Easter Sermon. Scripture: John 20:10-18. Jesus Appears to Mary Magdalene.

Preached: Morning Worship, 31 March 2002.

Church: Sea Point Evangelical Congregational Church, Cape Town

Minister: Rev. Thomas O. Scarborough.

Earlier in our service this morning we read a passage of Scripture titled: “Jesus Appears to Mary Magdalene. ” You know what was said in the reading. Mary was in complete despair. She stood at the tomb crying, and she was asking continually where the body of Jesus had gone. Then Jesus appears to her, and tells her to go His brothers — and to give them a simple message — just two short phrases that He tells her to pass on, in verse 17.

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Now there are two things we learn from Mary — or about Mary — two things especially that we observe. The first is that Mary is focussed very much on what is in front of her. She doesn’t have a spiritual perspective — an eternal perspective — all she sees around her is the things that are, well, around her. And if you don’t have a spiritual perspective — an eternal perspective — if all you see around you is the things that are right in front of you — then you are going to end up in a muddle in life. You are going to end up in lostness and confusion — if not disaster and despair.

For some reason, Mary refused to see the eternal perspective. She saw only what was in front of her that day. For some reason her spiritual eyes were blinded. We see that most clearly when she looks inside the tomb — two angels are sitting there in the tomb, right before her eyes, and yet she can only ask about the body.

You see, if all you can see is what is in front of you, it becomes awfully difficult to decide any more what is important in life — where your life is going — what you are here for — how you should behave. If all you see is this material world, you lose your bearings.

I was with another minister this week, and he said he cannot understand how anyone can possibly try to live this life without God. And I agree with that completely. It is impossible. The more you go along in life, the more you discover that it is an impossibility to live this life without God. Like Mary, if you just look at what is in front of you, you just end up in a dead end. The Bible talks about “the rest of men who have no hope” (1 Thessalonians 4:13). This doesn’t mean that none of their hopes ever come true — but at the end of the day, they have no reason to be confident about life. They have no reason to be hopeful about life.

We as Christians have hope because we know God in a personal way – and we know that we can trust God, and we know that God has all power over everything. And this is because we have come into a personal relationship with God through the death of Jesus Christ the Son.

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The Bible says that people without Christ become “futile in their thinking, and darkened in their understanding”. (Romans 1:21). And we forget sometimes just what begins to run through people’s minds and hearts when they live without the Lord in their lives.

A few years ago, LIFE Magazine (December 1988) printed the opinions of a whole lot of people on the meaning of life. The article was so successful that they reprinted it. But as you read the article, you realise that a great many people have no meaning to their lives.

A well known author (Maya Angelou) wrote, “I am obliged to report that the answer (to life’s meaning) changes from week to week. ” Another author (D. M. Thomas) wrote, “Life is just a two-dimensional cinema screen, hung amid blackness and nothingness, upon which a random and meaningless narrative is being enacted. ” A young mother (Jamaica Kincaid) wrote, “If anyone should absolutely, definitely, truthfully find out why we are here, please do not tell me. If I were to really, really know, I feel certain that I should then ask, ‘Please, may I now leave?'”

And an astronomer (Frank Drake) wrote, “Our own significance. . . will be understood by finding and studying the other intelligent creatures of space. “

Can he be serious? — “by finding and studying the other intelligent creatures of space.” Well he’s in trouble if the other intelligent creatures of space land on our planet, and the first question they ask is: “Please tell us what is the meaning of life.”

Without the eternal and the spiritual perspective in your life — without spiritual truth — which is knowing God the Father through Jesus Christ the Son — you end up with a huge confusion — and worse. That is the first thing we learn from Mary — or about Mary.

She ended up with confusion and despair — because she could see nothing but what was in front of her.

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The second thing we learn about Mary is that by getting into a panic over the things that were in front of her — by seeing only what her eyes could see — Mary had forgotten the promises of God. And because she had forgotten the promises, she had also forgotten the power of God — because God’s promises have to do with His power.

If Mary had just paused for a moment, to think on spiritual truth — she would have remembered the promises of the Lord.

In Matthew chapter 16 verse 21 we read: “From that time on, Jesus began to explain to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests, and teachers of the law, and that He must be killed, and on the third day be raised to life. “

That is a promise. It is a promise to His disciples that on the third day He will be raised to life. Jesus made it clear that he would die, and be raised from the dead.

