Holy Week Devotional - Sunday (Raised to Life)

Welcome back to our holy week podcast i'm

excited to dig into the most exciting day of holy week the resurrection of jesus

christ um so much could be said about this day and um certainly there's been

millions of pages of books written about this millions of hours of sermons said about these things,

but I don't know that there is ever enough to say about the resurrection of Jesus Christ,

the Savior of the world, the King of kings and Lord of lords, laying his life down.

It's an age-old question in the Bible. In fact, in Job 14, 14,

we read this question, if a man dies, shall he live again?

This is not a new question for the world.

People have been wondering what exactly goes on when you die.

That's still a question for many people, even Christians.

We read verses like, to be absent with the body is to be present with the Lord.

But we don't get a lot of details on exactly what that looks like.

We know that we'll be with him. He says to the thief on the cross just three

days before the day we're speaking of.

Today you will be with me in paradise.

What exactly is paradise? Well, we get word pictures like streets of gold and

mansions and pearly gates.

You know, you'll go to a funeral and you hear things like, I'm sure they're

up there doing their favorite thing.

They're golfing and they're fishing and they're, you know, spending all their

time with family members that have gone before them.

And the truth is, we just don't know a lot. We don't know a lot.

But that doesn't mean we can't answer this question that Job asked.

If a man dies Shall he live again?

The record of the resurrection of Jesus appears in all four Gospels.

It's important that there are no contradictions, and I think that's true.

However, the authors do give different details that provide us with additional

information, which is always the case with accounts of historical events,

and not ever remembers or mentions exactly the same things.

So all four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, agree that it was on the

first day of the week that these women came early at the break of dawn to the tomb.

Mark, Luke, and John do not mention the soldiers, but Luke and John tell us

that there were two angels as bright as lightning at the tomb.

And they asked these women when they showed up, why do you seek the living among

the dead? He is not here, but he has risen.

Returning to the tomb, they told all these things to the 11 and the rest.

Remember, there is only 11 disciples left because Judas has betrayed Christ.

It's interesting, Peter and John take off as soon as they hear the news and

they run as fast as they can. And famously, John beats Peter there.

It's like, Peter may have a few things on me, but I can beat him in a foot race.

It's interesting. It says that John saw the grave clothes and the head covering

that was folded neatly and placed in a corner.

I think this is a significant detail for one main reason.

The real charge that's going to be made in the first century is that the disciples

or some of Jesus' followers came in and stole the body of Jesus.

Somehow they snuck past the guards. Maybe they bribed them

somehow they rolled the massive stone out of

the way and they got inside and took Jesus body

and somehow they got out of the tomb with it

and out of the city with it and no one saw

them carry this body across that already sounds a little far-fetched but but

the clothes really make the case for us if you're going to steal a body you

certainly wouldn't leave the spices and the expensive cloths that it's wrapped in there.

You wouldn't be carrying this naked body around town.

You would want to keep it intact the way it was in the tomb.

And certainly if you're stealing a body, you don't have time to undo everything

and just fold the clothes and put them in the corner.

No, I think this is important because what it shows us was when Jesus rises

from the dead and he's given a new body, a heavenly body, like we will be when

we rise again, he's calm.

He's come back. He's at perfect peace with things. It's not a picture of a man

who's coming back to life and doesn't know what to do now and is having to relearn what's going on.

No, he's in full control, just as he was when he was crucified.

Now, for some reason, after all this takes place, the back and forth of Mary

seeing him telling the disciples and Peter and John come and then they leave

to go back to report the disciples, even though they're still scared.

Mary Magdalene remains after the disciples had left.

She was there again, just hoping to find Jesus's body.

She's still not convinced that he's risen. And it's hard to blame Mary or the disciples.

I mean, again, this is an incredibly unheard of thing.

I don't know about you, but I don't know of anyone who's risen from the dead other than Jesus.

And certainly at their time in the world, that was a pretty rare thing,

I would imagine. In fact, I think it's never happened.

Now, they've seen Jesus raise people from the dead, but they've never seen a

man raise himself from the dead.

It's one thing for Jesus to be a living man that God uses, at least in their

eyes, that God uses to raise someone from the dead like Elijah or things like

that in the Old Testament.

They have some bearing for that, but what they do not have bearing for is someone

coming back from the dead without someone else coming along to help them along.

So Mary, again, doesn't really

believe what's going on she's looking for the body and

as she

stood outside the tomb weeping she saw the angel and they

asked her women why are you weeping she said they've taken away my lord and

i do not know where they have laid him they're saying this she turned around

and saw jesus but john tells us that she didn't know it was jesus what in the

world mary should have recognized jesus.

Right well like so many of us we're looking

for jesus and we have a picture in our mind of what jesus is going to look like

right we have a picture in our mind of how jesus is going to show up how he's

going to make himself known in our lives what it's what it's going to seem like

and feel like and look like and she is looking for a dead body,

at the very least if he somehow survived the crucifixion which was physically

impossible But if he somehow did, he is going to be incredibly emaciated,

bloody, beaten, bruised, scars all over his body.

