In this first 'encounter with Jesus', Mary Magdalen encounters the possibility of life beyond death.

Encounters with Jesus1. The Empty Tomb Dan Bidwell, Senior Pastor

John 20:11-18 Easter Sunday 17 April 2022

Did you ever have a chance meeting with someone famous? (It gives you a good story to tell at dinner parties).

When my wife Jo was 8 or 9 years old in Hawaii, she rode in an elevator with Ronald Reagan (and his security detail). All she remembers is lots of large men in dark suits, and guns, and it was very exciting! (Mid 80s he was the President. I cant imagine that happening these days!)

Sometimes we meet a person and it changes the course of your life...

For the next 8 weeks, well be looking at stories of people who got to meet perhaps the most famous person to ever live. Its a series all about people who met Jesus, and how they were changed by it. Were calling it: Encounters with Jesus. And I hope over the next 8 weeks, we all get to encounter Jesus in ways that we havent encountered him before. Im praying that well be changed from our encounters with Jesus as well.

So why dont we pray that we would encounter Jesus as we begin our new Bible series.

Heavenly Father, as we open your Bible today, help us to have a fresh encounter with Jesus. Help us to see him in new ways, to meet him in new ways, and to trust him in a way that changes everything. Father, help us to encounter Jesus, in whose name we pray. Amen

Well it is Easter and Easter holds a special place in my heart. Easter was one of the first significant moments that got me thinking seriously about the place of religion in my life. I didnt grow up in a religious/Christian household. We went to church a few times when I was really young, but that had dropped off completely during elementary school maybe because we had moved from one side of Australia to the other...

But right when I finished elementary school, our family moved back to Sydney. We drove all the way back across Australia (same distance from NY to LA) and on the very last night of our trip we stayed with friends of my parents in a little country town called Gundagai.

I remember it distinctly, because when we arrived at the peoples house, one of the daughters of that family (who was my age) wasnt there to greet us. The reason: she had gone to an Easter service at her church.

I remember asking: Why would she want to go to church? The mom said: Because its important to her.

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I dont remember anything else about that day, I dont remember anything about the daughter. But that conversation has stuck with me for more than 35 years. I was just intrigued that a person my age would choose to go to church (or any person, for that matter). I didnt understand how Jesus could be that important in their life.

Then 3 or 4 years later, I had my own encounter with Jesus, and all of a sudden it made sense. Just like it did to the character in our Bible passage today.

A Tragic Scene

Our Bible passage opens on a tragic scene. A woman standing outside a tomb, crying.

In verse 11 here, she is just called Mary. But if we go back a few verses, the gospel writer John identifies her as Mary Magdalene (and he will again in v18).

Mary Magdalene had been one of Jesus followers. Luke tells us that she had been demon possessed: seven demons had come out of her (Luke 8:2). Matthew, Mark and John all name Mary Magdalene as one of the women who watched as Jesus was crucified.

Other than that, we dont know much about Mary Magdelene. But this passage opens with Mary in the spotlight. Weeping in front of the tomb of Jesus.

Now its Easter Sunday, and so its no spoiler to tell you about the story leading up to the events of this passage.

Jesus had spent the last three years travelling throughout Israel, teaching about the kingdom of God, healing the sick, casting out demons just like he had with Mary Magdalene. Jesus had gathered huge crowds, eager to hear him speak, eager to see him perform miracles, eager to listen to his new take on their old religion. Jesus had captured the attention of a nation, and the world was abuzz with talk of what he might do if he really was the Messiah, the long-awaited King who would save Gods people...

But not everybody loved Jesus. He taught with an authority that challenged the religious establishment. And so those religious rulers plotted to have Jesus killed.

They arrested Jesus, and hauled him before a religious council on charges of blasphemy. He was beaten, mocked, and then handed over to the Roman authorities. The Roman governor Pontius Pilate could find no charge against Jesus, but the crowds kept crying out: Crucify, crucify him!

