would become pillars of the church were dumbfounded.  They didn’t get it.  They did the only thing they could think of—they went home, wherever that was in Jerusalem.

Maybe there would be a little coffee left or half a bagel. If they had stayed in a first-class joint, maybe some yogurt.  They went back to where they were staying.

Other than having a little chuckle at these disciples’ expense, why do I point this out?

There are two things that I will challenge you to do in celebration of today.  The first is begin a year-long celebration of the resurrection.  Yes, find a way to celebrate the victory of Jesus over death every day.  He took away our sins and conquered the grave.  We can look forward to life because of this.

Amen!  Hallelujah! Praise the Lord! Oohrah!

We should celebrate today.  It is special not because it’s the actual date on the calendar but resurrection is special, and the love that sent Jesus to the cross is special. We are special to God.

The second thing is that I want you to cut yourselves some slack.  Yes, the Holy Spirit lives within us.  Yes, that same Spirit brings us to conviction when we do something wrong or fail to do what we should have done.  The Spirit is a blessing but very demanding.

It is tough to live up to the right standing that God gave us in the blood of Jesus.

On occasion, consider Peter and John on that first morning.  Despite the great things that they did in the days and years to come; they were somewhat confused.  They didn’t get it.  They were at a loss as to what to do so they went home.

Cut yourselves some slack every once in a while, when you don’t have everything figured out.  Take a breath when you don’t have all the answers.  Just chill every so often and know that God is God and he does have this figured out.  He knows the next steps.

Trust him and quit beating yourself up every time you miss the mark.  We still confess to God where we fall short.  We still aim high desiring to bring glory to God, but we are going to stop beating ourselves up and feeling down when we don’t quite have an explanation for everything—when we are not exactly sure what the next step is.

Who can understand the ways of the Lord?  Who can grasp the whole picture?  Sometimes, we know exactly what we must do, and sometimes, we wait for the Lord to reveal our next step.

We need to celebrate the resurrection of the Lord and what he has in store for us as his disciples.  We need to be known by our love and be a light in the world, and we need to lighten our load a little and stop carrying around the need to know exactly what to do right now.

Sometimes, we are to wait upon the Lord.  Sometimes we just trust and see where he leads us.  Sometimes we just go home, but we must never despair for we know with certainty that God loves us more than we can understand and will never stop loving us.

Let us celebrate the resurrection of our Lord.

Let’s lighten our load.  The Lord will direct our next steps in his time.

Amen.

Blessed are those who have not seen, yet have believed

 Read John 20

The morning of the first day brought revelation but not complete understanding.  Jesus was no longer in the tomb. His body had not been taken as was Mary’s initial concern.

Mary had subsequently seen and spoken with the resurrected Jesus, and told the disciples.  We have no evidence that they returned to the tomb.

It seems they were scared.  Jesus had been killed. He told them that he was giving his life but in their minds, they could be next on the cross.  They were scared.

Gathered in one place—well everyone except Thomas—and behind locked doors, they gathered for their evening meal.  They were surely fearful of a knock at the door.  The Sanhedrin could come calling any minute, and they would not come alone.  Their guards—soldiers if you will—would be with them.

They got what they wanted with Jesus.  They had their way. They even got the Romans to do the dirty work. The religious hierarchy and the Roman government had no idea that they were parts of a bigger plan.

The disciples wondered; would they be next?  Would they come tonight? Imagine trying to settle in and get comfortable for the evening meal knowing that there might come a knock at the door.

Or would they even knock?  Would they just kick in the door and seize everyone inside?  I’m not sure what the rule was on No-Knock Warrants back then. 

You might feel better being in a locked room but you had no peace.  Jesus had appeared to Mary, but the disciples had only her word for it.  They were still scared.

And then came Jesus.  He didn’t even knock.  He just appeared in the locked room. 

On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.

Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit

That initial appearance packed a big wallop. 

