I'll be preaching from John chapter 20 verses 11 through 18, however, I'm going to actually cheat a little bit and read the verses prior to that and we'll read the actual text I'm preaching from as I go through it. And I'm going to start in John chapter 19 verse 41. If you don't have a Bible with you, you can find the text in the back of your order of worship. So I say to you, hear the word of God. Now in the place where he was crucified, there was a garden. And in the garden, a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid. So because of the Jewish day of preparation, since the tomb was close at hand, they laid Jesus there. Now in the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early while it was still dark and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, they've taken our Lord out of the tomb and we do not know where they've laid him. So Peter went out with the other disciple and they were going toward the tomb. Both of them were running together, but the other disciple out ran Peter and reached the tomb first. And stooping to look in, he saw the linen clothes lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came following him and went into the tomb. He saw the linen clothes lying there in the face cloth which had been on Jesus head not lying with the linen cloths but folded up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple who had reached the tomb first also went in and he saw and believed for as yet they did not understand the scripture that he must rise from the dead. Then the disciples went back to their homes. Let us pray. While they're praying now that as we consider this year gospel that you would open the eyes of the blind and the ears of the deaf, I pray that you would have us look at this passage and we would experience the joy that we see Mary experience. I pray that you would be in my head and in my thinking, in my heart and in my understanding and in my mouth and in my speaking. In Christ's name we pray these things, amen and amen. Yesterday I was at the local woodworking store which you often find me there on Saturday afternoons. A lot of the guys know me. I know a lot of the guys they call me pastor. And every now and then someone will grab me by the chisels and ask me a theological question. Yesterday was one of those days. I was looking at a goose neck lamp that I'm sure would make my dovetails better if I could have it. And one of the guys who works there was standing by the cash register and he said, Pastor Tom, ask you a question? Of course you can. And he said, what your religion believe about Easter? And I learned well from Jesus. I said, what your religion believe about Easter?
And he said, well, I'm Catholic. And he said, you know, we believe Jesus, I guess he died on Friday, right? And he raised it again on Sunday, right? And I said, yep, that's what we believe. And he said, oh, okay. And I said, that ain't your real question, is it? And he said, I don't know what my question is anymore. I said, your real question is so what? That's really what you're looking for, whether you know it or not. I think that's what you're asking me. So what? And that's an important question. So what? I mean, people celebrate Easter, people come to church on Easter, but the big deal, so what? You see, if you remember during Holy Week, we've been talking that really Holy Week is a play. It's a drama that has three acts to it, right? Act one is on Thursday, Monday Thursday, and on Monday, Thursday. That's when we celebrate or the Lord's Supper, and we actually consider Jesus the betrayal, and we considered the Jesus washing his disciples feet and the last mandate from which we get the word Monday, the mandate he gives his disciples loved one another as I have loved you. And then on Friday, good Friday, we considered the passion of Jesus, his crucifixion and his death. And if you stop there, if you stop at act two, you will feel your whole life like you've felt and feel every time you watch the movie Old Yeller, right? And if you've not seen the old movie, Old Yeller, it's been out for about 40 years now. You're way behind the curve. It comes on discs now, even. Remember Old Yeller, it's just basically about this old yellow dog, but he turns out to be the family's best friend and protector. And at the end of Old Yeller, there's a conflict where Little Arles is about to be attacked by a wolf, and Old Yeller saves him from the wolf. And Travis takes him and puts him in the barn. And they hope that the wolf was okay, but we know that the wolf had hydrophobic rabies. And so when Travis goes out the next morning and opens the door to the barn, instead of Old Yeller bounding up to him joyfully and licking his face, he's growling and snarling. He has to be put down. And if you have a heart at all, that has to move you because you watch that and you say, this is just not right. That's not the way things are supposed to be. The story that my heart knows is I go out to the barn and Old Yeller has come back. Old Yeller is now just like he was. He's new and he's still my friend. And when Old Yeller dies, your heart is left empty. And if you stop the passion story on Friday night, your heart will be empty. I promise you. The problem is that most people, whether they're Christians or not, that's where they stop. They stop on Friday. And we talk about Jesus dying for our sins, but we really don't have any idea what's going on with the resurrection. Hopefully, after this morning, you will. We're really just going