Easter Sermon John 20:11-18 Caledonia 04-09-2023
He is risen! He is risen indeed! If you’ve ever watched the movie The Passion of the Christ, you’ll understand why I say that it’s
almost too much for me. It leaves me feeling like a washcloth that’s gone through the ringer. By the time I finish watching that entire movie, I can’t really grab hold of the power and the comfort of the very last scene in the film. But that’s where YouTube comes in handy. I can search online for “Passion of Christ closing scene,” and in 0.59 seconds I can find a clip that is 1 minute and 24 seconds long. When I last checked, it had been uploaded 14,097 times. I’ll make sure I share the URL for that clip via social media later today. I’d urge you to watch it.
The scene is dramatic, purposefully understated compared to everything we’ve endured in the film up to that point. The camera places us within Christ’s black tomb and slowly pans toward the massive stone that closes the entrance. That stone is grinding its way up and back in its channel. You see a finger of the bright sun of that first Easter morning piercing the blackness of the tomb. All the while, the camera continues its slow pan, and the grinding of the massive stone continues until our gaze is focused on the slab where our Savior’s lifeless body had been laid. But the body is gone! The linen wrappings slowly collapse! Captivating music is now building. The camera pans a bit further. And then we see his face—no longer bloodied and bruised and battered but whole again! New and fresh again. Jesus, the risen Lord!
He sits for a moment, his eyes closed as if drinking in the warmth of the sun he once set in the sky. Then he opens his eyes and closes them again—as if pondering for a moment everything that had been accomplished. The music builds. The beat of drums is added. Voices—as if from a choir of angels—are laid over the top of the music score. Then our Lord stands, and we see the gaping hole left by a crude Roman spike in our Savior’s hand. He takes one step forward, and the movie comes to a close. Powerful! Memorable! But the record of Scripture is even better. Jesus’ work to save us was done, but now was the time to announce his victory by appearing to those who still thought him to be dead. So his first steps led . . .
His First Steps Led Beyond His Tomb
1. To Mary, who didn’t seem to notice two angels.
If merely watching the movie The Passion of the Christ is enough to leave you and me feeling exhausted and emotionally drained, imagine what it was like for Jesus’ first disciples who actually lived through the nightmare of Good Friday! Was that day even more horrific for the women, like Mary Magdalene, who followed Jesus? After all, the gospel writer John makes sure we know that “Jesus’
mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene were standing near the cross” (John 19:25). What was that like? A nightmare unfolding? If anything could cause a post-traumatic stress disorder, I’m thinking that might do it!
These women who loved their Lord so much were also the first to visit his tomb on Easter morning. They carried “the spices they had prepared” (Luke 24:1). They came to pay their final respects to their dead teacher. As they drew closer to the tomb, they worried about how they would move that massive stone out of the way. But there were also other concerns, weren’t there? How were they going to talk their way past the Roman guards and break the seal Pilate had placed on the tomb? I don’t know.
They didn’t know! They were still in shock! And that certainly included Mary Magdalene, who went to the tomb at the crack of dawn. The first time Mary arrived there, she saw “that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. So she left and ran to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved. ‘They have taken the Lord out of the tomb,’ she told them, ‘and we don’t know where they put him!’ ” (John 20:1,2). After sharing this report, Mary followed Peter and John back to the tomb. Once those two arrived, they went inside and checked everything out. Yes, the tomb was empty. Yes, Jesus’ body was gone. So back home they went. Why stay?
There was nothing else to do there. John even adds this unflattering editorial comment to his record: “(They still did not yet understand the Scripture that he must rise from the dead)” (John 20:9). At times, can we also be a little slow in grasping the height, depth, length, power, and certainty of all our Savior’s promises? Perhaps especially at a challenging time like now? “But Mary stood outside facing the tomb, weeping. As she wept, she bent over, looking into the tomb. She saw two angels in white clothes sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and one at the feet. They asked her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping?’ ” (John 20:11-13). Because her heart was broken! Because she was in shock! She couldn’t see what was right in front of her: “two angels in white clothes.” Were there halos around their heads? Were there harps playing in the background? Who knows? Mary wouldn’t have noticed! All she could think of was this: “They have taken away my Lord, and I don’t know where they have laid him” (John 20:13b). She was stuck in the nightmare of Good Friday. Christ’s body hanging on the center cross, Christ’s lifeless body later laying in the new tomb Joseph of Arimathea had cut into the rock—those were the images seared into her heart and mind
(Matthew 27:55,56,61)!
That’s why she was weeping, sobbing. The kind of grief that wells up from deep inside you and comes crashing out like breaker waves, and you can’t hold it back. As far as Mary knew, her master was dead. And along with him died all those promises, all those hopes, and all those dreams she had tucked away in her heart from all those times she had heard him “preaching and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God” as she and some other women followed Jesus “traveling from one town and village to another” (Luke 8:1).
Any of us who has experienced trauma may understand at least a little of what Mary was going through that first Easter morning. It’s why she seemed oblivious to the angels, frozen to the spot, struggling to think through her next move. But our Savior is a caring Savior who understands each one of us better than we ourselves do! He knew exactly what Mary needed. That’s why his first steps led outside his tomb.
2. To Mary, who thought Jesus was a gardener.
The apostle John’s account is poignant and personal. It’s amazing the little details that he includes here, amazing because John penned this record close to 60 years after Jesus’ resurrection, somewhere around a.d. 90. I can’t even remember what I had for breakfast yesterday. How could John, the “Elder” (2 John 1), remember? Because the Holy Spirit, by inspiration, made every detail sharp and clear in John’s mind, heart, and soul.
“After she said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, though she did not know it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping? Who are you looking for?’ Supposing he was the gardener, she replied, ‘Sir, if you carried him off, tell me where you laid him, and I will get him’ ” (John 20:14,15).
