Why Are You Weeping?
Sermon • Submitted • Presented • 38:24
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It is Easter Sunday and a church member named Mary pulls into the church parking lot. There are a few cars already parked but most spaces are open. She remembers a time when you had to get to church extra early on Easter in order to find a parking space and this thought acts as a single cloud on an otherwise sunny day.
As she enters the church foyer, she is greeted by a dear friend and handed a bulletin. They exchange Easter greetings and pleasantries, but she notices a lack of excitement and anticipation that has been missing for sometime. Another cloud sets in.
She makes her way down the hall toward the sanctuary and she passes by the children’s Sunday school room. A lone teacher is laying out the different components of a craft on a desk surrounded by a half dozen chairs - in hope that this will be a Sunday that some children will arrive - not just the pastor’s kids. Mary remembers when the classrooms were full of children, back when her own sons were younger and she made sure they were there every Sunday. Another cloud sets in. Her mood begins to darken.
She passes by the entrance to the fellowship hall. She waves to the gathering of 10 folks drinking coffee. She notices that someone brought in some pastel colored donuts - decorated like Easter eggs. That’s nice. But then she looks beyond the gathering to the larger room, most chairs stacked against the wall, a few tables set out for meetings. Oh how this place used to be full of people - Sunday fellowship, fundraising suppers, community events, VBS - now it is rarely used. It is getting darker.
Mary enters into the Sanctuary. She makes her way over to her seat, the same pew that her husband and their children used occupy years ago, the same one that she sat in as a child next to her parents. She looks around - polite waves from the smattering of folks already there. One pew on the other side had been removed a few weeks ago by the trustees because of the leak in the roof. It looks like they were able to patch up the damage in the ceiling overhead. She begins to notice the cracks and the peeling paint on walls. This is her Sanctuary, this is the place where she has found comfort and peace during so many difficult times.
Mary begins to weep. Where has it all gone? Who has taken it away? Who took my husband away from the church? Who took my children away - why are they so indifferent toward something so important! Who has taken my sense of well being away? Who has taken away my peace? Who has taken away my hope?
Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?
Thinking it is her pastor, she says to him, “Where has it all been taken? What did you do with it? Where is my church, show me and I will go and bring it back. Just tell me what I need to do.”
He speaks her name. “Mary”
Play out this image in your mind. Hear him speak your name.
Jesus is right in front of her, just as he said he always would be. But her skies had darkened so much that she could not recognize him. Circumstances have changed, the environment has changed, attitudes have have changed, people have changed, but Jesus has not changed. He still sits on the throne and he still is present with each of his children.
Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
Today is Resurrection Day! This is the most important day in the Christian calendar.
Christ lives! He rose from the grave! He has conquered death! New Creation has begun!
And yet our joy can be overcome by darkness. Sometimes gloom blocks our vision. It did for the disciples.
We can appreciate the shock, despair and sadness that the disciples were experiencing during that long Sabbath, from the time Friday afternoon that the body of Jesus was hastily cleansed, wrapped in linens, and then sealed in a tomb until early Sunday morning when the women went to the place he was buried to, according to Mark’s gospel, anoint his body with perfumes.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. How could he be dead? What do they do now? How does life go on without Him?
And then it is discovered that the tomb is empty. What does this mean?
Peter and the unnamed disciple that Jesus loves, run to investigate. They see the tomb with the stone rolled away. The immediate thought would likely be the same that Mary had before she alerted them. Someone must have moved the body. Someone must have rolled away the stone, entered in the tomb, dragged the body out and carried it off to another place.
Peter and the beloved disciple enter and see something very strange. The linen wrappings that had been wrapped around his body, now lay folded upon themselves. The linen cloth that covered his face, now lay folded upon itself separate from the wrappings. Who unwraps a dead body before moving it? And the way the cloths are laid out, it is like…like his body had simply passed through them and the wrappings and the cloth had settled down upon the place where his body once laid.
The beloved disciple immediately understood what this meant. Jesus is no longer dead. He has risen! He did it!
And if he lives, what does that mean for us?
Let us go back to Mary Magdalene. She returns the to the tomb. The boys have left. She stood outside the tomb weeping. Darkness and chaos have overcome her. She is flooded with emotion, the loss of her Lord pierces straight through her heart.
Why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?
And then he says to her, “Mary.”
She looks up and the clouds depart. Darkness flees. It is Jesus.
She jumps forward and embraces him.
Teacher!
He gently tells her, don’t cling to me Mary. We are not going back to how things were before, this is something new. I will soon have to go and be with my Father, but I want you to go and tell my brothers...
(and I want you to pick up what he says next, because there is a shift that has occurred.)
John 20:17 (ESV)
Jesus said to her, “Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ ”
Jesus spoke often of His Father, but now he says “my Father and your Father, my God and your God.”
His disciples are now family. We who believe and follow him are now family. God is now my Father and my God. He is now your Father and your God. Jesus made that happen.
And as sons and daughters we have complete access to our Father through Christ. For us, death has been defeated. We can put chaos behind and walk into the ordered life of the Kingdom. We put death and darkness behind us, because Life and Light has come into the world.
So why are you weeping?
People weep when they are grieving a loss. When someone or something has been taken away from them.
It is good to remember what the Apostle Paul wrote about a believer’s response to death:
But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words.
Because we believe that Jesus died and rose again, we have this hope. This assurance of things we cannot see, but that we know to be true. Pastor John Piper defines biblical hope this way:
Biblical hope is a confident expectation and desire for something good in the future. - John Piper
Another description I found says this:
“Biblical hope carries no doubt. Biblical hope is a sure foundation upon which we base our lives, believing that God always keeps His promises.”
A follower of Jesus, a disciple of Jesus, is filled with hope because we know that no matter how dark the circumstance, no matter how depraved the situation, no matter how big the obstacles…there are better days ahead because Jesus lives and God, our Father, has great plans for those who persevere in faith.
Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him”—
God has great plans for his children. This is a spiritually dark time in which we are living. This is a time characterized by confusion, chaos, division, strife, selfishness, and all kinds of ungodly living. Outside and inside the church.
But the gift of God is still present. This living hope we have been given. Christ in us.
Listen to me. Like Mary weeping in the garden - all we need to do is look up and see who stands before us. Keep your eyes on Jesus. Seek him and only him.
I truly believe if each and every follower of Jesus in each and every church would keep their eyes on Jesus, we would see darkness flee. The fruits of the Spirit would be abundantly present in every church: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.
The Church would indeed shine like a lighthouse in a storm or a city on a hill. Images that describe the role of the Church in the world. Beacons of light that drive away darkness and a place that draws people in.
If our eyes on on Jesus, and we are allowing the Spirit to lead and to teach us, we are ordering our lives according to His Word, we are receptive to the power of the Holy Spirit - then we will experience resurrection and new life. We will be a vibrant, active, life-transforming, radically humble, extravagantly loving Church.
Or we can sit in darkness and weep. The choice is ours.
God is sifting the wheat from the chaff. In such a critical time in the world, he desires his faithful children to rise up and reflect HIs glory and goodness.
I want to close with the words of our Lord on the evening of the day of Resurrection.
On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.”
Jesus has sent us out into the world. May we be found faithful to the task given us when our time is over or when he returns - whatever comes first.
Amen