Jesus Is Alive - John 20:1-18 (March 27, 2016)

Amen.

Well, happy Easter.

So good to uh see you all here gathered to uh to worship the Lord and the fact uh that he is risen from the grave.

And hey, would you grab your Bibles if you've got one with you and uh turn to John chapter 20.

John 20 · chapter mention

John chapter 20 is what we're gonna be kind of going through uh this morning, the first 18 verses uh all of all of that.

John 20 · chapter mention

Uh so make sure you get your Bibles turned there as we work through it.

Now, um, I don't know if you've noticed this, but uh but we live in a world uh where people use uh hyperbole uh or overstate things all the time.

You ever notice that?

You think about different uh like athletes and uh and musicians?

Uh they're often talking about how they are the greatest ever, right?

The greatest of all time.

I mean, we even watch TV and we see uh commercials from different companies who are uh touting their product as uh as the thing that blows away the competition.

And you're like, really?

Like it's shampoo, right?

Like how how great could it be?

Right?

And we see that uh from time to time for sure.

We hear these outlandish claims and these assertions uh pretty much everywhere uh we turn.

Okay, but how about this?

How about this one?

Okay, the resurrection of Jesus Christ is the most important event in all of human history.

Amen, right?

Overstatement?

I don't think so.

And definitely not according to uh the Bible.

In fact, um I think we even treat it as probably an understatement, if that's even possible.

Uh it's that important.

It really is.

It's a huge day for us, and Easter Sunday is kind of like our Super Bowl as the church, and we come together and we're here to worship, we're here to praise the Lord, we're here to remember the gospel and focus on the fact that he is risen.

And so we come together to do that and uh to celebrate uh that Christ is alive.

Okay, what he went through on Good Friday, which we got together at our Markham campus and celebrated uh just a couple of days ago, uh him enduring the horrors of the cross, all of that, okay, all of that ends in good news.

He is risen, he has conquered sin, he has conquered death.

And uh the amazing thing about all of that is that he did it for you and he did it for me.

That's why Jesus did it.

And so that's what we're gonna talk about here as we work through these 18 verses in John chapter 20.

John 20 · chapter mention

So if you're there right now, why don't you follow along with me uh as we read this?

Uh, starting in verse one, it says, Now on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb.

So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, They 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 towards 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 cloth lying there, but he did not go in.

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

He saw the linen cloth lying there, and the face cloth, which had been on Jesus' head, not lying with the linen 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 she, and as she wept, she stooped to look into the tomb, and she saw two angels in white sitting there, 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?

And 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 in Aramaic, Rabbini, 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.

Let's pray.

God, it is no understatement to say that what we just read is the most incredible, most important thing that has ever happened in the history of the world.

God, I pray that as we talk about this this morning, Lord, that it would not just be a story that we heard that we've heard before.

I pray that we would not just think of it as some uh something that happened a thousand years ago or so or a couple thousand years ago or worse, think that it's just a fable.

Lord, I pray that we would be shaken this morning in our hearts, in our minds, our entire being with the fact that you have died on the cross and risen again for us.

Lord, I pray that I pray that we would be filled with joy about that truth today.

Lord, I pray that we would be reminded of the fact that you went to the cross in our place.

Lord, you lived the perfect life that we could not possibly live.

And Lord, you uh died a death that we deserved.

Also that we could be in a relationship with you.

Lord, help us to understand this.

Help us to love this more.

Lord, we pray that you would be glorified through everything we talk about.

We pray this in Christ's name.

Amen.

Amen.

Well, one of the things that I love about uh Easter Sunday, and there's a lot of things to love, but one of them uh is that we tend to have more uh more guests in the house than than usual.

We tend to have people uh visiting and coming and checking us out.

And I just want to say, uh first of all, thank you for coming.

I thank you for spending your Easter weekend uh with us.

And for, I know for some of us, it would be uh coming to a church like this and maybe coming for the first time, it's not exactly the most uh comfortable thing for you.

Maybe this is completely uh out of your wheelhouse.

It's not the kind of thing that uh that you would do.

Uh maybe for you, you were even dragged here by a family member and they were like, you're going to church today, and so that's why uh you're here, but you're not all that interested uh in what's going on or are what this day really signifies.

Well, we just want to let you know uh that we are here because of Jesus Christ.

We are here because of Easter Sunday.

And that's something that we do at our church every single Sunday is we just open up the Bible and teach it.

Right?

It doesn't really matter at all what I think.

Okay, newsflash.

It doesn't matter what any of us think.

It matters what what God thinks and what he thinks and what he said and what he did was recorded for us in this book.

