Believing is Living

The Gospels tell us how on the first day of the week, the women, as they had agreed to do

Met very early in the morning and gathered together their spices and herbs

And made the dreaded trek to the garden tomb in order that they might pay their last respects to their Lord and Master

The One whom they had known and loved and followed over the past years.

Their hearts must have felt like they had been torn apart by the events of the past couple of days

As they had witnessed their Lord and their friend being apprehended,

given a mock trial, accused falsely and heard the crowds screaming for his death

They had seen Him being thrown down and rough rusty nails driven through His wrists and feet

Had seen Him hanging tortured and in agony, the life draining from His body

And then had seen Him being taken down, put in a tomb hewn out of the rock, and a stone rolled up to the opening

As they walked, their minds must have been full of questions

How could this have happened?

Didn’t He say that He was the Messiah? That He was going to deliver His people?

What are we going to do now?

Will we be able to get anyone to help us open the tomb so that we can annoint His body?

But lo and behold, miracle of miracles!

They find the stone rolled away

There has been an earthquake

The guards have fainted, become like dead men!

The tomb is empty?

Can this be true?

Word quickly spreads to the other disciples.

And two of them, Peter and John, begin a footrace to the garden tomb

John gets their first—I have heard some scholars speculate that John might have only been around 15 years old at this time

It is certainly agreed that John was probably the youngest disciple

So, he easily beats the older Peter in this foot race

But he stops short of going in.

But then Peter arrives. And if Peter ran this fast, and this far, he certainly isn’t stopping short of finding out what he came to find out!

He goes right into the tomb. Then John follows him in

And they see the grave clothes lying there. Empty. No body

They stare in amazement, their minds racing, trying to find an explanation

And John, who identifies himself as, “The disciple whom Jesus loved”

As he is writing this account, probably years later, looks back and says, “I remember going in there

And when I saw the empty tomb, the grave clothes lying there with no body inside

I BELIEVED! Something awoke inside of me! A hope was rekindled”

“The reason that his arrest and trial and execution and burial were so traumatic for us was that , we still didn’t understand that Jesus must rise again!”

But then I saw the empty tomb

And that word “saw” means more than to look at something with your eyes.

It means to perceive. To understand

It is a believe and faith dawning based on something that has been seen and understood to be true

This is what happened to John when he saw the empty tomb

He believed!

And Then John gives us the most detailed record of what Jesus did between the time he rose again and when he ascended into heaven

More importantly, John tells us about Jesus’ personal interactions with people and what effect this encounter had with them

In John 20, 11-18, He tells us about Mary’s experience with Jesus

After Peter and John had left the tomb, amazed at what they had seen

Mary remained behind, weeping.

Heartbroken, confused

And she bent down to look in the tomb

To take one more glance inside, trying to make sense of things. Had she missed something?

But this time she saw two angels sitting where Jesus’ body had lain

Woman, why are you weeping? They asked her

Mary replied, “They have taken away my Lord, and I don’t know where they have taken Him!”

Before they have a chance to say anything, Mary heard a sound behind her

Turning around, she sees through her tears and the early morning light the figure of a man

Woman, the man says, why are you crying? Whom are you looking for?

Is there something that I can help you with?

Well, whom else would be out here at this time of day? It must be the gardener

He must know where Jesus’ body is

“Sir”, Mary says. “If you have taken His body somewhere, can you please tell me, and I can take care of Him”

And then, wonder of wonders, she hear’s her name spoken in a voice so familiar. “Mary!”

And that is all it takes for the realization to come crashing upon her, that this man standing in front of her is Jesus Himself

“TEACHER” She cries out

Jesus cautions her not to hang on to Him because He still has work to do

And Mary hurries back to the other disciples and bursts in on their gathering and cries out “I have seen the Lord!”

In verses 19-23, we see the other disciples gathered together

Huddled together in a room with the door locked

Fearful, uncertain. Perhaps hopeful?

Mary had said to them “I have seen the Lord!”

Dare they believe it?

The Jews had executed their Teacher. Were the Jews going to come after them too?

And suddenly Jesus is just…there!

Had he come through the door? It was locked

Did he come through the window or the wall? Who does things like that?

How did He get in? Nobody knows. Is it really Jesus, or is it a ghost?

Jesus, seeing the fear on their faces says to them, “Peace be with you”

And then, to help put their doubts to rest, shows them his hands and his side

And they see the scars from these horrific wounds

And then John gives us what seems to be a bit of an understatement.

“The disciples were glad when they saw the Lord”

They were glad. I imagine that what they were feeling was a little more than gladness as we think of gladness

“I’m glad that we had egg casserole this morning, because I like egg casserole

It would probably be almost impossible to describe what they were all feeling at that moment

But there was one disciple who was not with this gathering: Thomas

So the other disciples tell him, “Thomas, we have seen the Lord”

“Easy for you to say” says Thomas.

“you claim that you saw Him and that you got to see His scars and to touch him”

What about me? Don’t I get to see Him and to touch Him? Do you expect me to just swallow everything that you’re saying, hook, line and sinker?

I need to see Him. I need to reach out and touch Him

Then I’ll believe

8 days later, the disciples are together again. And this time Thomas is with them

Again, fearful. The doors are locked

And just like last time, Jesus is just…there

And knowing all things, knowing how much Thomas is struggling to believe,

Jesus says to him, “Thomas, reach out and touch me. Touch my scars. Then maybe you’ll believe

But Thomas doesn’t even need to do that. Instead, he cries out, “My Lord and my God!”

