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“Early Morning Run” (John 20:1-10)
Rob Tennant, Hillside Church, Chapel Hill, NC
Easter Sunday, April 12, 2020
*This message will be broadcast by Facebook and Instagram Live
and posted to Youtube, but will not be preached to a live audience. We – America, the world – are in the midst of
the COVID-19 crisis which is causing people all over the world to avoid
gathering in groups of larger than 10, and diligently maintain “social
distance.” It’s an effort to curb the
rapid, worldwide spread of the Corona virus which can be deadly.
John chapter 20 begins, “Early on
the first day of the week.” What do you early in the morning? Hit the snooze button and roll over for 9
more minutes? Take a shower to wash the
sleep out of your eyes? How about going for a run to start the day? That’s what Mary did, an early morning run;
but it’s not what she had planned.
Other
gospel writers report several of Jesus’ female disciples came to the tomb. John zooms in on Mary Magdalene. She was up early because she probably didn’t
sleep. She probably spent the entire
Sabbath recoiling from the shock and grief of Jesus’ death on the cross. It happened so fast, arrested Thursday;
killed Friday; and now the movement was over.
Mary
was not thinking about a movement. She loved
him. She couldn’t accept it. She went to his tomb. We need that.
God did not design us for death.
Death runs contrary to how we are made.
When a loved one dies, we need rituals; the funeral, the graveside
service, and burial. Only with these practices
can we have closure, but Mary did not find any closure. She found the stone rolled away from the
entrance.
That’s
when she started running, all the way back to where Simon and the beloved
disciple were staying. How often in
ancient Israel did adult women run in public?
I imagine it was uncommon.
Today
we run for any number of reasons. People
love running for fitness; a mile; five miles; and the real runners even do
marathons. We mix in all kinds of
obstacles; there are mud runs and color runs and gladiator runs. It’s all to get in shape.
People
also run in competition. The fastest runners
run not just to complete the race, but to win it. The batter hits a ground ball the shortstop
has to go deep in the hole to field.
That batter sprints down the line to beat the shortstop’s throw. The running backs takes the ball and runs
hard, plowing over tacklers. Once he’s
past them, then he turns on the speed so as to not get caught.
We
run to stay fit. We run to win. Some run to stay alive. If you are being pursued by a tiger or an
attacker, you run. Some run for
excitement. Kids coming from home school
on a Friday will sprint out of the school building, happy to be “free.” Sometimes running is tied to a goal. Candidates “run” for office, intending to be
elected.
Mary
came to a tomb to grieve the death of her beloved teacher much as you or I might
visit the cemetery to remember and say farewell to someone we love who has
died. Why did a stone rolled to the side
revealing the entrance to Jesus’ tomb send Mary running? What would you think if you went to the
cemetery and found your mom’s headstone, but the ground was dug, no
coffin? His corpse was supposed to be in
there. But the stone sealing the tomb
was moved. Now she was traumatized by
this: a dead body wasn’t where it was supposed to be. With this new shock she ran for help.
Peter
and the beloved disciple set out immediately, back down the same road from
which she had just come. Like her, they
are running. Commentators remark, in
Jesus’ story of the Prodigal son, that it was undignified for a landowner of
high class to run in public. But in
Jesus’ tale the father didn’t care about improprieties. Overcome with joy at getting his son back, he
ran to embrace him. A little like the
impulse in school children on Friday afternoons, this father, propelled by
excited happiness ignored social conventions of his day and ran to his
son.
That’s
not what Peter was doing. He did not
know what had happened. He and his
companion only knew that grief and shame had coldcocked them both and now
Mary’s report of a violated tomb raised the level of strangeness and threat. They could be running into some real trouble,
but they were beyond reason. They had to
know what happened, so they ran.
The
beloved disciple outpaced the fisherman, but stopped at the tomb’s
entrance. He looked in where he saw
linen grave clothes but no body wrapped in them. Huffing and puffing, Peter caught up, and
barreled past him into the tomb. They
could see clearly; the body was gone. They
did not know what it meant. They turned
to walk, slowly, I bet, back to the house.
