To The Doubting, The Failing, and The Grieving (John 20:1-18)

Father, we praise you. We praise you for the gift of

your Son. We praise You for the gift of

Your Word. We praise you for the gift of

your people. Our hearts are stirred this

morning. We pray now as we open up your

Word and see incredible things. By your Spirit, You would make

them credible to us. Or that we would be able to

believe and receive and live in light of Christ's resurrection.

In his name we pray. Amen.

Our reading this morning comes from John's Gospel, chapter 20,

starting in verse one through verse 18.

Now, on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene came to the

tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had

been taken away from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon

Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and

said to them, they've taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do

not know where they have laid him.

So Peter went out with the other disciple and they were going

toward the tomb. Both of them were running

together. But the other disciple outran

Peter and reached the tomb 1st and stooping to look in, he saw

the linen clothes lying there, but he did not go in.

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

He saw the linen cloth lying there and the face cloth which

had been on Jesus head not lying with the linen clothes, but

folded up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple who had

reached the tomb first also went in, and he saw and believed, for

as yet they did not understand the Scripture that he must rise

from the dead. Then the disciples went back to

their homes. But Mary stood weeping outside

the tomb, and as she wept, she stooped to look into the tomb,

and she saw 2 angels in white sitting where the body of Jesus

had lain, one at the head and one at the feet.

They said to her, Woman, why are you weeping?

She said to them, They've taken away my Lord, and I do not know

where they have laid him. Having said this, she turned

around and saw Jesus standing, but she did not know that it was

Jesus. Jesus said to her, Woman, why

are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?

Supposing him to be the gardener?

She said to him, Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me

where you have laid him and I will take him away.

Jesus said to her, Mary. She turned and said to him in

Aramaic Rabboni, which means teacher.

Jesus said to her, do not cling to me, for I've not yet ascended

to the Father, but go to my brothers and say to them, I'm

ascending to my Father, and your father to my God and your God.

Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, I

have seen the Lord, and that he had said these things to her.

This is the word of the Lord, Thanks be to God.

Please be seated. One of my favorite questions to

ask of any text is why is this in the Bible?

Why did the Holy Spirit lead someone, in this case John, to

write these words? And it's a great question.

It doesn't always give us an obvious answer, but this morning

the answer is obvious. This text teaches us about the

resurrection of Jesus Christ because if Christ is risen,

nothing else matters. And if Christ is not risen,

nothing else matters. These were reportedly the dying

words of a historian and theologian named Yaroslav

Pelican. His who he is doesn't really

matter, but what he says matters tremendously.

If Christ is risen, nothing else matters, and if Christ is not

risen, nothing else matters. What does he mean if Jesus rose

from the grave that morning? If Peter and John went and found

the tomb empty, if Mary really did see the Lord, nothing else

matters because this is the most important moment in history.

Jesus is Lord, and every knee should bow.

But if Jesus did not rise from the dead that morning, nothing

else matters. Because for all of his good

teaching and deeds, Jesus ended up being a fraud.

Because at the center of his mission he said he would die.

He would rise again and return to the Father.

So if he didn't do that, why should we listen to anything he

says? Instead, we should just live it

up. Because tomorrow we die.

It doesn't matter. So I want us to realize what's

at stake in the resurrection and lean in this morning like this

is a life or death matter, Because it is.

If you think about after the cross, Jesus followers were not

in a good place. They were overwhelmed with

doubt. Some of them had just failed

miserably and they were full of grief.

But they brought all of that with them to the empty tomb and

the risen Christ met them there. So wherever you are this

morning, I invite you to bring your doubts and your failures

and your grief to the empty tomb.

And I pray that the risen Christ will meet you there today.

The first thing I want us to see is that the risen Christ has a

message for the doubting. And really here the character to

consider is the empty tomb. I don't know your doubts.

I don't know what you struggle with in the Bible.

I don't know what you see in the world or what you've seen in the

church. I don't know what happened to

you or someone you love. But I know we have our doubts.

My encouragement is that you're not alone.

Mary Magdalene and Peter were full of doubt on that Sunday

morning. They'd been crushed just a

couple days ago by the crucifixion of their Lord and

their close friend, so they were doubting everything.

But the empty tomb confronted them in their doubts.

It forced them to consider the evidence.

And this morning I want you to consider the evidence.

I don't know if we do this enough.

I think Christian or non Christian many of us have not

never really seriously considered the evidence.