·       Peace to you

·       You are commissioned to go into the world—you are sent

·       Receive the Holy Spirit

Surely, the disciples experienced joy, but it might take a bit for them to know peace.  They were gathered and scared, but Jesus told them as his Father had sent him, he was sending them.  He had discussed this in the hours before his death.

And finally, he gave them the Holy Spirit.  Hold on.  I thought the Holy Spirit came at Pentecost, some 50 days later.  Jesus gave the Spirit at this time but it would not be fully manifested in them until that day of Pentecost.  Some things take time to produce fruit.

They would be filled with the Spirit in a few weeks, but Thomas missed this meeting.  Thomas did not accept the accounts of his fellow disciples.  He needed convincing.  He had to see for himself.

Thomas was not asking for more than the others had received.  Thomas wanted to see the resurrected Jesus with his own eyes.

That’s the model the world uses:  Seeing is believing.

We have a different model:  Believing is seeing.  Paul would say that we walk by—live by—faith not sight. 

Thomas wanted the world’s model.  He wanted to see for himself.  After all, the others said they had seen.  Thomas got what he asked for.  Jesus arrived in the locked room a week later and Thomas was there.

I’m guessing that the other disciples having seen Jesus in his resurrected body still thought it prudent to keep the door locked, but that’s a separate discussion.

Jesus appeared to Thomas and told him to touch whatever he needed to believe it was his Lord.  Thomas fell to his knees proclaiming my Lord and my God. Further inspection was not required.

Jesus spoke to Thomas and surely the other disciples, but he spoke of us.  He said you believed because you saw.  Blessed are those who didn’t get to see me first hand but still believe.

Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

We have not seen; yet we have believed.  We are blessed for we have believed.

We move from this encounter to the first of John’s short epilogues. There is another at the end of the next chapter, but this one is especially for us.

Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name

We were not there.  We did not see first hand but we have these accounts in the gospels so that we might believe and have life in Christ.

Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.

Amen.

No Angelic Explanation

 

Read John 20:1-9

Today we celebrate the resurrection of the Lord.

Up from the grave He arose,

With a mighty triumph o’er His foes,

He arose a Victor from the dark domain,

And He lives forever, with His saints to reign.

He arose! He arose!

Hallelujah! Christ arose!

We could just say Amen and go eat lunch.  The atonement took place on the cross.  The Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world was slain for us.

He was given the best burial possible in the time available, but the atoning sacrifice was complete.  It was finished.

God had done for us what we could not do for ourselves.  He made us right with him by the blood of his one and only Son, Christ Jesus.

And all of the disciples knew exactly what had happened or maybe not so much.  John’s account begins with Mary Magdalene going to the tomb.

It was early on the first day of the week.  She could have come at sunset the day before, but who travels at night to a tomb?

Was she alone?  We don’t know.  Other gospels mention more than one woman heading to the tomb, even having conversation along the way about who should roll the stone away.

Those women and conversations are not mentioned here. What is mentioned is that Mary arrived at an empty tomb and rushed back to Peter and another disciple whom we believe to be John the gospel’s author.

She proclaimed that Christ the Lord is risen today, Alleluia!   Here’s the full transcript.

Christ the Lord is ris’n today, Alleluia!

Sons of men and angels say, Alleluia!

Raise your joys and triumphs high, Alleluia!

Sing, ye heav’ns, and earth, reply, Alleluia!

I think Mary was on a roll.

Love’s redeeming work is done, Alleluia!

Fought the fight, the battle won, Alleluia!

Death in vain forbids His rise, Alleluia!

Christ hath opened paradise, Alleluia!

OK, that’s not exactly what Mary said.  Actually, she imputed her own thoughts into her observation.  Of course, we have never done that.

“They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!”

See saw an empty tomb but she reported that somebody had taken him.  She even reported who took him.  Who?

They took him. The notorious they took their Lord from the tomb.

What could be done?  Peter and John raced to the tomb.  John got their first but stopped at the entrance.  Peter caught up and went straight in. John followed.

They saw the cloth that had been wrapped around his head and other strips of linen used to encase his body, but there was no body.