And so we open it up every single weekend and we just go through it verse by verse, verse at a time, uh, so that we would understand who God is and what he would have for us.

And so you were probably handed a bulletin on your way in.

There's some notes in there, and we're gonna work through this now.

But here's the first thing, if you want to jot down some notes, it's gonna be on the screen behind me as well.

Okay, it's that Jesus is alive.

Jesus is alive, and I realize that this was God's plan from the beginning.

You realize that?

It's his plan from the beginning.

Now, uh understand the setting here.

As we just read uh the first 18 verses of John chapter 20, uh, there's some context here, okay?

John 20 · chapter mention

On Good Friday, again, we uh celebrated that, remembered that uh just this past Friday, of course, but but in Scripture, Jesus on Good Friday was was executed.

He was murdered uh on the cross uh at the hand of the Romans by the will of the Jews, and uh he was uh he was killed, and then uh later that day he was uh he was buried.

Uh a very wealthy man named Joseph of Arimathea secured permission to have Jesus' body uh taken down off the cross, and then he uh put it uh in a tomb.

And uh there was a large, uh many people would say, uh between uh one and a half, two ton stone was rolled in front of the entrance of the tomb and sealed it against uh sealed against it.

And then the Romans, who were the government of that day, uh they dispatched a couple Roman soldiers to guard the tomb because Jesus was a very polarizing figure, and they wanted to make sure uh that nothing had happened to Jesus' body.

So that was just really quickly some of the things that happened uh leading up to this point.

You know, take a look at this verse one as we read through it now.

And what I want you to do as we read through this is really try and put yourself at the scene.

You put yourself at the scene.

Try to imagine the sights, the sounds, the smells, the emotions of all of this as we look at these characters.

Try to think about what were they feeling.

Try to imagine yourself there and what would your reaction uh have been.

But here's verse one.

Okay, it says, now on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early while it was still dark.

Okay, so now this is this is Sunday morning.

Okay, this is Sunday morning, and and uh this uh just kind of as a side note, Sunday became kind of from this moment onwards uh the day that Christians everywhere would traditionally gather uh in churches to worship the Lord.

Okay, it used to be Saturday, Saturdays was the Sabbath, but since the Lord has risen, churches have uh for the most part gathered on Sundays.

Okay, so Mary, now she sets out, obviously it was early, it says it was still dark to visit the tomb to mourn.

Just like any of us, we might go to the gravesite of uh of a family member or a loved one uh to mourn them.

That's what she's doing.

Now keep going here.

It says, and she saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb.

Okay, so just try and picture how shocking that would have been for her.

Okay, she wasn't expecting that.

She wasn't expecting to come in and all of a sudden the tomb's empty.

Where are the guards?

The guards are gone, they're MIA, they've scattered.

And so she walks up, she sees this, not expecting it.

Uh, she's shocked.

Okay, so what does she do?

Well, it says there, it says that she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, uh, the one whom Jesus loved.

Well, who's that guy?

Okay, well, John um uh wrote this, uh wrote this gospel, and that's uh that's kind of his title.

That's the title he gave himself, uh, The One Whom Jesus Loved, or the other disciple.

And uh, what that really signifies is he's not trying to say, like, hey, I'm the one that Jesus loved.

He loves me better than everyone else.

No, he wasn't trying to say that.

He was just trying to say that he had a kind of a special relationship uh with Jesus, and uh quite likely they were like best friends.

They were best friends.

We see some signs kind of throughout scripture that that might have been the case.

Back in John chapter 19, uh, Jesus uh tells John to take care of his mother.

John 19 · chapter mention

He's like, Take care of my mother, and John does it from that uh day onwards.

That's the kind of thing you would do with somebody that you trust and love uh very uh very dearly.

Okay, so Mary, she shows up at Peter and John's front door.

She's banging on it.

Uh keep going.

This is what she says, and she says, She said to them, They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.

Okay, so obviously there are some other women there with her at one point as well, because they didn't know what was going on.

And so Peter, uh, he went out with the other disciple, that's John, and they were going towards the tomb.

Both of them were running together.

So again, just trying to imagine the emotions here that they were feeling.

Right?

They weren't experiencing this, they weren't expecting this.

They were crushed by the fact that Christ died.

They weren't expecting him to die.

They felt very defeated and very alone and very confused.

And as they're running, they're like full out sprint.

You can imagine the fear that they would have had, the sense of confusion.

There's probably some anger there.

How dare someone do this to my Lord?

And keep going, it says, but but the other disciple, John, outran Peter and reached the tomb first.

And stooping to look in, what does he see there?

It says that he saw the linen cloths lying there, but he did not go in.

