Remember and Believe The Lord’s Words
John 20:1-18
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
St. John 20:11-13 11 But Mary stood outside by the tomb weeping, and as she wept she stooped down and looked into the tomb. 12 And she saw two angels in white sitting, one at the head and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain. 13 Then they said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “Because they have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid Him.”
Dear fellow redeemed in Christ our Lord… HE IS RISEN! Our Holy Gospel for this morning follows the Easter story of Saint Mary Magdalene. Saint John, the writer of the Gospel that bears his name, writes that she alone approached the tomb of Christ. The other Evangelists, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, make it clear that there were other women with Mary. But John is telling her story, a story that follows a different path than the other women.
While those other women remained longer at Jesus’ grave tomb, Mary Magdalene quickly departed. While the other women were already hearing the messages of the angels in white, Mary had still seen no angels as she ran off to tell the disciples.
So, why did she do this? She did this because she leapt to this conclusion, as John records: “…they have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid Him.”
Of course, we know what she did not know: that there was no dead body of Christ. There was a living, breathing, walking talking body, for the Lord Jesus had risen. He was alive, never to die again.
We know this, but Mary Magdalene did not. She quickly observed a little of what was going on, and then jumped to a snap judgment. She misinterpreted the data which left her in anxious fear. The events of the past few days were bad enough, with the torture and execution of the dear, beloved Lord. Now she thought that His Body was missing, and it was a heinous insult upon injury.
How much bitter heartache could have been saved for her and the disciples if they had only remembered the words of Christ! He had predicted and spoken plainly of His betrayal, His arrest, His sufferings, and His crucifixion. He had also guaranteed His resurrection, and had even specified the exact day of his reemergence from the grave. But Mary, in the heat of her emotional pain and confusion, forgot her Lord’s words.
Mary is us. How often do we become so caught up in our personal problems, and as a result forget our Lord’s promises to us! How easily do we allow our emotions to cloud and confuse us spiritually! We jump quickly to conclusions of what we think God is doing or should do, based upon what we see, which is always insufficient information. The invisible God and His hidden works cannot be measured by our feeble human eyesight. Instead, we must turn to the Word of God to see His attitude toward us. We look to the empty tomb to know our destiny. Whatever sufferings we experience, resurrection and eternal life are Christ’s promises to us, purchased by His mighty work on our behalf.
We should be like Saint John, who saw with faith the linen cloths lying carefully folded in the grave where Christ had lain. This was no frantic grave robbery. Body snatchers do not stop to carefully fold up the grave cloths. In fact, why would they leave the cloths behind at all?
No, the meticulous and unhurried folding was done by someone who had all the time in the world, someone who had so overwhelmingly conquered death that it was no bother to spend a little extra time in a tomb. This was a Man who had no fear of death, for He had mastered and defeated it. All of life and time and history were at His command.
John saw and he believed. He saw life, not fear. He saw victory, not robbery. Although he and the other disciples had not yet understood the Scriptures that promised all these things, now he had faith that his Lord had risen from death.
We, by the Spirit’s power, see this day as more than a human holiday. We see it as more than family time. We see this great Day for what it truly is: the defeat of death.
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The evil grave had swallowed up countless men over many centuries, from Abel onward, until one day death swallowed up the wrong Man. This was a Man unlike any other. Every other human being is vulnerable to death as the wages of our sins. But this other Man had no sin, and deserved no death. More than that, He had life inside Him, life that no one could extinguish. He was not only a Man full of life, He was and is the Source of all life. He was and is the Creator and Preserver of all things. He is life itself.
So when death swallowed this Man, it was a huge mistake. Certain people should not eat certain foods. Death should not have swallowed the God-Man, Jesus Christ. The Lord burst open the belly of death. He mortally wounded the grave. Now Christ is the death of death. Christ is the one that the tomb fears. And in the end, Christ will even cast death into the lake of burning fire, so that the grave will be eternally destroyed.
This same Man stood near Mary Magdalene. Although He had conquered all things, He still cared for His dearly beloved friends, so He talked to her and reassured her. But He was not there to stay in His visible presence, which is why He warned her not to cling to Him, as if she could hold onto Him forever.
But a time will come when we will live with Him visibly. We will see Him face to face at the Resurrection. Then there will be no partings and no separations. We, with Christ and His Father and all our loved ones who died in the faith, will live forever with each other. There will be no quarantines, no social distancing there. No sickness, death, or grave will disturb that perfect place.
Here in this House, Christ still speaks to us. He talks to us and reassures us, for He is the God-Man who conquered death for us. He even calls Himself our Brother. Imagine that: the God-Man who created all things and has died for all and who has mortally wounded death, THAT GUY is your brother. He is not too glorious or proud to name you His brothers.
When death comes to you to try to frighten you like a bully picking on a little boy, say, “Yes, you may hurt me a little now. But wait till my Brother comes after you!” Then death will tremble, because its days are numbered.
Make no mistake, dear fellow redeemed; death is still a bad thing; it is an evil that was spawned by our sinfulness. And we deserve it. But Christ has rescued us from death. He has taken the worst sting out of the grave. Your sins are paid for by Christ, who shed His Blood and rose again so that you may know that you are justified before God by faith. You are righteous and holy in His sight, because Christ, your Brother, has suffered and died in your place.
He did not die and rise for Himself: He did it for you. He shattered death’s hold over you. He covered all your sins by His crucifixion.
We know this. In some ways, we see the situation more clearly than Mary. We may chuckle a little that she did not recognize Christ. To be fair, she did not expect to see her Lord in that place, looking as He did. She did not expect to see Him alive at all. Humanly speaking, we understand her mistake.
When we see Christ today, we need to recognize Him. He does not look as we might expect. He comes to us in Bread and Wine. He says, “This is My Body. … This is My Blood.” So you can look at the consecrated Bread and wine on the altar and say, “That is the Body and Blood of Christ, who rose from the dead.” And you will be right.
So we see the risen Body, but hidden in a different form than we might expect. Humanly speaking, we understand if some do not recognize Him here. But He is here nonetheless. He promised He would be here, as often as we eat and drink this holy Meal. Like Mary, we should remember the words of Christ, because then we will recognize Him when He comes.
So the risen Lord visits us as well. The appearances of the living Son of Man continue even today. Easter was not over that first Sunday some 2,000+ years ago. It is also not limited to once a year when we celebrate His resurrection. No, He comes and shows Himself to us, to strengthen our faith, to show His power over death, to feed our bodies and souls this holy Food of immortality.
Death is dead. Christ lives again, never to die. All praise be to Him, our Lord and our Brother. He is risen!
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
