Barry Metz 06/28/15
The Resurrection Changes Everything
John 20
Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early while it was still dark, …. I’m reading in the book of John, chapter 20, verse 1… John 20, verse 1…. and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. 2So 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.” 3So Peter went out with the other disciple, and they were going toward the tomb. 4Both of them were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5And stooping to look in, he saw the linen cloths lying there, but he did not go in. 6Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen cloths lying there, 7and the face cloth, which had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen cloths but folded up in a place by itself. 8Then the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; 9for as yet they did not understand the Scripture, that he must rise from the dead. 10Then the disciples went back to their homes.
(If you’re visiting today, you might be wondering what universe we live in at Kilgore Bible--Easter in June? No, we walk through the scriptures a verse at a time and we’ve been plowing through the book of John and it just so happens that today is John 20, the resurrection story and next week we’ll finish the book with John 21.)
The message this morning is entitled “The Resurrection Changes Everything.” And I’m convinced that you and I need that reminder a lot; a message on the resurrection of Jesus Christ is always timely.
Let me highlight threethemes, or threads, that we’ll see as we move through John, chapter 20.
We’ll see an emphasis on ‘seeing’the facts of the resurrection or ‘seeing’ the risen Savior leading many of the disciples to‘believe.’We’ll see that several times in the chapter…notice the order… seeing and then believing…. and then Jesusat the end of the chapter will pronounce a benediction of blessing, verse 29 on those who have not seen and yet have believed. And if we ponder that a minute, that makes all the sense in the world. There needs to be a transition. The first witnesses experienced the resurrection first hand—they had the opportunity to see and thenthey believed. Those who come after—believers alive after the first century—are in a different placealtogether. We must believe without seeing. But that’s the essence of faith isn’t it? We walk by faith…what’s the rest?...not by sight.
A second theme in John 20 that will pop up several times is that there is no cookie cutter way that people come tobelieve that Jesus is the Son of God. In fact, it seems that John 20 is designed to explain how and when and to what degree, Jesus’ disciples came to the place of believing that Jesus really rose from the dead.[1] And the stories are different. The road to belief is a unique journey for all of us. The road to belief for your loved ones who don’t yet know the Lord will be unique.
And finally…
3. We’ll seethat resurrection news completely turns the lives of those who hear it upside down. The resurrection changes everything! Mary Magdalene’s grief is turned to joy and then she’s given a mission. The disciples’ fear is transformed into gladness and they too are commissioned by Jesus: “As the Father sent me, even so I am sending you.” And finally Thomas’ doubt is transformed into a stunning affirmation of faith, “My Lord and my God!” The resurrection does change everything. And it doesn’t just change everything for those first century characters; it changes everything for us. And we’ll close the message this morning exploring why that is so.
Looking at the first ten verses of John 20, “three time references stand at the gateway of the chapter”[2]… It was the ‘first day of the week’…. ‘early’ and ‘while it was still dark.’ Jesus had been in the tomb, parts of three days but now it was the first day of the first year of the risen Lord’s reign and everything is different.
Mary Magdalene arrived at the tomb, she saw the stone rolled away, and without looking in, she went running to tell Peter and John that grave robbers had stolen the Lord’s body. The robbing of graves was sufficiently common in the first century so much so that the Emperor Claudius (41 AD-54 AD) eventually made the crime a capital offense.[3]
Here is an artist’s rendition of what the tomb might have looked like…
There were several varieties of tombs used in the first century.[4] Sometimes a kind of stone bench ran around the inside wallof the tomb where a newly buried body would be placed. After a year the bones would be collected and placed in a box and put further back in the tomb. As depicted in the slide you can see Jesus’ grave clothes lying on the bench furthest from the door and if you look closely enough, the artist has depicted the head cloths folded up separately. Well Mary didn’t even look in, she just assumed that the body had been stolen and went running to tell Peter and John. She was, as the church fathers said, an apostle to the apostles[5].
