April 8, 2012
Easter: Running to the Tomb
- John 20:1-9
- Rev. Jim Capps
A few years back, I was attending a seminar at a seminary in Southern California. As I sat around a table with a small group, throughout the event, I realized I was the oldest person and had been in ministry longer than all of them. Because of that fact, I tried to listen and not be the authority to whom they always turned for answers or special insights. Time and time again as they brought up particular people or places, it seemed, because of my longevity, I had met them and had been there.
I found myself reflecting on my life and ministry. Suddenly it hit me. I am like a character in an award-winning movie. I know I have told some of you about my revelation. If I haven’t, do you have any idea about whom I was thinking? I know some of you are thinking- Indiana Jones or James Bond. Still others of you may be considering the Incredible Hulk or Shrek.
Well, the person to whom I was closely relating was Forest Gump! Coming from simple roots in a small town, Forest is placed in all kinds of settings with people whom it would have seemed impossible for him to meet. It’s amusing to see Forest superimposed with famous people in unbelievable settings.
My wife, Alice, chuckles when she hears about what she now calls, “Forest Gump Moments.” In some cases, they are almost surreal. If I were to begin recounting some of them, you would think I was bragging or trying to impress you.
But you know as I reflect on all the settings I have been in and people I have met, there is one that stands out far above all of the others. Frankly, none of them even come close to comparing. I was on the site or at least near the place where that one participated in the greatest event in human history happened. What’s more, I have developed a personal relationship with Him. Every other place visited and relationship I have enjoyed pales in comparison, because that relationship continues to transform my life.
Dear friends, I am speaking of standing in the garden cemetery and peering into an empty tomb just outside of Jerusalem. While there is controversy surrounding the actual place, at least I was near where it all happened at a site which was like the place where Jesus rose triumphantly from death to everlasting life. My relationship with this Jesus, who is now the Risen and Reigning Lord, continues to be the most impactful influence in my life.
On this Easter morning, let me take you back to the place and time when the first followers of Jesus discovered that Jesus was risen! He was risen, indeed! As I read from, the Gospel of John, who was actually there, we will be transported to the setting of the greatest event in all of human history. As you follow along with me as I read, let’s go back there together and try to visualize what was happening by looking at it through the eyes of the three main characters of the passage.
Please follow with me as I read John 20:1
MARY MAGDALENE IS THE FIRST PERSON TO DISCOVER THE EMPTY TOMB.
I think it’s fair to say that Mary Magdalene was one of the most unlikely people imaginable to be the first person to observe the aftermath of the most significant event in human history. She was unlikely because she was a woman. In her day and age, women were considered little more than property whose chief purpose was to bear children. Of course, it only stands to reason that a woman was most valued if she delivered sons. It was a man’s world.
Mary was also highly unlikely to be there because of station in life. We don’t know her exact condition when she first met Jesus. Both Luke and Mark speak of her being the one from whom seven demons were cast out. Some traditions speak of her as being a woman of ill-repute. Even though we don’t know her exact previous condition, it is probably one which would have been looked down upon by respectable people. Without doubt, Jesus had brought her forgiveness and a whole new beginning. Going to the tomb, early on the day after the Passover Sabbath, was the very least she could do to show her appreciation and love. It was a way of working through her grief.
Mary Magdalene had been there at the cross when Jesus had breathed His last breath. She had quickly helped the others prepare His body for burial before the Sabbath began at sundown on Friday evening. In the other gospels, Mary and some of the other women came as soon as possible after the Passover to complete the anointing of Jesus’ body. It was also the custom of the day to go to the tomb for the first three days after a person died, believing that the person’s spirit was still there.
In the Greek, the word used for the time of her arrival at the tomb indicates that it was the last watch or sometime between 3:00 and 6:00 A. M. I would venture to guess that she had not been able to sleep and wanted to get there as soon as possible.
Mary Magdalene was not prepared for what she saw just before the first rays of the dawn burst on the scene. The heavy stone, which was like a cartwheel and moved on a track, had been rolled back. Jesus’ tomb which she had seen closed, sealed, and guarded, was now wide open.