John’s account noted that they saw and believed but did not yet understand that Jesus had to rise from the dead.

What did they believe?  Mary’s report.  He was not there.

What did they not yet understand?  The grave could not hold the Son of God.  He had told them before but they did not understand.

They did not understand.  There were no angels to explain things.  There is no account of Roman soldiers in shock.  There is no mention of an earthquake and no angel sitting on top of the stone that used to cover the entrance.

Jesus was gone.  Mary said they took him.  The two disciples saw parts of the burial material.  If someone took the body, why unravel the linen?

These men having rushed to the tomb and seen it empty with only the linen remaining, surely had more questions than answers.

It seems like there’s never an angel around when you need one, so these two men went back to where they were staying.

Imagine not knowing what happened.  Imagine trying to make sense of everything Jesus had told them while he was with them.  Imagine thoughts of the religious hypocrites getting their hands on the body. 

One thing our human minds do with great skill is to imagine the worst.  Absent all the facts, our human nature often imagines the worst.

Have you ever done this?  It is our human nature to imagine the worst.  It’s not our new nature, but it is our sinful human nature with which we still wrestle.

While this account is different in many ways from the other gospels, explanations do come. Mary returned to the tomb and two angels talked with her.  She departed and met Jesus along the way, though she did not recognize him until he called her by name.

The men had to wait until that evening when Jesus entered a locked room and appeared to them.  Thomas was gone but Jesus would catch up with him later. 

Imagine going through the worst Sabbath Day ever.  Imagine the thoughts racing through the minds of these two disciples and then all of them after their report.  Imagine the worst-case scenario possible.

And then Jesus appeared to the disciples. 

Christ the Lord is ris’n today, Alleluia!

Shock, joy, surprise, elation, and surely some disbelief as to their Master standing in their presence had to overwhelm these men in an instant.

They had surely believed the worst-case scenario but God had delivered the best-case scenario. 

He lives! He lives! Christ Jesus lives today!

He walks with me and talks with me along life's narrow way.

The disciples lived the story of salvation moment-to-moment.  We know the whole story. 

Christ who is God lived as a man.

He fulfilled prophecy as prescribed through so many prophets.

He was an unblemished Lamb.

He was slain for our sins.  By his blood we are cleansed.

That’s a big story right there.  That’s our salvation right there.  You think that the day Jesus died for us on the cross would be our big celebration.

But that was not the end of the story.  The sacrificial lamb does not get to live.  He didn’t.  Christ died for our sins.  He really suffered and died for us.

But that was not the end of the story.  Verified dead by the soldier at the cross, Jesus was placed in a tomb before sunset and the onset of the Sabbath.  Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea did what they could for the body of Jesus.  Time was short, but there was no doubt that Jesus was dead.

The Lamb of God was sacrificed for our sins. But that was not the end of the story. 

He arose a Victor from the dark domain,

And He lives forever, with His saints to reign.

We are those saints!

Today we don’t sing a dirge.  We don’t mourn.  We know the story and the sacrifice and the resurrection of Christ the Lord and we sing it with joy in our hearts.

He arose! He arose!

Hallelujah! Christ arose!

Today we celebrate the resurrection of the Lord. In his resurrection is the promise of ours.  We may have life, life abundant, and surely life eternal with God.

Because He lives, I can face tomorrow,

Because He lives, all fear is gone,

Because I know He holds the future,

And life is worth the living,

Just because He lives!

Amen.

 

John 20 - Part 2

 

Read John 20

In the hymn I Love to Tell the Story, the third verse begins:  I love to tell the story, for those who know it best, seem hungering and thirsting to hear it like the rest.

You know the story.  Many of you know it well.  You have been reading it all week.  It was surely a much easier read that last week.

Nobody comes to this part of the story and says, yeah, ok, I know how that comes out. Shakespeare may have consistently climaxed his stories in Act III, Scene II but John takes you all the way to chapter 20.