So first I want to take the other side and assume that this

didn't happen. So what are the arguments we can

make that Christ did not rise again?

And how strong are these arguments?

First, someone could have stolen or moved Jesus body.

This is actually Mary Magdalene's assumption in verse

2 and 13. She thinks someone has taken

Jesus body. She says they've taken the Lord

out of the tomb and we do not know where they've laid him.

If it was grave robbers, which happened back then, you have to

figure out how the grave robbers get past these professional

soldiers and move this massive stone.

If it was the Romans or the Jews, I guess they could have

decided we're going to change locations.

But then they know where that is and they could tell everyone.

And if it was the disciples, that just doesn't make any sense

because the disciples, since Friday, they're running and

hiding. They're not in any place to take

on soldiers and move a huge boulder.

So second, the women could have gone to the wrong tune.

If the women went to the wrong tomb and then went and told the

disciples and the story starts to spread, Jesus has risen.

It would be so easy for the Jews and Romans just to take everyone

to the right tomb and put a big sign.

No, he's still very much here. Third, maybe Jesus didn't

actually die. This has been called the swoon

theory, that Jesus was on the cross, but he didn't actually

die on the cross, maybe just kind of passed out.

But it's a hard pill to swallow because the Romans were really

good at killing people. Crucifixion was kind of their

thing, and the Gospels actually tell us that Jesus died before

the soldiers could come and break his bones to speed it up.

It's also hard to believe that this would have been a horribly

injured Jesus. Very weak that that character

could inspire his followers to think that he had conquered

death. Take that message to the world.

4th. The disciples could have just

made the story up. It's a fabrication.

This is actually the easiest of the arguments to believe the

resurrection didn't happen. It's just a myth.

But if you just think the disciples made it up, you have

to deal with several questions. So if they made it up, why did

they give women such a prominent role in the story?

I have nothing against women, but back then the culture did,

and the culture didn't really see woman's testimony as valid

in court. And so if this is a fiction,

it's a strange choice that in all the gospels, the women are

the first witnesses of this earth shaking event.

It's also interesting if they made it up, that they

immediately went to go preach this lie right where it happened

in Acts. You see them preaching where in

Jerusalem where it would be so easy to tell everyone, hey, this

didn't happen. The tomb's actually over here.

That's hard to swallow. And if they made it up, you have

to figure out how to explain the book of Acts, the whole New

Testament and all of church history.

Good luck. If they made it up they knew it

was a lie. Would you endure what these

disciples went through knowing it was a lie?

Chuck Coulson served under President Richard Nixon and he

was involved in the Watergate scandal of the early 70s and

went to prison and later came to Christ and had a powerful

ministry in Jesus name. Listen to what Chuck Coulson

says about this. I know the resurrection is a

fact and Watergate proved it to me.

How? Because 12 men testified they'd

seen Jesus raised from the dead. Then they proclaim that truth

for 40 years, never once denying it.

Everyone was beaten, tortured, stoned, put in prison.

They would not have endured that if it weren't true.

Watergate embroiled 12 of the most powerful men in the world,

and they couldn't keep a lie for three weeks.

You're telling me 12 apostles could keep a lie for 40 years?

Absolutely impossible. And it's worth noting what the

apostles faced was a lot worse than a little jail time.

When you consider the arguments that Jesus didn't rise from the

dead, are any of them compelling to you?

That's what you have to ask. Could I buy any of that?

I think they all fall flat. And so we have to ask, what's

the evidence that Christ did rise from the dead?

And it's amazing to me to think that God didn't have to provide

us with evidence. If you look one verse later,

John 2019, the disciples are hiding out.

They've locked the doors. They're scared.

Jesus appears in the room, like he just appeared or walked

through the door. Maybe he was more real than the

door now. And if he can do that, did he

need the stone to be rolled away?

I think the stone wasn't rolled away for Jesus.

He didn't have to have an exit. He could have just done whatever

he wanted. It was rolled away for us.

God wanted us to see as he was accomplishing this miracle of

miracles. He left us with evidence.

So Christianity is not a blind leap of faith into the dark like

so many people think, Christian and non Christian.

Oh you just have to leap into the dark.

No, it's trusting in a God who has revealed himself in history

with brilliant light. So consider the evidence.

Professional soldiers were somehow neutralized that

morning. They were there to guard the

tomb. They knew if they failed, death

was the likely result for them. So in Matthew 28 four we learned

that an Angel took care of the guards and Matthew says for fear

of him, the guards trembled and became like dead men and the

stone was rolled away. We see this in verse one.