And Jesus gives him a gentle reminder

You know, seeing is OK. That helps our belief sometimes

But true faith is when you don’t see, but yet you believe anyway

The Apostle John goes on to say

“There’s a lot more that I could say about what Jesus did. About His signs and wonders

But let me tell you why I wrote what I did.”

And why was this? Why did John write what He did

So that we might believe.

You see, all these examples that we have looked at this morning are people believing

It was people transitioning from doubt to belief

It was folks who were skeptical, and were reborn into believers

It was folks having their despair transformed into hope

Their sadness into gladness

Their fear into boldness

Mary saw Jesus, heard her name spoken, and immediately believed, and declared to the others,I have seen the Lord!

She became a witness

A witness is one who declares what they have seen, experienced, and believed

The disciples saw Jesus and their despair was turned to gladness

Thomas saw Jesus, heard Him speak, was invited to reach out and touch Him, and his doubt was transformed into faith.

In fact, the Apostle John, himself says of his experience at the tomb, “The disciple whom Jesus loved saw these things and believed.”

And John says to us, his readers, I have written these things so that you, too, might believe

And the question in front of us today, as we celebrate the resurrection of our Lord is, “DO YOU BELIEVE?”

But that’s not the only reason that John recorded these things for us

The second thing that he says is, “And that through believing, you might have life through His name.”

And this is so key for us to understand

You know, it is so easy for us to just mentally assent (or agree) with something and that something not change our life one little bit

For example, I believe (or agree with the fact) that in 1969 NASA sent a rocket up into space with 3 men on board and two of those guys hopped into a smaller space ship and landed on the moon and walked on it

I think it’s pretty cool, and I’ve often said that if I was rich enough and had enough money, I would go to space in a heartbeat

But the fact that I believe it doesn’t change my life really

If I thought the whole thing was a hoax, as some folks do, I would probably live pretty much like I do now

And there are a lot more things like that. I can agree with things, and say I believe it, but It doesn’t really have that much of an effect on me one way or another

And unfortunately, it is really easy for us to do this with really important, even crucial, things.

Things like the resurrection

We can say, “I believe it, sure.” And then we go on with our lives as if nothing happened

It’s probably especially easy for those of us who have grown up in church

And maybe we feel the pressure to say

Yeah, I believe that Jesus died on the cross

Yeah, I believe he rose again

Yeah, I agree with all of that

And we say all of those things, and then we go on, nothing has really changed that much

But that’s not the kind of believe that John is concerned with here

What he is interested in, and what Jesus is interested in is a belief that brings life. That brings a rebirth.

Like Jesus told Nicodemus—You must be born again!

These are written that you might believe, and that in believing you might have life in His name

And this is what we are all searching for. We all, everyone in the world, are searching for life.

True, abundant, fulfilling life

And we read here, that it is true belief which brings true life

It is true belief which demands a true response from us.

When we go out to Delaware, we always go across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge

I can say, “Yeah, I believe we will get across that bridge and it’s going to hold up our car along with the hundreds of other cars and trucks on in”

But if I don’t actually get out there and cross the bridge, I think you could honestly say that I don’t really believe

Because I’m not acting like I believe. I don’t live like I believe

and so it is with Jesus. If we say we believe then we need to respond

It’s that belief that

brings repentance.

Mary reaching out for Jesus, crying out “Teacher!”

It’s Thomas crying out, “My Lord and my God!”

It is Simon Peter reconciling with Jesus in chapter 21

It is you and me coming to the end of ourselves and falling down before our master in repentance, confessing our sin and our rebellion and our doubt

There is a lot of talk from preachers about “revival” and a fresh movement of the Holy Spirit sweeping across the land

And that’s good and all. I pray that this will happen

But in all of this talk, I rarely hear any of these guys talk about hearts being stricken with repentance and the confession of sin, and falling down before Him asking for His forgiveness

It’s in humility and repentance that this life starts

Jesus scolded the religious leaders for their arrogance saying to them

“You search the scriptures, thinking that in them you have life. What you don’t realize is that those Scriptures are talking about me. And you refuse to come to me that you might have life”

It’s belief that brings discipleship

It’s true belief that compels us to walk daily as Jesus walked

If we say we believe, then we we take Jesus seriously when He says that our love for Him is shown in keeping His commandments

It is in a daily, close walk

It’s in abandoning all that matters to us and following wholeheartedly after Him

Jesus told us to count the cost of following Him. He told us to take up our cross daily.

Why would you do that if you did not believe in Him.

And on the other hand, if you truly believe in Him, why would you NOT take Him up on the challenge to be His disciple?

Our belief is manifested in action

It’s belief that allows fruit to grow

In our belief, we abide daily in Christ

We draw our life from Him, depending fully on Him

In our belief, we are grafted into Jesus Christ, the Vine

And the fruit of the Holy Spirit begins to grow

Us abiding in Christ, He abiding in us

The life of Christ in us, the fruit of the Holy Spirit growing

Us being transformed from glory to glory, His image being reflected ever more brightly in us

And so, this morning the question is. Do you truly believe.

And in your belief, are you finding life in the Name of Jesus

If this has not been your experience, this Easter, may you truly meet the resurrected LORD, believe and receive life.

He invites you to believe.

Just as He said to Thomas—Blessed are those who haven’t seen, yet still believe

And then may that belief lead to repentance, discipleship, and growth