Searchlights from the Scriptures

Audio  We worship and serve a risen Lord! Death could not hold Him down and on Easter Sunday, He triumphed over the tomb! In fact, as Christians we do not celebrate Easter once every year, but once every week, for our Sunday worship services commemorate Sunday as the day in which Christ defeated death for Himself and for all who follow Him by faith! In a sense, every day for the Christian is both Christmas and Easter, for every day we live in perpetual celebration that our God stepped into this world as one of us, and took our sins upon Himself and bore them under the outpouring of divine wrath to save us through His death and resurrection! He who has power over sin and death has the power to, not only grant us eternal life beyond the grave, but to transform our lives here and now. In this very chapter of Scripture, verses 11-18, we saw how the Risen Jesus transformed Mary Madgalene from despair to delight. In verses 19-23, we saw how He transformed the disciples from fear to joy. And here in our text today, we see Him do it again, as the Risen Christ transforms Thomas from unbelief to belief. Thomas is one of the most well known disciples of Jesus, primarily due to this one incident. Aside from this, the information we have in the Bible about Thomas is quite scant. In the synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), we find only his name mentioned when the disciples are listed. In John we find more glimpses of him as a follower of Christ. In Chapter 11, when Jesus goes to Bethany following the death of Lazarus, knowing that the leaders of the Jews were intent on killing Jesus, it was Thomas who said, “Let us also go, so that we may die with Him.” The only other time we encounter him is in the upper room on the night of Jesus’ betrayal in John 14. As Jesus prepares His disciples for His imminent departure, He tells them, “You know the way where I am going.” It was Thomas who spoke what every other disciple was likely thinking: “Lord, we do not know where You are going, how do we know the way?” So, we find in these passages that Thomas is brutally honest, if pessimistic, but also a deeply committed follower of Jesus who is willing to face death with Him if need be. But it is this passage in John 20 that so often defines the man. From this text we have come to know him by his rather unflattering nickname: “Doubting Thomas.” If we take Thomas’s earlier appearances in John’s Gospel, we find him acting true to his nature in this passage. It is not that he is a perpetual doubter. He is brutally honest, if a tinge pessimistic. He knows that Jesus has died, and based on all previous knowledge he has to work from, dead people tend to stay that way. He had seen Jesus raise others from the dead, and even heard Jesus say that He would rise from the dead. But, like the others, he did not understand what Jesus was talking about, and therefore did not expect a resurrection. And in the cases where Jesus had raised others from the dead, it seemed to Thomas that Jesus had a distinct advantage in those cases. He was alive! But what can a dead man do to help himself out of his predicament? Thomas had committed his life to Jesus before, and had been disillusioned and disappointed by His death. Now that reports are swirling around that Jesus is really alive, Thomas makes it clear that he is not willing to be duped by gullibly believing something he finds absolutely unbelievable. Is he doubting? Not really. It is more like he has fallen into skeptical unbelief, and now finds himself refusing to believe what all the rest of his friends have so easily believed. This is a dangerous place to find oneself. Thomas, who had been a devout believer in the Lord Jesus, finds himself losing his grip on belief and sliding into unbelief. We have seen it happen to many we have known, and some of us may admit to experiencing it ourselves. So the issue is painfully relevant for us all as we wrestle with belief and unbelief, and as we help others do the same. As