Put yourself in that time and place just for the moment.  Jesus is gone.  Mary thinks someone has taken the body.  OBTW—this huge stone has been rolled away.  Peter and John race to the tomb.  There are some burial cloths but no body. 

They go back to where they were staying.

Mary comes back and in a somewhat circuitous conversation discovers the Lord is alive.  For the second time that morning, she returned to the disciples with news.

I have seen the Lord!

On that same evening, the disciples were gathered in a locked room and Jesus appeared to them.  Peace be with you was his greeting.  Now there is joy.  Seeing is believing.

Again, Jesus said peace be with you.   He said receive the Holy Spirit and breathed on them.  You might think that the Spirit didn’t come until Pentecost but consider that the disciples received the Spirit at this time and it was fully manifest upon them at Pentecost.

These were some confused men.  It might take a few weeks to bring to recollection what they had been through and how it all fit together.

Jump ahead a little to Saul’s conversion.  He met the resurrected Jesus on the road to Damascus.  This was a powerful conversion of a man well versed in God’s written word; yet, Paul spent some time in the wilderness after this encounter putting the pieces together.

He knew God’s word inside and out, but he had realized he didn’t know God very well.  Some time to process, digest, reconcile his education and experience with what God had called him to do was needed.

The disciples needed a little time as well.  About 7 weeks should do the trick, but the Spirit was given at this time. 

OBTW—Thomas missed this meeting and would not believe what had happened.  You know the story.  I won’t believe it until I see it.

Thomas wanted the forensics.  I want to see holes from nails and a spear.  Thomas gets the less than affection nickname in the modern times of Doubting Thomas. 

Perhaps a better title would be Be Careful What You Ask For Thomas.

Jesus appeared to Thomas later and told him to see and touch what he needed to.  Thomas believed and proclaimed, My Lord and My God.

Then Jesus speaking to Thomas speaks directly to us.

Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.

That is the story that we celebrate once a year.  This year, you get it again.  We should celebrate resurrection time and time again.

The crosses that we display on our church buildings and homes are empty.

We remember that the tomb was empty.

We sing Christ Arose.  Hallelujah, Christ arose.

But for the moment, I ask that we look at the very end of this fantastic chapter.

Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book.  But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

If you have read the Bible for a while, you have asked these questions or others like them.

How was Jesus as a baby?

Did he have to go through the terrible twos?

We see a glimpse of Jesus when he was 12 but what happened between then and when he turned water into wine when he was about 30?

Did he act like he knew everything when he was a teenager?  What if he did know everything?  Now there is a parenting challenge.

Did he ever get grounded?

How many days or weeks or months was it between some events in the Bible?

Will there be a college football season in 2020?

It seems like there is so much that is not included in the Bible that inquiring minds want to know. Listen again to how John ends this chapter.

Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book.  But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

We have enough to believe.  Our charge is to believe.  Our calling requires us to believe.  Our discipleship calls us to believe.

We are charged with more:  trust, obedience, love to name a few, but we must believe and this short closing to this chapter tell us that we have what we need to believe.  These written words are what we need to believe.  These testimonies passed from generation to generation are what we need.  We are blessed that we have them in writing.

Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.

Let’s celebrate our atonement in the blood of Jesus. Let’s celebrate resurrection. Let’s celebrate life eternal.  Let us celebrate the victory over sin and death that we know in Christ Jesus.

Let’s do this believing in what we have not seen. 

Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.

We have all that we need to believe, and we are blessed for believing.

Amen.

John 20 - Part 1

 

Read John 20

Trust in the Lord with all of your heart and lean not on your own understanding… But they just killed him.  They killed our Lord and our Teacher and our Master.

In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight…  But they just killed him.  They killed our Lord and our Teacher and our Master.

I want to trust the Lord, but my eyes tell me that the One who I followed as Messiah and Christ is dead.  The one who was to be my King forever and ever is dead.

Are they coming for me next?

Speaking of next, what would be next even if they don’t come for me?  Fishing? Moving? Trying to go back to normal.  What exactly will be my new normal?