to look at two things this morning. I'm going to look at Mary's grief. It's number one. And the second thing we'll look at is the urgency of joy. Number two is the urgency of joy. And so let's look first at Mary's grief. I'm just going to read you the first verse, verse 11. It says, but Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. And as she wept, she stooped and looked into the tomb. I'm going to read a little more. And she saw two angels in white sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one at the feet. And they said to her, woman, why are you weeping? Good question. Why is she weeping? Now, depending on what angle you look at this from, there could be a lot of answers to that question, why are you weeping? First, it helps to have a little bit of context. Because in my own opinion, on one hand, it's a mild rebuke. On the other hand, I wonder if the angels thought she already knew. Because if you look at the gospel of Mark and how the story plays out there and look at the gospel of John, what seems to be the case is Mary and several women went to the tomb. And they go to the tomb. She says that we went to the tomb and it was the stone was rolled away. But in John's account, the women go to the tomb and they see the stone rolled away. It's almost like the CSI detectives, right? They see the stone rolled away and they don't touch anything. They don't want to touch the crime scene. Mary immediately bolts back and tells John Peter and John. Now, we're on peace in this together. But for Mark's gospel, it seemed that the other women were still there. And that's when the angel came to them and said, why are you looking for Jesus who has crucified? He has risen just to see that go tell my disciples. And so at that point, those women take off to go tell people and Peter and John now are sprinting to the tomb. They get to the tomb. They look inside, the grave clothes are there and everything is folded up neatly. So we know the angels were Presbyterians. It's neatly in an order in the place. And so everything's cool in the tomb. So they go in there and it says that they believed. They looked in and they believed. But they didn't understand that Jesus was really to rise from the dead. I think when it says they believed what they're talking about is Mary's story. In other words, they believed when Mary said that someone took the body, they believed that. And so that's where it leaves us. Mary either accompanied them or came back later, but where the story picks up now is Mary is all alone by the tomb. And she is weeping. In fact, the word there in Greek is more than weeping. It's something that has, it's more like a lamentation and mourning. She's crying out. She's completely and utterly distraught. So she's standing there weeping. She stoops and looks in the tomb and sees two angels there. The most surprising thing to me about this text is that she's not surprised that the angels, she looks in there, two angels there and they just ask her a simple question. Woman, why are you weeping? Maybe they thought she already knew. Maybe they thought we sent the other women out and the women would have told her. And so don't you get it? He's he's risen. Or even if she didn't know, it still carries a slight tone of a rebuked why? Because Jesus had promised her that he would rise from the dead. Jesus said over and over the son of man will be beaten, crucified. And on the third day he will raise again from the dead, right? The angels could have been sitting there and saying, well, why are you weeping? Think about it Friday, Saturday, Sunday, nothing here. In other words, Mary, what Mary's failure here is on one hand on the worst case scenario, it's unbelief. She really didn't believe it when Jesus said that. To be gracious to her, I think she has the same problem that we have most of the time. Is Mary failed to remind herself of the promises of God. She failed to remember the promises of God. She failed to preach to herself the promises of God. In other words, Jesus had said over and over again, I'm going to rise again on the third day. I promise you, I'll never leave you or forsake you. I will not leave you as orphans. And Mary had a choice in that moment to either preach that to herself. He's not here, but he promised that he would not leave me. He promised that he would never forsake me. And yet, instead, she chose to weep. That's how most Christians are. Right? Bad things happen. Let me give you some really surprising news if you're a human being. Bad things are going to happen to you. They are going to happen. And the question is, when they happen, does that mean that God has not at work in your life or does that mean he is at work in your life? In other words, we tend to look at suffering and think, gosh, when something bad happens, when suffering happens, when I lose someone that God is punishing me for something. When, in fact, most of the things, if you read the Bible, when God does these kind of things, he's not doing them to discipline us, but in fact, he's doing them for our own good. And here's Mary in the midst of what is the greatest event in human history, and she's crying, and she has no idea that this tragedy is actually for her good. So the angels say, woman, why are you weeping? And right in the midst of that, she must have heard something behind her because it says she turned around. Let me read that to you. In verse 14, having said this, will they ask for why you're weeping? And she said, they've taken away my Lord. I don't know where they have laid him. In verse 14, 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? Who are you seeking? Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, sir, if you've carried him away, tell me where you've laid him and I will take him away. Okay? So she hears something apparently behind her. She turns around and she sees Jesus, but she didn't recognize him. Why didn't she recognize him? See, I actually think she did recognize him, just she didn't understand. Why wouldn't she recognize him, though? And on one hand, you've got if you read, you know, I tend to read a lot of commentaries and stuff when I study a lot. Some people, you know, more naturalistic side. So obviously she couldn't recognize who he was because her eyes were full of tears and she was just so distraught that she couldn't see through the tears to see that it in fact was Jesus. That's one side. The other end of the continuum would say, which is purely supernatural. It's just complete supernatural blindness that Jesus, he did it to the disciples on the road to Emmaus. He didn't reveal himself until he wanted to and bam, there it was. I think it's a lot easier than that. Just think for, I want you to think for a second with me, what it would have been like to be Mary or one of the women back then. First of all, the guy she's talking to, she turns around and sees a guy. He looks like an ordinary gardener. And the last thing she remembered about Jesus was quite different than that. Remember the way it was the women who stayed with Jesus through thick and through thin. As soon as things got tough, as soon as the things really got hard, most of the men except for John fled. And it was the women who were there. So Mary would have seen his arrest. Mary would have seen him being betrayed. Mary would have seen the Romans flay him. They would have taken a cat of nine tails and they would have just beaten him until his body would have been unrecognizable as a human. She would have seen that. She would have seen them punch and beat him about the head so you would no longer recognize his face. She would have seen the crown of thorns. She would have seen him crucified. The nails pounded into his hands. She would have heard the thud as he was dropped into the ground, but even more than that. Now that he is completely unrecognizable as a human, she hears him from the cross utter seven different words. Right. He looks at his mother and he says, woman, behold your son to John and John. But son behold your mother. He says, Father, forgive them for they do not know what they do. He sells his thief and paradise. Today you'll be with me and paradise. You see, all of these things we in the 21st century look backward. And to us, they make total sense. But imagine that you have been with Jesus. You had just seen him crucified and brutalized and hung on across and now think about how these things might sound to you. Think about how might, would it be a hopeful thing to you or discouraging thing to you to have the one who promised you he would never fail you or forsake you, hanging bloody on a cross and shouting out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? If God is forsaken him, he's not going to do you a lot of good, is he? And we look back when Jesus cries out, it is finished. We look backward and say, well, of course that what that means is that he was finished with his work on the cross and dying for our sins. And I believe that's true. But if you were standing at the foot of the cross and you witnessed all that stuff and you heard the one who said he was a savior, say it is finished, you might have heard something that sounded more like the jig is up, right? It's over. I thought I was the savior, I thought I was Messiah, but it's over. And then the last thing he says, you know, father, into your hands, I commit my spirit. Do those, would those things sound very hopeful to you? They wouldn't, I don't think. And so here is Jesus, who's completely brutalized and mangled and who has completely been a little bit discouraging from the cross. Mary turns around, and here's a guy, not only is he not brutalized and mangled, but he doesn't look like he's glorious, either. In other words, you would think when, if Jesus is going to come back, he's going to come back and glory and there's going to be a halo around him, everything's going to be big and shiny and she looks around. It's a gardener. The thing is she's actually on to something because it's not an ordinary gardener. And I think that word says that one little phrase where John says, supposing he was the gardener is the key to this whole text. Why is that? Just this, you don't have to let me engage in a little theological husbandry, if you will. Remember when God created the heavens and the earth, He created the heavens and the earth, and then He created Adam and Eve and He placed them where in a garden. But more than that, He placed them in a garden and He gave him a job. He placed them in the garden and said to them that Adam, you were to work it and to keep it. Do you know what Adam's job was? Adam was the gardener. And God said, Adam, your only job in this garden is just to keep it like it is. It's paradise now. You just need to work it and you need to cultivate it, Adam. That's what you do. And you represent everyone who will come after you. If you do the right thing, all of your progeny, all of your children, are going to enjoy this paradise that I've created for you. The only thing. See, that one tree right there. Tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Don't eat of that one. For in the day you eat of that one, you will surely die. Other than that, the world is your oyster. We know the story, don't we? That Adam ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He disobeyed God. And in that moment, he violated what the Hebrews called Shalom, right? Shalom means the way things are supposed to be paradise. Perfect. Perfect relationship between God and man. When Adam ate of that fruit, Shalom was violated. And not only did Adam fall under curse, but the whole earth fell under curse. Remember when God disoathed Adam, he said, Adam, cursed it is the ground because of you. And so because of Adam, the original gardener, sin comes into the world. If you've ever read paradise loss, that's when weeds entered. That's when the rose began to grow thorns on it. Because of the original gardener's disobedience, the world and the earth was cursed and you and I fell under this curse with sin as well. So how do you fix that? Immediately. In that same passage, God promised, I will fix this. The seed of the woman will crush the head of the serpent. And then you fast forward. And what you see is Jesus coming as what? Do you remember what the the New Testament calls Jesus? The Apostle Paul in Romans chapter 5 calls Jesus the second Adam or the last Adam. You see the first Adam came as our representative and he was placed in a perfect garden and he screwed the whole thing up. He sinned and all of that came upon us. The second Adam comes and he's placed in a desolate, waste place full of weeds. And the first thing Jesus has to do is he has to get rid of the curse. In other words, if he's going to be a good gardener, he's got to get rid of the weeds and the way Jesus gets rid of the curse and the weeds is he takes them onto himself. That's the point of the cross. On the cross, Jesus takes all of our sin and not just all of our sin but all of our guilt and all of Adam's guilt, everything the original gardener blew. Jesus comes and is obedient and he fixes it. And what's the importance of the resurrection? It's just this that when the the what the cross did as far as the curse is it got rid of the weeds, if you will. But what the resurrection does, Jesus is called the first born of all creation, the first fruits. In other words, Jesus being raised from the dead is God's assurance to us that the whole world will again be made a paradise. That the gardener is here, he has gotten rid of the weeds and now he is making all things new and the place that that starts primarily is with your heart. You see, Jesus has come, he died for our sin and he came to make things new and the question is do you believe that? Do you? Because if you don't, you're stuck in all the other land and you will, you're for the rest of your life. On the other question, how do you believe it? How does that come to you? And the answer is Jesus has to reveal it to you. And that's what let me transition into Mary's joy. You see, Jesus, she looked at Jesus, supposed he was the gardener and she was right. She just didn't realize how big a gardener he was. And then Jesus does something for Mary. He calls her and did you notice how Jesus does that when I'm moving into the urgency of joy? Jesus looks at her and notice what he doesn't say to her. He didn't say, Mary, Mary, you idiot, like it's me, look, he didn't say, Mary, like you forgot all my promises. He didn't say anything. What does he say? He only says, Mary, and she hears him and she responds by saying, rabbi and I, which doesn't just mean teacher, it means my teacher. But there's a lesson there when Jesus calls you, he calls you by name. See, a lot of us have been in church for a long time and you could talk about, you could talk a blue streak when you're talking about the bible and you could talk about the gospel and you could talk about Jesus. It just never has anything to do with you. And you don't, you can't know Jesus unless you hear him calling your name. It's sort of like I grew up in South Florida. I don't, I don't think they have heat lightning out here. I mean, I'm beginning to wonder if we ever have heat. But in South Florida of heat lightning, which is basically you, you look up in the sky and it'll be cloudy and there won't be any thunder bolts, but they'll be lightning in the clouds and it's just lights up the clouds and it's cool looking. It's not very effective and then you also have lightning bolts. That's what golfers are afraid of, right? Because a single lightning bolt strikes in a single place in the call of, that's the same way the call of the gospel works, right? I call everyone. Please put your faith in Jesus, but you cannot and will not trust him unless you hear him saying your name, unless you look at the cross and you see yourself there. That it's just not, you know, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. It's Tommy Allen. Tommy, you have sinned. Tommy, you need to trust me. Tommy, you need to believe in me and the question is, do you believe in him? And I'm asking that question to both Christians and non-Christians. Do you really believe in him? Have you really heard him call and tell you that you need him? Mary heard it. She shouts and apparently she fell to feet and grabbed him. Because what does Jesus say to her? Stop clinging to me. Let me read that to you. Jesus said to her, do not cling to me for I've 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. Why does Jesus say don't cling to