And so for John, he doesn't he doesn't dare go into the tomb.

Right?

He just takes a peek, he looks in there, um, but he doesn't want to go in ahead of Peter.

And all he sees is is kind of the cloth that had been used to uh wrap Jesus' dead body.

He just sees them uh lying there where Jesus' body was.

Then uh then it says this.

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

Okay, so we probably know this if you're familiar with scripture at all.

Uh we know Peter's boldness, right?

He's not the guy to be like, eh, maybe we shouldn't go in.

No, he's like, I'm charging in.

Remember, he was the guy who was like, Lord, tell me to get out of the boat and I'll walk on water.

Right?

He's the guy like slicing the centurion guard's uh ear off, right?

He was the guy, I'll never defeat you, Lord, right?

Boldness.

And so he just jumps in there, he just goes for it, and uh, he runs uh into the tomb.

And this is what it says.

It says that he saw the linen cloth lying there, and then listen to this, this is interesting.

And the face cloth, which had bit on Jesus' head, not lying with the linen cloths, but folded up in a place by itself.

Now, why would it mention that?

You think about that?

It seems like kind of an interesting detail to mention in the most important story ever told.

Right?

Why would it say that?

Well, some have suggested that when Jesus rose again, his his resurrected body just simply passed right through the linen cloth that was used to wrap him.

And there's some evidence that that could have taken place.

I mean, Jesus shows up a little bit later in John's gospel, and uh he shows up just in the middle of a locked room where all the disciples were, and so he seemed to have that ability, his resurrected body uh could have done that.

Or perhaps when he when he rose again, he sat up and just unwrapped himself.

I mean, we don't know for sure.

It doesn't tell us exactly uh what happened.

Okay, but interestingly enough, it appears as though uh Jesus himself took the face cloth off and folded it, or some translations say rolled it up and just placed it neatly beside him.

But again, why why this detail?

Why would it tell us that?

Right?

It seems a little bit arbitrary.

Well, probably what it is, it's a bit of a clue to us.

It was a clue to the disciples, and then to us all these years later, uh, for one, that this was not a grave robbery.

Right?

That would have been the first thing going through their heads.

Right?

Somebody's robbed a grave.

I mean, um, and that's what they would have been thinking.

Right?

But they're seeing the linen cloths lying there, and and think about it, uh a grave robber wouldn't have taken the time to unwrap the body.

They would have grabbed it and run.

They wouldn't have wanted to leave the expensive like ointments and spices that that the body would have been wrapped in either.

And they absolutely wouldn't have taken time to fold up a cloth neatly and leave it there.

No.

This is all evidence that Christ came back to life and he folded it up and put it there himself.

We're gonna get into some more of that later, a little bit more evidence uh to suggest that this all actually happened.

Uh but keep going for now.

Keep going.

Verse 8.

It says this.

Then the other disciple, he 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.

Okay, so so John he follows Peter into the tomb at this point, and he looks around, he surveys the scene, and at once he realizes uh that Christ had risen.

You imagine that?

And but apparently, according to this verse, they hadn't quite put the whole picture together yet.

They didn't quite realize that this is what the scriptures foretold.

And even Jesus himself had told them on the third day, I will rise.

Listen, Jesus is alive.

He rose from the grave.

And and that was God's plan from the very beginning.

It wasn't a surprise, it wasn't a fluke, him dying on the cross, it wasn't a mistake.

God wasn't up in heaven being like, oh my goodness, I didn't plan for this to happen.

Jesus on the cross, game plan wrecked.

No.

God was planning this basically from day one.

Hey, from the very start, God, in all of his wisdom and all of his knowledge, knew that his creation would sin.

He knew that sin would enter into the world through Adam and Eve.

He knew that they would rebel.

He knew that sin would forever ruin man's relationship between God and him.

It ruins our chance to be able to come to God and know him.

And this is really amazing, actually, in Genesis 3.15.

You might want to write this down.

Uh, when God is divvying up the consequences for what Adam and Eve and Satan had done in the garden with the forbidden fruit, all of that, this is what God says to Satan, Genesis 3.15.

He says, I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your offspring and her offspring.

Then listen to this.

He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.

Okay, the kind of the fancy theological term for this verse is the proto-evangelium.

Okay, just a fancy word.

Uh, but really it just means the it's the first mention of the gospel in the Bible.

It's the first time that God hints at and and shares that he's got a rescue plan in place.

And he's gonna come in and and and rescue man from their sin.

Okay, Eve's offspring, when it says he there, it's referring to Jesus.

Okay, he will bruise, some translations say crush, he will bruise uh Satan's head.

So think about it.

