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The Living Hope of the Resurrection
John 20:1-18

Picture
​       Today is a glorious Easter morning for you, and for me!  We’re celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Our array of colorful blooming flowers symbolizes new life, as do the butterflies floating quietly overhead.   Bright white adorns our altar and drapes the cross, reminding us that God has defeated darkness, death, and sin – they hold no power over us now.   What is ours is light and life, joy and new beginnings.   What made all of this possible was God’s amazing, sacrificial love.   The very good news of Easter is that God so loved the world that he sent us his only, beloved son, and whoever believes in him can have their sins forgiven.  We are invited to come and follow Jesus, be part of the family of God we call the church, then spend our days serving our neighbors… ushering in justice… telling others how they too can become disciples of Jesus Christ.  Then, one future day which God alone knows, we’ll breathe our last and exchange our human form for an eternal one and go to the home which God is preparing for us.  
       Now, let’s delve into today’s Scripture lesson from John 20 and see what the first Easter morning was like for three of Jesus’ followers.   We’ll begin with John: he was the disciple who had the privilege of being known as “the apostle whom Jesus loved.” At the last supper John sat at the place of honor on the right side of Jesus. Later that night John snuck inside the courtroom after Jesus’ arrest in the garden of Gethsemane. He witnessed his illegal trial, hearing many bear false witness.   He saw soldiers and religious leaders mock his Lord and was stricken by the cruelty of his punishment.   John made his way down the narrow Via Dolorosa toward Golgotha, a hill that resembled a skull.   He watched as heavy nails were sledgehammered into Jesus’ hands and feet.  He stood with Mary and the other women at the foot of the cross, keeping vigil. Everyone else in the inner circle and wider group of followers had turned their backs and run away during Jesus’ worst hours of suffering.  But John remained; he watched the holy Son of God, heard the final words he spoke from the cross, and promised Jesus he would take care of his mother.  When the sky turned completely dark and the air chilled from noon until 3:00 p.m., John and the women stayed.  He was there looking up at Jesus when he declared with a loud voice, “It is finished,” and breathed his last.
        The Roman soldiers likely sent everyone away then, so John and many other devoted disciples – both men and women – hid in a locked upper room that Friday evening, fearing that those who arrested Jesus would find them and also condemn them to death.  They stayed together sharing their grief, weeping, sad and in shock; they also prayed together and shared meals. To be in community, and to be allowed to express your heartache, is a good and healthy way to cope with loss. 
       We then learn that early on Sunday morning, Mary Magdalene went with spices to Jesus’ tomb, hoping to more properly prepare his body, but she found the stone rolled away.  In a panic, she ran back to tell the others that someone took the Lord’s body and she had no idea where they put it.  She likely knew what we ourselves know: any person or group cruel enough to kill an innocent man would have no problem desecrating his corpse. 
       That wasn’t what happened, but like Mary and the others, we know the heartache of losing someone we love and the desire to honor them.  A few of us may even know the deep, secondary loss of having no body to view, or to bury.  It’s no wonder Mary Magdalene was distraught when she saw the stone rolled away.  
     When she told the other disciples what she saw, John and Peter immediately left to verify Mary’s report that Jesus’ body was missing.   John managed to outrun Peter, but he hesitated, not daring to go all the way inside the tomb.  John could see the grave cloths, the long white strips that would have been wrapped around Jesus.  But here is the very astonishing news we need to know about this: the Bible says the cloth remained as it was, undisturbed.  In other words, the cocoon-like white linen form was empty.  No body was enclosed in it… it was gone. 
       John was still staring at the flat, undisturbed grave cloths when Peter arrived, out of breath.  He didn’t hesitate to enter – he bent down and went all the way inside the cool tomb. John cautiously followed him.  Both men silently looked around.  Off to the side was the square cloth that typically covered the face, but it was neatly folded, which made no sense. Peter saw all that John saw, but in his grief he didn’t understand what had happened.   Feeling confused he fled back to the hidden room.  That impulsive choice was something he must have remembered for the rest of his life.  The women saw angels and the risen Christ, but he never was one to wait, watch, or be patient. 
       Can you see how differently these two men reacted on that Sunday morning?  John was cautious, but as he stood still, he noticed important details about the burial cloths and that was what led to him to believe Jesus had risen from the dead, just as he had said he would. Peter, though, was bold and brash, sometimes his own worst enemy.  He boasted to Jesus on Thursday evening of Passover that he’d never leave his side – he’d go and die with him. Jesus answered him and said that before the rooster crowed the second time the next morning, Peter would deny knowing him three times… and that is just what he did. Peter sobbed with remorse afterwards.  
       God uses flawed, impulsive people like Peter, just as he uses cautious, detail-oriented people like John.  Peter’s boldness became an asset after the resurrection, as he stood before a massive crowd in Jerusalem one morning.  He spoke so convincingly about Christ that three thousand people put their trust in Jesus and were baptized.  There’s no “one size fits all” faithful disciple.  
      I love that we have the account of Mary Magdalene returning to the empty tomb a bit later.  She is weeping, still terribly upset about the missing body of her Lord.  She looks inside again, and is startled to see two angels seated on the ends of the stone slab where Jesus’ body would have been placed.  Be sure to visualize the hollow, flat cocoon of grave cloths between them.  The angels, showing compassion, ask why Mary is crying and she explains the source of her pain.  Perhaps she gestured with her hand toward the open doorway as she explained her worry about someone stealing Jesus’ body, because she was then startled to see a man standing near her.  She thought he was the gardener, so she also told him why she was crying and more importantly who she was looking for that morning. Jesus looked at this dear woman he’d healed, taught, and spent time with - who’d remained near him as he suffered and died – and he spoke her name tenderly: “Mary.”  She recognized that voice – it was Jesus, her teacher.  He had said he would die but would be risen from the dead – those were his words – but she was the first one to witness Jesus’ resurrection.   Can you imagine being Mary? 
      When she returned to Jerusalem and burst into the upper room, she made this announcement: “I have seen the Lord!”   She was able to share her story of Easter morning again and again, helping people who had not seen Jesus believe his resurrection.  One who was three days, verifiably dead, was truly alive!  She was among the first to go and tell others this news, but we’re told that more than 500 people saw Jesus after his resurrection.   They were the first people God chose and used to spread the amazing Easter message.  They did admirably, each one telling another about their personal encounter with Jesus.  We who are seated here on a Sunday morning have shown up because long, long, long ago a man or woman told someone else, “I have seen the risen Lord.”  The story of God’s amazing, sacrificial love has been passed on to every new generation for over 2,000 years.  Now we have the opportunity to joyfully tell others about the empty tomb, the angels, the flattened cocoon of grave cloths, and best of all that Christ is risen – he’s alive.   He’s just the first, though, the pioneer, the forerunner; where he leads, we who are his sons and daughters will follow.  Christ the Lord is risen; He is risen indeed!   

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