John 20:1-18 – Easter Sunday

Our reading today will be John 20, verse 1 to 18.

John 20:1–18

Yeah, we're reading as it out of the ESV.

Now on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene 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 have 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 first.

And stooping to look in, he saw the linen linen cloths 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 a linen cloth, 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 two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had laid, one at the head and one at the feet.

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

She said to them, They have 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, Raboni, which means teacher.

Jesus said to her, 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 Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, I have seen the Lord, and that he had said these things to her.

Welcome to you.

If you join us while we were singing, my name is Mark.

I'm one of the leaders here at the church.

Easter is a time to celebrate.

That's why we have chocolate and uh all of those good things.

Uh, it is the most momentous event in human history.

And if you are here and you wouldn't describe yourself as a Christian, you're exploring uh what it means to be a Christian, what it is that Christians believe, this event is what Christianity rises and falls on, on whether or not the resurrection of Jesus from the dead is true.

Let me say right at the top, we don't believe that this is a metaphor.

Christians are um by necessity supernaturalists.

Uh we believe that this actually happened in history and that there's good reasons, which John is going to point us to, for having confidence in that, that this is not a uh this is not an idea, it's not an analogy.

Uh somebody, uh the Archbishop of Perth, some of you have heard me say this uh before, the Archbishop of Perth was asked a long time ago, uh maybe about 10 or 15 years now, uh, that if they um if archaeologists were exploring uh Jerusalem and they found the tomb of Jesus and they could prove by DNA evidence uh that it really was the body of Jesus of Nazareth, would that affect his faith?

And the goodly archbishop responded, no, because he has risen in my heart.

Theological nonsense is still nonsense, and that's theological nonsense.

We believe that this is actually true.

That it is historical, verifiable fact.

And the gospel writers, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, want us to have confidence this morning that the resurrection of Jesus from the dead is true and that it has implications for each of us, for all of our lives.

That Jesus is God come to earth, that he died a particular death with a particular purpose.

That was he died a death for sin to bridge that alienation that we feel uh between one another, but also between the God who made us, and that his resurrection from the dead is the great yes and uh and Amen declared across the cosmos that his sin has been paid for and that new life is possible.

We've been looking at John's account of Jesus' life for a long time now, and finally we get the payoff on Easter Sunday.

Uh, John identifies himself in these chapters as the disciple whom Jesus loved.

So when you see the phrase the disciple whom Jesus loved, uh he's talking about himself.

He's talking about, we're talking about John at that point.

And what he is conveying here is that what he is writing is his own eyewitness account.

It is his eyewitness testimony.

We know furthermore that uh that this is history and not legend for a couple of reasons.

Something you know, the legend of Jesus' resurrection kind of built up.

Let me just kind of uh speak into that for a couple of minutes while we uh prime ourselves to getting into the text.

First, the reason that why we know that this is not just a legend, a legendary tale, is uh is because if you were just making up a story that you wanted other people to believe and accept as credible back in the first century, you wouldn't have the first witnesses to the resurrection being women.

That in the first century, a woman's testimony, I'm merely describing the first century culture.

I'm at really serious there for a moment.

I'm only describing what was believed in the first century.

But the fact of the matter is, in the first century, uh a woman's testimony was not acceptable in a uh in a court of law.

Their testimony would have not carried any sort of weight.

And so if you're making up a story that you want people to accept and to believe, you would write and say, well, actually, Peter and James and John went.

But the gospel has the ring of truth to it because they are describing what actually happened, whether or not it's acceptable to the social values of the of the day.

It's also an elevation of uh of women in the text, isn't it?

That they are the first ones to see the risen Lord Jesus, to get a glimpse of that new creation order that he is bringing to bear.

If you were to make it up, you wouldn't have the women be the first witnesses.

Not only that, but we know from history that the resurrection was proclaimed in Jerusalem.

Now, why is that significant?