And we find this promise not only in the words of Jesus — but in the Old Testament as well.

In Psalm 16 verse 10 we read: “You will not abandon Me to the grave, nor will You let Your Holy One see decay. “

But instead, Mary saw the open tomb, she saw the stone rolled away, and she could think no further than that. It would have made all the difference if she had just considered for a moment: “What did the Lord say?”

It is a very great privilege for us to be able to live by the promises of God in life. If you stand on God’s promises, you can see right through the things that surround you, and you can have a stability and a confidence in life on the basis of what God has promised you.

And those promises are ours through Jesus Christ. In other words, as soon as we put our personal trust in Jesus Christ, all God’s promises come to appl to us.

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The famous commentator Matthew Henry says about this story of Mary: “When we come to reflect on our own conduct in a cloudy and dark day, we shall stand amazed at our dulness and forgetfulness – that we could miss such thoughts as afterwards appear obvious. “

We come to a cloudy day, as Mary did — and we miss the promises of God. We fail to say: “How do God’s Word and how do God’s promises reflect upon this moment of my life?” And for this reason, our situation remains dark and cloudy.

I believe that being a Christian is a process by which you come to trust more and more in the promises of God. It means learning to live by God’s promises — that means to look beyond what you see right in front of you — to look beyond the fears and the shadows of the moment — and to remember what God has promised you – what He has promised about how He will be to those who have put their trust in Him — to those who have been saved in Jesus’ Name.

Without God’s promises, you end up with a huge uncertainty and despair as you look at life around you. That is the second thing we learn from Mary — or about Mary.

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The third thing we come across in this passage this morning is something quite different.

Mary suddenly recognises the Lord, and the Lord gives her a message to take to His brothers — that is His disciples, as we see in the next verse.

Now before we look at the message itself, let us notice that Mary is the first person in the Bible who is ever commanded to tell the good news. Jesus says to her, in verse 17: “Go to my brothers and tell them” – and then we see in verse 18 that Mary tells them the news — the word that is used here is “news” — that is the news that Jesus has risen from the dead.

And this is also the first time that this word “news” comes appears in the story of Jesus — and we find from here on that the whole of the gospel is referred to as the “good news”. We ourselves as a Church are called an “evangelical” Church — and that comes from the Greek word for “good news” — you could call us a “good-newsical” Church — that is what our name means. And in our Church constitution also — that is our book of rules — there stands the instruction that every minister of this Church must be an evangelical minister — a “good-newsical” minister. And the meaning of this is quite simple. News is something that you report — news is an event — that is reported. And originally, in the early Church, being a witness to Jesus Christ meant simply reporting all that you had seen and heard.

In the first letter of John, the apostle John says: “That which … we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes … we proclaim.” (1 John 1:1). And as we have been looking at the book of Acts these last weeks, we saw in Acts chapter 5 verse 28 that the Sanhedrin said to the apostles: “We gave you strict orders not to teach … ” And the apostles reply: “We are witnesses …” They were saying: “We are not teaching. We are reporting.”

So Mary Magdalene becomes the very first reporter of the good news — that is the good news that Jesus has risen from the dead.

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What is good about this good news?

Well without the cross and the resurrection, there would be no forgiveness of sins, there would be no reconciliation with God, there would be no personal relationship with God, and there would be none of the blessings of spiritual life.

We would be like Mary in her confusion and depression at the beginning of this passage today — we would not be able to know God — we would not be able to have that spiritual sight that becomes ours through Jesus. In fact we would be in a worse position still, because we would not have eternal life.

The good news is that God looked down upon our sinful world — He looked across our world — and He saw that we are in darkness. He saw we are condemned through our sin — sin is not just something that happens to be unfortunate — it is something that condemns us eternally before God — and He had mercy upon us, by sending us His Son.

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The two things that loom largest and darkest over all creation are sin and death.

Sin is what causes the violence in our society. Sin causes the corruption and wastefulness and pompousness we see. Sin causes poverty and sin causes hunger. Sin causes so much of the retrenchments and joblessness in our city today. Sin causes the pollution and destruction of the environment around us. Sin causes the tensions and arguments at work. Sin causes the crime and fraud and dishonesty we meet every day. Sin causes the disagreements and quarrels in our homes. Sin causes the souring of human relationships.