Sometimes the toughest battles that we must fight take place in our own mind.  We often gravitate to the worst-case scenario, but who could blame the disciples, they had killed the Lord?  Surely that’s the worst-case scenario, right?

Then Mary Magdalene returned from the tomb with news.  The stone had been removed.

What?  Didn’t see that coming.  Who would move the stone?

Mary added that they had taken the Lord and we don’t know where they put him.   This was her assessment not raw intelligence.  She saw an empty tomb and made her own conclusions.  Who they was never is defined, but the body of Jesus was gone.

Peter and another disciple (probably John) raced to the tomb.  That was the race that we read about, but I think there were a couple other races.  Do you ever wonder what they were thinking along the way?  What thoughts raced through their minds as their legs propelled them to the tomb?

John won the foot race but stoped at the entrance to the Tomb.  Peter flew by John and entered the tomb.

Peter inventoried the cloths present, strips separated from the head cloth, but no body and no clues.

The scripture said that they saw and believed, but is not specific about what they believed.  Did they just believe he was gone?  Yep, Mary was right.  There’s no body here.

Or did they believe that Jesus had risen from the dead?  John’s gospel noted that these two did not yet understand that Jesus had to rise from the dead.  Did they believe he had risen but just did not understand that it was required by scripture?

Surely, there were many unanswered questions.

The next sentence gives me a run for my money as far as dry humor goes.  Having taken all of this in, the disciples went back to where they were staying. 

Yeah, ok, he’s not here.  Let’s go.

We are blessed to be able to look back across 2000 years and know the story.  We didn’t live it moment-to-moment.  We don’t have to wonder, what’s next.

We know, but what do we see with these two disciples?  These are two from what we might call the inner circle. They saw more than most, but what we see are sheep without a shepherd.

Understand that joy will come, but bewilderment and that feeling of being lost would come first.  He was gone—he died—and they mourned.

He was gone—his body was gone—and they did not understand.

Let’s go back to Peter and John racing to the tomb.  What were they thinking?  Theft? Resurrection? Somebody’s idea of a bad joke?  What had the Master said about…

Such was the condition of the disciples illustrated in these two.

Excitement, confusion, wonder, expectation, uncertainty, and who knows what else. 

We can look back and see these things clearly but do we see them in ourselves.  We want so much to trust in the Lord but we wonder what is going on all around us.

We want to be able to set aside our own understanding but what does our mind retreat to when the stress level goes up?  What goes on in our mind—things called negative fantasies—can be debilitating.

Do we truly acknowledge God in everything we do and say and think or are we just dumbfounded and confused at times wondering why God has not fixed everything?

Do we trust him that the path he has set us upon is the right path?

The disciples were at a loss.  What now?  First, they kill him.  Now they have taken him.  What now?

Because we have read the chapter and the rest of the gospel, we know, but sometimes we are just like the bewildered disciples in the tomb.

This morning, I want to remind you that there is always more to the story.  We will hit some low points in our lives, but we don’t need to stay there. 

We won’t always understand but we must trust.

We won’t always see God’s plan at work but we must acknowledge that he alone is sovereign.  He is Lord.

We know that there is more to this story.

Remember, there is also more to our story as we follow our Lord.

As you read and study, celebrate the resurrection of the Lord.

As you face today and the next, realize that there is more to come as we live out our stories.  Never fear the worst case scenario. 

Amen.

Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed

Read John 20:24-29

It’s hard to get through an Easter morning without somehow finding your way to John 20.  Early in the morning Mary is headed to the tomb.  She brings back unbelievable news about the stone being rolled away.

Then Peter and another disciple, likely this gospel’s author—John—race to the tomb.  John won the race but stopped at the entrance to look in.  Peter caught up and went right on inside.  John followed Peter inside the tomb.

They saw the clothing that Jesus was buried in but there was no Jesus.  The scripture tells us that these two men did not yet comprehend what scripture had prophesied, that Jesus must rise from the dead.  They did all that they knew to do.  They went home, or at least to the place they were calling home for the time being.

