John 20 1 thru 18 - Easter 2015

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“The Empty Tomb,” John 20:1-18 (Easter Sunday, April 5, 2015) Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. 2 So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” 3 So Peter went out with the other disciple, and they were going toward the tomb. 4 Both of them were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5 And stooping to look in, he saw the linen cloths lying there, but he did not go in. 6 Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen cloths lying there, 7 and the face cloth, which had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen cloths but folded up in a place by itself. 8 Then the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; 9 for as yet they did not understand the Scripture, that he must rise from the dead. 10 Then the disciples went back to their homes. 11

But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb, and as she wept she stooped to look into the tomb. 12 And she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one at the feet. 13 They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” 14 Having said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing, but she did not know that it was Jesus. 15 Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” 16 Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned and said to him in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means Teacher). 17 Jesus said to her, “Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ ” 18 Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”—and that he had said these things to her. PRAY It’s Easter – in many ways considered to be the highlight of the church year. And it’s always an intimidating Sunday for a preacher, because there are different expectations for the sermon on Easter than on just about any other day of the year. Church members are more likely to want to walk out inspired on Easter Sunday than on other days of the year. And then there’s the good possibility that on Easter Sunday there might be new people in church that haven’t been in a while, or who have never been in church at all before. And if you’re someone like that, welcome – we are very glad you’re here. And on every Easter I address at least part of my sermon to you because I want you to understand something particular about the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Bible makes it clear that the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is a historical fact. It is a fact of history that William the Conqueror, in 1066, won the Battle of Hastings, and took the English crown from the Angles and the Saxons. And in the same

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way, it is a fact of history that Jesus Christ was, around the year A.D. 30, raised from the dead. He experienced a literal, physical, bodily resurrection. So a lot of preachers – myself included – turn our Easter sermons into an argument that this thing happened. The preachers turn into lawyers and try to make their case that this resurrection actually happened, so you should believe that it happened. And that’s not a bad thing at all. I want you to believe that it did happen. It was so meaningful to me when about fifteen years ago or so I really began to examine the evidence and found out on my own that, yes, the resurrection of Jesus is a historical fact. But we can’t only speak to the history of the resurrection. We need to know why it matters. Years ago I heard a good illustration about this problem in a sermon. The preacher had read something written by a woman who grew up Hindu, then was Baha’i for five years, and then she became a Christian. But in this article she had written she talked about how unhelpful so much of the evangelism aimed at her by Christians was. “Christians claimed that Jesus was God, was the Son of God, and all this stuff about a trinity, which really I had no idea what they were talking about. They claimed this resurrection, which made no sense to me - not that I didn't believe Jesus couldn't rise from the dead if he were God, but I had no idea what possible relevance that could have … I assumed these were all myths, with no more relevant deep meaning than a fairy tale, except maybe metaphorical spiritual meanings. I wasn't even interested, because I never understood what importance that event should have to me. No Christian had ever explained that to me - they'd just say crazy stuff like, "I've been washed in the blood of the Lamb, and now I'm saved! Jesus died for your sins! Don't you want to be saved?" then they'd paint portraits of Hell - it all made zero sense to me, just as though someone said, "My red balloon popped and then candy canes fell out of the sky, your rabbit is winking at me, doesn't all this make you want to buy a new Nissan??" I am not exaggerating - this nutshell "Gospel message" makes absolutely no sense to a nonChristian, no real meaningful sense, anyway. You just have no idea what they are so excited about - so Jesus rose from the dead, big whoop, so what? Good for him, but....so what?” Say you are convinced that the resurrection of Jesus is a historical fact – there’s still one problem, there’s still one question: “So what?” Three points: first, the meaning of the resurrection. Second, the facts of the resurrection. Third, the grace and love in the resurrection. First, the meaning of the resurrection. Let’s set the stage for our text. Jesus was killed on Friday, and his body was laid in a tomb. Early on Sunday, the first day of the week, “while it was still dark,” Mary Magdalene went to the tomb. And she finds that it’s empty! So, she goes and gets the leaders of the disciples – Peter and John – to tell them the tomb is empty. And after they left, Mary returns to the tomb. Let’s pick up in verses 10-13: 10 Then the disciples went back to their homes. 11 But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb, and as she wept she stooped to look into the tomb. 12 And she saw two angels