These are the expectations she has of Jesus.

And so when this gardener, as a couple of the gospel, she thinks that he is,

shows up, she's not looking for this guy.

She's not expecting Jesus to look like he looks.

She says to who she assumed as the gardener, they have taken away my Lord.

I do not know where they have laid them.

So Jesus asked her the same question. Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?

That's an interesting question. Jesus knew very well why she was crying,

and he also knew who she was seeking.

He wasn't asking her these questions for her own benefit. Rather,

he was asking her these questions to hasten her understanding of these things.

Mary, still thinking that he was the gardener, she pleaded with him,

Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him and I will take him away.

Jesus spoke one word to her.

He said to her, Mary, in verse 16.

Immediately, she understands who Jesus is. and I've heard a lot of this be sentimentalized a little bit,

and I don't know that it's necessarily wrong to say that when Jesus says her

name she recognizes the way that he says her name but I think more importantly

is what Jesus has already told us,

John chapter 10 verses 3 and 4 he says the sheep hear his voice he calls his

John 10:3

own sheep by name and leads them out,

when he has brought out all his own he goes before them and the sheep follow

him for they know his voice,

Mary was one of God's sheep Mary was one of the flock that Jesus had come to

save and so when Jesus spoke she knew who he was,

not namely because of her familiarity with Jesus.

But because of Jesus' familiarity and love for her, does she understand what's going on?

He knew that this wasn't just the gardener talking, and she turned,

presumably, to face him and said, Rabbani.

We see Rabbi, but not Rabbani a lot.

In the New Testament, some people would say that Rabbani is used as a title

of honor for certain rabbis and so kind of a rabbi of rabbis,

or it's a heavenly teacher a teacher not of this world.

This is what she proclaims when she sees Jesus, Rabbani. Jesus responded with something puzzling.

He says, do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father.

But go to my brothers and say to them, I am ascending to my Father and your

Father, to my God and your God.

Mary did what she was told.

It's interesting. Jesus saying,

don't touch me or don't hang on to me tightly is a good translation.

We might guess under the circumstances that when he said her name,

she fell on her face and grabbed him by the legs or the ankles.

He would later invite Thomas to touch him. So there was nothing wrong or ungodly

about touching the resurrected Jesus.

But I don't think it was about her touching him. I think it was about her not wanting to let him go.

Now, you can understand why Mary didn't want to let him go. She thought he was dead.

She thought she would never see him alive again.

She thought she would never get to worship him or hug him or listen to him teach ever again.

Now, all of a sudden, he's in front of her and she's thinking,

I'm never leaving this guy's side again.

Which is a good way to think.

But Jesus knew he had to go. Jesus had been crucified and raised,

but he had to ascend to his father's house.

He had to be seated at his right hand. He had to go to his coronation where

he would be crowned to the songs of millions of angels, the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.

So for now, Mary had to let him go.

Again, Jesus hangs around in this garden. A person who had been convicted and

executed should probably be afraid that someone would come and kill him again

and put him back into the tomb. but there was no fear of that for Jesus.

Jesus has a glorified body now. A body that we learn in 1 Corinthians 15 is unperishable.

This body cannot be killed. It cannot be hurt. It will experience no pain.

No tears will ever flow from it.

He has this perfect spiritual body and that is the hope that we have in the resurrection as well.

That one day we will rise as Jesus has risen. Not because of something we've

done, but because we've been buried with him. And we will be raised with him.

Our life is his now. He has bought it with a price. We belong to him.

And those that belong to him, he says clearly, will not taste death.

That does not mean they won't die physically. It means they will never be in

a state of disconnection from God because they belong to him now.

They were orphans and now they have a father.

That's the hope of the Resurrection Sunday. His sheep know him and hear his voice and obey him.

Do you know the voice of Jesus?

As we celebrate Easter, as we look at the death, burial, and resurrection of

Jesus, Do you know the voice of Jesus or have you just been trying to do what he asked you to do,

without actually getting to know what he's like, who he is, what it means to love him?

Maybe more importantly, what it means to be loved by him, to find joy in obedience,

to find joy in giving your life away because to know Jesus is to love him.

Thank you guys so much for joining us this week on our Holy Week podcast.

We've talked about doing some different podcasts throughout the week,

maybe doing once a week, maybe doing some questions and answers.

So, you know, we'd be open to any comments that you have about that or some

things that you would think would be profitable for you.

We'd love to talk about that and maybe We do some collaborations with other

ministry leaders or pastors around.

And it's been a joy to be in the Word with you this week.

Thank you guys for listening. I pray again that you had a wonderful Easter,

that you had a church you could find that would worship the risen Lord Jesus today.

He is the King of kings and Lord of lords. Thank you, guys.