Sermon – John 20: 1-18 “I Have Seen the Lord”
Presbyterian Church of Easton
Easter Sunday, April 17, 2022
Happy Easter! This is the day we have been waiting for. Jesus Christ is risen! He is risen indeed. Let's pray. Jesus, victorious Lord, We exult in your resurrection. As we sing “alleluia” with our voices, let our lives embody “alleluia” as a testimony to your love and a witness to your eternal life. Amen.
Let's start by reviewing what has already happened. Jesus was arrested, tried and executed on a cross. A couple of the religious leaders, who believed in Jesus, removed him from the cross and placed him in a nearby tomb. There is no question about it. Christ was dead. There were plenty of witnesses. His disciples then took their usual sabbath rest at sunset. Let's see what happened early Sunday morning.
NIV John 20:1 Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. 2 So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don't know where they have put him!"
Mary made her way to the tomb in the dark. All of her hopes and dreams had been crucified the previous Friday. She had spent the weekend in the fog of grief for the death of a loved one. Then when she arrived at the tomb what she saw, or more specifically, what she didn't see scared her to death. Jesus was missing from the tomb. So she ran to get help. Here is what happened.
3 So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. 4 Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5 He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. 6 Then Simon Peter, who was behind him, arrived and went into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, 7 as well as the burial cloth that had been around Jesus' head. The cloth was folded up by itself, separate from the linen. 8 Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. 9 (They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.) 10 Then the disciples went back to their homes,
Let's take a look at the evidence. The two disciples have seen the empty tomb and discarded grave clothes. The head cloth was neatly folded. And we are told that one of them believed. What did this disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, believe? I think that he believed what Jesus had told him at the supper on Thursday night. Listen to what Jesus had said.
John 7:33 Jesus said, "I am with you for only a short time, and then I go to the one who sent me. 34 You will look for me, but you will not find me; and where I am, you cannot come."
So the disciple must have believed that Jesus had died, and that his spirit went to heaven to be with God. This would have been consistent with first century thought. Our bodies die, return to dust, and our spirits go to heaven. Most people today would be comfortable with this belief as were the two disciples. So they went back home to grieve the death of their dear friend, Jesus. But as Paul Harvey used to say, let's look at “the rest of the story.”
11 but Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb 12 and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus' body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot. 13 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."
Mary's grief is almost overwhelming. Not only had Jesus died, but now something has happened to his body. Mary must have been very frightened by what was happening. Everything was spiraling out of control. Then, the most surprising thing in the Bible happened.
14 At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus. 15 "Woman," he said, "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." 16 Jesus said to her, "Mary." She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, "Rabboni!" (which means Teacher).
Suddenly Mary's grief turned to joy. Jesus was alive! He was right there in front of her. She recognized his voice. All she wanted to do was give him a big hug. But let's hear what Jesus has to say.
17 Jesus said, "Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, 'I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'"
Jesus is doing what he said he would do. Death on a cross could not stop him. He was alive, physically alive. He was not a spirit or ghost. He was physically alive, resurrected from the dead. Let's get back to Mary.
18 Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: "I have seen the Lord!" And she told them that he had said these things to her.
The Gospel of John is filled with twists and unexpected endings. But no ending is more surprising than this one. Jesus' spirit had gone to heaven, paradise. But then his soul returned from heaven and entered his dead body again. God made his dead heart to beat and cold blood to flow. His lungs filled with air. He stood up, folded his grave clothes, walked out of the tomb, got dressed in gardener’s clothes he found, and waited around for a chance to talk with Mary.
At first Mary did not recognize him. She thought he might be a gardener or something. But when she heard his voice she recognized it. By seeing and hearing Jesus she became the first of many people who witnessed his resurrection from the dead. Jesus told her not to hug him because he had not yet ascended to heaven. We learn from this that Jesus will ascend to the father in his physical flesh and blood body where he lives today in heaven at God's right hand.
The resurrection of Jesus Christ is a sign or miracle. Its purpose, as is the purpose of all signs in the gospel of John, is to bring people to faith. People see the sign and hear what it means and then come to believe. So what does this all mean? And what is it we should believe?
The Gospel of John is about belief. The key text in this important book comes from the third chapter and the sixteenth verse “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” The promise of Easter is that you will have eternal life. You will live forever in the presence of God.
But before we receive this promise we must first do something. We must believe. But believe in what? What are we supposed to believe to receive this wonderful gift of eternal life? The content of our belief is what we celebrate on Easter. We believe that Jesus was resurrected from the dead.