In other words, immediately, what happens here, as soon as Adam and Eve sin, God doesn't just be like, well, you know, you're on your own to figure some things out for you know a couple thousand years.

No, right out of the gate, he says, listen, you've brought some consequences into this.

You you you've damaged the relationship between you and I.

Life is gonna be hard.

There's gonna be sin that affects you, there's gonna be corruption, there's gonna be a lot of negative and awful things that happen because of as a result of what you have done.

But hey, I'm not done with you yet.

I'm I'm coming for you.

I'm gonna rescue you.

And he was letting them know that he was gonna come to earth as a man to defeat Satan, to crush the power of sin, to crush the power of death.

He's gonna step in and rescue us from the mess that we create, the mess that we could not fix on our own.

He was gonna do it himself.

He was gonna go to the cross and he was gonna die in our place.

Incredible.

Amazing that he would do this.

Again, all the way back in Genesis, he would let us in on that.

And so it's that very thing that Peter and John didn't quite understand yet.

Okay, up to this point, they they basically thought that Jesus was coming as kind of an earthly king.

And he was gonna come and in military uh power, uh in national power, he was gonna overcome and they were gonna crush other nations, and the Jews were gonna rule.

That's what they were still thinking.

That's how they had it kind of figured out in their heads.

But hey, God's had something so much bigger in store.

So much bigger.

Like military might, that's not big enough.

Because the problem is sin.

The problem is sin.

He's like, I'm gonna come and take care of that.

That's way better than having some land and having people fear you.

I'm gonna come take of what, uh, take care of what really matters.

And then we also know from Acts chapter 1 in verse 3, we kind of get a hint there that this is after the resurrection, before Jesus ascends to the right hand of the Father.

Acts 1 · chapter mention

Jesus actually spent some time with his disciples explaining these things and showing them how the scriptures all pointed to him and teaching them about the kingdom of God.

And you can imagine what that would have been like, right?

At the disciples spending time with Jesus, starting to realize, oh, that's why you said those things that you said.

And you're right, coming, coming back to life.

You hear that you hear that bell going off?

It's gonna happen again in five minutes.

I'm telling you right now.

It's okay, we're gonna keep trucking through it, alright?

It's not a fire alarm, at least.

Okay, but but that's what he was telling them.

He's telling them, I'm I'm coming back for you.

I'm gonna rescue you from sin.

And there's all kinds of places in scripture that we see that.

There's actually 300 specific uh prophecies in the Old Testament about Jesus Christ.

You know, there's 300 of them.

We're just gonna take uh a look at two or two uh two of them actually.

Uh the first one, you can write this down, Psalm 22.

Psalm 22, uh pretty incredible.

This was written uh a thousand years uh before Christ died.

And uh in verse 16 of Psalm 22, it talks about how the Messiah will have his hands and feet pierced.

Pretty incredible, because that's exactly what happened uh to Jesus on the cross.

The next verse, verse 17, it mentions how the Messiah's bones will not be broken.

And were Jesus' bones broken?

No, they were not.

They weren't, right?

And usually what happened when someone was crucified on a cross is they would break their legs so that they couldn't push up on the nail and take a take a breath.

They would break their legs so that they would eventually suffocate on the cross.

It was awful, it was a horrible way of dying.

But Christ died before the soldiers could get to that.

The two thieves on either side of him, that happened to them.

Um, but God mercifully allowed Jesus to die.

Psalm 22 talks about that.

Verse 18 says that says that men will divide up his garments and cast lots for his clothing.

The exact thing that the Roman soldiers did with Jesus while he was on the cross.

And then Isaiah 53, write that one down too.

And this is really known as the suffering servant prophecy, a well known one.

You probably know uh about.

This one already, but it was written more than 700 years, 700 years uh before Christ.

And in verse 3 it says the Messiah will be rejected.

Be rejected.

He was.

He was rejected by his own people, by the Jews.

You remember they said, they said to Pilate, We have no king but Caesar.

Ouch.

They rejected him.

Verses 5 to 9, all through that, it says how the Messiah will be killed as a sacrifice for the sins of the people.

That's what he was.

In verse 7, it says that the Messiah will be silent in front of his accusers.

He didn't stand up for himself.

He stood there silently.

Verse 9 says the Messiah will be buried with the rich.

He was buried in a rich man's tomb, in Joseph's tomb.

Verse 12 says the Messiah will be with criminals in his death.

Again, two thieves hung on crosses beside him.

Okay, each and every one of these prophecies, and way more that we don't even have time to go into, all of them fulfilled in the person and work of Jesus Christ.

In fact, the entire Old Testament, do you realize this?

