The Gardener and The Garden | Easter Sunday | Myles Holmes

Well, if you're not already there, you can take your copy of God's Word and open it to John chapter 20.

John 20 · chapter mention

If you don't have a copy of God's word in front of you, the ushers would love to give you one.

You can flag them down as they make their way to the back, and you can keep this as our gift to you.

Over the last few weeks, we've been walking together as a church through the Gospel of John and really walking step by step to this very moment.

Jesus has been arrested, tried, mocked, crucified.

All the way through, it was done publicly.

People were looking right at him.

It was Pilate who examined him, the Roman soldiers who beat him, the crowd that stared at him hanging on the cross after calling for his crucifixion.

They all saw him clearly, and yet spiritually, they missed him.

They all beheld the man hanging on the cross, but they never bowed in worship.

And now in John 20, we find ourselves on the very first Easter Sunday.

And if all of that isn't strange, what happens on the first Easter Sunday is even more strange because Mary Magdalene stands in front of the risen, resurrected Jesus Christ and still doesn't know who he is.

Which means that the issue was never whether you had enough evidence or not.

The issue was never if you saw Jesus physically.

You know, I talked to some people who said if I could just see fit physically Jesus resurrected, then I would know and believe.

And yet here is Mary standing in front of the resurrected Jesus, looking straight at him, reminding us of this reality this morning that there is something deeper than sight that is needed if we will not only see the resurrected Jesus, but know the significance that he has for our lives.

Raises a deeper question for us this morning.

Why is it that some people can see Jesus and yet never truly see him?

That kid wants to know the answer.

And so let's get into it.

John 20 then is not just about a man coming back to life.

This is about what life means.

It's about what has begun at this cataclysmic event.

It is about the sobering reality that you can stand in the middle of the greatest moment in history and still walk away unchanged.

Let's step then into the garden with Mary.

Look at verse 1 of chapter 20 with me.

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.

It's still dark.

Mary has experienced the worst day of her life as she saw her Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the man whom she had placed all her hope in, die.

She was there when they laid him in the tomb and covered it with an immovable stone.

And now she comes back to this tomb.

Mary, as she comes to this tomb, is not looking for life.

Mary has not experienced what you and I have experienced.

Easter Sundays, where we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Mary comes to that tomb expecting nothing other than death.

She's looking for a body.

When she sees the stone rolled away, notice in verse 2 that her mind does not go to resurrection.

Her mind goes to loss.

You see that there in verse 2.

So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple whom Jesus loved and said to them, They have taken the Lord out of the tomb.

She doesn't do what we do when we sing about an empty tomb.

She has no context for that.

She has lived in the darkness of the world long enough.

She runs.

She gets Peter and John, and they all come running to see for themselves.

And in verses six and seven, they see the linen cloths lying there, and they don't need to be great detectives in this moment to know that something is different.

Something is off here.

And yet John in verse 9 gives us the interpretive clue.

He says, For as yet they did not understand the scripture that he must rise from the dead.

Then the disciples went back to their homes.

And when the others had left in verse 11, Mary stood weeping outside the tomb.

Mary at this moment is not confused.

She's grieving the loss of Jesus.

In this moment, she believes what anyone would believe.

For all of her life, death had been final.

That had been the reality of the dark world that she lived in.

Death was the final say.

And so, of course, then, living in this dark world, she had come to stop expecting anything other than that.

It's fascinating then that Mary stares into this tomb.

The resurrection has already happened.

And yet, because of the world that Mary has lived in all of her life, a world that is filled with death and darkness, she cannot see it.

Life is already broken into the world.

Jesus has already been resurrected at this moment.

Death has already been defeated.

And where is Mary?

She's outside of the tomb.

She is weeping.

Why is that?

First thing I want you to see in this passage this morning is this that we have learned to expect death.

We have learned to expect death.

What Mary does here is the most human thing in the world.

When death has had the final word for long enough, you stop expecting anything else.

Mary runs to the tomb and having been conditioned by life in a dark world, she's not looking for life.