We aren’t told that she looked in the tomb. It may have been too dark for her to see anyway. Understandably, in her shock she jumped to the conclusion that either the religious leaders or some kind of tomb robbers had taken Jesus’ body.
Mary was so distraught that she ran through the darkness, with tears flowing from her eyes and righteous indignation and wrath filling every cell of her body. She burst into the place where Peter and the other disciple who is surely John, the author of the gospel, were staying. Tearfully she exclaimed, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him!”
Dear friends, take heart in the fact that Mary Magdalene was the first one to discover the empty tomb. No matter how unlikely or unworthy you and I may feel, we are welcome at the empty tomb. In God’s scheme of things, the standards of this world are turned upside down. Like Mary Magdalene, you matter to God. As was true for Mary Magdalene, the Risen Christ wants us to discover and examine the evidence for ourselves.
JOHN, A TEENAGER, WAS THE FIRST TO SEE FIRST HAND THE EVIDENCE OF CHRIST’S RESURRECTION IN THE EMPTY TOMB.
Once the teary-eyed Mary drops her emotional bomb on Peter and John, they have to go and check out for themselves what has really happened. They run to the empty tomb.
Now John was the son of Zebedee, working in the family fishing business before he, and his brother, James, began to follow Jesus. John, probably the youngest of the 12 disciples, must have been a bright young lad with a winsome personality. Clearly he had won the heart of Jesus. Possibly Jesus was protective of him because he was the youngest. At any rate, John refers to himself as the “disciple whom Jesus loved.”
You have to remember that it was John who stayed with Jesus during the trial at the high priest’s house. Possibly it was because he had done business for his dad, delivering fish, or, maybe because of his young age, he didn’t seem like a threat. For whatever reason, he is close to Jesus at the cross where Jesus asks him to care for His mother, Mary. There was a special relationship and he had to be devastated when Jesus died on the cross.
Running to the empty tomb, Peter and John leave Mary in the dust. While Peter was not an old man, he was no match keeping up with the younger John. John was not going to pace himself and slow down for Peter to keep up. He ran as fast as he could and arrived first at the empty tomb.
I imagine the sun just coming up at this point, so there is much more light than when Mary made her startling discovery. John stops abruptly taking in the whole setting. Then, shaking in fear, not certain what he will see, he gingerly bends down and peers into the tomb. He sees the linen in which he had seen Jesus’ lifeless body tenderly wrapped in mummy-like fashion, late on Friday afternoon. He is too frightened to go further until Peter arrives.
Just as Mary was an unlikely candidate to be the first person to discover the empty tomb, this teenager, John, was not the likely one to first discover the evidence of the linen and grave cloths.
Dear friends, age and experience in life are not pre-requisites in discovering the evidence of Jesus’ resurrection. No, a thousand times no! This greatest event in human history is meant to be observed by all of us, regardless of age, life experience, gender, or any other factor we might try to bring to bear.
For me, I was even younger than John when I became a follower of the Risen Lord. Now in this season of my life, when I have walked with this Jesus for 58 years, I feel smaller and more humble than ever, realizing that His faithfulness to me hasn’t been because of anything I am or have done to deserve or earn His favor. In fact, He has been my help and hope, in spite of my shortcomings and failures.
PETER WAS THE FIRST ONE TO ENTER THE EMPTY TOMB.
As young John fearfully peers in to the empty tomb, the older disciple, Peter, the “Big Fisherman,” huffing and puffing, finally reaches the empty tomb. True to his impetuous personality, he doesn’t even stop to catch his breath. Curiously, he moves right past John, stepping down into the tomb, and discovers a truly breathtaking scene.
The light is a little brighter and from his vantage point inside of the tomb, he can see the grave linens are still in the shape of Jesus’ body and the head wrapping is rolled in a place by itself. As Peter examines the evidenced, trying to determine exactly what had happened, it must have been clear that no one would have removed the linen strips and the head cloth from Jesus’ body if they had stolen it. Likewise, the shape of the cloths was like the body had suddenly evaporated, leaving everything just as it was.