The entire Old Testament is constantly and continually pointing to the fact that we need a Messiah and Jesus is that one.

You think about the law in the first five books of the Old Testament.

Some of you may not be super familiar with all the law and all the details of all of that.

We'll think Ten Commandments, right?

Those are like God's top ten.

What was the point of that?

Was it just to have a bunch of rules that we need to obey to try and be good people?

No.

Right?

The law was there to show us that God demands perfection.

God demands perfection.

Can any one of us be perfect?

No, no, we cannot, right?

That was the whole point.

And it showed us that we're incapable of being perfect.

We're incapable of obeying the law.

The law was to point towards the fact that we need somebody else to come be perfect in our place.

It was foreshadowing Jesus Christ.

The law did that.

Take a couple more examples.

Moses, right?

Remember, Moses came in and through the Lord, he rescued the Israelites out of Egypt.

You remember that entire thing with all the plagues and they come out and the Red Sea spread open and they walk through on dry land?

Is that just kind of a cool story?

No, it's to be a picture, it's to foreshadow what was gonna happen.

Jesus was gonna come and he was gonna rescue his people, us, from slavery.

Only it wasn't slavery like the Egyptian, uh like the Israelites had it in Egypt, where they're building things and being cracked on with whips.

It's slavery to sin.

You see how it's pointing to that?

Think about another one, David.

Right?

You heard the story of David and Goliath, and he uses uh just one stone and he whips it at the at the leader of the Philistines, this hulking man who was intimidating and and and and insulting God's people, and David achieves victory over the Philistines for uh for the Israelites.

Now, what is that?

Is that just a cool story that we talk about in Harvest Kids upstairs to make kids think that the Bible's kind of interesting?

No, right?

It's a show that Jesus was gonna come and do the same thing.

Right?

He was gonna come and rescue people.

He was gonna come rescue them from their sins and take care of what was most important.

He was gonna bridge that gap between us and between God.

Okay, all of it.

Okay, all of it, all of those things were symbols of what was to come.

All of it was foreshadowing that Jesus was the Messiah and that he was coming.

And that's why Paul says this in 1 Corinthians 15, 3 and 4.

He says, For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day, in accordance with the scriptures.

He's like, This is the plan.

Everything lines up, all of it points towards the resurrection as the culmination of all of that.

I mean, think about it.

How amazing is it that God would give his people such hope like this?

Right?

Do we deserve to have this hope?

Do we deserve that?

Do we deserve to have God rescue us?

We don't.

We don't.

We deserve death.

Because we sinned against a holy God.

We sinned against him.

And because God is holy and because he is good, he has to deal with sin.

It's like it's like a judge.

If a judge didn't deal with criminals, he wouldn't be a good judge.

And so, God, he has to do that.

The Bible says the way that God set it up is that the wages of sin, what you get for sinning, what you earn for your sin, is death.

And God knew that we we could never pay that debt.

We couldn't do it.

We're imperfect.

We're thoroughly marred, we're thoroughly wrecked because of our sin.

And God could have just said, see you later.

But he didn't.

Right from from the beginning, he's like, No, I'm I'm gonna come.

I'm gonna rescue you.

It's because I love you.

And I'm willing to put myself through the torture.

I'm willing to put myself through the ringer here and suffer and die.

Did he deserve that?

No, he didn't.

You and I deserve that.

It really should have been, it should have been us up there.

And then the empty tomb, the fact that that Christ has risen is like is like the stamp.

It's the it's like the the aha, like like God did it, right?

He accomplished this.

Do you realize that that's what God planned all along?

Do you realize that?

Do you understand that?

Are you thankful to him for that?

Here's the second thing.

Jesus is alive, and I will respond to the love that God has shown me.

Well, the story here, as we uh get back into this, it shifts back to the perspective of Mary, and she obviously made her way back to the tomb after talking to John and uh and Peter.

Uh so take a look at verse 11 there.

It says, But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb.

And as she wept, she 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.

And they said to her, Women, uh woman, why are you weeping?

Now it appears that she didn't recognize that they were angels, okay, because verse 13 she says 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, that's the same question as the angels, uh, Woman, why are you weeping?

Whom are you seeking?

And so Jesus, he asks her this because he knows, right?

He knows that the time of mourning, the time of weeping, the time of being downcast of all of this.

All of that's over.

Right?

He's obtained the victory, he has won.

It's time to celebrate.

Right?

And that's what he that's what his mindset is.

We keep going here.

This is Mary, supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, uh, Sir, if you have taken him, if you've carried him away, tell me where you've laid him, and I will take him away.

And Jesus said to her, Mary.