Mary runs to the tomb trying to make sense of loss, trying to process everything that's happened, trying to do what all of us do in the presence of what's broken, figure out how to move on from this.

Love one, have you noticed that in life you have been conditioned, you have learned to expect death, to expect darkness.

It is how we live.

In fact, I've never had to convince anyone, regardless of their worldview, of this reality, that the world we live in is a dark, dark place.

Doesn't matter where you're coming from, doesn't matter what your foundational, fundamental beliefs are, this world is broken and we have come to expect it.

Can I ask you then, did any of you open up the news this week and expect when you opened it to hear that world peace had come to the world?

Do any of us walk into a hospital expecting that the hospital then will be empty?

Do any of us expect to wake up one day and just magically feel content with the person that we've become?

Instead, what we've learned living in this dark world is to live with brokenness.

We, like Mary, don't question it, we just assume it.

And maybe for you this morning it's more personal than that.

Maybe you expect sin to keep showing up in your life.

Maybe the most sure thing in your life is the feelings of guilt and inadequacy that constantly surface.

Maybe what you expect is just that people are gonna let you down, that relationships are gonna be strained, that relationships will fail.

We're like Mary.

We live in a dark world and we don't look for resurrection.

But as we press this truth into our hearts, I want you to understand that the problem is even deeper because we not only learn to expect death, even while we're standing in the garden, we learn how to avoid it altogether.

So that you and I will stay busy, because when we stay busy, we don't have to think about everything that's wrong.

And we will mindlessly scroll, because if we're just honest for a second, can we be honest?

It does numb the feelings for a bit, doesn't it?

Chase self-improvement.

We hope this version of us will finally fix what the last one couldn't.

On Easter weekend, after Easter food and Easter desserts, we feel like this diet is the one, isn't it?

Amen, right?

Are you looking?

This is the one.

This is the one that's gonna change everything.

We are not expecting new life.

We're trying to make life without new life feel manageable.

Have you noticed that any moment we have of silence, there's almost this instinctive twitch to reach for our phone and bury our face in distraction.

Have you noticed that in the grocery store?

Have you noticed that at the gym?

If you haven't noticed that, that is because you are you probably got your face in your phone.

It's instinctive in us.

What's going on here?

We've learned to expect death.

And we've learned how to avoid the darkness in this world.

There's a way to survive if you just escape the darkness.

That's exactly where Mary is.

Mary's not expecting resurrection life.

Mary is trying to process death, and in the middle of that, look what happens in verse 14.

Having said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing.

Mary turned, and there is the resurrected Jesus standing before her.

Do you know what this means?

This means death is defeated.

This means the enemy of mankind that has won every single time for all of the history of humanity has been conquered by the Son of God who came to defeat it himself.

Mary turns around and sees Jesus.

You cannot be closer than Mary is here.

She is standing face to face with the resurrected Jesus Christ who she saw die just days ago, who was buried in a tomb that was covered with a stone that could not be moved.

She's looking at him.

She is hearing his voice.

And she still doesn't recognize him.

You know, the reason why you do or don't follow Jesus has nothing to do with growing up in a Christian family.

It's not about how much information you have, it's not about how close you are to Jesus.

Mary had all of that.

She knew who he was, she had been with him, and now she's standing face to face with him, and she still doesn't see it.

Now, if that's true, that should be deeply unsettling for us this morning.

What if you are as spiritually blind as Mary was?

So that even if the resurrected Jesus stood right in front of you, having conquered all of your greatest enemies, you still wouldn't hear it.

Maybe you've heard the story, maybe you know the language, maybe you've been around this your whole life, but you've never stood face to face with the resurrected Jesus.

Mary could and still not could still not see him.

You can spend your whole life searching for joy and be completely blind to the reality that is standing right in front of you in Jesus Christ.

You can understand the story of the gospel and still not recognize the Savior.

You can hear the story, you can sit in church, you can even believe that the story is true and yet still not see Him.

That's the blindness that lives within each of us.

And it's the second thing that I want you to see this morning that in the garden, we failed to recognize the gardener.

We fail to recognize the gardener.

We are filled with a spiritual blindness.

