I Have Seen the Lord
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I Have Seen the Lord! John 20:1-18
So What? New Creation has begun which means the risen Christ changes our lives now.
Problem of So What
Resurrection Questions
What meaning does it have for our lives today?
How can something that happened two thousand years ago have any effect or impact on my life today?
Is the resurrection relevant?
Let’s consider So What by telling the story as John tells it.
John 20:1-18
The Story Begins Early in the Morning…
1 Early on Sunday morning, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and found that the stone had been rolled away from the entrance.
She draws a logical conclusion: Someone has stolen Jesus’ body. So she runs and tells Peter and John.
2 She ran and found Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved. She said, “They have taken the Lord’s body out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!”
Now, John doesn’t like to refer to his own name in his writing, but he does like to tell some things about himself.
He’s “the disciple Jesus loved.” He has used this phrase before in his account.
Also, he’s a faster runner than Peter.
3 Peter and the other disciple started out for the tomb.
4 They were both running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first.
So, we know that John is fast, and he’s also lovable.
But he’s also a bit hesitant, because even though he arrives first, he doesn’t go in.
5 He stooped and looked in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he didn’t go in.
Peter, however, is another story.
6 Then Simon Peter arrived and went inside.
What he lacks in speed he makes up for in brashness.
Arriving behind the other disciple (John reminds us) Peter pushes past him and goes right into the tomb.
And what did Peter see?
Have you ever noticed that when something traumatic happens, or something exciting or unexpected, little details get etched in your mind, and you remember them later?
…He also noticed the linen wrappings lying there,
7 while the cloth that had covered Jesus’ head was folded up and lying apart from the other wrappings.
Peter noticed that the linen burial cloths were lying there, but the piece that had been around Jesus’ head was folded up by itself and lying separately from the others. Like someone had made the bed. This was odd—certainly unexpected.
Why would grave robbers take time to make the bed?
8 Then the disciple who had reached the tomb first [John reminds us!] also went in, and he saw and believed…
…something, not everything, not yet…because he acknowledges…
9 for until then they still hadn’t understood the Scriptures that said Jesus must rise from the dead.
But John senses God is at work here.
10 Then they went home.
They leave, but Mary stays at the tomb crying.
Jesus appears to Mary
11 Mary was standing outside the tomb crying, and as she wept, she stooped and looked in.
12 She saw two white-robed angels, one sitting at the head and the other at the foot of the place where the body of Jesus had been lying.
13 “Dear woman, why are you crying?” the angels asked her.
Isn’t it funny that so often when angels show up in scripture, they always ask the humans what’s going on? They’re the ones who are supposed to know what’s going on!
“Because they have taken away my Lord,” she replied, “and I don’t know where they have put him.”
14 She turned to leave and saw someone standing there. It was Jesus, but she didn’t recognize him.
15 “Dear woman, why are you crying?” Jesus asked her. “Who are you looking for?” She thought he was the gardener.
John’s Gospel is all about New Creation…In the Beginning was the Word…to now. We’ll come back to this in a minute.
“Sir,” she said, “if you have taken him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will go and get him.”
16 “Mary!” Jesus said. She turned to him and cried out, “Rabboni!” (which is Hebrew for “Teacher”).
17 “Don’t cling to me,” Jesus said, “for I haven’t yet ascended to the Father.
Here we get to the heart of what early Christian communities think is going on.
They believe Jesus has been changed into a new kind of life…a new kind of physicality. Eating, walking, talking, but moving into and out of rooms.
Paul would call this New Creation being here already, but also not completely Yet.
I would call this, existing in two different dimensions at once.
Our space and God’s space being reunited…like in Genesis.
…But go find my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ ”
18 Mary Magdalene found the disciples and told them, “I have seen the Lord!” Then she gave them his message.
Are you Clinging to Christ?
Every Easter, we come together like Mary and Peter and John.
Some of us are faster than others—some more lovable.
Some of us are hesitant—some are more brash.
Some of us are doubters—some are aware that God is at work.
Some of us have glimpsed Jesus, but we still haven’t grasped the whole story.
We have our conclusions about things for logical reasons, and very often we, like Mary, are expecting the worst, not the best.
Our eyes are open, but it’s still too dark to see fully.
Maybe we’re not fully awake.
We pause at the entrance to faith, but don’t go fully inside.
We see the stone rolled away, but we don’t see the folded burial clothes.
Or, we see the folded burial clothes, but we don’t see the two messengers in white.
Or, we see them, but we don’t see Jesus.
Or, we may even see Jesus, but we don’t yet recognize who he really is.
In fact, down through the centuries millions of people have said with Mary, “I have seen the Lord.”
Many of you here in this room this morning.
We don’t understand it all. We’ve had doubts at times.
But we’ve caught glimpses…
And in the midst of it all, we’ve sensed someone calling our name.
And suddenly, we’ve seen what we couldn’t see before.
Conclusion:
The glorious message of Easter is captured in two verses from the Apostle Paul:
2 Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come; the old has gone, the new is here!”
We’re celebrating our resurrection today, not just Jesus’s.
Romans 6:4, “Just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may walk in newness of life.”
The Battle for Middle Earth
Fleming Rutledge
The Surface vs. Deep Narrative of The Lord of the Rings
Our practices together are training us to see the Deep Narrative, to see God at work bringing about New Creation.
We learn to see it in Transformed lives…like The Chosen.
See it in the soup Kitchen…feeding hungry people.
Stop clinging to your old ways of understanding Christ and learn to see with Marry the risen Lord.
So What? New Creation has begun which means the risen Christ changes our lives now.