Finally, we are told that John had enough courage to follow the impetuous one, and enters the empty tomb behind him. As he examines the evidence, he believes that Jesus is risen, even though at that moment he did not understand the scripture from Psalm 16:9-11, which predicted that He would rise from the dead.
If you have the courage, step into the empty tomb and examine the evidence for yourself. We have much more light than Mary, John, and Peter. Allow your mind to consider the evidence as you observe the grave cloths. How could these cloths be in the shape of a body, with the body removed?
But to go a step further, why would anyone steal the body and leave the grave cloths behind? Then, who had a motive for stealing the body in the first place? The religious leaders didn’t have a motive. Jesus was exactly where they wanted him- dead and buried. The Romans didn’t have a motive that made any sense. They just wanted to keep the peace and maintain control.
Maybe the most plausible group of people was the disciples. Convicted Watergate criminal, Charles Colson, after talking about the way this group broke up when they were under the pressure of possible interrogation, says this about the disciples:
They were “powerless men, peasants really, who were facing not just embarrassment or political disgrace, but beatings, stonings, execution. Every single one of the disciples insisted, to their dying breaths, that they had physically seen Jesus bodily raised from the dead. Don’t you think that one of those disciples would have cracked before being beheaded or stoned? That one of them would have made a deal with the authorities? None did. Men will give their lives for something they believe to be true; they will never give their lives for something they know to be false.”
As we examine the evidence, we come to the conclusion that Jesus is risen! He is risen, indeed! If that is true, then we are observing the greatest event in human history.
APPLICATION
I like the words of German Theologian, Wolfgang Pannenberg when he writes:
“The evidence for Jesus’ resurrection is so strong that nobody dare question it except for two things: First, it is a very unusual event. And second, if you believe that it happened, you have to change your life.”
For our lives to be changed, I believe we have to open ourselves to the God who sent Jesus to our world in the first place. He wants us to experience forgiveness for our sins, a deep sense of joy, peace, and meaning, and a genuine hope as we move into the future.
Another theologian, Alister McGrath has a wonderful handle on this when he writes:
“[First], I may believe that God is promising forgiveness of sins; [second], I may trust the promise; but [third] unless I respond to that promise, I shall not obtain forgiveness. The first two stages of faith prepare the way for the third, without it they are incomplete.”
Then in a marvelous manner, McGrath illustrates these three stages with the following story:
“Consider a bottle of penicillin, the famous antibiotic identified by Alexander Fleming, and first produced for clinical use in [Great Britain]. The drug was responsible for saving the lives of countless individuals who would have otherwise died from various kinds of blood poisoning. Think of the three stages of faith like this. I may accept the fact that the bottle exists. I may trust in its ability to cure blood poisoning. But nothing will change unless I receive the drug which it contains. I must allow it to destroy the bacteria which are slowly killing me. Otherwise, I have not benefited from my faith in it.
It is the third element of faith which is of vital importance in making sense of the cross [and resurrection]. Just as faith links a bottle of penicillin to the cure of blood poisoning, so faith forges a link to the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ and ourselves.” Faith unites us with the Risen Christ, and makes available to us everything gained through his obedience and resurrection.”
I’ll never forget one of the Easters of my childhood when one of my favorite uncles, probably in his forties, made that link of faith to the cross and resurrection and began a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. While he was a rough-hewn outdoorsman and farmer, his life changed in the most positive ways. There was a joy and peace that I hadn’t seen before.
I’ll also never forget being at his funeral and realizing how important that Easter so many years before had been.
My dear friends, on this glorious day of celebration, as we bask in the warm rays of the resurrection, I invite you, if you have never done so, using McGrath’s words to accept by faith the gift of the resurrection. God wants you to experience forgiveness, joy, peace and hope. He wants you to be transformed in the most positive manner just like my uncle was.
If like me, you have accepted God’s gift in the past, then join together with the rest of us celebrating the greatest, most significant event in human history. Praise God! Jesus is risen! He is risen, indeed!