Now, I want you to understand this is not only true for those who do not believe in Jesus Christ, it is true of all of us.

And I was reminded of that reality this morning when I woke up and felt in my soul on the very most important Sundays of all Sundays, I mean it is Super Bowl Sunday for a pastor, isn't it?

Easter Sunday.

And I felt this spiritual deadness.

Now I don't know if I had too many butter tarts last night at family dinner.

Now I always read my manuscript and my van on the car ride here, and as I said that, my oldest daughter yelled out, You did! And so we know now I did have too many butter tarts.

I don't know if that was the problem, but it certainly didn't help.

Problem was I I sat down to preach the most hope-filled message of the year, Easter Sunday, resurrection Sunday, and I couldn't reconcile the fact that in a few hours I'd be here preaching resurrection with how far my heart felt from it in that moment.

The spiritual blindness to the reality that is just a few hours away from me.

And I had to open up scripture and get to Psalm 25 and wrestle with the Lord.

Lord, make me to know your ways.

Lead me in your truth, remember your mercy.

Left to myself, I don't see clearly.

I needed a supernatural Holy Spirit encounter with the Lord.

So don't wonder why you don't follow.

Understand what Paul says in 2 Corinthians that the ruler of this world has spiritually blinded those who do not believe.

So it is like they are in a dark room right in front of the most beautiful painting they have ever seen that is the glory of Jesus Christ, and they cannot see it.

Because the Holy Spirit has not regenerated their hearts to turn on the light so that they can see the beauty of the glory of Jesus Christ.

Don't sit here and think that the reason why you don't follow Jesus is because you just, you know, you know better, that you're more modern, that you have more information.

It is because you have never had a supernatural encounter with the resurrected Jesus Christ.

And if you had, there would be nothing that you could do.

It is a spiritual blindness that is in each of us.

Unbeliever or believer, we need the Spirit of God again and again to open up our eyes, to bring back to life what has gone dull within us, to help us see what is right in front of us.

Notice then here that Mary is not hostile to Jesus.

She's not resistant to Jesus, she's just not seeing him.

It's a problem that we all have.

Notice then in verse 15, John loves to do this to give what seems like a throwaway detail that is of such utter significance.

Look at verse 15.

When Mary turned around and saw Jesus.

She's wrong.

But like so many other in John's gospel, she is more right than she knows.

Because this man that she thinks is tending a garden is actually in this very moment restoring creation.

The Bible begins in Genesis 2 with God planting a garden.

Life in that garden is full, and the garden is special because God walks with his people in it.

There is no death.

There's no shame.

There's no separation from him.

In the garden, God is the ultimate king.

And then in Genesis 3, sin enters that garden, and from that moment on, everything unravels.

Death comes in.

Shame covers humanity.

Adam and Eve are estranged from God, and humanity is driven out of the garden.

From that moment on, every part of the story is shaped by what was lost in a garden.

And loved one, you need to see this morning that every part of your story is shaped by the reality of what was lost in that garden.

The world doesn't work the way that it's supposed to.

Our bodies start breaking down.

Amen?

Right?

Some people with back pain here.

I mean, yes.

You've never preached a more right point, Pastor.

We start to feel the effect of eating too many butter tarts.

We used to be able to do it, but now it packs on the pounds a little bit.

Relational shrapnel is everywhere you look.

I cannot believe how young my children are, and yet how many times I've had to explain to them the brokenness that has absolutely obliterated relationships that are around them.

So that even when life is good, there's there is still, isn't there, this lingering sense that something is off.

And it's not just true outside of us.

I mean, we look inside and don't we see the exact same thing, patterns in your life that you just swore that you would break off feelings of guilt and inadequacy that just rise and rise and rise without end, the endless search for something to satisfy you, to something for something to stop the restlessness that you deal with day in and day out.

All of this is the reality of what we lost in the garden.

Can you begin to look back on your life and see the consequences of what you lost when sin entered that garden?

You know, John, the gospel writer, knows this about the garden.

And so it's Fascinating to me that where the other gospel writers are very quick to give this garden that Jesus was crucified in a name, John does not give it a name.

