John 20:11-18 - ”Changed Relationship” - Easter Sunday

from Genesis 3:es

8-19 And they heard the sound of the

Lord God walking in the garden in the

cool of the day And the man and his wife

hid themselves from the presence of the

Lord God among the trees of the garden

But the Lord God called the man and said

to him "Where are you?" And he said "I

heard the sound of you in the garden and

I was

afraid because I was naked and I hid

myself." He said "Who told you that you

were

naked Have you eaten of the tree of

which I commanded you not to eat?" The

man said "The woman whom you gave to be

with me she gave me fruit of the tree

and I ate."

Then the Lord God said to the woman

"What is this that you have

done?" The woman said "The serpent

deceived me and I

ate." The Lord God said to the serpent

"Because you have done this cursed are

you above all livestock and above all

beasts of the field On your belly you

shall go and dust you shall eat all the

days of your life

I will put enmity between you and the

woman and between your offspring and her

offspring He shall bruise your head and

you shall bruise his

heel To the woman he said I will surely

multiply your pain in

childbearing In pain you shall bring

forth children Your desire shall be for

your husband and he shall rule over

you And to Adam he

said because you have listened to the

voice of your wife and have eaten of the

tree of which I commanded you you shall

not eat of

it Cursed is the ground because of you

In pain you shall eat of it all the days

of your life Thorns and thistles it

shall bring forth for you and you shall

eat the plants of the field By the sweat

of your face you shall eat bread till

you return to the ground for out of it

you were taken for you are dust and to

dust you shall

return The New Testament reading is from

the Gospel of John 20:es 11-8

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 lain 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 This is the word of the Lord