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in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one at the feet. 13 They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” Mary is crying, because she thinks the empty tomb means someone has taken away the body of her Lord Jesus. When you lose someone you love, it’s right and normal to weep and wail and mourn. But what Mary didn’t know was that she had already gotten Jesus back. 14 Having said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing …” John 20:14. She had already gotten Jesus back – she lost him for a period of time, but not forever. Not permanently. The loss was temporary, and then she got him back. Here’s what the resurrection means – in Jesus Christ, this life cannot really take anything away from you. Not really, not permanently. Yes, there will be tears. Yes, there will be suffering. Yes, there will be disappointment. Yes, there will death. We will suffer pain and death and loss. But none of it is permanent. None of it lasts, because of the resurrection. The Bible says that when this age is over – this age of sin and death in which we currently live – Jesus will return. He will bring in the new heavens and the new earth. He will make all things new. And those of us who have died trusting Christ, and those of us who are alive and trusting Christ when the age ends, will be transformed. We’ll be resurrected. Jesus has already been resurrected – he’s the firstfruits, he’s the pattern that we will follow. But when Jesus returns, he will bring in the full harvest, the general resurrection will happen. All people in Christ will experience it. Therefore, the resurrection means that in Christ you can’t really lose anything you love. No more tears, no more pain – you get it all back. Now, how should we live if that’s the meaning of the resurrection? It means we should live without fear. When trials come, when disaster strikes, when disappointments happen, we can stand firm, we can hold on, we can persevere because of the resurrection. Recently I listened to an Easter sermon Tim Keller preached years ago, and in it he told his church about one point in Israel’s history, during the time between the Old and New Testaments, a 400 year period called the intertestamental period, when Israel faced intense persecution at the hands of Antiochus Epiphanes, the Syrian king. He was a brutal tyrant. And in order to subdue the Jewish population in Jerusalem he brought out people from the most prominent families in Israel and call on them to disobey God by eating pork, which was a violation of the law of Moses. If they didn’t do it, he would very often torture and kill them right in front of everyone, just to make a lesson of them. In the book of 2 Maccabees (one the books of the Apocrypha) chapter seven we read about a mother with seven sons who were brought out into public before the king. Every single son was asked, “Will you disobey the law of God? Will you obey the king?” and if he didn’t, then the king had his tongue cut out, his limbs lopped off, had him scalped,

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and then, still breathing, still alive, had him roasted alive over a fire in front of all of his brothers and his mother. When that one was dead, he would turn to the next son and say, “What about you?” But these men believed in a real, future, bodily resurrection. So listen to their responses. “After the first brother had died in this manner, they brought the second to be made sport of. After tearing off the skin and hair of his head, they asked him, “Will you eat the pork rather than have your body tortured limb by limb? Answering in the language of his ancestors, he said, “Never!” So he in turn suffered the same tortures as the first. With his last breath he said: “You accursed fiend, you are depriving us of this present life, but the King of the universe will raise us up to live again forever, because we are dying for his laws.” After him the third [brother] suffered their cruel sport. He put forth his tongue at once when told to do so, and bravely stretched out his hands, as he spoke these noble words: “It was from Heaven that I received these; for the sake of his laws I disregard them; from him I hope to receive them again.” Then, finally, we read how the mother went up to each one of her sons and encouraged them. “I do not know how you came to be in my womb; it was not I who gave you breath and life, nor was it I who arranged the elements you are made of. Therefore, since it is the Creator of the universe who shaped the beginning of humankind and brought about the origin of everything, he, in his mercy, will give you back both breath and life, because you now disregard yourselves for the sake of his law.” And we read that, finally, Antiochus had her killed, too. You say, “I can’t relate to that.” Of course you can’t. We live incredibly safe lives. We get upset when the designer life we had in our head isn’t happening, but most people, most cultures, most centuries, were only ever a step away from stuff like this. And they could face it because of their firm belief in the resurrection. That mother said, “We’re going to get those eyes back. We’re going to get those hands back. We’re going to get our family back. We’re going to get our lives back. We’re going to get love back. We’re going to get the world back, and far better than it ever was before, so don’t flinch.” Death is our greatest enemy, and when it comes it takes away everything. But only temporarily, because in the resurrection Jesus defanged it; he broke the power of death, and now for Christian all death is now is a servant. All death does is give usher us into the presence of Jesus Christ where, for all eternity, we get to enjoy the presence of God while we eat, drink, hug, and dance with those whom we love. No wonder Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:54-55, “Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” What’s Paul doing there? He’s mocking death – he’s saying, “Death, I taunt you. Death, I take the football and shake it in your face and spike it in front of you. I hotdog before you, death. Do you worst to me – go ahead, kill me. All you’ll do is make me better than I’ve ever been.”