So Pilate gave in to the will of the crowd. He ordered the execution of Jesus by crucifixion. And just like that, the life of Jesus was ended. His body was laid in a tomb, and a stone was rolled over the entrance.

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That had taken place on a Friday, the day before the Sabbath. Our passage opens on Sunday morning, when Mary Magdalene had woken up while it was still dark, to go to the tomb and anoint Jesus body with spices. To prepare him for the grave.

But when she arrived, she saw that the stone had been rolled away from the entrance. She ran back to find the other disciples. She found Peter, and John (the one writing our passage), and she tells them:

They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we dont know where they have put him! (John 20:2)

Peter and John run to the tomb, and they look inside and all they see are the strips of linen that would have been wrapped around Jesus body. And then theyre gone, leaving Mary crying outside the tomb.

One of the harder parts of my job as a pastor is taking funerals. Actually, the funeral is not usually the hard part, its sitting with family members in their moment of loss. Helping them process the death of a loved one, and the sadness of losing someone. Ive stood at the graveside and watched men and women cry, just like Mary stood outside the tomb of Jesus, devastated and distraught.

Death is an unwelcome part of life, this side of heaven. Sadly its something we all learn, the longer we walk through life.

PAUSE

A Logical Response

But Easter Sunday is a story that turns our expectations about death upside down...

11 Mary was standing outside the tomb crying, and as she wept, she stooped and looked in. 12 She saw two white-robed angels, one sitting at the head and the other at the foot of the place where the body of Jesus had been lying. 13 Dear woman, why are you crying? the angels asked her.

Because they have taken away my Lord, she replied, and I dont know where they have put him. (John 20:11-13)

I love Marys response at this point. Everywhere else in the Bible when angels appear, people are terrified. But not Mary. When the angels ask her why she is crying, she says just what she told the other disciples. Mary is upset because, as far as she could logically discern, somebody had taken away the body of Jesus.

And that is the logical conclusion, right, if Jesus body was no longer in the tomb. The logical conclusion is that somebody had taken it. But who?

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If the religious leaders or the Roman authorities wanted to dispel the rumours of Jesus resurrection, then they could have held onto his body, then produced it as evidence if Jesus disciples wanted to claim otherwise. And that was the plan. Pontius Pilate had posted a Roman guard in front of the tomb.1 That soldiers job was to guard the tomb at all costs. In fact, he would have been executed himself if he failed to secure the tomb.

But when Mary arrives, there is no guard at the tomb, just the stone rolled away. And so her logical conclusion is that the authorities had removed his body.

[BTW no body was ever produced, so it doesnt make logical sense to argue that the government had taken Jesus. They could have shut Christianity down in a flash by showing that Jesus was still dead... You might argue that the disciples took the body, but the guard was posted there to stop them, and it is highly unlikely that a group of fishermen could overpower a Roman guard and abscond with a body without anybody finding out. It would take a lot of faith to believe that version of events...]

There is another logical conclusion we have to draw as we look into this scene. Its that Mary wasnt expecting a resurrection. She was expecting to find a dead body.

Even when the two angels ask her why she was crying, shes still looking for the body. Thats when a new character appears. Verse 14:

14 She turned to leave and saw someone standing there. It was Jesus, but she didnt recognize him. 15 Dear woman, why are you crying? Jesus asked her. Who are you looking for? (John 20:14-15)

Its a delicious moment, isnt it? How can she not recognize Jesus? After all, she had followed him for so long, shed been there at his death, and the moment he was laid in the tomb. Surely of all people, Mary would recognize Jesus?

But she doesnt. She mistakes him for the gardener. She says to him:

Sir, if you have taken him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will go and get him. (John 20:15)

Mary is still looking for a body. Because who could possibly believe that a dead person might somehow come back to life? It doesnt make logical sense. Thats not how our universe works. Dead people stay dead.

