Easter 2022

Good morning.

Today's text is from John 20, 11 through 18.

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, 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.

This is the word of the Lord.

Please be seated.

Good morning.

He is risen.

Thanks for joining us this Easter morning.

This is very exciting.

This is a packed house.

That's very fun.

My name is James Rathman.

I'm the pastor here at Redemption Church Denver.

And today I am going to tell you that same old story.

So before we hear it again, and uh I think we're due to hear it one more time, uh, let's pray.

Holy Father, we thank you for your resurrection.

We thank you that we have a hope of new life and a hope that is able to exist even in the face of death itself.

Lord, after death is dead, what worry is there?

After fear of punishment has been abolished, what fear remains?

Lord, in even the worst circumstances and even the most horrific events of our lives that have taken place, been done to us that we've done to others, Lord, at your cross, those were all answered.

And Lord, at your resurrection, your victory was made known.

And we gather here together as your church still to celebrate it, Lord.

We praise you, Lord, for taking on our sin that we might have life in you, that your resurrection can be counted as our resurrection.

We praise you for that, Lord.

You are worthy of praise.

In Jesus' name, amen.

So here's a brief background to that same old story.

So, Jesus, you you've heard of him.

He was a uh born in this sort of uh ancient Near Eastern backwater called Bethlehem, and then moved to Nazareth after a brief pass-through in Egypt, and grew up in uh pretty unknown circumstances.

We don't know much about his childhood, but around 30 years old, he began a ministry preaching and teaching in a small area uh called Galilee.

And while he was preaching and teaching there, he made uh some incredible claims, one of which was to be God.

And that wasn't very well received.

And due to this claim, he was taken by the religious leaders and delivered over to the Roman Empire, and the Roman Empire crucified him, and he died on a Friday.

Now, our story today picks up that Sunday after that Friday, and it has this incredible surprise, which you may be familiar with, which doesn't typically happen after people die.

It's that he came back to life.

And so we're looking at who made that discovery that Jesus came back to life after he was crucified on that day at Calvary.

Now, what's happened just before our scripture that we're looking at today is a group of women went to the tomb that Jesus was buried in, and they were intending to uh get Jesus' body and anoint him with some burial oil.

It was a way of honoring the dead.

And when they arrive at the tomb, they find that it is empty.

And so one of the women runs away.

Her name's Mary Magdalene, and she runs and she gets Peter and John and she says, The tomb is empty.

We don't know what they've done with Jesus' body.

And Peter and John sprint back, and she must have run with them as well.

And they all arrive, and Peter and John look into the tomb and they see, yeah, it really is empty.

And then Peter and John go home.

But Mary doesn't go home.

She's too distraught to go home.

So this is where our story picks up.

Mary is alone at the tomb.

It is empty.

Peter and John have seen that it is empty as well, but Mary is grief-stricken weeping outside the tomb.

In John 20, verses 11 through 12, it says, But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb.

John 20:11–12

I told you.

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.

Okay, so Mary already knows that the tomb is empty, and she's had two other friends confirm with her the tomb is empty.

But here, once again, Mary stands weeping, and then she stoops down to look into the tomb.

Do you think she thinks she's going to discover Jesus in there by looking again?

You know, when you open the refrigerator and there's nothing in it, and then you come back five minutes later and you open the refrigerator again, you aren't expecting to find anything.

What that's called, in theological terms, that's a ritualized longing.

You open to look in.

And what's really happening there is you're just expressing the hunger and the longing of your heart.

What we see here when Mary stoops back down to look once again into a tomb that she already knows is empty is Mary's heart is longing to see Jesus.

She's longing to reconnect in some way.

But this time, when she stoops back down to look again inside that empty tomb, it's not empty anymore.

Instead, she looks in and it says there were two angels in white, which tends to be what they wear, sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one at the feet.

She looks back in and there are two angels sitting there, one at the head of where Jesus' body would have lain, and one at the feet of where Jesus' body would have lain.

Do you have the image in your mind?

Good.

In the Old Testament, which is a great read, there's this book called Exodus, which was later turned into a movie with Charlton Heston, which I think was on last night, or it should have been.

This is still America.

And the Hebrew people are freed by God from slavery in Egypt.

And they're freed in this incredible way by parting of waters, as made famous in The Prince of Egypt, and they walk through.

And on the other side, once they're saved and rescued and given salvation, God then draws them to himself at a mountain and teaches them how to orient their whole lives towards the God who saves them.