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Now, tell me, in light of those glorious hopes of the resurrection, do you really have anything to fear? Can anything really, truly bad happen to you? Reason from the greater to the lesser: if God will not abandon you to your greatest enemy, death, and if God is going to give you in the resurrection everything you could possibly want, do you think he will abandon you right now? Isn’t that the Christian’s fear? No so much about what will happen to us after death, but that God won’t provide for and give joy to us and our loved ones right now? But the resurrection guarantees God’s provision. Romans 8:38-39: “38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Do you believe that? Do you believe that Jesus Christ rose from the dead two thousand years ago, and that one day – if you believe he died and rose for you, he will raise you and your loved ones up, too? Do you believe that? If so, you can face anything. Whatever the disappointment, whatever the suffering, whatever the pain, whatever the tears, even death. The meaning of the resurrection. Second, the facts of the resurrection. I don’t want this sermon to sound primarily like a lawyer’s argument to a jury, but I do want to give you enough facts so that if any of you are skeptical about the resurrection you might be convinced otherwise. Three reasons from the text why the resurrection is a fact of history. First, look at the details in the text itself. When people who are skeptical about Christianity engage with the resurrections accounts in the Bible – to the extent they do engage with them – view them as legends. They’ll say, “Of course, the Bible does say that Jesus rose from the dead, but that doesn’t mean that we should take it literally. It was written as a legend – like the old Greek or Roman mythologies. We don’t take those literally, we don’t believe that Hercules had Zeus for a father and a mortal as his mother. So we don’t have to take the Bible literally either when it talks about the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” Look at John 20. Notice the detail in it? We read in verse one that the resurrection occurred “on the first day of the week.” Notice how when Simon Peter and “the other disciple,” almost certainly the apostle John, ran to the tomb, John won the footrace, but Peter went into the tomb first to look around. And then notice the detail in verses 6-7: “He [Peter] saw the linen cloths lying there [those are the burial garments of Jesus] 7 and the face cloth, which had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen cloths but folded up in a place by itself.” You see the detail? In the ancient world, they did not write legends with that kind of detail. A legend begins with, “Once upon a time,” right? They do not begin with “on the first day of the week.” They don’t have details of how pieces of clothing were folded. The apostle Luke also writes about the resurrection, and he begins his book of the Bible like this: Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, 2 just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, 3 it seemed good to me

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also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, 4 that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught. Luke 1:1-4. No one has ever started a legend like that, because it’s not a legend – it’s investigative reporting. C.S. Lewis quote: “I have been reading poems, romances, vision literature, legends, [and] myths all my life [he had been – he was a scholar of medieval literature, and he’d read just about everything you could read in that field]. I know what [these legends] are like. I know that not one of them is like this. Of [the Gospels] there are only two possible views. Either this is reportage [Luke investigating and reporting the facts] … or else, some unknown writer in the second century, without known predecessors or successors, suddenly anticipated the whole technique of modern, novelistic, realistic narrative … The reader who doesn’t see this has simply not learned to read.” Second, look at the empty tomb. Obviously, the text tells us that the tomb was empty. But others factors point toward an empty tomb as well. Both the Romans and the Jews were fed up with this new group of Jesus followers, and it would have been so easy to crush this movement immediately after the crucifixion by simply going to Jesus's tomb, pulling out the body, and exposing the followers of Jesus as liars. But no one ever did, no one ever tried. No one in the first century even suggests that the tomb was not empty. That’s very, very significant. I can remember my sixth grade Sunday school teacher saying, “All they had to do was produce the body, and Christianity would have been over, but no one ever did.” Almost all scholars today (not just Christian, but even unbelieving scholars) say that it’s an established historical fact that Jesus’ tomb was empty. That’s just mainstream New Testament scholarship; no one seriously disputes that. Now, if Jesus was bodily raised from the dead, then that makes perfect sense. But if Jesus was not raised from the dead, then all the people who refuse to believe in the resurrection have some explaining to do – what happened to the body? And all kinds of odd theories have been put forward over the years to try to explain why the tomb was empty. There was the “swoon” theory of the 19th century, that Jesus only appeared to have died on the cross but really, he just “swooned,” he passed out on the cross from the loss of blood. The Roman soldiers thought Jesus was dead, so they put him in the tomb. But while lying in that cave Jesus recovered, he somehow moved the stone from the tomb’s mouth and got out, he snuck past the Roman guards, and met the disciples who mistakenly thought Jesus had been resurrected, and then Jesus went off and died somewhere else. You know, if you can believe that, you can believe anything. A lot of scholars, though, at one time supported this. But the more we’ve learned about crucifixion over the last hundred years or so and how brutal it was, and certainly the more we’ve learned about how skilled the Romans were at killing people and not just knocking them senseless, the more this theory has lost its credibility, to the point to where no one owns up to it anymore.