Well, if you're just making it up and it didn't actually happen, you wouldn't begin by telling the story in the place where the events took place.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but if the resurrection didn't happen and uh there's a tomb with a body in it, you wouldn't start telling the people who could just go, well, actually, he's oh, he's dead up there.

Like I we can go and see him.

The corpse is there.

What are you talking about?

You would maybe go away.

You go, you go far, far away and you'd tell but this fantastical story.

But they don't.

They begin to proclaim it in Jerusalem, the very place where if it were not true, it could be very easily debunked.

John also in this passage begins to deal with the idea that the body was stolen.

Uh, this is the emphasis on the grave clothes.

You know, there's some references to the grave clothes here in this text, uh, where it talks about how they were lying there.

Uh the word translated in English is folded.

Uh, really, actually, the term is twisted.

So, what you need to think about is actually the grave clothes were there as though they were still wrapped around the body.

It is as though the body passed through the grave clothes, leaving the grave clothes behind in their wrapped form.

Now, you either have some very dedicated uh grave robbers with a lot of time on their hands in order to set it all up rightly, or something else is going on.

Now, the thing that was um uh that the gospel writers even mention is that the uh the Jewish leaders begin to put it out there that the disciples stole the body.

Uh, I don't know how uh how familiar you are um with uh with kind of US history and politics, but there was a big scandal uh during the uh the uh administration of President Nixon called the Watergate scandal.

That's why everything is a gate now.

Um so this would be Resurrection Gate.

Um, everything gets is a gate because of the Watergate scandal, where uh where a number of men were uh were caught red-handed uh doing something illegal.

You don't need to worry about what that was.

Um but their their stories didn't uh stack up or they didn't maintain those stories for any more than uh than three or four weeks.

They all folded like a house of cards.

But each one of the disciples goes on to live the entirety of his life believing the resurrection of Jesus to be true, even when that means uh dying a heinous death.

So the two disciples that we have mentioned here are Peter and John.

Peter was crucified upside down and yet never recanted.

John was boiled in oil and didn't die, and then was sent to live out the end of his days on the prison island of Patmos in Greece.

Uh James was beheaded, Andrew was run through with a spear.

The list could go on and on.

And yet not one of them, when faced with death, recanted or said, Do you know what?

Actually, we were just making it up.

You know, John wants us to have confidence this morning that what we are reading about is actual historical events, and in having confidence in them to place our faith on that solid rock.

There are two routes to faith this morning through this passage.

Both are rooted in history, both are based in fact, but both are uh slightly different.

And one, John would argue, is better than the other.

The first route to faith through this passage is that seeing is believing.

The first route to faith in this passage is that seeing is believing.

It'd be really good for you to have this passage up on your on your phone if you've got a Bible with you to be looking at John chapter 20.

John 20 · chapter mention

We're going to look at some of the verses.

If you need a hard copy, you can run down.

None of us will see you.

It's it's so discreet, right?

Uh, but you can you can do that if you need, and uh to have a Bible in front of you so you're examining some of these things along with us.

Seeing is believing.

Let's have a look at that.

That's what people say.

Seeing is believing.

If I saw Jesus uh believing him, let's see.

Mary goes to the tomb early, that's uh chapter 20, verse 1, and she sees that the stone has been rolled away.

Now, this this stone is not a pebble, this is a large stone that would have taken uh three or four uh kind of hefty men uh to move it out of the way.

And so the stone has been rolled away.

And so she thinks that somebody has stolen the body.

Now, grave robbery was not uncommon in those days.

In fact, the uh the emperor, a few years after Jesus' uh death and resurrection, passed a law throughout the empire that it was a capital offense to to rob a grave because it was so prevalent.

And she's particularly upset because as a uh as a Jew, it was a terrible dishonor to uh to desecrate uh the body of a corpse.

And so she is uh she is upset, and she goes then to Peter and John and says that the uh that the tomb is empty, verse two.

