Sermon Tone Analysis

“I Have Seen the Lord!”

In 1999, an unpleasant visitor came into my household—his name was death.

Eight years ago, the body that gave me birth became lifeless.

I learned to sigh deeply, to clutch to fading memories, to weep instantly in uncomfortable places and at uncomfortable times.

I learned death didn’t wait for the right time, for no time would ever be right for this visitor.

He is the unwelcome guest who’s company every home must open the door to.

Have you found this guest coming to your home?

Immediate family?

Extended Family?

Close Friends?

Everyone of us.

Easter Day dawned as every other day, with the black ink of darkness slowly diluting into pale blue.

And under that shifting expanse, lay several who’s hearts burn with heaviness.

Their Master … gone.

Their friend — and what a Friend!

— departed.

Their plans wrecked.

Their hopes shattered.

They are perplexed, baffled.

They despair.

Abandon hope, all ye who enter here!

*See John 20:19*, their “doors were shut for fear of the Jews.”

Jesus of Nazareth … Crucified … that was the Farewell to Hope!

Am I exaggerating?

Was there not so much as a ray of hope shining through the clouds of gloom and despair?

A half-conscious expectation that somehow light would arise out of darkness, that the night would make room for the dawn, that … perhaps … the Master might even … rise again?

Read the account for yourself:

“And they, when they heard that he was alive, and had been seen of her, /disbelieved.”/

Mark 16:11.

“And they went away and told it unto the rest.

/Neither believed they them.”/

Mark 16:13.

“And the … women … told these things unto the apostles.

And these words appeared in their sight as /idle talk;/ and they /disbelieved/ them.”

Luke 24:10, 11.“And he upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they /believed not/ them which had seen him after he was risen.”

Mark 16:14.

“The other disciples therefore said unto him (Thomas), We have seen the Lord.

But he said unto them, Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”

*Not one of the Eleven expected Jesus to arise from the grave.

That thought was farthest removed from their minds.

Jesus was /dead/.

He was /gone!/

These happy days of close fellowship and intimate association with the Great Prophet of Nazareth would never return.*

/Cleopas and His Companion/

These two friends of Jesus are returning to Emmaus.

It is Spring-time.

Yet they hear not the singing of birds.

They see not the awakening of Nature.

With lagging feet, under leaden skies they continue on their way home … home from a funeral!

A dear one has been buried.

Jesus of Nazareth.

“Yes, stranger, we hoped that he was the One who would redeem Israel.”

“*We hoped — past tense — but now all hope is gone*.

The Cross and the Grave have blasted every last remnant of hope.

Eternal despair reigns supreme in our hearts.”

/Mary, the Mother of the Lord/

She, too, was in the grip of cold winter.

A sword was piercing through her own soul, Luke 2:35, as she saw her own son, her first-born, dying the death of a condemned criminal.

A feeling of overwhelming sadness takes possession of me whenever I read the lines of that ancient hymn, describing Mary’s tears:

“Stabat mater dolorosa

juxta crucem lacrimosa …”

For her, too, the Cross was the Farewell to Hope.

/The Women and// The disciples/

See these women trudging sorrowfully through the streets of Jerusalem very early, Sunday morning.

While the Eleven are in deep mourning and despair, Thomas resembling a man who is caught in the midst of an earthquake, the very ground under his feet caving in; Peter overwhelmed with remorse; John tenderly caring for the woman with the tempest-tossed soul (Mary); while night has settled upon these Eleven men, what are these women going to do? *Is it their design to welcome the Risen Lord?

Not in the least.

The cross has blasted their hopes.

The grave has buried them forever.

They come … to anoint a dead body, the corpse of Jesus of Nazareth, their Friend and Helper.

*Never was there a more dejected, disappointed, crushed group of men and women!

*Death is a destruction of relationships—an intrusion, enemy*

They supposed like we all do that there is nothing left but a body, decaying and decomposing.

When the Master died, the disciples, too, died.

Their hopes, their aspirations, their deepest affections and fondest anticipations were buried with their Lord.

If ever hope was to be revived in their hearts, their souls would have to be rescued from the grip of death.

There would have to be a new beginning … and that … by all the laws of human logic … was impossible!

*Death brings anguish and grief (see Mary in *

 

she was “crying.”

The verb /klaiein/ appears eight times in this Gospel, three times in the Lazarus death scene, once in the predication of lament that would come to the disciples with the death of Jesus (16:20), and four times in Mary’s lament here (20:11[2x],13, 15).

The term is used for the anguished crying or wailing associated with mourning as at funerals and in times of bereavement.

Morris adds that it would hardly be viewed as “a quiet, restrained shedding of tears, but *the noisy lamentation typical of Easterners of that day*.”

* *

*Death clouds our thinking*

* *

While she was giving vent to her bitter sorrow, she stooped to peer into the tomb (see on verse 5).

She saw two angels sitting, one at the head and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had been lying.

Mary’s answer to the angelic visitors was that her wailing was because she thought the burial tomb had been violated and the body had been removed.

It seems apparent that her presence at the tomb was to get close to the corpse as though in revering the tomb the presence of the dead person might seem close at hand.

In ministry one frequently encounters people who have lost their spouses, parents, or children, and the grieving person visits the tomb to “talk” to the person who is buried there.

Or the bereaved person may sit at a table and “speak” with the person who used to sit there.

So all-absorbing was her sorrow that she was able to converse with the two angels who now appear within the burial crypt, showing no fear, whereas the other women were terrified by their encounter with the angelic messengers at the tomb a short time before.

The heavenly spirits, sent forth to minister to one who is an heir of salvation, show their sympathy in the question, “Why weepest thou?” Mary’s answer, given in language which is almost identical to that of her announcement to Peter and John, reveals how intense was her preoccupation with the loss of the Savior’s body.

She had lost Him through death on the cross.

Now to lose even His cherished form was a devastating blow that brought her to the verge of collapse.

Under ordinary circumstances, Mary would no doubt have been enthralled at the experience of conversing with angels.

But today it is not so.

If He is not there, angels have little interest for her.

So she turned away sorrowing, not waiting for reply.

The probable truth is that the mind of Mary was so sealed by the certainty that Jesus was dead that she could not connect any upright figure with her Lord.

At best this man could be a source of information, especially if he chanced to be the gardener and had removed the body himself.

Mary’s best expectation was in the next moment exceeded.

It is the risen Lord who is able to do exceeding abundantly above what we ask or think.