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Another theory says the reason the tomb was empty is because Mary Magdalene went to the wrong tomb that first Easter morning. She just thought Jesus was resurrected because – whoops! – she went to the wrong tomb. You can almost hear these scholars saying, “Women! You know, they can’t follow directions.” Besides being sexist, this theory doesn’t account for why Peter and John also went to the wrong tomb, nor why the Romans didn’t just go to the right tomb and produce the body once the Christian movement got off the ground. No one takes this one seriously anymore, either. By far the most common non-believing explanation for the empty tomb is also the earliest one. In Matthew 28, we read that the Jewish religious leaders spread the rumor that the disciples stole the body of Jesus. But, like the other theories, this one presents more problems that it solves. The Bible is clear: the disciples had clearly been completely routed by the events of the previous week. The idea that this group could somehow come together in two days, come up with this plan, then overpower the Roman guard to steal Jesus’ body strains credulity. And what on earth would their motivation for doing such a thing have been? If Jesus wasn’t raised from the dead, the only thing they were going to get out of committing this crime and spreading this lie was the Roman and Jewish authorities coming down on them like a ton of bricks. No – the tomb was empty. If the resurrection of Jesus happened, then it makes sense. All other theories for why the tomb was empty have been tested repeatedly over the centuries, and been found wanting. In fact, New Testament scholars who deny the resurrection don’t even really try to argue other theories anymore. They just ignore it. They do all this careful historical work with every other part of the Bible but they get to this and they basically say, “Well, we all know dead people can’t rise from the dead, so no matter what the facts are we just can’t believe in the resurrection of Jesus.” OK, fine, and if that’s you – alright. But just admit that you’re doing philosophy and not engaging with the facts of history. You have a philosophical objection to resurrection, but you’re believing it in the teeth of the historical evidence. Don’t be so narrow-minded – have the intellectual integrity to look at and examine the facts of the resurrection, and make your decision based on those facts, and not any preconceived notions you have about what can and can’t happen in the world. Third, look at the first witnesses. All the gospel accounts make it clear that the first witnesses to the empty tomb were women. John talks about Mary Magdalene discovering the empty tomb, and the other gospel accounts make it clear other women were also there early that morning. But women were considered notoriously unreliable witnesses in the first century, so much so that their testimony was not admissible in court. The Jewish historian Josephus says, “But let not the testimony of women be admitted, on account of the levity and boldness of their sex.” The Jewish Talmud says much the same thing. So, imagine you’re the disciples, and you’re trying (for some unknown reason) to make up this lie that Jesus has been raised from the dead. You know it’s a lie, never mind that. You know all it’s going to get you is pain, never mind that. You’re trying to get this