Thanks be to God

Please be

seated That threw me back Ross Standing

while hearing the word That's great Old

school Love

it Well today I get to preach on Easter

How wonderful is that And the text I

chose to preach on I think is one of the

most wonderful texts in the whole Bible

And it's about this obscure figure

called Mary

Magdalene So let's get right into it

Now 10 years ago an event happened that

changed the world And some of you might

remind it be

reminded that came on the

internet Do you remember this How many

of you remember this

Yeah Okay So I'm going to ask you a

question So apparently you might see one

way of looking at this and other people

are going to see it differently So most

pe not most people some people see it as

yellow and or sorry white and gold Raise

your hand if you see white and

gold Don't be shy There's not a wrong

question here So you see white and gold

How many you see blue and black

You see

that We could do a church split just on

that The crazy thing is this is one of

those things that it took them two years

to figure it out but was undeniable I

have never seen anything but golden

white That's I don't know why All I can

see is golden white I've tried to see it

in other ways And people who see it the

other way look at me like me like I'm

nuts And I am nuts but not because of

that And this has become the concept of

perception How can we perceive the same

thing in two so completely different

ways Well perception is what we bring to

anything Perception is what is the part

of disciplehip

How we perceive things must change once

we convert to

Christianity We have to take the views

we have and sometimes we're so sure of

them but sometimes they're wrong or

maybe

incomplete This is a story about

perception This is a story this little

paricopy in John about how Mary

Magdalene has to have a transfer of what

she perceives and it's going to

transform her life Let's

pray Heavenly Father we thank you for

your living word We pray that it will

come alive in us You'll open our eyes

and our ears in Jesus name

Amen Before I jump right into the text

itself you need to know something about

how to read gospels It's going to help

us a lot for this gospel They didn't

read gospels as modern biographies

Modern biographies tell you different

events that happened They're usually

focused on how people developed through

childhood and then they end up with the

events of the person that were

spectacular and they give an

interpretation of why it happened That's

a modern biography and that's all it's

about Ancient biographies which this was

written in were written in a different

way It was called Greek bios or

biography And this style of writing

which our gospels are just as dependent

on as the other ones have a certain

style that they're expecting rules as it

were for you to look for And these rules

are told to us at the beginning of every

gospel narrative and they're trying to

tell us something about Jesus but in

light of who he really is So when you do

Matthew's gospel it's all about the

Exodus So when you start to read

Matthew's gospel it starts with Exodus

language You've got the killing of the

innocents you've got them leaving Egypt

you've got them going through the water

the baptism 40 days in temptation then a

sermon on a mount Does that sound

familiar That's the Exodus story Does

that mean none of this happened Of

course not But the writer is trying to

tell you Jesus is the Mosaic figure that

is taking us to the New Exodus That's

what they're trying to do I can go into

each one I won't bore you But this

particular text comes out of the Gospel

of John Now there'll be extra points

here or chocolate eggs for those who

tell me how does the Gospel of John

start What is the first sentence

In the where have we heard that before

the Genesis account

right So what is he trying to say He's

very clear What he's saying is whatever

I'm writing here this is based on

Genesis and the creation story And then

again and again and I don't have the

time to do it I wish I did I could show

you how time and again he uses these

images of the creation story But what is

he ultimately

doing His ultimate purpose is to show

that Jesus is the God of creation

that Jesus is undoing the curse of the

creation And that's the theme of this

whole thing Do you understand So let's

go back to the creation story We got Eve

bad Eve right Right Eating that

apple And then you have simp Adam you

know just like "Okay I'll eat it." I

don't know who's worse

Happy

Yes Yes

I saw a joke the other day is is why

women take so long to pick where they

want to eat It's cuz last time they did

choose it was like the end for all of us

Um I don't believe that That's

terrible

Jeez I'm not going to have new friends

anymore

Um but in this creation story so so

there's something you stand out We get

to the the resurrection narratives And

in light of all this this is the only

resurrection narrative where you only

have one woman There's three in each of

the others We have one Why

one H How many were there in the garden

with God and

Adam One He was trying to make a point

What do we know about Mary

Magdalene You remember her backstory How

many demons were in

her Seven You know what the number seven

means Doesn't mean like somebody that

was there with a baseball

clicker It means she was completely

demonized She was the fruit of the fall

Because what did it say that wily

serpent would do but to bite our ankles

right

And so she is quite the character to

choose because she's Eve and she's the

product of the curse and the fall And

she is Mary is a

mess And we get into this story now And

what we're looking for is what's going

to happen in this tomb that's going to

undo the curse That's what this

section's about That's really what it's

about Well first of all I think it's

hilarious that Peter and John zip in

there They see that the tomb's empty and

they take off and they leave

Mary outside the tomb They just like "Oh

okay You just stay there." The most

dangerous place she could be She's just

left by

herself Think about that for a

second What did that say about what they

thought of her at that time

But Mary is now stood weeping outside

the tomb And as she wept she stooped to

look into the tomb You have to look down

and up And she saw two angels in white

sitting where the body of Jesus had lain

One at the head and one at the feet Now

the question is what's going on there

She sees two angels addressed in white

One in the head one in the feet What

might John be wanting us to refer to

here Why are they sitting None of these

guys put these things in by chance These

are brilliant authors Well I'm going to

tell you what I think He's going back to

the ark Remember the ark And you had the

two angels over the mercy seat And the

mercy seat is where the lamb's blood was

put down And the angels came over And

that lamb's blood was the forgiveness of

sins And the angels are looking down on

the mercy seat while they're sitting on

each side of this platform And what is

the lamb of God And where was his blood

Right

there

Forgiveness This is the arc covenant

language I'm convinced one at the head

and one of the feet And they said to her

woman

gune was not a usual topic They don't

give her first name but woman gune is

the very same Greek word in the

Septuagent in Genesis

for

Eve So I call her

Eve Isn't that

interesting Eve why are you

weeping She doesn't have a clue what's

going on Her perception is this world

like it is People who got crucified died

Powers and power

reign Nothing's changed And that's why

she says "They have taken away my Lord."