And in John 18, if you were to flip back a page, you would see that when in verse 1, when Jesus entered in to the place he would be arrested, notice there that it was, we are told, a garden.

Flip forward to John chapter 19, verse 41, where we are told at the very end of the crucifixion and burial of Jesus Christ, now in the place where he was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid.

John 19:41

Jesus is crucified, buried, resurrected, and now stands in a garden.

And all the gardeners here are thinking, this is, I mean, I knew my hobby was divinely blessed.

There might be a theological argument to that.

Jesus, on the first day of the week, has stepped out of death into a garden.

The first Adam, he stepped into a garden, and through his sin, death spread to all.

Now the true and better Adam is in a garden again.

And what is he doing in this garden?

He is coming to resurrected life.

He is the resurrected king, standing in a garden to finally make things right.

He has come not just to walk out of the grave, but to undo everything that the grave has touched.

This is the gardener who has stepped out of the grave to break the power that sin has always had over your life, to silence the guilt that has always accused you, to give you life, loved one, where you have always known death.

Jesus stands in this garden to restore what you came in this morning thinking was permanently broken.

And if there's not a place for an amen, I don't know where there is.

Can we say amen, church?

Amen.

Can we say hallelujah?

Hallelujah for what the Lord has done.

Do you know it?

Do you feel it in this moment?

In your soul, is there stirring that thing called worship and praise?

It is the resurrection.

It is the declaration that sin does not have the final word.

Here is the resurrected gardener ready to bring new life, so that shame has no place to stay in your life, so that sin cannot root itself deep into your life, so that destruction cannot have the final say.

And all God's people say, hallelujah.

Amen.

And here's what I should stop you in your tracks.

That all of this is true for Mary who stands in front of Jesus and still thinks that he's just a gardener.

Who do you think Jesus is?

Right now, who is Jesus to you?

Isn't it insane that we can stand in front of this resurrected Jesus who in his victory holds all hope and all joy and all satisfaction and miss it?

You know, there's moments in life that you don't recognize until they're too late.

I've seen that at funerals, and I've felt that at funerals before.

You sit there reflecting on the life that is now gone, and hindsight gives you this clarity that you just could not otherwise have.

I just wish I spent my time differently with this person.

I wish I had listened more closely.

I didn't realize what I had when it was right in front of me.

And you might have spent all the time in the world with that person, but you are given this clarity, this 2020 hindsight clarity that you didn't value that person the way that you should have.

That the relationship meant more than you thought.

And you wish you could go back and see it for really what it was.

And your loved one, Jesus is already more than you think.

As powerful as you think Jesus is, he is infinitely more powerful.

He's more present than you currently feel him to be.

And the danger is that you can be looking right at him and still be relating to a version of him that is far smaller than reality.

You know, your version of Jesus right now, it's too small.

Sorry if I'm offending you when I say that, but I know that to be true because mine is too small.

And the problem is not just that Jesus is greater than we think, the problem is that we are actually living our lives right now based on a version of him that is smaller than he actually is.

What do you do with that?

What do you do in the presence of an infinitely glorious God to see him as he really is?

Because Mary here is standing right in front of the resurrected Jesus.

And if that won't do it, what will?

The answer comes in verse 16.

Everything changes in verse 16.

Jesus said to her, Mary.

It's one word.

And in a moment, everything changes.

John tells us she turned and said to him, this one that a moment ago she thought was just a gardener in Aramaic or a boni, which means teacher.

Mary now sees him, the one who was weeping with her face still wet, now recognizes Jesus, the one who thought he was a dead, now knows with all confidence that Jesus is alive.

What changed?

Jesus called her by name, Mary.

And when he did, she saw him for who he really is.

Look at verse 18 then.

Mary Magdalene went and announced to his disciples, I have seen the Lord.

I have seen the Lord from weeping to seeing and loved one, this is how it happens.

The third thing I want you to see is that it is in a garden we are called to come alive.

It is in the garden that we are called to come alive.

You will not see Jesus just because you finally put the pieces together and figured it out.

You will see him once he makes himself known to you and calls you by name.