So she uh so she ran and went to Simon Peter, and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, that's John, and said to them, They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.

And again, there is a note of history and eyewitness testimony in the next couple of verses.

Verse 3 So Peter went out with the other disciple, and they were uh going towards the tomb.

Verse 4, Peter, I'm sure, just loves this verse.

Um, both of them were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter uh when he and he reached the tomb first.

And he stopped to look in and the linen clothes lying there, but did not go in.

Verse 6.

Then Simon Peter came following him and went into the tomb and saw the linen cloth lying there.

Why does this have the the ring of eyewitness testimony?

Well, why would you why would you waste words on your parchment being specific?

Well, maybe John's just having a gloat, right?

It's his gospel.

I'll put in whatever I want.

I won the race.

May it be known for all of eternity.

Uh and Peter's there in heaven, going, I can't believe they're reading that verse again.

All right.

Um, why put it in?

Is it just is it just a gloat?

Well, no, it's actually because John wants to be specific in the detail of, okay, we went out, we were both running, I got there first, and actually, even in what happens, there's a sense of their of their individual personalities.

John's always been a bit more, a bit more reflective, a bit more uh uh analytical.

And so he arrives and he arrives at the tomb and he looks in.

I mean, what does Peter do?

Well, Peter does something very Peter-like in his own personality.

You imagine him, he's running along, he's like, get out of my way! And he's like straight, poof, straight in.

It's like Peter.

You see their personalities.

We've got to know Peter and his kind of impetuousness uh throughout the gospel narrative.

And here he's running and he kind of he explodes into the tomb.

And it is when they see, John tells us that he then goes in and he sees the linen cloths folded up as in still in that twisted, wrapped around fashion, left in place, and we're told in verse 8 that he saw and believed.

For John seeing was believing.

He goes in, he sees the grave close, and he believes that Jesus has been raised from the dead.

What's John doing here?

Well, he's being rational and reasonable, he's following the logic.

His faith is not blind, it is based on the evidence before him.

He sees that the grave flows are there and concludes that Jesus has been raised from the dead.

It is a reasonable faith that John is exhibiting.

Now, verse 9 is odd.

So follow the logic, verse 8, into verse 9.

So they went in, he saw and believed, for this is weird, for, so there's a connection with verse 8, as yet they did not understand the scripture that he must rise from the dead.

So he believed, but he didn't believe something, or he didn't understand something.

Do you notice that it feels weird?

What's going on in verse 9?

And verse 9, I think, is quite important.

John is emphasizing that at this point of his own journey of faith, as he looks in and sees the folded grave clothes, that at this point his faith is based simply on what he is seeing before him.

It's not as though John is suddenly making loads of Old Testament connections about how the Christ must rise from the dead.

Some people might say, well, Christians just want this to be true.

It's a kind of an emotional crutch.

It's full, it's wish fulfillment, that sort of thing.

John is specifically saying, no, no, this wasn't wish fulfillment for me, because I wasn't, I wasn't thinking about all of the all of the stuff that Jesus says.

I wasn't thinking about all of the Old Testament background.

I was looking at what I was seeing, and I made the evidentiary conclusion that Jesus had risen from the dead.

Right now, in this moment for John, seeing is believing.

There is a second route to faith this morning.

And it is not that seeing is believing, but that hearing is believing.

Not seeing is believing, but hearing is believing.

Peter and John uh head home.

I find that weird.

It's breakfast time, I suppose.

But anyway, they go home, and Mary remains there weeping.

She's still uh overcome by her grief.

And I think perhaps we can have some empathy uh with her here.

I imagine that the vast majority of you in this room have experienced grief at one time or another.

And you know, particularly in those early days, how disorientating grief is.

It really does feel like you're not thinking straight.

You know, sometimes uh you know you meet you maybe meet somebody at a at a wake or a funeral, and if you're if you've been really close to the deceased, you know, somebody might come up to you afterwards and go, Oh, did you did you did you know that um such and such a person came and said, Oh, I don't even don't even remember them there.