How the whole of their geographical lives, the whole of their civic lives and spiritual lives and familial and spiritual lives would be oriented towards this God who saves them.

And what this looked like functionally is they were to design their tents in this particular way.

And there was even going to be this particular place that they would go into to make sacrifices.

And what these sacrifices demonstrated was that their sin kept them from God.

And these sacrifices were ways of showing that a substitute can be provided so that they might be able to come and know the Lord.

And these sacrifices, the one a year that took place on the Day of Atonement, took place in this in this spot called the Holy of Holies.

And only one time a year the high priest was able to cleanse himself and go in, and he would sprinkle blood on the mercy seat, it was called.

Now, are you curious?

I know you're wondering, but what did it look like?

We know because of Raiders, but here's a description from Exodus 25, 17 through 18, uh, what Raiders of the Lost Ark was based on.

You shall make a mercy seat of pure gold, and you shall make two cherubim of gold.

Cherubim, those are angels.

Of hammered work shall you make them on the two ends of the mercy seat.

So on the two ends of the mercy seat, there are angels sitting, and Mary stoops down and looks into this tomb that she knows is empty, and there where Jesus' body would have laid are two angels sitting on either end of the mercy seat.

Don't you see?

Mary stooped down and she saw the real thing.

It turns out the mercy seat that had been made in Exodus to demonstrate the atonement of the sins of the people, that those were taken care of and they were clean before God, it was just a picture.

It wasn't the thing itself.

It was just an image of something that you couldn't have guessed because it hadn't happened yet.

But Mary stoops down and she looks into the empty tomb and she sees the real thing, the mercy seat with the angels sitting on either side of it, the place where the atonement, not just for the sins of the Israelites, but for the sins of the world, was made.

Mary stoops down, checks the fridge one more time, and inside it is the salvation of the world.

But Mary doesn't quite know what she's seen yet.

So the angels speak to her.

You would think, I'm gonna focus on this now.

This will now become the main thing that I'm thinking about, but it wasn't for Mary.

Mary continued weeping.

Her longing was so single-heartedly for Jesus that it didn't matter what miraculous, incredible thing she had seen, she wanted to see Jesus.

This was the depth of her longing.

And so the angels say, uh, they have taken, she says, They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.

And she turns around and she sees Jesus standing, but she did not know that it was Jesus.

Jesus seizes the moment and begins to speak to her.

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 have you laid him?

And I will take him away.

Okay, this is weird, right?

Yeah.

Now we're preaching.

Jesus agrees with the angels in his question.

They ask Mary, why are you weeping?

And Jesus asks, Why are you why are you weeping?

And she explains, thinking that he's the gardener.

Look at this moment, this strange moment that takes place.

There's no accidents, right?

But what it why is this strange moment taking place?

Mary stoops in and she sees the place of atonement, the sins of the world paid for, and then it is her standing there and she thinks she's talking to the gardener.

Framing this story in this way, what is John doing when he's writing the gospel in this way?

Do you see what we have?

In this story of the first person to witness Jesus after the resurrection, what is the image that we get of it?

It's a man and a woman in a garden.

Does that sound familiar?

You have to flip way back in your Bible.

Way back to the very beginning.

And why would we have to flip way back to the very beginning to see this parallel of the man and the woman in the garden?

It's because we're at the beginning again.

Because what we're seeing here is she stoops down and she sees that the sins of the old world have been atoned for.

They are put away.

So what do we do?

We step into the new creation.

That is what Christ has accomplished.

This is what we see in the very first experience of Christ having been resurrected.

The atonement has been paid for.

We saw the real mercy seat, and the new creation has been made.

We are stepping into it.

So we see the new Adam, the firstborn from the dead, never to die again, speaking with the new Eve, the first representative of the church, which continues on in celebration all around the world in the billions, even today, as we see this new creation unfolding.

Now Mary looks at him.

She sees the atonement, she sees the new creation, but she doesn't know she's seen it yet.

And isn't Christianity like that?

Isn't it, you can see all of these ingredients your whole life.

If you've become a Christian, you know this can happen.

Where you've seen all of these same stories, all of these ingredients, all these things that you know about the gospel, all these Easter services, all these Christmas services, all of the marking your calendar and realizing you've just been counting up from the story of Jesus your whole life.

And we see all of these ingredients, even this strange, steady march of the church, which I don't even, I don't know if you've ever been a part of a church, they're insane, full of outrageous people, corrupt and dangerous, and if you get close, you'll get hurt.

That's what the church is like.

And yet, somehow, it just keeps marching forward.