Mary returned to the tomb and found two angels seated inside.  They asked:  Why are you crying?  Do you not understand what has happened?

See turned around and saw a man.  She didn’t know this was Jesus.  She thought it might have been the gardener, but he asked the same question:  Why are you crying?  Who are you looking for?

Can he not know what’s happening?  I am looking for my Lord.  Someone has taken him.  If it was you, please tell me where he is.

 Jesus replied:  Mary.  Jesus called her by name and instantly she knew who he was. 

She replied, Rabboni!  Rabbi!  Teacher!  There was not only recognition but joy in her voice.

She wanted to hold on to Jesus but instead, Jesus gave her instructions.  Go tell the disciples that you have seen me.

This was still early in the morning.  I could imagine the conversation among the disciples once they got this news.  Peter and John were probably thinking, “Hey, we were just there.”

I’m sure the disciples had a hundred questions that they asked a thousand different ways.  I would guess the place was abuzz with speculation.

That evening, with the doors locked for who knows that they might not be next to be nailed to a cross, Jesus entered the room and spoke a simple phrase, “Peace be with you.”

He showed them his wounds and gave them some preliminary instructions.  I am sending you into the world with this message of forgiveness and empowered by the Holy Spirit.  It would take about 5 weeks for this all to come together, but this thing that we call the church age was about to explode upon the world.

OBTW—Thomas was not there with the other disciples.  I don’t know if he had a dental appointment or was trying to be the crowd at the unemployment office—it did appear that he was out of a job, but he was not there when Jesus appeared to his fellow disciples.

And…  When he returned, he did not believe what his brothers had told him.  He was adamant that he would have to see Jesus for himself, wounds and all.  He wanted some hard evidence.

Now it was a week later and the disciples were all gathered in a locked room and Jesus appeared again.  He offered the same greeting, “Peace be with you.”

But the action moved directly to Thomas.  Jesus told Thomas to do what he needed to do.  Put your finger through the hole in my hands.  Feel the wound in my side.

It never got that far.  Thomas was overwhelmed.  He saw and he believed.  He acknowledged his Master:  My Lord and my God!

Next, we come to words for every believer who has professed Jesus as Lord for the next two millennia.

Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.

This is us.  This is your parents and grandparents.  These are the settlers on the American frontier.  These are Martin Luther and John Calvin.  These are the early believers in Antioch, Philippi, and Corinth. 

Something over 500 people saw the resurrected Jesus.  Everyone else has professed their faith without this physical appearance. 

We have believed the unbelievable, and Jesus said that we will be blessed for it. 

Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.

Amen!

Woman, why are you crying?

Read John 20

Before the Spirit left his body, Jesus said, “It is finished.”

His atoning sacrifice was complete.  Jesus stood in our place and took the punishment for all sin upon himself, the only human flesh that could be an Unblemished Lamb for us.

We can understand this somewhat.  We have the benefit of hindsight and scriptural explanations that would follow.  Blood must be shed for the forgiveness of sins.  It was.

Why must blood be shed?  That’s something to ask Jesus on a slow day in eternity.  We have no shortage of theories and suppositions, but for this age all that we can say it that it was required and it was accomplished.

The sacrifice was complete.

What did that mean 2000 years ago?

The Jews had this trouble maker out of the way.  The Romans surely wanted nothing more to do with this matter.  The disciples had scattered and were disoriented.  They reconstituted physically, but emotionally they were devastated.

A secret follower of Jesus, Joseph of Arimathea, asked Pilate for the body of Jesus.  He could not let it hang on that cross with the Sabbath so near.  He was assisted by Nicodemus.  They moved the body to a nearby tomb that had never been used.

Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about 75 pounds worth and these two men wrapped the body in linen.  They had to hurry.  Sundown brought the Sabbath and while many extraordinary things had occurred over the past few hours; these men would observe God’s law and the Sabbath day that God had established and Jesus had said it was made for them.