And they're like, Well, you you spoke to them as I have no memory of of that conversation.

Do you know?

So we can have some have some sympathy uh with uh with Mary here.

She's disorientated by the experience.

It's hard for her to think straight.

And so for her, right now, seeing is not believing.

And we know that because of verse 12.

Uh she stoops and she looks into the tomb, and who does she see?

Well, she sees two angels in white sitting where the body of Jesus had been laid.

Not a usual day, I would have thought.

But she's not making the connections.

Do you see?

She's seeing.

But she's not believing.

It's one of the uh one of the things throughout the gospel.

You know, people do say, well, you know, if I saw a miracle, or if Jesus was in front of me, I'd believe him.

Actually, the gospel is full of accounts of people who see miracles, experience miracles, see Jesus, and who walk away from him.

It doesn't convince them at all.

Mary here is seeing some unusual things.

And they have a conversation.

I say to her, Why are you crying?

And she says, Well, they've taken my Lord.

She still doesn't believe.

And her sight fails her still when another figure appears.

This time it's Jesus.

She thinks that he's the gardener.

Uh, it may well be that.

I mean, there does seem to be something in the kind of post-resurrection experience where where Jesus is able to kind of um disguise himself in some sort of way.

You think of his walking with the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, and they they don't know who it is that they're talking to, and it isn't until uh later on that day when they're uh having a meal and Jesus breaks the bread that they suddenly suddenly realize.

But whatever's going on here, she doesn't see who Jesus is, she mistakes him.

And She thinks that he has sufficient authority in the garden tomb area to kind of say, well, you, if you have taken the body, uh, let me know where he is so that I can go and I'll I'll look, I'll get him myself.

Again, she's not thinking straight.

Like, what's she gonna do?

She's gonna carry this body back to the tomb.

And what is it that snaps her back into reality and awakens her faith?

It's when she hears Jesus speak her name.

Imagine that moment where just a smile begins to break across Jesus' face, and he looks at her and goes, Mary.

And suddenly in hearing him call her name, she realizes who it is that she is talking to.

Do you remember Jesus' own words from John chapter 10?

John 10 · chapter mention

Where he says, I am the good shepherd, I lay my life down from uh for my sheep.

What else does he say?

My sheep hear my voice and follow me.

Mary in this moment is hearing the voice of the Good Shepherd call her, and it awakens her faith.

With one word, he remakes her world and transforms her life forever.

For Mary, hearing was believing.

She hears the voice of the Lord, and then she sees clearly.

She sees what's really going on.

And she cries out, um, she doesn't cry uh rabbi, she cries rabbonai, uh, which means it's not just teacher, it's like it's like my own dear teacher.

Uh I I don't know, this is probably a very dated reference.

Some of you will get it, but you may have uh seen the old movie of the railway children, um, which is a uh a movie set in uh in World War II.

But there's a very moving scene where uh where the railway children who've uh these uh three uh young siblings who have been estranged from their family because of the war in England.

It's very British, my wife loves it, right?

Um and uh and there's a scene where uh where they're finally reunited with their father, and and the little girl flings her arms around it and says, Oh daddy, my daddy.

It's kind of like that.

My own dear teacher.

And Mary, understandably, she either she either flings her arms around Jesus or she falls on the ground and clutches her feet, you know, the feet that she uh that she washed with her hair.

She falls at those pierced feet and is full of joy.

And in a sense, in in clinging on to him, she's she's saying, I lost you once, but I'm not gonna lose you again.

You know, and if you've ever uh just for one of those gut-wrenching moments, lost a uh lost a child in a in a store, and you're calling and you're calling their name and you are reunited with them and you clutch them because you're I'm never gonna let you go again.

It's that sort of emotional response.

I lost you once, I'm not gonna lose you again.

