Easter Faith (John 20:1-18)
Rob Tennant, HillSong Church, Chapel Hill, NC
Easter Sunday, April 5, 2015
Upon
seeing the empty tomb, Mary Magdalene ran to the disciples and said, “They have
taken the Lord” (20:2). Could Jesus
really be taken somewhere He did not want to go? She knew he had power other men could not
even dream of having. But she watched
him die. Yes, a corpse could be dragged
about, used by one group for its purposes and by another for theirs. But, if he was a corpse, could he be “the Lord?”
Mary
reacted before thinking things through and before remembering things Jesus had said,
including that he would die and then rise.
This
morning we will look at the way three of Jesus’ disciples responded to his
resurrection. I do include Mary in the
group of Biblical disciples. A disciple is
a passionately devoted follower of Jesus.
That Mary Magdalene came to the tomb after Jesus was dead and buried
shows her devotion. That she grabbed
hold of his resurrected body to worship him by hugging his feet shows her
passion (Mt. 28:9). Mary Magdalene was a
disciple.
The Gospel of John tells us three came to the
tomb on Sunday morning, first Mary Magdalene and then Simon Peter with the
Beloved Disciple.
Mary
arrives first, sees the stone rolled away, and runs to the disciples. She follows them back to the tomb and hears
their report that the tomb was empty save for Jesus’ burial cloth. They inspect, and then leave. She lingers and looks in.
It
is not empty! Two angels in white are
sitting there. Because angels appear
often in Bible stories, we may think people in those accounts were accustomed
to visits from divine beings. They
weren’t. The appearance of angels
shocked them as much as they would you or me.
Except, not Mary. Mary continued
worrying about “they,” whoever they are.
“Woman,
why are you weeping?”
“They
have taken away my Lord and I do not know where they have laid him.” And she turns away from the angels. What about asking them what happened? They are messengers from God. Couldn’t she say, “Hey, where is Jesus?”
Nope, not Mary. Most people in the Bible
drop to the ground in fear when they meet angels. Mary just turned away.
Turning
from the tomb, she bumps into one she takes to be the gardener. I don’t know why she could not recognize
Jesus. Was his appearance altered? Were her eyes blinded? I don’t know.
She
thinks he is the gardener.
“Sir,”
she says, “If you have carried him away, tell me where and I will take him
away” (20:15). She loved Jesus, who she
was sure had died, and she wanted to keep on loving him. She didn’t really think about how she would
move a corpse around.
When
he spoke her name and she realized it was him, she grabbed him. If this account lines up with Matthew’s, then
Mary literally grabbed Jesus feet with such enthusiasm that Jesus had to tell
her “Do not hold onto me” (20:17).
In
her reactions on resurrection morning, Mary demonstrated a very hasty Easter
Faith. She jumped to conclusions at
seeing the tomb empty and those conclusions led her to a series of missteps
that were only cleared up when the resurrected Lord spoke her name.
As
hasty as she acted, she was also quite faithful. She did not flee but instead stood at the
cross, staying with him as he died. She did
not hide, but went to the tomb to honor him one last time. The resurrection shed light on different
aspects of Mary’s character that show flaws but more importantly show her to be
a true follower of Jesus.
It
had a similar effect on Simon Peter. Here
we stick to the way John’s gospel presents him.
He was extremely outspoken. When
crowds abandoned Jesus, Jesus asked the 12 if they too wanted to leave. Peter was the disciple who pledged to
stay. He said, “Lord, to whom [else] can
we go? You have the words of eternal
life” (John 6:68). It was a shining
moment for Peter, one of the rare times that insight matched the words his
mouth blurted.
At
the foot washing, Peter was the one who initially refused to let the master was
his feet. He would not have his Lord
stoop before him. When Jesus said,
“Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.” Peter asked that his entire
body be washed.
In
the garden of Gethsemane, the soldiers came to arrest Jesus. One of the disciples attacked one of the
soldiers, cutting off his ear. Only John
tells us the disciple to do this violent act, antithetical to the way of peace
and love Jesus taught, was Peter.
It
was Peter who, when Jesus predicted all the disciples would abandon him,
promised to stay true. Then in John 18,
we read that Peter not only ran, but when confronted, denied knowing
Jesus.
John presents a blundering, act first, think
later (or think never) man in Simon Peter.
The
morning of the resurrection, he and the beloved disciple heard Mary’s report
that the tomb was empty and Peter did not hesitate. He ran to the tomb. When he got there, Peter kept right on
going. The other disciple waited, but
Peter barged right into the empty tomb.
He surveyed the contents: linen wrappings, the head cloth intentionally
rolled up, and no angels, and no body.
Neither Peter nor the other bumped into a familiar but unrecognized
gardener. They came, they saw, and they
went home.
If
Mary’s Easter faith was hasty but also faithful and true, Simon Peter’s was
blundering but also bold. His tendency
to act first got him in trouble plenty of times, but Jesus loved him for it.
After
the resurrection Peter declared he was going fishing and six other disciples
followed his lead. They were out in a boat,
and they saw a man walking on the beach.