But how does someone come to this belief? What is the process of conversion from unbelief to belief? The twentieth chapter of John gives us two examples of people coming out of the darkness of unbelief into the light of faith.
Sometimes we come to believe in Jesus, like the disciple whom Jesus loved, by seeing God in the world around us. We see God in the beauty of our forests and streams and rivers and coastlines. We see God in the faces of believers as they volunteer in church. We see God in the stories shared by seniors in nursing homes. We see God in the children as they learn Bible stories. We see God as we share bread and wine in the Lord's Supper. God has blessed us with eyes with which we can see him through the world he created. The disciple Jesus loved saw an empty tomb, he remembered Jesus' teachings and he knew that Jesus had been resurrected from the dead. He believed that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead. And he was promised eternal life.
So I urge you this Easter to look for Jesus in the world around you. Look for Jesus when the children enjoy their chocolate bunnies and jelly beans. Look for Jesus when your family sits down for a meal. Look for Jesus in the loving eyes of those caring for children or for aging parents. Use your eyes to look for Jesus in the world and you will be blessed with the belief that he was truly resurrected from the dead with the promise for you of eternal life.
But seeing with our eyes is only one of the two ways we have of coming to belief. Mary Magdalene saw Jesus with her own eyes, but even though she saw she still did not believe. For some of us we need more than just seeing God at work in the world around us for us to come to belief. Sometimes we just don't believe what we see. Like Mary we need something more. Mary turned away from Jesus and was not looking at him when the following happened. Jesus spoke to her and said her name. Mary Magdalene came to belief in the resurrection of Jesus Christ not with her eyes but with her ears. She believed in Jesus Christ when she heard Jesus say her name, and she received the promise of eternal life.
We can hear God's voice calling us through the scripture we read and hear proclaimed. We come to belief in Jesus Christ by allowing God's voice to speak to us through the Bible. That's why it is so important to start every day with God's word and prayer. That's why it is so important to study God's word. That's why it is so important to hear God's voice through the proclamation of the Gospel each Sunday morning. Through all of these things we can hear God call our names and like Mary Magdalene come to believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, with the promise of eternal life.
Once Mary Magdalene heard Jesus call her name, her eyes were opened and she could see him in the world. This is what happens to us. After we hear God's voice in our meditations, study and worship we then begin to see God in the world around us. The Bible was written by people who had heard God's voice and saw God doing things. They wrote these things down and the church has preserved them for us. So as we are immersed in the Scripture we are better able to see God in our world. Our study of the word of God helps us to see God in the world around us. So our eyes and our ears work together to bring us to belief in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. With our ears we hear God speak to us in church through the pages of the Bible. This helps to recognize God in the world we see with our eyes. Through hearing and seeing we come to belief.
Later that night the disciples gathered back in the upper room. They heard Mary Magdalene's report of her encounter with the risen Jesus. Then they saw Jesus in the room with them. They heard with their ears and saw with their eyes and came to belief.
Like these disciples, we are a people who have heard God speaking to us through the scripture. We are also a people who can see God at work in the world around us. So we are a people who believe. And on this Easter Sunday we believe with the disciple that Jesus loved and with Mary Magdalene and with the other disciples that Jesus was resurrected from the dead. This belief comes with a promise. Because we believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, God has promised us eternal life. This is what we celebrate at Easter.
And like Mary Magdalene and the disciples we just can't wait to proclaim to the world what we have heard and seen. “I have seen the Lord”, said Mary to the disciples. What will you say to the people you meet about what you have seen and heard? I urge you to go and tell everyone the good news that Jesus Christ has been resurrected from the dead. All who believe this, receive the gift of eternal life. This may sound like something too good to be true. But it is true, we have heard it and seen it. So proclaim it as the truth to everyone you meet so they will hear it too and come to belief.
The Easter story in John begins with the darkness of unbelief. But then through hearing and seeing belief comes into the world. This belief is that Jesus Christ, the light of the world, has been resurrected from the dead. He lives! Believe in your heart what others have heard and seen that Jesus conquered death. As believers you will now receive the promise of eternal life. Let’s pray.
Lord Jesus, we thank you for the gift of faith. Through your voice in scripture and through your work in the world we have heard you and seen you. So we believe in your resurrection from the dead and anticipate our own resurrections when we will live forever with you, and God the Father, and God the Holy Spirit. Help us to proclaim this good news to everyone we know. This we pray in your holy name. Amen.
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