April 11, 2004; EASTER SUNDAY

Never the Same Again

Isaiah 65: 17-25

Palm 118:1-2, 14-24

1 Corinthians 15: 19-26

John 20:1-18

We have all known the experience of losing someone we love. They die. We have the funeral. We try to come to terms with the fact that they are gone. But there is this big space in our lives where they used to be. Nothing or no-one seems to be able to fill it. While everything in life is negotiable, there is nothing so final and resolute as death. Unmovable: death doesn’t give an inch. Death does not even give one second more when it speaks its’ deed. Death has finality about it like nothing else.

All you can do it take a walk to the cemetery. Your world has been lost. Going to visit the grave is the only thing you can do that has any semblance of closeness; a time to decompress, a time to meditate and ponder, a time to grieve and mourn awhile.

We might say that Jesus’ friend Mary was in a position like this: she had loved this man, Jesus. He was the one who loved her in a way that nobody else ever had. He believed in her and she believed in him.

Then there was this brutal course of events: the betrayal by his friend Judas, the arrest in the garden, the allegations of his kingship, the fraudulent trial, the whole town and all of the authorities crying for his death. With no evidence they were going to kill him anyway, and well they did.

Mary remembered the many times that they had together with his followers. 

The authorities beat, humiliated, and whipped him, made him carry his own cross to the place of the skull, nailed him on the cross between two common criminals, and left him hanging there to die, as he eventually did. The sky grew dark, the sun was hidden, the earth shook and with one last prayer, he expired; he died.

Mary remembered the night not so long ago when she caressed his feet with the nard ointment and its’ fragrance filling the room.

The sense of loss was profound. Everybody close to him had deserted him, although nobody seemed to care much about the corpse. I guess everyone thought that the issue about his power base was a dead cause.

The group had nothing and owned nothing, so they laid him in a borrowed grave.

Three days later, there was absolutely nothing else for Mary to do, but go to the grave.

Alone, despondent, depressed she goes to the grave. What she finds is something none of us have ever found: not only had the grave been opened, (the stone had been rolled away from the opening of a cave-like grave) it was… empty!

I would venture to say that absolutely none of us, nor has anyone we have ever known ever gone to visit a grave and found it opened and… empty!

Talk about confused, upset and in shock, Mary was totally in a state of mind confusion the likes of which she had never known before.

She would never be the same again!

After the confusion, traumas and brutality of the last few days her first thought was that the authorities must have taken away the body. She assumed that the authorities wanted to make sure that there was no more trouble and no relics to venerate: get rid of the body!

“They have taken the Lord out of the tomb,” (she told the disciples) “and we do not know where they have laid him.”

Like many men, Peter and the disciple whom Jesus loved, had to run right away to the tomb to verify the facts for themselves. They didn’t want to believe a woman.

What did they find? They found she was right:

The disciple whom Jesus loved got there first. He “bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there but he did not go in.

Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb.

He saw the linen wrappings lying there but rolled up in a place by itself.

Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and saw and believed;

For they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. ”

There are three words that are pivotal in the passage that I have just read about the two disciples going to Jesus’ tomb. There are three words that will change the course of world history.

The passage says that when the disciple whom Jesus loved finally went into the tomb, the reading says that he “saw and believed.”

A radical shift happened right there. Mary had told the two of them that the body has been stolen and that she didn’t know where it was taken. We have no comment about Simon Peter, but the text tells us that the other disciple “saw and believed.”

We have to ask ourselves, “The other disciple “saw what” and “believed what?”

He saw that the grave clothes had been neatly folded because they now were of no more use and that Jesus was not there because his body has been stolen, but because he had been raised from the dead!

Mary was still stuck in her grief. The disciples take off to spread the news, but she stays. She leans over and looks into the tomb. This time she sees two angels, one where his head had been, one where his feet had been. 

One of the angels asks, “Woman why are you weeping?” Mary gave her line about the stolen body and not knowing where it was.

Turning around she sees who she thinks is the gardener, and the risen Jesus asks the same question as the angel did, “Woman, who are you weeping? Who are you looking for?”

Mary doesn’t recognize him and asks if he knows where the body is. 

But Jesus said one word that changed Mary in such a way that she never would be the same again. What happened was that the risen Christ said her name, “Mary.”

The same is true for each and very one of us.

Once we hear the risen Lord speak our name to us with love, we will never be the same, ever again!

There are people who say that they believe in God. They are people of faith. They may struggle with their faith. They may have doubts.

You may be life this yourself. You may wonder about life, the hereafter, and what God is all about.

As a man or a minister there are things that I can do and things that I cannot do. I can tell you that I believe in God and in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

I cannot prove to any of you that Jesus Christ is risen from the dead.

But I can absolutely guarantee you one thing and that one thing is this: when you, yourself have met the risen Christ, and when he has spoken your name to you in love, you will never be the same again!

Thousands upon thousands of people have been publicly crucified, died and were buried. But when Jesus was raised from the dead, and was publicly seen, touched and had company with the people who had seen him die, the entire world has never been the same since.

The exact same thing is true today:

-people who have been resuscitated from the dead, know that heaven exists,

-alcoholics and drug addicts who have been healed of their addiction believe in resurrection,

-people who have been bed ridden and have got up and walked again, believe in resurrection.

Don’t even try to convince people that Jesus was raised from the dead, let Jesus show them. He is much better at it then you and I are, just don’t be surprised that they don’t recognize him right away.

Resurrection from the dead is not just what happened to Jesus, it is God’s principle for creation.

We all exist on a continuum between life and death: resurrection is that event that changes what we absolutely were certain was dead and brings it back to life!

Even those who don’t believe in Jesus say, this man has been dead for 2,000 years, but you see he told his he wouldn’t die and he hasn’t. He is still alive today for you and for me… all for the asking. Jesus is still front page news and everyone is still talking about him, but that is not the issue, the issue is really about you, in the privacy of your own heart, that you know him, accept him and his immense love for you.

Don’t worry about proving resurrection to anyone. Jesus will do that.

AMEN             Rev. Alan Stewart