“Never Look Back!”

Scripture: John 20:1-18

For Christians of today, Easter is a day of celebration. New clothes are purchased and worn, children get a pile of chocolate in their Easter baskets, there are Easter egg hunts for the young at heart, and special Easter dinners in a restaurant that is selected especially for Mom!
But the first Easter wasn’t quite that special! Certainly, it occurred during Passover, and that was a great holiday for Israel, but for a few, Easter morning was filled with confusion and incredible pain. Jesus was dead, and the future of the ministry he had begun was in question. His followers, the very ones who should be carrying on for him, had gone into hiding, and were heading for places unknown, or at least they hoped they were unknown. Fear of the Romans and fear of the Jewish leaders filled their every thought – “Would they be the next to be hunted down and executed?”

Not a single one of them was remembering Jesus’ words of resurrection that we read in both Matthew 17:22-23 and Luke 9:21-22. As Matthew reports it, Jesus said “The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men. They will kill him, and on the third day he will be raised to life.”
Such a powerful message, but no one would remember it in those dark, oppressive hours between Friday afternoon and Sunday morning. And least, they wouldn’t remember until the events of Sunday morning began to reveal the truth of Jesus’ words!

Read John 20:1-9

As if the events of the past week weren’t strange enough, this had to top the list! Imagine, for just a moment, that you were Mary Magdalene, and that it was you who went to the tomb that morning to complete the preparation of Jesus’ body. You are the one who discovers that the soldiers who had been assigned to guard the tomb, were gone, the seal on the tomb had been broken, the huge stone that had closed the tomb had been moved, and that Jesus’ body was wasn’t where it had been left. Four things that could never have happened, did.
How do you feel? Overwhelmed? Terrified? Confused? Do you even believe what your eyes are seeing? The only logical explanation is that either the Romans or the temple leaders came during the middle of the night and stole the body! You don’t understand why, but nothing else makes any sense! Maybe one of the others can figure this out, but when you tell them what you have seen, none of them can believe this either!

But one - the disciple John – when he ran to the tomb and looked inside, he believed. What was there about that morning that the others couldn’t see? Why didn’t Peter understand? Why didn’t Mary understand? They had heard the same words that John had heard, and yet, he was the only one who could believe.
Everything was just as Jesus had said it would be. The tomb was empty! He had defeated the death that others had imposed on him, and now he lived again!

You would think that disbelief would have ended with the disciples, that when they eventually did believe, that their witness and teaching would convince the world that the crucified Lord had become the Living and Eternal Lord. But it hasn’t. What does it take for people to believe?

Maybe they need overwhelming proof – undeniable evidence that the impossible has occurred. Many would receive that kind of evidence that day, and they would come to understand.

Read John 20:10-15

Well, maybe indisputable evidence isn’t quite enough!

Mary looks one more time into the tomb that she has already discovered is empty, and she sees two beings that weren’t there a few moments before. She asks them a question, but before they can respond, she turns around and sees Jesus standing there, living and breathing. What more evidence should one person need?
She sees 2 angels in a place that she knew had been empty, they were pure white, and spoke with heavenly voices, and yet she didn’t realize who she was talking to.
She sees Jesus in the garden, and yet she doesn’t see him. Mary had been with Jesus for a long time. She knew his voice, she knew what he looked like, she knew his mannerisms – how could she not know?

Throughout his ministry, Jesus was constantly in the presence of people who wouldn’t, or couldn’t, believe in him. Some didn’t like his teaching, others thought that he was too good to be true, others simply couldn’t accept the fact that God would ever appear in the form of a human being. And they couldn’t trust his word.
And people still don’t believe, even today, for these same reasons. After 2 thousand years of teaching, after more evidence for Jesus than for any other issue or person in history, of more study, of extensive theological reflection and examination, and still the disbelief continues.

If Mary didn’t believe, and Peter didn’t believe, and most of the disciples didn’t believe – why should the rest of us believe?