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story going. If it’s all a lie to begin with, why in the world would you have the first witnesses to this resurrection be women? It makes no sense! It would be like Hillary Clinton having someone from ISIS making her announcement that’s she’s running for President in 2016. It makes no sense – could she do that? Yes, but what possible benefit would there be? None – the only rational explanation is that it happened. These are the facts of the resurrection, so before you dismiss it as an impossibility at least, for the sake of intellectual honesty, examine the facts. Third, the grace and love in the resurrection. Let’s quickly look back at Mary. What do we know about her? As we just said, she’s a woman. By the way, she’s not Jesus’ wife or mistress. Dan Brown popularized that notion in his book The DaVinci Code, said that Mary and Jesus had children together, but no ancient witness even hints that there might have been any kind of sexual relationship between the two. Just about the only other thing we know about Mary Magdalene is from Luke 8 and Mark 16, where we read that Jesus cast seven demons cast out of her. Now the only other place in the gospels where we read that someone had multiple demons cast out of them was in Mark 5, the account of the Gerasene demoniac. And what was the guy like before Jesus cast the demons out of him? “He lived among the tombs. And no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain, 4 for he had often been bound with shackles and chains, but he wrenched the chains apart, and he broke the shackles in pieces. No one had the strength to subdue him. 5 Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always crying out and cutting himself with stones.” Mark 5:3-5. What’s my point? Here it is – the first person Jesus chooses to reveal himself to after his resurrection is a former mental patient. And I don’t just mean Mary had mild depression or bipolar disorder. She had seven demons living in her – she had to have been walking the streets, half-naked, screaming at passerbys and cutting herself. Yet, Jesus goes to her first – a mentally-ill woman in a male-dominated society – and opens her eyes. She’s the lowest of the low in Israel, but Jesus goes to her. It’s a beautiful picture that salvation, that a relationship with Jesus, is by grace. Friends, do you want a relationship with Jesus Christ? Are you here today and not a Christian, but want to become one? Do you know what to know the Lord Jesus? Then go to him. Go to him right now, through prayer, and say, “Lord Jesus, I want to know you. I want you to open my eyes and speak to me the way you did to Mary. Lord Jesus, show yourself to me.” Pray that prayer, and he will. And if you say, “But J.D., I’ve got so many problems in my life, I’ve made so many mistakes, I’ve committed so many sins, I’m so messed up – don’t I need to get those things fixed first?” You think you’re more messed up than Mary Magdalene was? You’re not – no one in here is screaming, halfnaked. You may be messed up, but no worse than Mary was when she met Jesus. One of Jesus’ nicknames is the Great Physician. No one says about a regular doctor, “Before I make an appointment with her, I need to make sure I’m well. I don’t want to embarrass myself by showing up sick at her clinic.” No, you go to a physician sick in order to get well. Same with Jesus. You can go to him, because a relationship with him is not earned. It is by grace.

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If you do, he’ll teach you to love. The truest mark of a genuine follower of Jesus (as opposed to someone who calls themselves a Christian, a nominal Christian) is love. When you see what Jesus did for you, it causes an explosion of love in your life. You feel so loved, and people who feel loved want to love others. That’s what makes Mary so great. Look at her. She makes all the other disciples look like idiots. She goes to the tomb as early as she can, because she wants to do something for Jesus. She takes spices to anoint his body. Peter and John are still asleep. She gets there, she sees the tomb is empty, so she runs back to get them, because she’s so desperate to find Jesus. Then, when Peter and John leave, she won’t leave the tomb. She won’t leave until she finds her Jesus. She’s crying. Even though she might get in trouble with the authorities, it doesn’t matter – she won’t leave. And I love verse 13 – she’s still calling Jesus “my Lord.” Even though she thinks he’s dead, she won’t say, “They’ve taken away the body,” but still it’s “my Lord.” Where does that love and devotion come from? She’s been loved. Jesus has so loved her that now she loves him. In Luke 7, we read about the sinful woman who wiped Jesus’ feet with her hair. For some reason, a tradition has sprung up in church history that says this too was Mary Magdalene, but it was not. However, I mention her because of what Jesus said about her: “Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven—for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little, loves little.” Luke 7:47. Mary had been forgiven much, she had been loved much, so now she loved much. Now, who doesn’t want to love like that? Who doesn’t want to be able to love others like that? Jesus can make you into the kind of person that does. If you feel like you’re an ungrateful person, an unforgiving person, a cold person, an impatient person – if you feel unloving and unlovable – Jesus can change all that. The resurrection of Jesus makes it possible for you to love like that. “Soar we now where Christ has led, following our exalted head; made like him, like him we rise, ours the cross, the grave, the skies.” That’s the power of the resurrection. PRAY

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