There's all this evidence that we're surrounded by of the glory, and we can look out and see it, but we can't see it.

We can't see this cosmic redemption, we can't see the king of the new heavens and the new earth.

We can't see the coming of this kingdom taking place until Jesus says our name.

John 20, verse 16, Jesus said to her, Mary.

John 20:16

She turned and said to him in Aramaic, Rabbenai, which means teacher.

You can see it all.

You can see the sins of the world atoned for.

You can see the new creation coming.

But do you see yours?

Do you see your sins atoned for, not your theoretical sins?

Your sins aren't theoretical.

They're real.

They have victims and names and places.

You could date them and journal about them.

You could describe them to others.

They're real.

When those sins are atoned for by name, you can see they are put away in Christ.

And then you are able to see Jesus as your Lord and his kingdom as the one which you are most desiring to participate in, and you step into a new creation.

We have a Lord that died for the sins of the world and applies that to you by name.

So you can say something like this He died for me.

You can say that.

It's true.

He is the good shepherd who seeks his sheep and calls them by name.

In John 20, verse 17, 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.

John 20:17

Now that's kind of a strange greeting.

Jesus, congrats on the resurrection.

This is amazing.

Don't cling to me.

Little clingy.

Yeah, that was the first interaction between the new Adam and the church and new Eve.

Why does he say that, right?

It's a very strange thing.

Look, he says it for you.

Why does he tell Mary to not cling to him?

He tells Mary to not cling to him for you.

You can't cling to him.

And he knew that there was coming a time where he would ascend to the Father and we would not be able to cling to him.

So we would need to learn to relate to him in this new way by his spirit and learn that it was actually more intimate than clinging to his physical body.

That he was able to send his spirit so that our very hearts and our eyes might be opened and changed, so that we would be able to come to him in our very lives now, all of us together come to Jesus, and he would be there with the same immediacy that Mary had when she clung to him in the garden outside of the tomb.

So he says, Don't cling to me, but instead I'm giving you this message, and this message has in it why not to cling to him in that way, but instead to learn to cling to him by his spirit.

Says, go to my brothers.

Do you hear that?

Jesus says, Go to my brothers.

We call Christ brother now.

Why?

Because we've been adopted by the same Father.

Because we're heirs together with him.

Why does he switch this language to my brothers now?

Because he accomplished it.

Why is it that we can call God Father?

Oh, I'm getting ahead of myself.

Jesus says more about this.

I am ascending to my father and your father.

To my God and your God.

This is what Jesus accomplished on the cross in his death, burial, and resurrection and ascension.

What he accomplished was he made the phrase, the ultimate promise of Scripture, I will be your God, you will be my people.

He made that true for all who will come to him.

So here's the question.

Today, on this Easter, who will be your God?

Christ stands, having accomplished a perfect atonement for you, so that when you come to God, He treats you as though you are as righteous as Christ.

The very same righteousness that Christ has, he freely gives to you.

He sees that your sins have been taken care of and washed away, and he ushers you into a new creation.

It's as though you've been born again, never to die again.

And I ask you, if you choose to serve any other God, has that God given his life for you?

Consider.

Go to my Father and your Father, my God and your God.

Today, because of what Christ did, we can say, You are our God.

We are your people.

We can never be separated from one another again.

This is the good news of Easter.

Do you see it?

Do you see it in this story?

It's that same old story.

I hope that the Spirit works that you hear your name in it.

I hope you can hear your name in it today.

Holy Father, we praise you for the cosmic scale of your redemption and the intimacy with which you apply it.

Lord, that you accomplished the salvation of the world and then you called us not generically, but by name.

Lord, you are mighty to save and worthy of our praise.

And this Easter we praise you.

Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, we praise you.

In Jesus' name, amen.

Now we'll take communion.

Communion is a way of proclaiming that Christ has died, and that the atonement has taken place, that his body was broken, and his blood was poured out, so that we might come to him.

Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 11, For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the day on the night when he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, This is my body which is for you.

Do this in remembrance of me.

In the same way also he took the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood.

Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.

For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

The Lord will come again.

And here we are able to join in this feast.

Consider this.

The picture of the mercy seat was a picture of something that hadn't taken place yet.

It was from the future.

And one day Mary saw the real thing.

This meal that us Christians will partake in today is a snapshot from the future of the glorious wedding feast that we will partake in with Christ in intimacy.

So come to it like you would have come to the mercy seat, with expectation and with joy now for what Christ has accomplished.

He is risen.