We can only imagine what transpired from Friday evening to Sunday morning.  Somehow, the disciples had come back together, surely afraid of what might happen to them.  Jesus had told them that the very thing that had them so distraught must happen.  He even told them what would come next.

But they did not comprehend.

The story that begins the first day of the week—Sunday—begins with Mary Magdalene.  Other gospels mention other women, but John notes only this Mary.  She started for the tomb while it was still dark.  People with a casual interest in something don’t get up at zero dark thirty.  Mary did.

She arrived at the tomb to find the stone rolled away.  Had it been in place, it is not clear what she hoped to accomplish, but it had been rolled away.

We don’t get the full witness statement here.  Did Mary look in the tomb?  Did she go in?  We don’t know.  All we know is what she reported.

They have taken the Lord out of the tomb and we don’t know where they put him.

The culprit for this unthinkable act has been the culprit of the ages—they.  They did it.  They took him.  It is their fault.

Perhaps Mary analyzed the evidence:  Stoned rolled back, empty tomb; it must be they—surely it took many of them in any case—who did this.  They took him.  They put him somewhere.

Mary does all that she knows to do.  She runs back to Peter and another disciple, whom most presume to be John—the author of this gospel—and gives them the news.

Peter and John race to the tomb.  John wins the race but stops at the entrance to the tomb.  Peter zooms right on by him.  Peter was like that.  Dive in head first and see what happens.

John followed.

There were burial strips and a folded cloth but no body.  There was no Jesus.  The scripture said that they saw and believed; but did not comprehend what had happened.  Surely there was some Proverbs 3:5-6 wrestling going on at that point.

Jesus had been telling them for some time that he must go to Jerusalem.  He would be killed, and on the third day he would rise from the dead.

The disciples heard this but it never quite registered.  I compare this to me attending a risk management class in the late 1990’s.  I was the only program manager in the class.  The rest of the class were bona fide geeks, some even had slide rules and like to use them.  This was in the age of computers and mega-calculators, they wanted to work out these complicated risk equations by hand.

I bought the software that did all of this stuff behind the scenes.  For the risk equations that I had to do as part of the class, I was glad when they were finished.  The geeks wanted more problems to work.

These two disciples believed what they could wrap their minds around, but surely did not comprehend the magnitude of what had happened.  There was some cognitive dissonance between what they were doing their best to believe and their understanding of what they believed.

These two men did the only thing they could think to do.  

They went home.

Sometime during this epiphany by the men, Mary had made her way back to the tomb.  She is not listed among the contenders in the race described only between Peter and John.  Perhaps she walked back and caught her breath as she had already run back to report her earlier observations.

Whatever the case, she was at the tomb again, and she stood outside the entrance crying.  She bent over and looked inside and this time there were two angels in white seated where the body of Jesus had been.

The angels spoke and in one of the few times where angels have speaking parts in the New Testament, they don’t begin what they have to say with “Fear not!”

Instead, they ask:  “Woman, why are you crying?”

Mary surely exasperated, replied, “They have taken my Lord and I don’t know where they have put him.”

We might think that the angels were a little callous.  Did they not know the anguish of this woman?

I have visited the homes of families that had just lost a loved one many times and never have I thought of beginning a conversation with the phrase, “Why are you crying?”

Were these the only angels available for duty on that weekend?  Weren’t there some with better tact?  C’mon, really, who begins a conversation on a day such as this with “Why are you crying?”

What were they thinking?

In the late 1980’s, I was stationed on independent duty in Des Moines, Iowa.  My mission was to train reservists and make sure they were ready to deploy to combat.  We didn’t do things the traditional way that reserves train with a show up Saturday morning and go home Sunday afternoon.

We came in Friday evening and trained until late Sunday afternoon.  We did our best to squeeze 2 weeks of training into about 50 hours.  You had to throw in a little sleep because some of these young men had a hundred miles to drive home at the end of the weekend.

