It Happened to Them

Text: John 20:1-18

Focus: Jesus' Resurrection

Function: To help people connect to the fact that Jesus' atonement happened for them individually.

Form: GOK

When I was a child, I prayed a simple prayer that went like this: “Dear Jesus, I ask you to come into my heart, forgive my sins and save me.”

And you know what happened? He did. Later that day, when I was telling my dad about it, I realized that I felt Him inside of me. He was/is, in my heart.

I remember where it happened. It was in the basement of Oakridge lodge at the Methodist campground on lake Wawasee. It was July 4^th, 1961.

Please don't be shocked or offended at this next sentence. I am only saying it to provoke you to listen.

Although I believe that the speaker told me the truth, and I believe in the truth of that prayer, the Bible never says: “pray to ask Jesus to come into your hearts and forgive your sins so that when you die you can go to heaven.”

The gospel message is not ONLY (REPEAT) “if you believe, when you die you will go to heaven.”

No way, it is much MUCH more than that.

If the only part of the good news that we are proclaiming is “accept Jesus in your heart so that when you die you will go to heaven,” then we have woefully, woefully, underserved the gospel.

A few weeks ago we looked at a certain hope. John 11, Jesus said: “whosoever lives and believes in me will never die.” And then looking at Martha He said: “Do you believe this?”

In The Message translation we read it this way: “You don't have to wait for the end, I am right now, Resurrection and Life...”

What do we think of when we hear the words “preach the gospel?”

Because, in all four gospels, the gospel message is never “when you die, you will go to heaven...”

The Gospel message in every place it is recorded in scripture is this: The Kingdom of God is Here.” Its Here! It is right now!

The emphasis is on the here and now, not the future.

God's Kingdom is here and now.

I served a Church in Lancaster Co, PA, where all the Amish, Mennonites, German Baptists, Brethren of all degrees and variations from white, to gray, to black buggies drawn by horses to cars as long as they were painted black to those who had regular cars but wore plain clothing to the Anabaptists like us who drove and wore about anything.

I buried this dear old saint, Edith. She was in her 90's when she died. She was still plain dressed with the head covering and the cape type cotton dress and everything. She chose her final years in a out of the way Mennonite nursing home because they didn't have any televisions in it.

And when she died, the nurse called me and said something that was really cool. She said: “Pastor, I just want you to know that Edith has stopped breathing.”

She refused to say that Edith died.

Again, Jesus said: “Whoever lives and believes in me will never die. DO YOU BELIEVE THIS?”

John 3:15, whoever believes will have eternal life.

Today, we have proof. Today we celebrate the proof. Jesus, who was dead is now alive! Death could not keep its prey! Praise God.

So let us look at Mary, this women from today's text when she finally believes that Jesus has risen.

To say that in that day and age women were considered to be less than men would be an understatement.

At one point, Jesus rebukes the Jewish leaders because they placed more value on the lives of their oxen and donkeys than they did the women who were suffering.

She was a woman in a culture that had little regard for women.

And that culture was given little regard in comparison to the world at large. These people were virtual slaves to their Roman oppressors.

Mary had been some kind of sinner. She had been a demoniac. She is the woman who anointed Jesus' feet. Simon the Pharisee hated her because she was a woman of ill repute, most likely a prostitute.

She was the kind of woman that no one liked.

And Jesus appears to her first.

Wow.

And when we look at the story, the thought that Jesus has risen from the dead - as He said He would- just doesn't occur to her.

For some reason, to her, that kind of miracle is to good to be true.

Have you ever doubted because it is to good to be true?

To her, good things do not happen.

To her, life beats her up and discards her.

To her, she is merely a person to be despised.

But the good news is this: God's Kingdom of healing, wholeness, restoration and health has already come.

I wonder if the biggest miracle on that first Easter morning is what we read in verse 18 when she reports to the rest of Jesus' disciples: “I have seen the Lord!”

When Mary, against her doubts, grief and misery believes that this is happening TO HER.

It is easy for us to think of what happens when we die, and we better get saved to prepare for that time. It is important.

But God's kingdom is here and now and we make so little of it if we keep confined to the afterlife.

What a message from God, to Mary's of her own personal importance.

For Mary, Easter isn't about some cosmic thing that happens everywhere else to everyone else.

Easter happened for her.