Mary
then had her encounter with the risen Jesus.
She thought he was a gardener until He called her name. When she heard her name, she was the first to
understand. No one, not the temple
leaders, not the centurions, no one stole his dead body. His body wasn’t dead. She talked to him as he stood there alive. She watched his lifeless body taken down
after being ravaged and dying on the cross.
She saw him laid in the tomb. Now,
here he was, upright, alive, talking to her.
She knew it was real because she took hold of him. The gospel doesn’t say she ran as she went
back to tell the disciples what happened, but I bet she at least had a new
spring in her step!
Jesus
was alive. He had been dead, done and
dusted. Now, he was alive. This is where our story leads. Our own individual mistakes, and a world
degrading and devolving inevitably leads to death, the very opposite of God’s
intent for human beings. From Adam and
Eve to Cain and Able to the flood to the tower of Babel to a long, sad history
of the chosen people rebelling against God to exile to the decadence of both
Herod and Rome to the crucifixion to our day or wars, pornography, greed,
sex-slavery, substance abuse, and self-centeredness, the world is unalterably
destined for destruction.
Yet,
when we turn from death and our own fallen state, repent, and turn in faith to
Jesus, something changes. He is alive.
On the cross, he took on himself our destruction. Death seemed so inevitable, yet he defeated
it. The resurrection means, when we are
in Christ, things are different because we are bound for life. People need to know about this!
Why
are 26-mile long races called ‘Marathons?’ In 490BC, after a long battle with
the invading Persians, the Greeks won a desperately needed victory at
Marathon. The residents of Athens, 26
miles away, needed to know what happened.
So, a runner was dispatched and he made the long run for one reason: to
tell the good news! What he had to say
was so important, so needed, so urgent, he ran to tell it. Legend has it that upon reporting his news,
he collapsed and died.
We
possess news much happier and more important than “Greece defeated
Persia.” That message was only happy for
the Greeks. The Persians had to slog all
the way home as losers. Our news, “Jesus
is alive,” is happy for everyone. He
has risen! He has risen indeed!
People
need to know it and we, his church, need to be running out of the worship
gathering on Easter Sunday and every day to tell. The Apostle Paul saw it this way. In the decades after Easter and Jesus’
resurrection, Paul devoted his life to sharing the salvation we have in Christ
and planting churches. He is near his
end when he writes 2 Timothy. In 4:7 he
says, looking back at his life of telling about Jesus, “I have fought the good
fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” Jesus is alive. Paul sensed the urgency. This was good news people needed to hear.
It
still is and we, today’s Christians, are the messengers. We are driven to run as Paul did. Another New
Testament book, Hebrews, written anonymously probably in the 60’s urges that we
“run with perseverance the race that is set before us” (Hebrews 12:1c).
Why
so urgent? Because people you and I know
and love are dying in sin; the world is bound for destruction. Why so urgent? Because every single person’s course can be
reversed and they can join in life, resurrected life, if they turn to
Jesus. Why do urgent? Because it’s true. Can you imagine the media firestorm that
would hit if it could be shown that someone has truly risen from death, never
to die again? We know that has
happened!
Tradition
teaches that the disciples spread out from Jerusalem all over the world, going
out simply to tell people Jesus was alive.
Nearly all of them kept at it until they were killed for their testimony
because the news is so big and so good, and it is exactly what the world needs
to hear. All those disciples who failed
miserably in the hours leading up to the crucifixion became witnesses emboldened
to bear their testimony about Jesus even to the death. Like Paul, they ran the
race.
Now,
it’s our time. We don’t run for
fear. In Christ, there is no fear. We don’t run to win. That’s fine if you’re playing softball or in a
footrace, but this is bigger. We don’t
run to stay fit. You might work out to
be good shape for the mission, but this mission can be carried out by people no
matter what their physical condition is.
With my ankle surgery, I’m not running at all right now.
But
I am running out of here, and I hope we all here. Christ has risen and in Him there is
life. Everyone needs to know. We are the witnesses. God is sending us to tell the news. Jesus is alive!
AMEN
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