Okay, so at once she recognizes him, she recognizes his voice, and she turns to him, it says, and and in Aramaic she says, Rabbinai, which means teacher.

Okay, and Rabbinai was actually a stronger term than rabbi, which you may be more familiar with.

And what that was is that was a way to express great honor and great reverence.

And so that's how she comes to him and keep going.

Jesus says to her, uh, do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father.

So Mary obviously heard his voice and turned and just latched onto him.

She was so thankful to see him, so excited to see him alive, couldn't believe it.

That is her first uh reaction there.

And she didn't want him to leave again.

And this is what, and so he says, don't cling to me.

And you might be like, well, why would he say that?

Like, it's kind of a cool moment.

Uh why would he kind of stop her from doing that?

Well, I mean, he knows her heart, right?

And he knows that that when she's clinging to him, it's it's her way of saying, I don't ever want you to leave again.

I'm never letting go.

You need to stay here permanently.

And of course, that wasn't the plan.

Uh, he was still going to uh ascend to the right hand of God the Father.

Um so he says to her, Go to my brothers.

And interestingly enough, that's the very first time that Jesus refers to his disciples as brothers.

Right?

We were friends before that, but we are now brothers.

We have been invited into the family because the debt has been paid.

God's wrath poured out on Jesus instead of you.

We are all now brothers and sisters.

Love that moment.

He says, Go to my brothers and say to them, I'm ascending to my father and your father, to my God and your God.

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

Wow.

You read these verses and you can see the type of response, the reaction that Mary had.

Right?

She's weeping, she's mourning when she thinks he's still dead.

She's she's willing to go and retrieve his body herself.

If someone had moved all of that, she she clings to him, she wants to enjoy his presence, she obeys him, right?

She goes and tells the disciples that he is alive.

Mary's response to the love of Jesus Christ is love.

That's her reaction.

So really, really important question for you then is what's your response to all of this?

What's your response?

As you hear that Jesus Christ went to the cross to pay for your sin, that he went to the cross to uh fix the problem when it really should have been you, it really should have been me up there hanging.

That would have been more fair.

We deserve that.

But because because God loves you, because he loves me, he was willing to step in and pay your price.

Again, he bridges the gap that our sins created between us and a holy and loving creator, God.

He did it all so that we could become part of God's family.

Again, we are brothers, right?

We are sisters with Jesus now.

You hear all of that.

How do you respond?

What's your reaction?

Now listen to me here very carefully.

Make no mistake, every single person in this room, and ultimately every single person in human history will respond to this one way, shape, or form.

You will respond.

Okay, some of you uh might respond with skepticism.

You're like, yeah, I don't know, man.

Like, I don't know about this.

I, you know, how do how do we know that this, how do we know that this happened?

You know, are we not are we not maybe, you know, it did maybe it happened like it was a hoax?

Like someone just made this up, or this was recorded wrong, or or something, the resurrection.

How do we how do we know that Jesus uh is really alive?

Well, to be honest with you, that's a great question.

It really is.

And I think we need to be a church where we allow people to ask those questions.

We need people uh to have to be comfortable enough to explore their doubts and explore uh their questions, and and it is a very good one, it's a key one.

Well, um many people have tried to explain away the resurrection, and they've come up with uh multiple theories of what could have happened uh with the empty tomb and uh and all of that, and there's a bunch of them, and I'll give you just four of them uh really quickly because it can be helpful to us as uh as we see that.

First of all, uh the swoon theory.

The swoon theory.

Have you heard of this before?

Pastor Paul talked about it in Good Friday really briefly.

Okay, the swoon theory.

Some have suggested that Jesus didn't actually die on the cross, right?

That he somehow survived the entire ordeal and that he just passed out.

He swooned.

He he went into shock and and he was unconscious, and that somehow, uh someday, three days later, due to the cool air in the tomb, he just revived and he came to.

Okay, that's one theory.

There's some difficulties with that for sure.

Okay, first of all, the Roman soldiers put in charge of executing Jesus were experts in their craft.

They were pros.

This is what they did, this is what they were good at.

They would not have been fooled by Jesus passing out.

They wouldn't have.

In fact, you know, you've heard about the spear going through his side.

And again, we talked about it on Good Friday a little bit, but that spear was shoved in.

It would have gone through the ribcage into the heart.

It was to make sure that he was dead.

And think about this as well.

The Roman soldiers, the Roman guards, uh, they were under threat of death if they didn't uh carry out their orders.

And so they would have been asleep at the switch, they wouldn't have been like mailing it in, they wouldn't have been kind of half-hearted about any of that.