The stone could have weighed 2 tons, 4000 lbs.

The soldiers needed levers to just get it in place.

The Dallas Cowboys offensive line couldn't move it.

You think a few women and fishermen could move it?

Probably not. Matthew 28, two, says.

An Angel rolled back the stone and sat on it.

I think that was probably enough for the soldiers to say I'm

going to do something else. Now.

The grave clothes were left undisturbed.

We see this in verses 5 through 9.

Jewish people would wrap the dead body in these claws with

maybe 100 lbs of spices. So from Friday night to early

Sunday morning, Jesus was sort of like a mummy in that tomb.

But Sunday morning these graves clothes were mysteriously lying

there empty, maybe inflated a little bit like where his body

used to be. Like a caterpillar's chrysalis.

After the butterfly emerges, he's gone, and the resurrected

body of our Lord just passed through the clothes.

I guess he had to find some new clothes, which I've never

thought about. Where did he get clothes?

Sunday morning early and the face cloth was folded up and

left in place. The head would be wrapped

separately from the body. Jesus apparently folded up the

face cloth like a person who's done with an article of closing.

I don't need this anymore. Put it back where it belongs.

And then we have these eyewitness accounts of angels.

All the Gospels are united and testifying that there were these

shining men or angels on the scene.

And then we have these amazing eyewitness accounts of Jesus

appearing to people. But they're not what you would

expect from a myth. They're not sensationalized.

When you talk about the empty tomb or the appearances there,

If anything, understated Jesus appears to Mary here.

She's not blown away. She mistakes him for the

gardener, and he appears to these sad disciples on the road

to Emmaus, and they don't recognize them.

And in the passages after this one, you know, Jesus deals with

Thomas's doubt and Peter's denials, and then he has

breakfast with his friends on the beach.

They're beautiful stories, but they have the feeling of

authenticity and credibility, not like they were made-up.

Many people have tried to disprove the resurrection, and

they've all failed. There's a lawyer named Frank

Morrison. He tried to do it, and then he

ended up writing a book called Who Moved the Stone to Defend

the Resurrection. So brilliant people have weighed

the evidence and concluded that Jesus rose from the dead.

Listen to what a former Chief Justice of England said.

There exists such overwhelming evidence, positive and negative,

factual and circumstantial, that no intelligent jury in the world

could fail to bring in a verdict that the resurrection story is

true. So from that Sunday morning on,

Jesus followers knew what what was at stake.

They knew the world had changed. So when Peter preaches in Acts,

what's central the resurrection? And when Paul talks about the

gospel in First Corinthians 15 three, what's central the

resurrection, he basically says First Corinthians 15-3, this is

the gospel. This is the matter of first

importance. Jesus died for our sins.

He was buried and he rose from the grave, and this is all in

fulfillment of the Scriptures. And then what does he do?

He mentions all these people to whom Jesus appeared.

In First Corinthians 15-6, Paul says the risen Christ appeared

to 500 people. At the same time, he says most

of these people are still alive, though a few have fallen asleep.

So a few have died. So think about what he's saying.

Paul is saying we're not making this stuff up.

This didn't happen that long ago.

Some of these witnesses have died, but most of us are still

here. So if you have questions or

doubts, like see us after the service, come find us.

We witnessed this. Paul sees the other side too.

In the same chapter, Paul says if Christ has not been raised

from the dead, our preaching is in vain, our faith is in vain,

we've become false witnesses about God, we're still in our

sins, and we are above all people, most to be pitied.

So without the resurrection, you have to explain the apostles

transformation, the explosive growth of the church, the life

of Saul who becomes Paul, the last 2000 years of the church.

Without the resurrection. How do you explain why we're

here this morning and why many of us believe that this is true

and we can see the change in our lives?

Jesus invites us to bring our doubts to the empty tomb, to

consider the evidence, and to believe that he's risen indeed.

So whether you're a Christian or not, if you've never seriously

considered the evidence, my encouragement is follow Peter

and John and run to that empty tomb.

What could possibly be more important than figuring out if

Jesus rose from the dead? The evidence points the

historical fact of Jesus bodily resurrection.

If Christ is risen, that means something cosmic has happened

right here on earth. But what does it mean for us

personally? So we turn our attention to

Peter and Mary Magdalene and see the personal significance of the

resurrection. As we look at Peter, we see the

risen Christ has a message for the failing.