At this point, theologians, who sometimes act as if they have way too much time on their hands, come up with all kinds of reasons why Mary didn’t recognize Jesus: (1) Our Savior kept her from recognizing him at first. Could be; he’s God. He can do whatever he wants. (2) Mary’s eyes were blurred, so she didn’t recognize Jesus. Well, duh! She was weeping, sobbing. This was gut-wrenching sorrow; of course her eyes were blurred! (3) Jesus may have looked different than he did before his resurrection. That one might have some merit. On Easter Sunday afternoon, Cleopas and his companion, the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, didn’t recognize Jesus when he joined them and walked along the road with them. Of course, there’s this too: Jesus would also be the very last person they’d expect to see because of the nightmare of Good Friday.
So I guess if seeing “two angels in white clothes sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying” (John 20:12) doesn’t make you stop and go, “Say what?” then you aren’t going to recognize Jesus, who rescued you from the hell on earth of being possessed by seven demons (Luke 8:2; Mark 16:9)! You won’t recognize the soothing voice of the teacher whom you followed for three years (Luke 8:2,3). You won’t recognize the Lord who only a few weeks earlier had told Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me will live, even if he dies. And whoever lives and believes in me will never perish” (John 11:25,26). You won’t recognize the Lord of life who stood outside the tomb of Lazarus and “shouted with a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come out!’ The man who had died came out with his feet and his hands bound with strips of linen and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus told them, ‘Loose him and let him go’ ” (John 11:43,44).
How can you recognize the living Lord when all you can remember are the horrors you witnessed on Golgotha’s hill, when you stood beside “Jesus’ mother, his mother’s sister, [and] Mary the wife of Clopas” (John 19:25)? You can’t! Not when you’re doubled over weeping, not when you are stuck in Good Friday.
Do you and I ever get stuck in the hopelessness of Good Friday? Stuck grieving over the spouse, parent, or child the Lord took home and maybe we still feel it was far too soon? Stuck worrying about how we’re going to pay our bills now that we’re out of a job because our company downsized? And what are we going to do if we get the coronavirus? And what about our retirement savings? And what’s going to happen to our business? How will our congregation and our ministry move forward during these uncertain times?
There are so many concerns and so many fears that threaten to keep you and me mired in the bleakness of Good Friday! But there is only one way to roll back our massive stones of fear, sorrow, worry, and weeping! Only Easter can do that! The risen Savior, who knew exactly what Mary needed that first Easter Sunday, knows exactly what we need this Easter Sunday! We need to rivet our attention on Jesus. We need to see how his first steps led outside his tomb!
3. To Mary, who witnessed to us all, “I have seen the Lord!”
Just one word was all it took for Jesus to lift the fog, the fear, and the darkness from Mary’s heart and mind. Just one word to free her feet that had been frozen to the ground just outside our Savior’s tomb. “Jesus said to her, ‘Mary.’ She turned and replied in Aramaic, ‘Rabboni!’ (which means, ‘Teacher’). Jesus told her, ‘Do not continue to cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to my Father. But go to my brothers and tell them, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father—to my God and your God.” ’ Mary
Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord!’ She also told them the things he said to her” (John 20:16-18). The King of kings and the Lord of lords who had finished his work to pay in full for the sins of the human race; the one who had chained Satan and his minions in the dungeons of hell and had already descended there to declare his eternal triumph (Colossians 2:15); the one whom the Father would exalt and give “the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee
will bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:9-11); that risen and glorious Christ who is our Good Shepherd. He cares about us. And he knows all of his sheep, every last one of us, by name (John 10:14).
So Jesus simply said, “Mary.” And the darkness of Good Friday began to be pierced by the sun that is Easter. “Rabboni!” (Teacher!) Mary replied. I suspect her tears continued—that’s the way human emotions work; you can’t just turn them off like a faucet—but now they became tears of surprise. Of wonder! Of relief that began to sweep through Mary in waves. So she hugged her Lord! She held him tight! This was clinging. She didn’t want to ever let him go again!
But that wouldn’t work. Jesus had other places to go, other people to see, more names, like Thomas, for example, to speak. For our Savior intended to have hundreds of witnesses ready to swear to us in the pages of Scripture (1 Corinthians 15:1-8), “I have seen the Lord!” His first steps led outside his tomb, and Jesus made sure he met Mary, because he knew she needed him. Then our Lord sent Mary to his “brothers” to share the Easter news with them, because he knew they needed him. And through the pages of Scripture, Mary and so many others stand together, shoulder to shoulder, shouting to us as one: “We have seen the Lord!”
There’s Peter with his hand in the Bible: “To be sure, we were not following cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the powerful appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty” (2 Peter 1:16). There’s John, an old man who could never forget: “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have observed and our hands have touched regarding the Word of Life—the life appeared, and we have seen it. We testify and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. We are proclaiming what we have seen and heard also to you, so that you may have fellowship with us” (1 John 1:1-3).
Together the witnesses shout to us, “Easter is real! The Lord’s gracious forgiveness of sins is real!” Jesus made that crystal clear when he sent Mary with a message for his “brothers.” Even that greeting was pure grace for those who had scattered like scared rabbits into the night outside Gethsemane only days before. There is the same pure grace for us too who sometimes get stuck in our Good Friday nightmares. Because, you see, the writer to the Hebrews assures us that the risen Lord is not ashamed to call us his “brothers” either (Hebrews 2:10-15).
That is why he came. That’s why he took every one of his final steps to the center cross on Calvary. And that’s why his first steps led outside his tomb! Amen.
Dan Wilkens… story? Resurrection will take away the hurt, it already does, but tomorrow (or then) it will be gone forever. That’s Jesus and his loving plan for us is worth knowing and holding sacred every single day.