And kind of legend has it that the way they would have been killed, they would have been stripped of their clothing, and their clothing would have been used to light them on fire.

Okay, so you think they would have taken execution pretty seriously?

Yeah, I think so.

Right?

Not likely that this happened.

That's one difficulty.

Another one, how about this?

How would Jesus have been able to survive for three days in his weakened state the way he was?

Right?

No food, no water, no one helping him, and then on top of that, he somehow had to come out and move away like a two-ton stone, and then like beat down two Roman soldiers who, again, knew that they had to guard this or they would be killed?

Right?

Unlikely, right?

That this wouldn't have happened.

How about this one?

He wouldn't have been able to convince his disciples that he had risen.

He would have been like, yeah, right, man.

Like you are, your body is mangled.

It is broken.

There's no way that you came back to life.

The swoon theory doesn't really work.

How about this?

The hallucination theory.

Some argue that the disciples, they were so overwhelmed and overcome by their grief that Christ had been killed, uh, that they just had hallucinations that he was alive.

Yeah, that's what some people believe.

Again, some difficulties with that.

Um, first of all, they weren't, the disciples, they weren't really candidates for such uh hallucinations.

Because first of all, they weren't expecting him to rise from the dead.

They weren't expecting that, they weren't looking out for that.

Um they even they even ridiculed uh initial reports that he had risen.

You remember uh Thomas?

Right?

He doubts.

He's like, unless I see it, I'm never gonna believe it.

Right?

And he did see, uh, and he did uh believe.

Okay, so it also uh doesn't explain how they didn't recognize Jesus initially in many occasions.

It doesn't explain how a hallucination could uh eat a piece of fish or or start a fire.

These are some of the things that happened when Jesus was alive.

Doesn't explain how he could be touched on his wounds.

Again, that's Thomas.

And again, it doesn't it doesn't account for the for the empty tomb and the missing body.

What about that?

That happened.

Okay, hallucination theory.

How about this one?

The wrong tomb theory.

This is like the weakest of all of them for sure.

Okay, this is the argument that the women mistakenly went to the wrong tomb and wrongly assumed that Jesus rose.

Okay, can you believe that some people actually believe that?

Okay, difficulties.

First of all, scripture records in Mark chapter 12, verse 47, that two of the women actually saw Jesus being buried.

Okay, so that alone kind of shuts that one down.

And again, if they had the wrong tomb, why wouldn't the authorities just be like, uh, you got the wrong tomb?

Right?

Like this is the right one over here.

Let's come show you.

Right?

There's no recording anywhere in the Bible or outside of it that that happened.

Okay, weak, weak theory.

Okay, here's here's kind of the most common and probably the oldest theory.

It's the just the disciples stole the body theory.

Disciples stole the body.

Even people at that, in that time, as this was happening, uh, were um preparing for that uh maybe to happen.

Um they thought that some have suggested that the uh the disciples somehow broke in, stole the body, and just kind of made the entire thing up.

Here's some problems with that.

Okay, the disciples at this point had shown like absolutely no courage in being able to do something like this.

Right?

Like Jesus, Jesus is going to the cross.

Where do they go?

The opposite direction, right?

They flee.

And they're like, hey, Peter, aren't you a follower of Jesus?

He's like, no, man, I don't know the guy.

Right?

Like there's there's there's no way.

They were cowering in a room by themselves for the three days that Jesus was dead in the grave.

They were heartbroken, they were crushed.

There was no way that they could put together a hoax uh like this.

Another problem, uh he Jesus appeared on on at least 10 occasions.

And at one point, he appeared to more than 500 people.

500 people at once.

So it's not just like the disciples who claimed to see him.

All kinds, hundreds of people saw him.

And then again, it doesn't explain how if the if the disciples made this whole thing up that they would be willing to die for it.

Right?

Almost all of these guys ended up becoming martyrs and dying miserable, painful deaths.

At some point, if they knew that it was a lie, they're gonna be like, listen, I'm I'm not going to the grave for this.

Right?

It's not worth it.

We we just made the whole story up.

But no, they went to the they went to the grave.

They allowed themselves to be persecuted, they had allowed themselves to be killed because they believed that it was true.

They believed that it actually happened.

All the courage, all the boldness that they had to preach Christ, it happened after they saw him risen, after they were given the Holy Spirit.

They were different men entirely because of the resurrection.

Listen, you gather all the evidence and you consider the facts.

There's more to it.

We can't get into all of it today, but you get into all of that, and it suggests that a miracle took place here.

That Jesus really did rise from the grave.

It really is the best explanation.

So again, what's your response to all of this?

What's your response?

You're gonna be a skeptic?