When we last saw Peter in John 18 a few weeks ago, he failed

miserably. He talked to big talk, but then

in his walk he fell on his face. He pulled a sword and tried to

stop Jesus from going to the cross and then he denied knowing

Jesus three times. We remember the rooster crowed

and Luke says Peter went out and he wept bitterly.

So just imagine his emotional state on Friday and Saturday and

then early Sunday morning. His Lord, his Messiah was gone.

His hopes were dashed and all he can think is in Jesus moment of

greatest need I failed. I acted like I didn't even know

him. That's what he has to live with.

Peter had failed Jesus, and we've failed Jesus.

We failed to love him with everything we have.

We failed to love others as he's love us.

We failed to honor him with our thoughts and our affections and

our bodies. And so we may have success in

this world, but can we admit that we failed Jesus, that we're

sinners? That's where Peter was that

Sunday morning. But in the midst of his failure,

look at what he does when Mary Magdalene comes and finds him,

when she raises the alarm that the stone's been rolled away and

Jesus isn't there, what does he do?

Peter doesn't wallow in self pity.

He doesn't drown himself in his doubts.

He gets up and he runs. And maybe he's just thinking,

I'm going to go protect my dead friend's body.

But in his failure, he at least runs towards Jesus.

In your failure, do you run towards Jesus?

And so it's another beautiful, believable story.

I think of Peter and John running through the streets of

Jerusalem early in the morning and oops, sorry, Mary, They seem

to have left her behind. And John seems to be younger.

It's so funny just getting his perspective.

He won't say his name, but I think it's John.

John points out that he's faster.

He gets there first. John looks into the tomb but

doesn't go in. But Peter, true to form, slow

but bull in the China shop, just barges right in.

And so Peter sees the evidence, the stones rolled away, the

grave closed, the face cloth, He's taken it all in.

And so John follows him into the tomb next.

And John sees and John believes, John becomes the first to

believe that Christ is risen. And then verse 10 says they went

back home, which is interesting. I wonder what they talked about

as they went home. And I think some time passed

between them leaving and Mary Magdalene coming back.

It's not clear exactly what Peter and John believed or

understood in this moment, but just imagine Peter running to

the tomb knowing all of his failures.

How's Jesus respond to him and his failures?

We see this in verse 17 when Jesus is talking to Mary.

Because Jesus gives Mary the task of going to the disciples

and telling them about his resurrection.

And how does Jesus refer to his followers?

He could have said go to those failures and say to them, go to

those failures. That's kind of who they were.

But he doesn't. He says, go to my brothers and

say to them, go to my brothers. Peter had denied Jesus and fled

the scene. And as far as we know, all the

other disciples did the same. But Jesus calls them my brothers

in John 15. He called them friends when he

was sitting with them. He said he would lay down his

life for his friends, and that's what he did.

And now he goes one step further, calls them brothers.

And what's his message for his brothers?

I'm ascending to my father and your father, my God and your

God. So do you see it?

The risen Christ not settling scores.

Instead, he's building a family of forgiven failures.

The disciples are his brothers. He wants his Father to be their

father, his God to be their God. So in our failures, the risen

Christ offers us grace upon grace, the grace of forgiveness

for our sins and failures, the grace of adoption into his

family. This morning the risen Christ

invites us to bring our failures to him, to believe in what he's

done for us, and to receive his forgiveness.

Will you come to Jesus this morning and receive His grace?

Finally, the risen Christ has a message for the grieving.

We don't know much about Mary Magdalene.

I would love to know more. In Luke 82, we learned that

seven demons had gone out from her.

People have tried to guess what her sins were, but we don't

know. I think all we know is that she

must have sinned much and suffered much, but she was

forgiven much, and so she loved much.

And all four Gospels locate her here at the tomb on the Sunday

morning in John 20. It's clear that she's in deep

grief. She's weeping, wailing, thinking

someone has now added insult to injury.

I just had to experience my teacher, my Lord, being brutally

killed. And now someone has stolen his

body just to make further sport of him.

And so we meet Mary in her darkest hour at her lowest

point. And many of us have been there.

Some of us may be there this morning.

I know the last month or so has been a time of deep grief for

many in our community. And like Mary, you may have no

expectation that things are going to get better.

But let's see what happens. In verse 11, John says she stood

weeping outside the tomb. The word in Greek forestood is a

strong word. There's a sense that she stood

right there. She anchored herself.