This word Lord doesn't mean the Lord but

rather my Lord which would be my

commander And I do not know where they

have laid him That's the only way she

can think She needs a conversion She

needs her perception to

change And that's why they ask her the

question They know why she weeps But

what they're trying to do is get her to

think about what is she what it is she

believes So before so that she can

change her view to

truth Having said this she turned around

and saw Jesus standing right But she did

not know that it was Jesus That's pretty

normal resurrection Jesus said to

her

"Eve why are you weeping?" Two of them

said "The angels and him." Well by the

way here's a little trick for you When

something is said twice in a little

story like this the writer's telling you

"Pay

attention." This is the

point Why are you

weeping And then he adds in "Whom are

you seeking?" And that's the big

question for us right now Who's she

seeking A dead

Jesus a human being that she followed

That's what she's seeking She's not

seeking

resurrection She's not seeking new life

She's seeking the dead body She just

said

that Supposing him to be the gardener

Now this is

interesting Who was the gardener in the

creation

story

Adam She sees him as Adam What I mean by

that is this isn't the divine son of God

in her eyes supposeding him to be the

gardener The gardener in the Old

Testament what did he do Who took care

of the

earth Adam How many gardeners do you

think hang around

tombs Do you see this is a mention it

this way She supposes him to be the

gardener but the writer wants you to

understand that she can't see him for

who he is She can only see him through

the fallen window of creation He's just

human to her He's just

Adam Supposing him to be the gardener

she said to him "Sir if you have carried

him away tell me a where you have laid

him and I will take him away." She still

sees death She can only see the world

through Adam She can only see the world

the way it

is There is no hope

And then we have the

moment Now you remember earlier in John

he says that when I call out the names

of those who are to follow me they will

hear their name and rejoice Remember

that in John Well Jesus says to her he's

not calling her Eve anymore cuz the

situation's changed It's no longer just

generic woman He says

"Mary." She turned and said to him in

Aramaic she still doesn't get it She

calls him Raboni Rabbi

teacher she still doesn't get

it Okay But she

will And that's why Jesus says to her

"Do not cling on to me." There's some

disputation about what this means I'm

personally convinced that the problem is

her perception She can't cling on to

Raboni

Jesus She can't cling on to human Jesus

This has to let go She must be

converted She must see things as they've

changed Do not cling on to me for I've

not yet ascended to the father That's

where he becomes king and lord of the

universe But go to my brothers and say

to them I am ascending to my father And

then he does something

incredible In the fall humanity no

longer had that relationship with God

We were no longer in that intimate

relationship Sometimes God the father

would call Israel his son but Israel was

never

faithful But here he changes the whole

business And this is the whole change I

am ascending to my father and your

father That's what's got to change

postresurrection This is no longer angry

God that's kicked you out This is God

your father who's adopted you in because

of

this That's

incredible To my God and to your God And

that separation in the garden has been

undone Do you see

it Now our God is your God My God is

your God Everything has been reconciled

because of this

action Now the question is is she going

to get

it Oh Mary Magdalene went and announced

to the disciples and this is an

incredible qu thing She says "I have

seen." Notice it doesn't say my Lord it

says the Lord Do you see that Well if

you were here at Ricky Watt's thing you

have it in your head Lord when it's the

Lord means kios in Greek or Yahweh in

Hebrew Who is Yahweh in

Hebrew It's the name of

God No she went from seeing him as just

a mere

gardener to seeing him as

God Isn't that something She has

converted Eve has been healed The

relationship's been sent right And now

she's being sent out to the other Adams

to begin this story that it's been set

right and that he had said these things

to her What an incredible thing What an

incredible story Not only that she's now

given the role of priest again You had

to be in my Genesis story but before the

fall the woman and man were both kings

and priests and they lost it all Here

she's given a priestly act because she's

now interceding for her

brothers I don't know if I'd do a whole

theology out of this text on women in

ministry which I believe in but I will

tell you something This

changed No one had women in the ancient

world doing anything like that

This is an incredible story about an

incredibly broken woman who's now become

the apostle the sentout one with this

story So great So what for

us Well here's the thing about Easter A

lot of us come in and we think it's a

nice thing We we talk about eggs Maybe

maybe we talk about a resurrected tomb

Maybe we talk about Jesus and we say

nice platitudes But I wonder if we need

to have our eyes open to what this

really

means Maybe we need our perception

changed

ourselves I'm preaching Ephesians right

now and this is not a plug but if you

want to

watch and I'm prepping for next

week And this is his prayer Listen to

his prayer to the little church in

Ephesus That the God of our Lord Jesus

Christ the Father of glory may give unto

you the spirit of wisdom and revelation

in knowledge of

him Now here's my question for you Why

would Paul pray that to a church that

already

believes Because partly we don't get it

And we need to get it more and more Do

you see

You know when you believed you didn't

one day just wake up and go I figured

out

everything The truth is all of us are

very limited in what we understand And

we need to hear again and again who is

this Jesus And then baby we will be

celebrating Easter like we

should cuz it isn't just a super nice

guy or a good teacher In fact that's

kind of offensive isn't it