Or you're gonna be like, yeah, I don't know.

Or maybe you'll just refuse to believe.

I'm not, I'm not gonna look into this.

I'd rather just ignorance is bliss, or no, no matter what you tell me, I'm not gonna believe it.

I refuse.

Okay, this is what one pastor says.

I find it sobering.

He says the issue for people who refuse to believe is not a lack of evidence, but stubborn unbelief driven by the love of sin.

People are unwilling to accept the inescapable consequence of the resurrection, namely that Christ is God, the God of the Scripture, and they are accountable for every violation of his law and in need of his grace.

That's really it.

Listen, I plead with you.

I plead with you.

If you are here today and you do not know Jesus Christ as Savior, trust him.

Do not harden your hearts to this.

Admit freely that you don't have it all together.

You've got sin in your life.

I do too.

And trust Christ as the one who paid the penalty for your sins, the ones that you deserve.

Trust that the resurrection is proof that Christ was powerful enough to defeat your sin and to defeat death and destroy it and to satisfy the wrath of God.

Listen, you do not want the wrath of God pointing in your direction.

You do not want that.

You do not want an eternity in hell forever.

But that's what you've got coming to you if you do not trust Jesus as your Savior.

If you do not trust Him.

Christ died and He rose again so that you and I, we wouldn't have to experience all of that.

And we could be given new life.

He offers you forgiveness through His Son for every single wrong that you have ever done.

The ones that you think are big, the ones that you think are small.

All of it.

The ones you've done, the ones that you're gonna do.

He's died to save you from all of it, and he offers you salvation as a gift.

It's a gift of grace, which means that you can't earn it.

You can't behave well, you can't be the most moral person in the entire world and think that God is gonna somehow be impressed with that.

It's because your sin thoroughly corrupts you.

None of that impresses God.

Only Jesus impresses God.

And so you need his perfect record of a sinless life and his death in your place to cover you.

That's what trusting in Jesus' Son does.

It's admitting your sin and asking him to be your savior.

It's trusting that what he did on the cross was enough to secure your salvation.

That's what it is.

That's what coming to Christ is.

That's what becoming a Christian is all about.

You simply need to believe and receive it.

See, we have to understand that you can't make your way to God.

You can't fix your sin problem.

You need Jesus.

That's why Easter happened.

That's why we gather on a day like this and we sing these kinds of songs and we unpack a piece of scripture like this to remind ourselves.

We do this actually all throughout the year.

On every Sunday, we're constantly referring back to what Jesus Christ has done.

We don't have to try and earn salvation.

We can't earn our salvation.

Christ earned it for us.

Will you respond to the love of God today?

Will you do that?

For some of you, that's gonna bring up more questions.

But for maybe some of you, you've got you've got the Lord kind of tapping on your shoulder.

You can kind of sense that.

I remember the day that that happened to me.

And you're and you're not really sure where to go.

Well, do not leave here without talking to me.

Come talk to somebody.

And we'd love to answer questions, we'd love to walk you through this, we'd love to show you even more from God's word what it means to know the God of the universe.

Jesus is alive.

The resurrection, it really is the most important event in all.

Of human history.

Not an overstatement.

Not even close.

Its implications affect your eternity.

We're gonna pray now.

We're gonna ask that the Lord would continue to stir these things up in us, that we continue to give us a love for Him.

That's the response here.

We need to love God and thank Him for what He has done.

So why don't you join me as we pray?

God, our words cannot possibly adequately express enough gratitude to you for the cross.

We can't.

Our words fall short, Lord.

No language is powerful enough to express how awesome that event is.

Lord, I pray that your Holy Spirit would impress these things on our hearts today.

Lord, I pray for anyone in this room who has not yet responded by giving their lives to you.

Lord, would you break down the barriers?

Would you break down the excuses?

Would you break down the fear and the worry and the concern, the pride, the arrogance, all of it that gets in the way, Lord?

Would you crush that in us?

Would you do that, Lord, and draw people to yourself?

Lord, for those of us who have already made that decision and we've decided to follow you, Lord, continue to draw us into a deeper relationship with you.

Continue to show us how awesome it is that you went to the cross for us.

Lord, I pray that in all the little ways that sometimes in our minds and in our hearts we try to earn salvation, Lord, I pray that we would reject all of that, and I pray that we would constantly remember that you have done it for us.

That is where joy is found, that is where transformation is found.

God, we thank you that you have ultimately given us eternal life through this.

Lord, we would take great joy in that, great comfort, great hope.

Pray that we would be beacons of light in this world with this.

We would share the good news, Lord, that you are alive.

Pray in Christ's name.

Amen.