me? And again, this is one of the things that sort of wears you out when you have to study because so many people say so many different things, you know, on one hand people say, well, it's really, it's almost like magic because Jesus is risen from the dead and he's glorified and he doesn't want Mary, you know, she's still center, you know, he doesn't want to get polluted by Mary and so he doesn't want her to touch him and those kinds of things and all of that stuff is hogwash because more than one place in that Jesus has 11 resurrection appearances and several times he tells people, touch me. So it can't be magic. In fact, a few verses later, remember the disciples say to Thomas, he's risen from the dead and Thomas says, I wouldn't believe that unless I got put my fingers in his side and Jesus shows up. All right, right there, baby, put them in. If you remember, the story Thomas does and he just sort of falls down, sheepishly, worships. I think there's something else here and I think the issue is it's just simple and that's the urgency of joy. In other words, Mary, don't cling to me now because we've got stuff to do. Don't consider it, things aren't the way they were. She's got to be happy but she probably thought my teacher's back and everything's going to be shalom the way it was and Jesus is saying to her, don't cling to me because I've not yet ascended to my father. I've not, it returned to job isn't finished yet. In between the time that I'm talking to you now and the time that I return to my father, we've got a lot to do. What I need to you is to go tell my brothers that I'm returning to my God and your God, my father and your father. Now that's big because that's the first time at least in John's gospel that Jesus has referred to these men and women as anything but disciples. But because the death of Christ and because of the resurrection of Christ, we go from being just creatures who are sinners to being forgiven gets better than that, to being because righteous as Christ gets better than that, to being adopted into the very family of God. Jesus says now go tell my brothers that I'm returning, that once you're a Christian, it's not that you just trust Jesus and that you spend the rest of your life trying to be good and gutting it out. What it means now is that you are in the Father's household as one of his beloved sons or daughters. In Jesus says go tell my brothers that and I love the last part of here because you can tell John's grappling, I'm a close with this, John's grappling with how to capture the moment because Jesus has given her very specific instructions as to what to say to the disciples and it reminded me and I know this is going to sound sexist so forgive me up front. I grew up in a family where I was raised by my grandmother and my mom and three sisters and I got married of course and I have three daughters so I'm completely surrounded by women all the time and as I was reading this story and trying to get a grip on I could imagine one of my daughters me telling her something and her responding like Mary did because did you notice what how John tries to capture it? Jesus says it gives her specific instructions and she's either running or walking but she's going back to the disciples going go tell my brothers but God's God my God God here we got it to Father Father she knows she's repeating stuff and you know A, B, seeing A, B and she comes into the thing and people say Mary what's going on and instead of repeating the instructions what did she say? I've seen the Lord that's it I've seen the Lord she doesn't give the instructions and then John adds and she told him the rest of the stuff but what defines Mary is not that she's just doing the right thing although she does what defines Mary is the urgency of her joy she cannot help having seen Jesus having experienced Jesus she cannot help by telling other people of that same experience and the question I have for you especially if your Christian is that how you are do people look at you and say man that guy's just so excited about what this guy Jesus did for him he can't help but talk about it she can't help but talk about it because you know what if if you're not that way to some extent you have to ask yourself do I really believe it do I really understand how deep my sin is and how great the debt that Jesus has paid and how he is renewing me personally is renewing all of creation because since I believe that I cannot help but tell that to people I can't help but go out and tell them you know in the real story the gospel story old Yehler doesn't die the reason your heart is upset when old Yehler dies is because you know that's not how the story is going to end and the great news is that the real story the gospel story is that then it doesn't end that way and the gospel story the hero comes back from the dead and he promises he will never failure for sake you do you really believe that think about it let's pray father I pray now that you adopt you would just work this truth deeply into our hearts that we as a church would be excited about what Jesus has done that we would be excited to tell people the news not necessarily excited to just tell people what to do and how to be and tell them the commands but but that we would be a news first organization that we would let people know I pray that even now as you are working in people's hearts that you would open their eyes and have them here you call their name specifically in Jesus name we pray these things I'm in and I'm in