And Jesus' response to her is not a it's not a rebuke, it's not a telling off, it's a it's a tender reassurance.

He says to her, Do not cling to me.

For I have not yet ascended to my 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.

The resurrection has changed everything, including how Jesus' followers relate to him.

He told them in the upper room that he would go and ascend to his father, that and that when he was there, he would send the Spirit to be with them and to be in them forever.

And so, in this phase of transition between resurrection and ascension, he is reminding her that she doesn't need to cling to the physical body of Jesus in order to enjoy his presence.

Why?

Because seeing isn't the only way to believing.

When he goes to his father, he will be present by his spirit, and it is by that same spirit as people hear the good news that Jesus is alive, that they begin to see with new eyes.

It is though they the penalty suddenly drops because their blindness has been lifted and they see Jesus for who he truly is.

That's the testimony of many of you here this morning.

That's the testimony of uh of some of you here this morning who have only been coming to City Church for a short time, that as you've heard the good news of Jesus, the Spirit has worked in your life and you see with new eyes.

That's what it feels like.

For you, hearing has been believing, and it has led to new sight.

Rather than clinging to Jesus, he immediately sends her on a mission.

He sends her to the disciples to do what?

To tell them that Jesus is alive.

Why?

Because hearing is believing.

The resurrected Jesus sends each one of us on mission.

Regardless of our depth of understanding, Mary in this moment understands so little.

She doesn't get all of the implications.

She's still, I'm sure, got questions, trying to work it out.

And yet Jesus sends her.

He doesn't say, Well, if you sign up for this uh undergraduate degree course, uh, we'll we'll look at kind of the infallibility of scripture and we'll look at uh you know what my death on the cross actually meant.

And then after all of that is done, uh then maybe you can go and start telling people about Jesus.

No, no.

He sends her at this moment with her level of understanding.

And that's true of you as well.

You may have questions, you may have things that you're still wrestling through, things that still don't quite make sense.

And yet Jesus still sends you.

Go tell my disciples.

Go and tell them that I am alive, that sin has been paid for, that forgiveness is secure, that they can have a new relationship with God.

Do you see how he defines it?

It says, I'm ascending to who?

To my father, okay, great, and your father.

Transformed relationship with God.

He is their God, but he is also now their father.

Because of the resurrection, we are adopted into the family of God, made his sons and daughters never to be cast away, never to be estranged, never to be reproached by his displeasure.

She goes and she tells.

She goes and tells the disciples what she has seen.

We often say seeing is believing, but for John, hearing is the better route to faith because it is the route to faith that is open to each one of us.

We have no time machine for going back to the first century.

But John still wants us to have confidence.

And so he is emphasizing the eyewitness account that they saw and are now telling.

Those are the three categories for uh for a legal eyewitness testimony, for a deposition.

Were you there?

Did you see it?

Did you hear it?

Did you interact with it?

And John is saying, we saw it, we heard it, we touched it.

It's no accident that in the very next passage that we'll be coming to next week, that we've got somebody who is touching Jesus.

We've got Thomas.

He touches the physical body of the resurrected Lord Jesus because John is wanting to assure us that what he's seeing, what they saw and heard and touched, really happened.

There's eyewitness testimony, and that comes down to us and we hear it.

And John wants to assure us that that is a great thing because hearing is believing.

So not to steal uh Peter's thunder, who's preaching next Sunday, but uh Jesus will say at the end of the Thomas uh section, blessed are those who have not seen and yet believed.

How do they believe?

Hearing is believing.

The whole purpose of John writing is that people all over the world might hear the story of Jesus, crucified, resurrected, and come to believe that everything that he said about himself was true.

The resurrection is historical.

The eyewitnesses demonstrate the credibility of it, but it is also personal.

The risen Jesus calls Mary's name and transforms her mourning into joy.

I guess this is why actually she is she's asked so many times why are you weeping?

And I think that if it was, if I was Mary, I'd start to get a little bit annoyed.