We are not detectives trying to track down a fugitive God.

The salvation that Jesus comes to offer is much more like being in a dark and cold room and feeling the presence of a warm hand on your shoulder so that you know finally you are not alone.

That he has found you.

We see then because Jesus speaks.

We see because Jesus calls.

Notice, though, that it was a personal call to Mary, a call that made what was unclear become unmistakable.

Now, this call, it was not only Mary who received this.

Look then at verse 19.

The disciples are hidden together in a room and the doors are locked.

It does not matter if the doors are locked, if Jesus has his eyes on you, he is going to come and find you.

And even though they're hiding, afraid that what has just happened to Jesus might happen to us, here Jesus comes and speaks these words peace be with you.

Notice then what happens immediately.

Jesus doesn't call them to try harder, he doesn't call them to change, he changes us by his call.

So that in verse 20, the fearful disciples are filled then with gladness that Jesus is in their presence.

You see the change with Thomas as well.

In verse 25, he is filled with doubting.

Unless I see, I will never believe.

Very true words uttered by Thomas here.

And it was Jesus in his mercy and his compassion who would reveal himself completely, who would allow Thomas to touch his wounds and look how Thomas responds only a moment later.

From I will never believe to my Lord and my God.

Jesus reveals himself and that confidence, that doubt, it has no ground.

So that the most important question you can be asked this morning is this has the resurrected Jesus called you by name?

Has he called you by name?

How do you know?

Is it a voice?

Is it a tingly feeling that you feel?

It's none of those things.

You know that Jesus has called you by name when your life begins to look like Mary's and the disciples and Thomas's.

You begin to see Jesus differently.

You may be like Mary, who can stand right in the face of Jesus Christ and suppose him to be a gardener.

You may be like the disciples who cannot live because they are so filled with fear.

You may be like Thomas who said, I will never believe.

But the moment you begin to see Jesus differently, not just as an interesting man, but a necessary savior, not just as a helpful friend, but everything.

You begin to feel the weight of your sin.

And at the same time, you begin to see Jesus.

And loved one, maybe this is happening in this very moment that you, you know, you've felt the weight of sin and shame before, but you've never felt this moment where Jesus is near to you and he is making you personally this offer that inside right now you're wrestling with, and you're saying, well, no, it can't be to me.

It's got to just be the maybe it's the hype of Easter Sunday or the emotions or whatever.

It can't be me, but you're starting to see for the first time that Jesus is not just some abstract reality, that he is a present savior who is reaching out to you, offering you salvation, calling you by name.

That your salvation will not come gradually, that it's something, it is a categorical shift, that you see Jesus and finally, maybe for the first time ever this morning, your desire of desires is to just come to him.

You hear Jesus and your desire is to stop running from him, stop distracting yourself from him, stop trying to live the perfect life for him.

You know, if nothing else is clear from John 20, then this is clear.

Just because you know Jesus doesn't mean that you've seen him.

Have you grown up in the church?

I mean, you've been here before, I mean, you have done Easter before, you have done Christmas before.

You you know what the story is, loved one, it doesn't save you.

Do you have an experience of Jesus when you were younger?

You felt near to him, you felt close to him, you felt his presence, loved one, it does not save you.

You lived a life that you're sure he would be proud of, it will not save you.

Mary had all of those things.

What did she need?

She needed to be called by name.

And you will know that he is calling you when you come to him.

I want you to know that doesn't just begin our walk.

If your faith is in Jesus Christ, his personal call is not just what calls you to faith originally, it's how you walk.

You don't graduate from needing the resurrected Christ to open your eyes by calling you into relationship with him.

It is the promise that you wake up to every day.

James says, draw near to God and what, loved one?

He will draw near to you.

You drift the same way Mary did.

You drift the same way I did this morning.

You ever notice how easy it is to start slipping into feelings of self-reliance?

I mean, I just I don't need Jesus, I can just do this on my own.

You ever notice how easy it is for that weight of sin and shame to fall on your shoulders again, to feel the guilt that you once said.

I mean, I believe Romans 8:1, there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ, but you feel that weight come on you again, and it starts to feast on the health of your soul.