So we see that sin rules supreme over humankind today. It dominates our world and our lives in every possible way.

And this sin is not only around us — but it is also within us — it is within me. And it brings God’s judgement upon me.

People know this — if they weren’t capable of knowing this, there would be no such thing as personal repentance. But people are able to see the seriousness of their sin before God, and they are able to repent before Him. I thank God for the day he showed me repentance. It’s hard to describe, but it means seeing your sin as God sees it. It means seeing that you are lost, and you need the Saviour.

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The other thing that looms largest and darkest over all creation is death. Death is the penalty for sin, and God designed it so that He would take us out of this life, and place us before His great white Throne of Judgement.

Every human being must face death — whether it is another person’s death, or their own — eventually it has to be their own – and whether people think about it consciously or not, the whole question of death deeply affects every person’s life. Death is like sin — it is not normal — it is a penalty — it is an abnormal shortening of life — and it casts a shadow over everything.

And it makes a very big difference if you have come to understand death, or if you have not yet understood it. If you know Jesus Christ, you will understand it — if you don’t know Him, it is such a problem it is a frightening problem. And people know it is a frightening problem, although very often they don’t know why.

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The solution to these things lies also in our passage this morning, and with this I shall close — with the simple message that Jesus gives to Mary Magdalene to pass on to the disciples. It is only two phrases, but it is the beginning of what Jesus teaches His disciples before His ascension, and it is the beginning of what the disciples come to preach in the years that follow. Jesus says to Mary: “Tell them, ‘I am returning to My Father and your Father — to My God and your God.'”

Firstly, Jesus is saying that He came from the Father, and He is returning to the Father. And notice that He is including at the same time the disciples. It is not only His Father now, it is the disciples’ Father.

This is what we call the doctrine of adoption. We have become children of God. Just as Jesus went to the Father, if you know Him, so will you go to the Father. Jesus says: “I have gone to prepare a place for you.” (John 14:1).

The good news of the gospel is that Jesus died for our sin, so that we may become Friends of God — so that through His power the power of sin is broken, and the power of death is broken. In fact far more than this — we receive His Holy Spirit in our lives — and the Holy Spirit lifts us above sin, and lifts us above death — and makes us a new creation. He sets us free from these two great dominating powers of this evil world, which is sin and death.

In these last weeks, a young woman in our Church died — she died after a long struggle with cancer — and just before she died, she wrote down these words. She wrote: “To My Lord and Father: You have shown me how to give less importance to my plans and more importance to Your plan. Your grace has transformed me. I experience a calmness of spirit and Divine Peace, despite my struggle. Thank You for Your Grace and Peace, Faith and Love, which has sustained me `til now. We all face death all day long. Death is not the end but a life hereafter.”

Notice the triumph in those words. It is a triumph that came through struggle — but it is a real triumph.

This young woman — Sharon to many of us — had come into a new relationship with the Father through Jesus Christ — and because she was in this relationship with the Lord, she had power and she had peace.

And not only do we become free from the negative things of this world when we come to know Jesus — we also become a special people of God who are greatly blessed. I have heard so many times from our members: “How many many blessings there are through Jesus Christ” — I heard it again this last week in my Bible study group. You can’t understand that until you actually know Jesus Christ — His blessings touch every part of your life. The Bible says: “He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all — how will He not also, along with Him, freely give us all things?” (Romans 8:32).

At Easter, we remember that God sent His Son Jesus Christ to die and rise from the dead, so that we may come into a new relationship with the Father. We may come into relationship with the Father as Jesus is in relationship with the Father. Jesus said: “I am returning to My Father and your Father. “

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Have you come into a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ? It is absolutely essential.

There is a statement in our Church’s official statement of faith – you will see it at the back of our Church. It reads: “We believe that the salvation of lost and sinful man is through justification by faith, apart from works and that regeneration by the Holy Spirit is absolutely essential.”

It is essential for your eternal salvation — to come before God with repentance for your sin — to confess that you are lost — and to ask Him by His power to save you.

And as soon as you do that, the very first promise applies — that all who receive Him He gives the right to become children of God.

AMEN.