1 Matthew 27:62-66

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Do you know, Jesus had told his followers that he would be killed, and that on the third day he would rise again. Even the religious rulers, Jesus enemies, had heard him say it. Thats why they had the guard put on the tomb. But they didnt think it would happen. And looking at Mary Magdalene here, it seems like she didnt think it would happen either. Nobody expected Jesus to be raised from the dead...

Which is actually quite illogical, because if anyone could defy death, it was Jesus. Mary and the disciples had seen Jesus perform all manner of healings, and even bringing the dead back to life both Lazarus, and a little girl. Why would they doubt what Jesus had said, when he had proved his ability on multiple occasions?

Well, Mary looks right at Jesus and she doesnt recognize him. The evidence is literally staring her in the face, and she cant see it. It doesnt even occur to her that Jesus could be alive.

This little interaction teaches us a deep truth about humanity. Pastor Tim Keller puts it like this:

in every human being [there is] an inherent spiritual blindness. We cant see the truth. [...] Faith is impossible without supernatural intervention by God himself. Timothy Keller2

I got my first pair of glasses a few years ago. The joys of turning 40. Ive always prided myself on my excellent vision, especially my long-sightedness. I can always read the bottom line of the eye testing chart, and, well thats probably all its useful for. But I remember when I got fitted for the prescription, the doctor asked me to look across to the other side of the mall, and then to try it again with the glasses on. I thought I had excellent long vision, but with those glasses on I was like Superman! I could see everything so clearly!

And thats what this passage teaches us. We might think we see the world clearly, but when Jesus opens our eyes, all of a sudden we see the world with a clarity we could never have imagined. It takes the supernatural intervention of God to open our eyes, and thats exactly what happens in our Bible passage today. Jesus intervenes.

With just one word, Jesus removes Marys spiritual blindness. Verse 16:

16 Mary! Jesus said.She turned to him and cried out, Rabboni! (which is Hebrew for Teacher).

One word. Mary hears Jesus voice and the blinders are removed. Jesus speaks, and Marys reality is changed forever.

I often wonder what it would have been like to be Mary. To see the resurrected Jesus in the flesh, to see him alive after she had seen him die. We have to imagine that possibility, but Mary

2 Timothy Keller, Encounters with Jesus, 85.

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got to see it with her own eyes. She got to hold onto Jesus, to touch him, to hug him. This isnt a spiritual reunion of disembodied souls. This is genuine life beyond the grave. Physical, flesh and blood, life that exists even after our mortal bodies have been buried in the earth. This is a foretaste of the eternal life that the Bible promises.

One word, and Marys reality is changed forever.

What word would Jesus need to speak to you for the blinders to come off? What would it take to believe in the possibility of the resurrection? What word could change your reality forever?

Im kind of envious of Mary. When I first encountered Jesus, at youth group when I was 16, I didnt have an instantaneous life-changing moment like Mary Magdalene. It was a slower process, where I kept going along, and hearing more, and asking questions, until the day when I was praying and an old friend said: Youre praying! Youve become a Christian! That was my dramatic conversion story. It just sort of happened over a number of months. All of a sudden the world didnt make sense without Jesus. Its like his voice had opened my eyes for the first time.

And when we look at the disciples, even the ones who saw the resurrected Jesus in the flesh, it sometimes took multiple appearances before they believed. Just in John chapter 20, Jesus appears to John, Peter, Mary and Thomas, and they are all different, they all require different amounts of time and evidence before they believe.

That means if youre not quite convinced just yet, keep at it. Keep seeking encounters with Jesus, keep seeking evidence, keep asking Jesus to intervene and open your eyes. Because he will...

Jesus said:

7 Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. (Matthew 7:7)

The resurrection is one of the most exciting ideas in the Bible. But its more than an idea, its a reality. The resurrection of Jesus shows us that there is hope of life beyond the grave, hope of life without end, the hope of life forever. Because one day, well wake up from the grave when Jesus speaks our name. And on that day, it will all become clear...

Will you pray with me?

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