Everybody keeps on asking, why are you crying?

Well, why do you think I'm crying?

You know, somebody walked into you, you're back at that at that wick or at that funeral, and somebody walks into you and goes, Why are you weeping?

You would be desperately offended, wouldn't you?

Well, what do you mean, why am I weeping?

Why do they keep on asking Mary, why are you weeping?

It is because to weep at the empty grave of Jesus is the most incongruous thing that you can do.

It's not a place for weeping.

It's a place for joy.

It's a place for laughter and for celebration.

Some of you here this morning have heard the risen Lord Jesus call you by name.

And you know what it is that he has turned your weeping into laughter.

I guess my prayer for those of you who don't know Jesus this morning is that by his spirit you would hear him calling your name, and that just as he transformed Mary's world, that he would transform yours.

The resurrection is historical, it's personal, but it's also universal.

One of the things that we didn't touch on on Good Friday is that when Jesus was crucified, uh they they wrote a charge what it was he was being crucified for and hung it over him on the cross.

The charge was the king of the Jews.

So the Jewish leaders are a bit annoyed at that.

They said, no, no, change it to, he said he was the king of the Jews.

But Pilate had the charge written in Aramaic, the language of uh the locality, Latin, the language of the Roman Empire, and Greek, the language of the trading world.

It was the lingua franca, it was the English of uh of our day.

Pilate is doing something ironic there.

He is acting better than he knows.

He is proclaiming in all of the universal languages that Jesus is the king, not just of the Jews, but of everyone.

And the resurrection confirms it.

Jesus says that he is ascending to reign at his father's side, and there he reigns still.

That's why we sing, crown him with many crowns, the lamb upon his throne.

Hark how the heavenly anthem drowns all music but its own.

All hail, redeemer, hail, for thou hast died for me.

Thy praise shall never ever fail throughout eternity.

A potentate, by the way, is just a ruler.

And ineffably sublime, just means he cannot be described.

If you were wondering, why are we singing this?

He rules and reigns at his father's side, and we herald his triumphant victory over death.

Mary goes to the disciples and says, I have seen the Lord.

Jesus wants all of us, as his followers, all those who are trusting in him here this morning, not simply to gaze upon him in passive amazement, but to be active in going and telling, in sharing him, in telling others about him.

Maybe it is a very simple testimony.

I love the uh, forgive me uh for a moment.

I love the um the TV show The Chosen, uh, which is a a non-cheesy, I think, dramatized version of uh what's going on in the Gospels.

Uh, but there but Mary Magdalene's testimony uh that is that it's written in the in the show is that she says, I don't know what happened, she says, I was one way, and now I'm another, and the thing that happened in between was him.

If you're a believer, that's your testimony.

I was one way, and now I'm another, and the thing that happened in between was him.

And she goes and she tells.

Why does she tell?

Because hearing is believing.

If hearing is believing, and it is, then we should be so encouraged by this passage.

Mary knew so little, and yet what she heard she shared.

She heard the call of the Lord and listened to his voice, and he used her to bring the joy of the resurrection to the rest of the disciples.

If hearing is believing, and we can have confidence in John's account, then what that means is that we should expect people to have their lives transformed still today as they hear the great message of the Lord Jesus.

Why are we, why do we cheer and clap when we saw the pictures of Redeemer, our first daughter church, as they meet for the first time?

There's no better day to start a new church than Resurrection Sunday.

Why?

Because we believe that Jesus is still transforming lives.

How is he transforming lives?

Because hearing is believing.

That as they hear by the power of the Spirit, lives are transformed, and people are given this new sight.

If you're here this morning for the first time, we would love you to listen to the voice of the risen Jesus, to have confidence in what you are reading and exploring here, to come and to ask your questions.

But to hear his voice and to come to him to know him, to know the joy of sin forgiven, and to join us as we seek to offer that hope to a hopeless world.

Wish you all a very happy Easter.