I love I have to always read this every

year just once a year It's CS Lewis and

I can't read it because it's way too

small and that wasn't of great idea I'm

going to do my

best A man who was merely man and said

the sort of things Jesus said would not

be a great moral teacher He would be

either a lunatic on the level with a man

who says he is a poached egg or else he

would be the devil of hell You must make

up your choice Either this man was and

is the son of God or else a madman or

something

worse You can shut him up for a fool You

can spit at him and kill him as a demon

Or you can fall at his feet and call him

Lord and God But let us not come with

any patronizing nonsense about him being

a great human teacher He has not left

that open to us

Amen

So what has he left

us First

thing he's a savior Did you hear what I

just said He's the savior Not a

savior This is going to offend people

but there is no other way to the father

except through Jesus Christ Amen He is

the one true savior and it is only

through him that we find because he's

the only God who died on a

cross And I'm not meaning to offend

anyone but in our multicultural area we

don't want to offend at all And then

people tell me well you say he's uh he's

the only savior Emry it comes across

arrogant I'm not the savior Why is it

arrogant

Yes if I was saying Emry is a savior

first of all leave and

then we got a problem But I'm not saying

that I'm saying I am just like everyone

else And thank God I have a God who

would save But we don't need to go

looking everywhere else because this is

the only one that I'm aware of who came

out of a

tomb I'm going to get old BB Warfield

This is getting old school 19th century

Here we go We have but one savior and

that one savior is Jesus Christ our Lord

Nothing that we are and nothing that we

can do enters into the slightest measure

into the ground of all acceptance with

God Jesus did it all My friends you can

get confused by all these religions I'm

telling you right now if you're sitting

here Jesus Christ is Lord and he is the

Savior and he's the one And if God has

chosen you be thankful and go and share

it with others because it is the way

And you're not going to hear that in

every church this week That's right But

I tell you it's a truth

That's the first thing we need to know

about

Jesus But the second thing he's also our

priest This is something we forget Not

only is Jesus our savior he's

continuously ministering to us as the

priest He ascends into

heaven and he

intercedes for us all the time He's our

high priest He's the one we make

confession

to Dedric Bonhaofer said "If Jesus

Christ is not true God how could he help

us If he is not true man how could he

help us He is in the business of helping

us and we still need that help."

One of the things he does is he stands

for humanity before God interceding He

is our priest He is our friend and he's

our savior And right now he's living and

interceding for this church and your

church and all the

churches He's a living God He didn't do

it once and head away He's actively

ministering for

us that gets lost so much that he is

that kind of priest and thus open the

doors to the heavenly throne room and

come boldly in because our priest

already died for

us How many of us who when we're doing

bad and having bad days think God

doesn't like me that very moment he is

praying for

you the great Carl Bart

thus is this oneness Jesus Christ is the

mediator the reconciler between God and

man thus he comes forward to man on

behalf of God calling for an awakening

faith love and hope and to God on behalf

of man representing man making

satisfaction and interceding Thus he

attests and guarantees to God's free

grace and at the same time attests and

guarantees to God man's free

gratitude He is in between God and us

and he is right now interceding for us

And if you're worried about someone in

your life or someone who's walking away

or not living the life he is praying for

them That's fantastic news

He's a better priest than I

am Not that I'm a

priest He's a better priest than any of

us And that's who he

is And then the next one which gets

people even

more in angst Jesus is

king The Bible pointed that Messiah

would one time and have all the

governments on the shoulder Right You

read that that one day this Messiah

would come and he would be lord over

everything Well the New Testament

writers take it even for further than

the governances on their story They say

all the heavens and earth are under him

He is in

authority In other words we're

not And everything else that you see in

our political world with people trying

to take authority sometimes arrogantly

is all an illusion they're living by

The truth is there's only one king and

he is in heaven and he's in charge So if

you like Jesus you're going to like the

king of the

universe Now you're saying "Emrie I

don't know I see Trudeau I see Carney I

I'm not allowed to use American

politicians Get people too

upset whoever I can never say the con

conservative guy whatever his name

is they all biblically are kind of just

like ah those guys are there just to

keep the order for a little bit but we

have a real king that's really what it

says we have he is a true

king of course most people don't like

that I I love this quote by Timothy

Keller most people want Jesus as a

consultant rather than a king and he

does not come that

way Right Most of us don't like the idea

that he's the king and he's got rules

and values cuz we want him to satisfy

our deep passions whatever they

be Whole churches this Sunday are all

going to be preaching about how Jesus is

so nice He's going to meet your needs My

friend Jesus and me I No American accent

Don't do

that It doesn't come that way He is the

king of heaven and earth He is in charge

I remember one time when I realized how

angry this makes people This is probably

triggers people more than anything I was

doing a funeral good old guy and he had

just come to faith in our church and

then he died And his wife was all fired

up She was a new Christian She hadn't

been beat up yet And she says to me

"Emmyry you go get them." And I said

"What are you talking about All his

friends are going to come None of them

believe You go get them."