Peter and John received Mary’s news, “They’ve taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they’ve laid him” and Mary’s foot race begot their foot race. Don’t you wonder what Peter and Johnwere they thinking as they ran to the now empty tomb? What were they feeling?
(Note in verse 2, Mary refers to Jesus as the Lord. In this chapter and chapter 21, Jesus is called “Lord” no fewer than fourteen times)[6]The resurrection has occurred and everything is different!
And possibly because John was younger—at least that’s what some in the early church believed[7]-- he got to the tomb first, verse 4. He stooped to look in and he saw the linen cloths lying there but he didn’t go in the tomb. Verse 6, Peter impetuously came barreling past him and rushed right into the tomb. Peter saw the linen cloths that had clothed Jesus’ body. But he also saw, verse 7, the face cloth, which had been on Jesus’ head, folded in a place by itself.
(In contrast to Lazarus who came out of the tomb still wearing his grave clothes, Jesus’s resurrection body apparently passed through the linen wrappings very much in the same way as he will be able to appear to his disciples, later in this chapter, in a locked room. The face cloth presumably used to keep Jesus’ jaw in place was folded up in a place by itself)[8]
Then John, verse 8, who had reached the tomb first but had not gone in, also went in and he….saw and believed.
(At this point, the fact that two Jewish men saw the items mentioned in verses 5-7, renders the evidence admissible under the Jewish legal system, Deut. 17:6; 19:15)[9]
But don’t miss the order there in verse 8, he saw and he believed. He didn’t see the risen Jesus. He saw the burial clothes which no grave robber would have left (If you were going to steal a body, wouldn’t you plan on taking the body clothed?) It seems that John had time to do the math: the removed stone + the empty tomb + the linen wrappings + the now separate and folded headcloth….it all added up: Jesus had been raised from the dead!Jesus really was Lord! Death really was defeated! Everything Jesus had taught themwas true! And yes everything was different![10]
“It is the birth of this simple but deep faith that this gospel seeks in its readers more than it seeks any other reality. John, our writer, hopes that his written evidence—the carefully placed ‘linen cloths’ of his gospel so to speak—will move seeking readers to look at the evidence….and believe!”[11]
Now verse 9 tells us that at this point, they did not understand the scripture that he must rise from the dead. What are we to do with that? It tells us that John and these early disciples didn’t come to faith because of the scriptures—and note the word scripture is singular here and we don’t really know what scripture John has in mind[12]—the disciples came to faith because they personally witnessed some of the facts of the resurrection. Doesn’t this correlate well with the two disciples on the road to Emmaus in Luke 24 on Easter Sunday afternoon? Had they connected the scriptures to what had happened on Easter Sunday? No!
“It wasn’t the ancient texts that gave birth to the faith in the resurrection; it was the facts!”[13]
Well verse 10 tells us that Peter and John left and went back home. And it seems that Mary had followed them back to the tomb and we pick up her story in verse 11.
11But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb…and the term for ‘weeping’ denotes the loud wailing typical of people in the ancient near east[14]…. , and as she wept she stooped to look into the tomb. 12And she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one at the feet. 13They 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.” 14Having said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing, but she did not know that it was Jesus. 15Jesus 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.” 16Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned and said to him in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means Teacher). 17Jesus 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.’” 18Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”—and that he had said these things to her.
Whereas John and Peter saw only an empty tomb and grave clothes, Mary Magdalene--the woman who had been gloriously delivered from demons, the woman whose love and determination and loyalty shines brightly in each of the resurrection narratives-- was graced with a visit from two angels, one at the head and one at the feet of the bench where Jesus’ body had lain. Many of the early church fathers, reflecting on thispicture of the angels positioned at the head and foot of where Jesus lay couldn’t help but see the mercy seat on the Ark of the Covenant, with the cherubim on each side of the seat.