She wasn't going anywhere. So in her grief, Mary gets as

close to Jesus as she can and stands there.

So she becomes the picture really of abiding in Christ,

even if she thinks he's dead. But now she looks into the tomb.

Earlier she just saw the stone rolled away.

Maybe it was too dark, maybe she was too scared, maybe she was in

too much of a hurry. But now she takes a look and

what does she notice? Not the grave clothes, if

they're still there, but 2 angels sitting where the body of

Jesus had been, one at the head, one at the feet.

And they ask her kindly, woman, why are you weeping?

And she shares her grief. Then she turns and realizes

someone else is standing with her.

And this man asked the same question, woman, why are you

weeping? And then he adds, whom are you

seeking? She thinks he's the gardener, so

maybe he knows what happened to Jesus.

But it is Jesus. And in verse 16, he says Mary,

as he'd said countless times before.

And her eyes are open and she turns, and her whole world is

turned upside down, Teacher, she cries out and her fears are

gone, and her hope is restored and her grief turns to joy in a

moment. Because of the risen Christ.

So Mary Magdalene, this sinful, demon possessed, formerly demon

possessed woman, was the first person to see and touch the

risen Christ. Isn't that amazing?

He could have gone to Pilot or Caiaphas or Nicodemus or Peter

or John, but he came for Mary, which is just like coming for

you or me. I think he did that for a

reason, but no one would feel too far gone.

She was standing there weeping, and Jesus was standing there

with her. So can you see it?

The risen Christ, he comes to the doubting, to the failing, to

the grieving, to us. And if we don't see ourselves in

these categories, we're just kidding ourselves.

This is who we are. So in our grief, are we running

from Jesus? Are we running to Jesus?

Are we trying to get as close to Jesus as we can, even if we

don't think he's there? Because when we bring our grief

to Jesus, we find that he's actually standing with us and he

speaks our name and he gives us joy in the midst of our grief.

So as we close, I feel the struggle of having too big of a

Christmas present to fit it in a box and try to tie a bow around

it. One tried to tie a bow on this

package of the resurrection, but it's too glorious.

It's too hard. But I'm going to try because

this moment changed history and has changed every moment since.

So let's wrestle with it, GK Chesterton wrote.

On the third day, the friends of Christ, coming at Daybreak to

the place, found the grave empty and stone rolled away.

In varying ways they realized the new wonder, but even they

hardly realized that the world had died in the night.

The world had died in the night. What they were looking at was

the first day of a new creation, and then the semblance of the

gardener. God walked again in the garden

in the cool, not of the evening, but the dawn.

So Chesterton captures the cosmic significance of this

moment. This was the dawn of a new day.

This was the hinge of history. Jesus was the first born of a

new humanity. The resurrection is cosmic.

Jesus has conquered sin and death and hell.

But at the same time, isn't it beautiful?

It's intensely personal. John wrote this gospel in this

passage so that we would believe that Jesus is the Christ, and

that by believing we would have life in his name.

So if we believe in the risen Christ today, the resurrection

means our sins are forgiven, we have eternal life, we will be

united with Christ in a resurrection like His, and we

can trade a life in this world that sometimes seems meaningless

for a life with great purpose and mission.

We can have life in His name. So the resurrection is cosmic.

Do you believe that this happened and it changed the

world and the resurrection is personal?

Has it changed your own life? Can you say by faith with Mary I

have seen the Lord? If Christ is risen, nothing else

matters, and if Christ is not risen, nothing else matters.

Let's pray. Father, we praise you for the

glorious reality of the resurrection.

We pray this morning that we would bring you our doubts, all

our questions, and we would come and consider the evidence, that

we would come and peer into the empty tomb and you would help

us. You would convince us.

You would convert US, maybe for the first time.

Christ is risen, everything is changed.

Father, we bring you our failures, also our sins.

We pray or that we would trust that Christ is risen.

You have received his offering paid in full.

Help us to trust and receive this forgiveness, this welcome

into your family. And finally, Lord, we pray for

all those who are grieving or that you would stand with us in

that, that we we would have a sense of Jesus coming, speaking

our name and giving us his joy even in the midst of deep grief.

Word. Thank you for this message that

pierces history and I pray that it would Pierce our hearts.

And as we go from here, we would go with great hope and run to

the world that needs such hope. In Jesus name we pray.

Amen.