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Easter Sunday, March 23, 2008John 20:1-9
1 Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. 2 So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don't know where they have put him!"
3 So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. 4 Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5 He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in.
6 Then Simon Peter, who was behind him, arrived and went into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, 7 as well as the burial cloth that had been around Jesus' head. The cloth was folded up by itself, separate from the linen.
8 Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. 9 (They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.)
On one thing we all agree: The tomb is empty. The body of Jesus is missing. The broken seal on the tomb acknowledged it. The soldiers reported it. Mary, Peter and John saw it. So there is no doubt that the tomb is empty on Easter Sunday. But where’s the body?
In a very real sense, Easter is the crossroads of faith. Everyone believes that a “Jesus” existed, and everyone acknowledges that the tomb is empty. Some say that Jesus did not rise. Others say that it does not matter whether he rose or not. Still others live as if he did not rise, and some, some few say, “If Christ did not rise, we are still in our sins; our faith is useless; and our preachers are the most malicious liars of all because they make such great Easter promises that offer us power to change our lives today and hope for life everlasting” (See 1 Corinthians 15).
So let’s look into that empty tomb once more and ask, “Where’s the body?” The way we answer that question, and the importance we attach to it, will have a great deal to do with what we make of Easter, and what we do with Easter every day of our life.
1. Mary Magdalene
Poor Mary! Tormented by seven demons, Jesus of Nazareth freed her from that prison and opened the door of Christian service to her. She followed Jesus and she served Jesus. Her love for her Savior is now mocked by the false church, and her faithful service is called an illicit affair by those who cannot believe that women would follow Jesus.
But they did and you do. Rich women, famous women opened their purses and their hearts to the work of the gospel, laboring along side of the disciples, supporting their ministries, not seeking power or position, because they were following Jesus who despised them both.
Poor Mary! She had seen her Savior die. Can you imagine! And now, as she plans to complete her last act of devotion, she sees that the stone has been rolled away. She cannot imagine any other conclusion: “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!” (John 20:2).
The soldiers believed the miracle of resurrection and feared it. The false church feared the miracle of Easter and suppressed it. But here’s a faithful believer, Mary, who could not believe in a miracle of resurrection. She comes to the same conclusion as the false message of the false church: someone has stolen the body.
Mary’s response is very normal for real believers. We are filled with doubt about God’s power. We are filled with fear about our world. We live as if God cannot do one thing that he has promised. We pretend that everything in the church depends on us.
We run around shouting warning, spreading fears, wringing our hands with hearts filled with despair and doubt about the history of the church and about her future. We even write books about the end of the church in America and the rule of Satan in our world.
Mary didn’t understand Easter. She didn’t know what to make of the grave clothes that she saw in the tomb, and she didn’t understand the message delivered to her by the angels themselves, that is until Jesus came to her and said, “Mary.”
2. Peter and John
It is to this church, this church filled with doubting Thomas’s, Mary’s and Lynn’s, that Jesus comes. Over and over on Easter Sunday, Jesus comes personally to one disciple after another to make sure that we all know what we could not believe. Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Hallelujah!
A stolen body. Foul play by the government. Conspiracy theories about everyone. It’s easy to understand why they did not believe. It’s harder to imagine why Peter and John risked their lives to run to the tomb. They did not know about Easter. They did not believe in Jesus’ power. They did not remember his words, but they loved him and they ran to the tomb. They ran, and we know that John ran faster than Peter. This tiny, eye-witness tidbit that reminds us what John has claimed often, “I have told and written what I have seen. I bear witness, and I am telling the truth.”
We’re not surprised that John waits at the entrance and that Peter rushes in. Peter sees the grave clothes. This is so strange. Would robbers who snatch and run have taken the time to unwrap the long tangle of cloths while the soldiers were around? Who would take the time to fold up the shroud which was only over his head? [Here, by the way, is where the “Shroud of Turin” theories crash and burn!]
Peter saw, but these things did not help him. He was standing in the empty tomb of his living Lord. He was surrounded by the evidence of his resurrection, but …
But John was different. Guided by the Holy Spirit, John is the first person to believe in Jesus’ resurrection based on what he saw in that empty tomb. The grave cloths and the burial cloth around his head are proof enough that Jesus was alive. He saw and believed.
But now John himself stops, as he writes this account, and addresses the Easter worshippers who will read his gospel in churches as long as the world lasts. To each of us John says, “My faith was defective! My faith was incomplete.” So John works to correct that misunderstanding.
My faith was defective, John writes, because “[we] still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead” (John 20:9). As Jesus taught Thomas in John 21, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” So John writes this book. “These things are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (John 20:31).
So God in his mercy and grace does not let us see the tomb at all. We don’t know where it is. The grave clothes are not preserved, and there is no cloth that covered his head remaining. God in his mercy and grace has left for us the one thing that will actually create faith in the Easter Lord, the one power that enables us to say, “Christ is risen! He is risen indeed. Alleluia!”
He left us this gospel. He left us a gospel written by an eye-witness. He left us a gospel written by an eye-witness believer who saw and believed. He left us a gospel written by an eye-witness believer because Easter “Faith comes from hearing the message” (Romans 10:17).
And a faith grounded on this gospel knows that Easter power is ours every day of our lives. Easter joy is our always. Easter peace, Easter forgiveness, the desire for Easter purity—all of this comes from this one simple fact. The tomb is empty, and Jesus is alive. Christ is risen! He is risen indeed. Hallelujah! Amen.