William Temple, a more recent student of scripture writes: “The place of his death was between two thieves; “He was numbered with the transgressors” (Is. 53:12). The place of his burial was between two angels; for God had set Him forth in his blood to be a mercy-seat—the place where God’s forgiveness meets man’s sin”[15]
Verse 13, the angels said to Mary, “Why are you weeping?” It’s hard to know if this is a mild rebuke (“This is no time for weeping…Recognize what has happened…Mary, See the truth”) or just an attempt to enter Mary’s pain. Mary answered the angels with her conclusion about what she’d seen: “They have taken away my Lord and I do not know where they have laid him.”
At this point Mary turned around and saw Jesus standing nearby. But she didn’t realize it was Jesus. Is this because she’s been crying? Perhaps but this lack of recognition is common in several of the resurrection stories. Even in the next chapter, John 21, the disciples who’ve gone fishing will hear and see a man on the beach but they won’t recognize him as Jesus… until he tells them where to fish, and the do, and they can’t pull up the fish they catch. In Luke 24, the resurrected Jesus came up to two anonymous disciples on the road to Emmaus and he walked with them and explained the scriptures to them, and they didn’t recognize him….until he took the bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them and then their eyes were opened. In Matthew 28 some doubted that Jesus was in their midst. So this lack of recognition seemed to happen a lot in the resurrection stories.
Well Jesus, who is still incognito, asked Mary the same question the angels asked her, “Why are you weeping?” And then he added a question of his own, “Whom are you seeking?” Mary, thinking Jesus was the gardener protested vs. 15. And then Jesus said her name…Mariam! And her eyes were opened. She replied “Rabboni”, Aramaic for ‘my teacher’ ….John 10 reminds us that the Good Shepherd knows his sheep and ‘calls them by name’ and his sheep ‘know his voice’[16]
In the space of a second or two, Mary moved from incredibly deep despair to incredibly deep joy. Jesus was standing in front of her! And perhaps at that moment she fell to her face and grasped him by the feet[17]--our text doesn’t say that—but it’s a reasonable assumption and Jesus replied to her, verse 17, “Do not cling to me for I have not yet ascended to the Father”…
Jesus’ response to Mary is a bit difficult[18]. At first glance it would appear that Jesus is saying ‘I’m not to be touched in my pre-ascension state’ (and the unstated corollary would be “If I had ascended, it would be ok”). But isn’t that the reverse of what we’d expect? Wouldn’t it seem more natural that Jesus could be touched before his ascension rather than after it? [19]
It’s quite possible that Jesus is spiritually redirecting Mary to the fact that his relationship with her from this point will be different—his physical presence will be replaced by his presence through the Spirit. Said differently, Mary, in a sense, is trying to hold on to the relationship like it was before the resurrection. Things are different. Jesus must move on; the Spirit will take his place.[20]
17Jesus 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.’”
In all the gospels when one meets Jesus one is given a mission.[21] And so it is with Mary here…. Go to my brothers…. Who is he talking about? His disciples. And what have they become? His brothers… Jesus is the firstborn among many brothers, Romans 8:29 tells us. “Because of Jesus’ death and resurrection and exaltation, his disciples…and you and me as we put our faith in Christ…share in his Sonship to the Father”[22] We’re adopted into God’s family.
Before we move on, notice in this story, verses 11-18, “Mary moves from weeping and panic to recognition and commissioning, from not knowing where Jesus’ body is, to knowing the destination of his ascension.”[23]The resurrection makes everything different.
Well in verse 18, Mary obeyed and the scene shifts to Easter Sunday evening in verses 19-23
19On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews….notice the disciples are filled with fear… Jesus came and stood among them…OR….right in the middle of them, the place he wants to occupy in every Christian gathering…. and said to them, “Peace be with you.”20When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. 21Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.”22And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.23If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.”
The disciples had gathered together on Easter Sunday night. They locked the doors because they were afraid of what the Jews would do. But locked doors provide no barrier for the resurrected Jesus who came and stood in their midst and said, “Peace be with you”
Just as Jesus’s resurrection body passed through the grave-clothes, verses 6-8, so it passed through the locked doors and simply materialized in the midst of the disciples. “Jesus’s body was sufficiently corporeal to show his wounds and sufficiently immaterial to pass through closed doors.”[24]