And I'm like I don't want to get beat up

Like so I got to the funeral I prayed

about how do I get them I don't How do

you get them None of these people

believe And I had a a casket By the way

having a casket at a funeral is way

easier to preach just if you want to

know And I walked down and I What was

his name And do you

remember Sid Let's call him Sid And I

went down and I said "Here's Sid And I

want you guys to

know that here's the amazing truth Jesus

Christ rose from the dead And one day

Sid's going to come back from the grave

And here's the best part It's going to

happen whether you believe it's true or

not I had one guy call me some names

that I can't say in church on the way

out because I didn't attest to their

sovereignty I attested to his Well let

me tell you something ladies and

gentlemen He is in charge He is the king

And he runs everything And it everything

else is an illusion That's good news

folks This is reformed 101 We trust in a

God who's in charge not a fickle God who

changes every

day Get old get old RC on this one If

God is the creator of the entire

universe then it must follow that he is

the Lord of the universe No part of the

world is outside of his lordship That

means that no part of my life must be

outside of his lordship

Amen

Finally and most

importantly Jesus is

Lord The

Lord And this is something that I don't

think Christians always get enough If

you see Jesus you see

God Okay Jesus is God It's mysterious

It's trinitarian But if you don't like

Jesus you're not going to like God But

if you like Jesus you're going to like

God And he is king and he is savior And

he is amazing And it is essential that

we start to see Jesus for who he really

is He is the one who revealed God to us

That's what he's doing to Mary That's

what he's trying to get Mary to see to

change her perspective So it changes her

life Because I'll tell you something if

you really start believing if you start

meditating on the fact that he is your

savior that he is your priest that he is

your king and that he's God you will

change because the things of this world

will not eat at you like they have

You will start seeing things in a better

light because he's in charge and you'll

trust in him more and you'll praise him

more and you'll pray to him

more That's what that empty tomb showed

us

guys J Sanders Oswald Sanders said "The

deity of Christ is the key doctrine of

scriptures Reject it and the Bible

becomes a jumble of words without any

unifying theme Accept it and the Bible

becomes an intelligible and ordered

revelation of God in the person of Jesus

Christ So our Lord and Savior who stood

in front of Mary that day resurrected

forever is also our savior He has died

for your sins You are you are saved

folks

Do you believe You're

saved He's also our priest He intercedes

every day for us because he's ascended

to heaven He's praying for

you for your family And the thing you

think's impossible he's already praying

for

it He's also the

king He's in charge of whatever happens

in this world And boy is that good news

Especially if you don't like the

politician in power at a certain

time He doesn't win whoever that person

is Jesus has already

won And finally he is your

God And if Jesus is right here he is

your God now and your

father You know I go back to that dress

took him two years to figure out how

come people got it

wrong And here's what it was It was 100%

perception If you

believed that the light that there was

more light than not in your brain you

would look at the middle one which is

golden white Do you see that

If you believed it was in the

shadows you would get the darker one and

it would look blue and

black And the original is there

too Here's what God's doing with Mary

and with

us He's giving us perception by his

spirit so we can see the truth what

color it really is and he's going to

pour his light upon it And the only

question is will we let

him Will we let him let us know who he

is Cuz if we do we will be a different

people And we will know him as

savior as priest as king and as God And

that'll change everything including the

passion we worship and the lives we

live Let's

pray Heavenly Father we thank you for

your amazing grace to us

We ask you to open our

eyes Bring the life and the truth of

this

Easter to

light Help us to leave and ponder the

fact you are our savior our priest our

king and our lord

When we're struggling in a bit when life

hits us again we ask you to remind us of

these

things Remind us of these truths Give us

hearts of faith that can believe it And

then let us walk with

courage facing whatever it

is in Jesus' name Amen

Good for you to stand and