The beloved disciples recognized that it was Jesus. Peter, true to form, dove in, literally. He swam to Jesus, his Lord whom loved so
much. Hasty and faithful, blundering and
bold, the resurrection brought the true Easter faith out of both Mary Magdalene
and Simon Peter.
There
was a third player on the day of the resurrection. Mary reported the empty tomb to Simon
Peter and the disciple whom Jesus loved.
It does not say his name was John.
Neither does it say that when it reports he was was the only disciple standing
with Jesus’ mother Mary at the foot of the cross. The gospel is called ‘John,’ and the gospel’s
author identifies himself as Jesus’ ‘beloved disciple.’ Thus early church historians put the two
facts together and came to associate the Beloved Disciple with John. But the Gospel itself does not do that,
ever. So I will refer to him as the Gospel
does, as the Beloved Disciple.
He
could just as easily be called the timid disciple. When they are gathered with
Jesus at the last supper and he predicts one will deny him, Simon Peter nudges
the Beloved Disciple. Ask him who he means. Who will be the betrayer? Acting at Peter’s initiative, he asked, and
Jesus answered (John 13:24-26).
Again
on the morning of the resurrection, the Beloved Disciple was hiding out until
Mary Magdalene reported the tomb empty.
He and Peter, not he on his own, got up to check on things. He outran Peter so that upon arriving at the
tomb, he was there, for a moment, alone.
In that moment he just waited.
After
Peter, huffing and puffing to catch up, arrived and barreled right into the
empty tomb, only then did the Beloved Disciple follow. The Gospel of John is his autobiography even
if he makes himself a minor character and refers to himself in the third
person. He tells us he saw the empty
tomb and believed and at the same time did not understand. What does that mean?
It
could probably be a fitting way to describe a lot of disciples, maybe many of
us. We read the story and we say we
believe that Jesus rose from the grave and is the son of God and is the Savior
of the world whose resurrection makes it certain we will be resurrected. We say we are sure of this, but do we
understand it? The beloved disciple
admits that even standing in the empty tomb, he did not.
That
same evening he was with the other disciples and he was holding up behind
locked doors as they all were. Even with
what he had seen, he was still plagued by fear of the authorities. In his heart, he believed Jesus has conquered
death. His brain was having trouble
catching up. Resurrection is so
paradigm-shattering, even we who live after the event and after the ascension
and the coming of the Holy Spirit, even we who live with a couple thousand
years of brilliant Christian history and thought which gives great depth to our
theology, even we have a terrible time aligning our heart beliefs with the
logic our brains construct.
The
Beloved Disciple owned up to his own timidity. He did not try to make himself out to be a
star in the Gospel he wrote. Just the
opposite; he was so self-effacing, he never mentioned his name. He was not worried about scholars spending 2000 years debating
about who wrote the Gospel. He wanted
them and us to focus on the Jesus we meet in the Gospel, not the author. Yes, his was a timid faith, but it was a
humble faith. We do well to imitate this
and we can when our lives point people away from ourselves and to Jesus.
So we
have an empty tomb, and examples of Easter faith; it is faith that is hasty but
true and faithful. It can be blundering
and clumsy, but also courageous and bold.
It is timid and unsure, but it is a humble faith that exalts Jesus. Were we to look deeper into John’s Gospel at
more disciples, we’d find Nathanael. His
faith started out uncomfortably blunt, but he was steadfast.
We’d
meet the Pharisee Nicodemus who began with a careful faith that stayed hidden
and conformed to the expectations of the temple insider crowd. Nicodemus was afraid of how it would injure
him socially if he were seen with Jesus in the light of day. A few years of watching Jesus transformed
Nicodemus from this unimpressive caution to a man who risked all he had earned
in his life in order to honor the Lord.
He went from careful to risky faith.
Of
course it is in John that we meet Thomas.
The resurrection brought his doubts.
If we go through the Gospel carefully and imaginatively, we see that
Thomas whose doubting faith was exposed in the resurrection was perhaps the
most rational of the disciples. His
faith, relying upon reason, may be as helpful as any we study in our
post-enlightenment age.
What
kind of faith does the resurrection inspire in you? Do you resonate with one we’ve explored or
touched upon briefly? The tomb is
empty. Let this settle in your
mind. Put yourself there. What does it mean?
Try
to explain to people who think Christianity is just a fantasy or nothing but
garbage that actually it is a faith based upon this man who rose from the
grave. Try to imagine yourself
attempting to convince nonbelievers that this story is absolutely true, is the
best news ever, and is their hope for salvation. The resurrection can be difficult to embrace
even when we believe it without question.
What
faith does it create in you? However we
answer, from our predecessors in the Bible, we know the faith we have won’t be
perfect. Our Easter faith will be hasty
or blundering, timid or blunt, careful or doubtful. But the resurrected Jesus will love us right
where we are, right there in our flawed faith.
The risen Christ will make our faith steadfast and bold, rational and
risky. He does this because this story
is His and he invites to inhabit it. He
calls us to resurrection faith which, because of His grace, ends in us being
resurrected and living forever.
Is
this hard to believe? That’s OK. Believe it as best you can with the faith you
have. Jesus will carry us from here into
life, life everlasting.
AMEN
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