Later, the apostles come to the same realization: it happened for them.

I have wondered at times if the biggest miracles of that day took place right there in the garden when Mary and the disciples realized that this resurrection miracle not only happened to the whole world, but it also happened to them.

Do you remember last Sunday when I made a call to come to Love Feast. I said, “so often we come to church with a consumer mindset, so that we can get something out of it. But Love Feast isn't about us, it is about God.”

Today is the opposite.

Jesus rose for us.

Jesus rose for you.

Say it, “Jesus rose for me.”

SUNRISE SERVICE MEDITATION

Here we are in nature on this beautiful Easter morning in Spring.

The sun has just risen, we are gathered here at about the same time of day as Mary when she came to the tomb.

She came to grieve her loss and to experience the pain of death. She came to express her sorrow. She came without hope.

But just as this last cruel winter is over, just as this last evening of darkness has passed, here we are being born into a new day, a new year of hope with trust in Jesus who overcame death.

I once heard a sermon about Easter that was anything but true. I was angered and I walked out on it. The preacher declared that on this morning, at the tomb, the disciples were so grieved that they banded together to comfort each other and their commiseration became their fellowship and the church was born.

The preacher said, it was almost as if Christ really did rise from the dead. What a sad hope he has!

Listen to these words from from 1 Corinthians 15.

1 Corinthians 15

The Message (MSG)
^12-15Now, let me ask you something profound yet troubling. If you became believers because you trusted the proclamation that Christ is alive, risen from the dead, how can you let people say that there is no such thing as a resurrection? If there’s no resurrection, there’s no living Christ. And face it—if there’s no resurrection for Christ, everything we’ve told you is smoke and mirrors, and everything you’ve staked your life on is smoke and mirrors. Not only that, but we would be guilty of telling a string of barefaced lies about God, all these affidavits we passed on to you verifying that God raised up Christ—sheer fabrications, if there’s no resurrection.
^16-20If corpses can’t be raised, then Christ wasn’t, because he was indeed dead. And if Christ weren’t raised, then all you’re doing is wandering about in the dark, as lost as ever. It’s even worse for those who died hoping in Christ and resurrection, because they’re already in their graves. If all we get out of Christ is a little inspiration for a few short years, we’re a pretty sorry lot. But the truth is that Christ has been raised up, the first in a long legacy of those who are going to leave the cemeteries.
^35-38Some skeptic is sure to ask, “Show me how resurrection works. Give me a diagram; draw me a picture. What does this ‘resurrection body’ look like?” If you look at this question closely, you realize how absurd it is. There are no diagrams for this kind of thing. We do have a parallel experience in gardening. You plant a “dead” seed; soon there is a flourishing plant. There is no visual likeness between seed and plant. You could never guess what a tomato would look like by looking at a tomato seed. What we plant in the soil and what grows out of it don’t look anything alike. The dead body that we bury in the ground and the resurrection body that comes from it will be dramatically different.
^42-44This image of planting a dead seed and raising a live
plant is a mere sketch at best, but perhaps it will help in approaching the mystery of the resurrection body—but only if you keep in mind that when we’re raised, we’re raised for good, alive forever! The corpse that’s planted is no beauty, but when it’s raised, it’s glorious. Put in the ground weak, it comes up powerful. The seed sown is natural; the seed grown is supernatural—same seed, same body, but what a difference from when it goes down in physical mortality to when it is raised up in spiritual immortality!
^51-57But let me tell you something wonderful, a mystery I’ll probably never fully understand. We’re not all going to die—but we are all going to be changed. You hear a blast to end all blasts from a trumpet, and in the time that you look up and blink your eyes—it’s over. On signal from that trumpet from heaven, the dead will be up and out of their graves, beyond the reach of death, never to die again. At the same moment and in the same way, we’ll all be changed. In the resurrection scheme of things, this has to happen: everything perishable taken off the shelves and replaced by the imperishable, this mortal replaced by the immortal. Then the saying will come true:
Death swallowed by triumphant Life!
Who got the last word, oh, Death?
Oh, Death, who’s afraid of you now?
It was sin that made death so frightening and law-code guilt that gave sin its leverage, its destructive power. But now in a single victorious stroke of Life, all three—sin, guilt, death—are gone, the gift of our Master, Jesus Christ. Thank God!