As the end of the training drew near, I would gather with the reserve officers as the Marines did their final inspections and turned in their weapons.  This was a critical time as I had to make sure the officers were already tuning in for the next month’s training.  I did not want to be interrupted.

On one occasion, my admin chief—a gunnery sergeant—kept sticking his head in the door raising a finger that he just needed a moment.  I gave him the look that said “no.”  He did this a couple more times and I gave him the look a couple more times.

This was my time with these officers before they returned to were often consumed by their civilian jobs.  Did the gunny not get this?  He had access to me all week long.  These few men in my office were going home in a few minutes.  Didn’t he get it?

I need to tell you something about this gunnery sergeant.  After about 145 years, he had finally gotten season tickets to the Minnesota Vikings.  He was a diehard fan and had finally got what he had wanted for decades.  He also had a bookie.

So on the weekends that we didn’t have reserve training, he would go to the game and pick up “cards” from his bookie.

He would always give me one.  I gave him five bucks and quickly picked my winners from a dozen or so games.  It was five bucks I never intended to see again and I was too busy to make intelligent guesses.

I had given my card and five buck to the gunnery sergeant earlier that week and had forgotten all about it.  It surely was not on my mind while I was trying to cram a two hour meeting with these officers into twenty minutes.

Finally, the gunny just couldn’t contain himself and burst into the meeting and stood in front of my desk and said, “You won!”

Evidently, I had picked all of the winners.  I think it amounted to about $150 that I won, but it was still something that couldn’t be contained.

The gunnery sergeant hand been pacing outside of my door surely thinking, “Why is he upset with me?   Does he not know why I need to see him?  Does he not know the news?”

Does he not know?

The gunny had some great news and I wasn’t ready to hear it.  Really?

Two angels were sitting in a tomb one morning and a woman shows up crying.  How can she be crying?  Does she not know what has happened?  Did he not tell them ahead of time?

Woman, why are your crying?

Mary was at the center of the greatest event in all of history.  How could she be crying?

You know what happened next.  She has this encounter with a man whom she believes to be the gardener and even asks him if he knows where the body might be.

“If you did it, it’s okay; just let me go get him.”  Mary wonders if the “they” who took the body might be this man, but she can’t alienate him if she wants to recover the body of her Lord.

She does not know with whom she is speaking.  This man asks the same thing as the angels, “Why are you crying?”

All Mary wants is the body—“please let me have him!”  Mary needs to tend to the body of her Lord who was killed in such a brutal manner and buried in haste.

But in an instant, in a single word, her concerns are gone.

“Mary.”

She looks again at this man and knows him to be Jesus.  “Rabboni, Rabbi, Teacher” was all that she said but in that moment she knew that she served a risen Savior.

In that moment, she understood the question:  Why are your crying?

This time her report to the disciples was not just of an empty tomb but of a risen Lord.  They would not see him until later, but Mary’s questions had all been answered in an instant.

We know the whole story.  We don’t have to live it moment to moment.  We know the sacrifice required to take away our sin was made.

We know that death was defeated.

We know that the grave could not hold Jesus.

We know that he did exactly what he said he would do.

We know that in this resurrection is not only life for Jesus but for us all.

We know the assurance that Jesus gave in the Great Commission:  I am with your always even to the very end of the age.

We know the Spirit has been given to us.

We know that God will not leave us or forsake us.

We know the depth and breadth of God’s love in this sacrifice and resurrection.

So how could we ever be sad?

How could we ever be afraid?

How could we ever be discouraged?

How could the temporal pressures of this world take away our joy?

We know the whole story from that first Easter morning and we know the joy behind the question:  “Why are you crying?”

This is a day of celebration like no other.  There is no room for anguish and anxiety. 

Jesus Christ is risen and we know that to be true.  We know that we serve a risen savior and that in him we have life, life abundant, and life eternal.

It reminds me of a Bible verse familiar to us all.

Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.

The cross is empty.  The grave is empty.  Jesus offers us life that is full.

Today we celebrate our victory in Jesus.  Cry if you must, but let them be tears of joy!

Amen.