Audio  The Living Lord Jesus Christ, who demonstrated His power over life and death by laying down His life on the cross and taking it up again in His resurrection, has the power to transform lives. Some of you know that from personal experience. You can sing of His amazing grace – how sweet the sound! – that saved a wretch like me! I once was lost, but now I’m found, was blind but now I see! We see it over and over again in Scripture as well. The Risen Christ changes people’s lives! We saw it happen with Mary Magdalene in our text last Sunday. She was transformed from despair to delight by her encounter with the Living Lord. We see it again today in our text, as the disciples of Christ are transformed from fear to joy when they meet Him. The Christian life is not always a happy life. Nowhere in Scripture is perpetual happiness promised to the follower of Christ in this fallen world. Happiness is a condition of heart and mind that is to a large degree dependent on our ever-changing circumstances. Because this world and the human race have been radically corrupted by the deadly and destructive effects of sin, our happiness in this world is always somewhat fleeting and often punctuated with grief, suffering, and sorrow. There is coming a day for the child of God when there will be no more tears, death, mourning, crying, or pain, but that day is not now. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:19, “If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied.” In other words, if the best that we have to look forward to are conditions here and now, then our faith and our hopes are hollow and bankrupt. There must be something better to come later – a happiness that is permanent and indestructible – but it is not here, and it is not now. Though happiness may often elude us in this life, there is something better which is promised to the follower of Christ here and now. We have the offer and promise of joy. Whereas happiness is dependent upon our ever-changing circumstances, joy is anchored in the unchangeable reality of our personal relationship with God through faith in Jesus. It is that deep-seated assurance that, in spite of our circumstances and every outlying external variable, within our hearts and souls, all is well. We can have unshakable joy even when life is not going as we had planned, or when sin, suffering, or sorrow break in and wreak havoc on our happiness. All is well because we rest contentedly in our relationship with God-in-Christ. If joy is the assurance that all is well, then it’s opposite is not (as some would suppose) sorrow, grief, or sadness. The unsettled suspicion that all is not well is something we call fear. Fear in a Christian’s life causes us to lose sight of the fact that we are inseparably tethered to God by faith in Christ, and that He has promised us victory, comfort, and joy. We can lose sight of the joy that is ours in the Lord when we are overcome by fear, and that is what makes fear so dangerous within the life of the Christian. It has happened to most of us, I suppose, at one time or another. And it happened to the disciples of Jesus after His crucifixion. That is how we find them in our text. Having walked with Jesus in the fullness of joy for three-plus years, their Lord and Master had been taken from them, nailed to a cross, and buried in a tomb. Three days later, we find His followers huddled together behind locked doors. Why? The Bible says, “for fear of the Jews” (v19). Why this fear? The authorities had seized and killed Jesus, so they could not help thinking that the crosshairs would fall upon Jesus’ followers next. Besides this, a story had already begun to circulate that the disciples had stolen Jesus’ body (Mt 28:11-15). It is understandable that they would fear repercussions from the authorities, and that fear had put them behind multiple locked doors in isolation from the world. The Bible says that the fear of man brings a snare (Prov 29:25), and here we find t

Audio Despair. It is an ugly word that describes an even uglier predicament. It refers to the complete loss of all hope. Hope is the fuel of life. Hope enables us to endure difficult days, prolonged pain, and sorrowful suffering. When all hope is extinguished, despair sets in with all of its dark anguish. Despair is set like a trapper’s snare before us, ready to lay hold of any who wander the path of hopelessness. Its temptation is ever before us, and none of us are immune to falling prey to it. In this fallen world, so infected and corrupted by sin and the effects of its curse, it is no surprise that so many find themselves in despair. It is, rather, surprising that more do not. Our bodies are falling apart from the moment of conception. Our first step is a step toward the grave. And along the way, we are surrounded by suffering. Were it not for hope, despair would be our only alternative. And true hope is found nowhere else but in Jesus Christ. Mary Magdalene had found that hope, and it lifted her from her despair. Luke 8:2 records it for us in a brief economy of words. “Mary who was called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out.” That is how we are introduced to her in Scripture. “Magdalene” refers to her hometown, Magdala. Prior to meeting Jesus Christ, Mary’s entire existence was a literal hell on earth. She was possessed, not by a demon, but by seven demons. All of her bodily faculties were controlled and conducted by the forces of Satan. In John 10:10, Jesus describes the work of Satan as “to steal, kill, and destroy.” Her life had been stolen; her personality, emotions, and mind had been killed; her life was being destroyed moment by moment, over and over again every day of her life. But Jesus also said that He had come to give life, and that abundantly. Mary met the Lord of life, and He delivered her from her hellish bondage and gave her life, more abundant than she had ever known before. From that day on, she began to follow and serve Him. She and a handful of others began supporting the work of Jesus and his disciples from their own resources (Lk 8:3). She was present at the cross when He died, and when His lifeless body was wrapped in cloths and placed in the tomb (Mt 27:56, 61). It was her love for Jesus that brought her to the tomb to help the others finish the burial preparations. It was her love that gave flight to her feet to go and report to the disciples that His body was missing. It was her love that kept her there when all the others had gone. But love was all she had left. Jesus had been the object of her faith, her hope, and her love. Faith had been put to death, and hope had been sealed into a cold, dark grave. All that was left on that Sunday morning was love. And, as William Cowper (the great hymnwriter who wrestled with despair his entire life) once said, “Absence from whom we love is worse than death, and frustrates hope severer than despair.”[1] And so it is that we find Mary Magdalene in the garden. She is in despair. But in her despair she is met by the risen Jesus and she moves from despair to delight. I wonder if any here today are in despair? I need not wonder if any have ever been, or may yet be. But if you find yourself there at some point, or if someone you love is there, I suggest to you that (like Mary Magdalene) the Living Lord Jesus is able to transform you from despair to delight as you encounter Him. Let’s see how He does that for her, and how He may do it for us, as we explore our text. I. The Living Lord Jesus confronts us in the confusion of despair (vv11-15). We find Mary in our text standing outside the tomb weeping. The Greek word used here for “weeping” indicates a loud and demonstrative wailing of sorts, not the quiet tears of reserved mourning. It is the word used to describe Peter’s bitter weeping after he denied the Lord (Mt 26:75). In another passage, it is used to describe a scene surrounding the death of a synagogue official’s daughter, where there was “a commoti