Read John 20:16-18

The Lord speaks Mary’s name, and her eyes are opened, she sees, and she believes that Jesus is truly alive. Over the next 30 days, Jesus would appear to countless followers, he would speak to them in ways that each one needed to hear, and they, too, would believe. But I think that his appearing in our presence, his speaking our name, his revealing a truth to us, his feeding us, can’t be all that is needed, otherwise the world would also believe.

I think that Mary’s case is one that we need to consider in our own belief. When Jesus spoke Mary’s name, her response was “Rabboni”. She was still holding on to Jesus as her teacher – as he had been before the death. But when Jesus tells her that she can’t hold on to him because he is returning to the Father’s side, she begins to understand, and when she hurries back to tell the others of her experience, does she say “I have seen the teacher?” No – she says that she has seen The Lord!
Mary had finally let go of her past. Church tradition tells us that Mary had been a prostitute, but, of course, that isn’t true. Scripture only tells us that she had been under the control of demons, and that Jesus had freed her, as well as several others, of the hold that these beings had on them (Luke 8:1-3). She had loved Jesus for the freedom that she now enjoyed, and she served him as well as she possibly could. But now, she had to let go of those old things that Jesus had been for her, and now she had to claim this new thing that he had become. He was no longer their rabbi, he was no longer their teacher, he was no longer their healer or friend – now Jesus was their God.

And that, I believe, is the problem with the world today. We want to see the Jesus who is covered with flesh, and touches us and speaks our name out loud, and heals us immediately of those ailments that haunt and torment us. We want the Jesus of 2012 to be one who fits the mold of our society, and we don’t want him to fit the mold of others! We want a Jesus who can’t seem to get everyone on the same page - we want one who isn’t quite all powerful, but is still all loving! We want a Jesus who laughs and weeps and struggles and is tempted, not one who has destroyed the impact of trial and temptation! We want a pre-crucifixion, a pre-resurrection Jesus - we don’t want the omnipotent (all powerful), omnipresent (all present), omniscient (all knowing) God of Creation, the God of the Universe, who tells us that our ways are falling far short of what he wants in us.
But we need the post-resurrection Jesus more today than at any other time in all of history. We need to let go of our past way of living and thinking, and begin to see and live in his whole new way.

We need to let go of what was in our yesterday. Those were the days that brought pain and struggle, those days of looking for reason in our existence, of trying to justify those things that we did in business and family and organizations and life. We need to stop thinking in the old way – of having expectations that suit us, that justify us, that perpetuate our old worldly self.
At first, Mary was looking at Jesus with her old eyes, and she only saw another person. Then, when Jesus spoke her name, she saw the old Jesus who had been her teacher and friend, but when Jesus told her that she could no longer see him in the old way, that she couldn’t hold on to what she wanted him to be, she began to see her Lord for who he truly is – God and Savior and Lord of her life.

My friends, we have to begin to see Jesus in the same new way that Mary did – not as one who fits our image of who God should be, but in the light of who he truly is. One day, this gracious and loving God will no longer be our teacher and friend – he will become our Judge. And if we think that judgment will be based solely on all of the wonderful and loving things we have done in this life, we are going to discover that our life is sadly lacking and we will be very disappointed!

Resurrection isn’t about picking up right where it all left off. It isn’t about making the old ways right. As those who claim Jesus Christ as Lord, we have an responsibility to begin living in a whole new way – as resurrected people – raised from the death of our former life and into a new existence in the here and now. We need to start seeing with resurrection eyes, and breathing with resurrection lungs, and loving with a resurrection heart. We need to be, not only the vessels that Jesus fills, but the vessels that he uses to fill others, leading them into his new way and new life.

Let the old way go and move into the new one. Jesus has forgiven our past, he has destroyed it – that old way no longer exists. Don’t look back for it – it isn’t there. Lot’s wife did look back to where she had come from (Genesis 19:18-26), and she discovered that looking back can only serve to keep us in the same old place and prevent us from moving on to the next.

Don’t make the same mistake that she did. Look ahead, with your new life in Christ, and see the new day and new way that awaits.