Romans 8:1

You ever noticed how easy it is?

Maybe you've you've had, you know, this emotional encounter with Jesus Christ, and you know he's real.

I know, I know Jesus is real, I know he's for me.

I'm gonna follow him, and how quickly those emotions then fade away into nothingness.

There's nothing that can save us from those things.

There's no strategy that can deliver us.

We can't deliver ourselves by more off by more effort.

The only thing we can do is respond again to the call he has given us by name.

To allow him to bring clarity to the places in our life that have grown dull.

To make himself known to you again.

It's the only hope that we have, and if that is true for those who know him, how much more for you if you don't have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

You know, the one standing in that garden outside of the garden tomb.

He went into the grave for you.

He didn't die just as an example, he didn't die just to inspire you, he died to step into that grave in your place, to step into your judgment.

The judgment that apart from Jesus Christ, you will pay for for the rest of eternity.

Jesus stepped into that grave to take your judgment, to bear upon his shoulders your sin, to absorb loved one, to absorb your guilt.

That is why Jesus was there, and then he did something that was even more necessary, so that in this moment, if you're filled with a sense of shame, of I just I know I haven't lived for Jesus, I know I haven't done it, Jesus did something even more necessary.

He walked out of the grave.

Not just proof that he had power over death, it was a declaration that if you are in Jesus Christ, your sin has been paid for.

That guilt doesn't get the final word here.

That death doesn't own you anymore.

Jesus now stands not in a tomb.

Loved one, the tomb is empty.

You know that the tomb is empty, and now Jesus is ascended and is seated on a throne.

And he calls you today, just like he called Mary.

So that the question is not, is he calling you?

The question is what are you going to do?

And John very clearly in verse 30 tells us that these things are written, verse 31, so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

If you see him, come to him this morning.

You know, this is where the story was always going for God's people.

From a garden where we lost life to a garden where life was restored.

And it's fascinating then that in the final chapter of the Bible, Revelation 22, which John also writes, he sees where it all ends.

And John in Revelation 22, verse 1, sees a river of life.

Revelation 22:1

It is just like the river that was in that first garden in Genesis 2.

But the river in the celestial city is flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb.

And John tells us in Revelation 22 that it flows right through the middle of the city, and on either side of that river, the tree of life that once stood in the garden stands again.

And John says this that its leaves bring healing to the nations.

You see it?

It is a garden.

But John is very clear about this that on that day it will no longer be a garden.

It will be a city that cannot be hidden.

And then in Revelation 22, verse 3, John says, No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him.

Revelation 22:3

The one who was crucified, who walked out of that garden tomb, loved one, is now reigning.

He is seated on the throne, restoring what is lost, healing what is broken, and making all things new.

That is the reigning king who is calling you this morning.

And it is the reigning king who we, with all his servants, will worship for all of eternity.

The king we worship now.

Could you pray with us with me?

Father, we give you all the praise.

Very clear that your servants will worship in a garden city that has brought healing to the nations.

Because the Lamb of God sits on the throne.

He is the reigning resurrected king, and his name is Jesus Christ.

And God, we take this time to respond and declare that you, Jesus Christ, are the reigning and resurrected King.

To declare, Lord, that if there is any way in our life that we have not lived as though this is true, God, that we are taking this time to respond in song, to declare it is true.

And God, I pray in this place that perhaps there would be some who have never seen the resurrected Christ.

They've known of Him.

They've known all the details, they've known the stories, they've heard of Him, and they've maybe even thought that they followed Him, but He has never known them.

And Lord, I pray that in this moment there would be a response to the call that Jesus gives to us, a personal call by name to enter into eternal life.

And that as we respond in this song, perhaps this would be a time for them to stand and declare, God, that this is now their new reality, that they are a new creation in Jesus Christ, that they have been called to come alive, and that no, nothing can stop the word of Jesus Christ from being fulfilled.

God, we worship you now.

You're so worthy of worship for all of eternity.

And so we join our voices together to declare it in the name of your Son.

Amen.

Would you stand with me as we worship?