Whom Do You Seek?

Tombs of Life

Claim – In the midst of great grief Jesus can continue to surprise us and turn our sadness into rejoicing.

The other day I was sitting out on my porch doing some reading as I often do so I can be outside and not cooped up in the house or office, and I heard a noise that was familiar to me, it was a crop duster spraying some fields near my house. This is a sight I have seen many times since I have lived in the country, and I’m always fascinated by how the pilots do that. I’m also a pilot and fly for the fun of it but I have never done the type of flying they do since it takes a special skill set to fly the patterns at the altitudes and attitudes they do.

I know the pilot that was flying, and I was distracted for a while just watching him spray the fields behind and beside my house, often passing above my house at just a few hundred feet and at times less than that. Not long after first seeing him and he was out of sight spraying another field I went back to my reading but then I heard him again but this time he sounded much closer. I turned my head in the direction I heard him and as I turned my head to the left, I was looking directly at the plane, more precisely, the pilot because he was that close to me, and he was coming straight towards me at maybe fifty feet off the ground.

All I could see was the big propeller spinning almost like it was aiming for me and I could see the pilot clearly. I heard the engine increasing in throttle, but he wasn’t climbing out as I thought he should and he was headed for me, I thought he was going to crash into the house, and I thought, “so this is how it ends for me.”

Maybe for many of us we have this moment in one form or the other, where we believe we can see how life ends for us, how life is going to turn out and its not the way we wanted. How many times have we experienced a moment where it seemed like life has beaten us up to the point where we can barely function, find no hope and can’t imagine that there is any mercy to be had. For a lot of us, I believe we have these moments during times in our lives through choices we have made or that have been made for us that we had no control over and we find ourselves sitting on that porch and we begin to realize that this is all life has to offer us. Maybe we find ourselves standing at the entrance of an empty tomb searching for Jesus only to find that He isn’t there, so we think.

Easter is that moment where we can celebrate a risen savior, one that only days before had been arrested, tried and convicted and died an innocent man for our sins. We see the cross that Jesus had to carry and at times we may wonder what kind of love He has for us that He went to that cross and give His life for sinners like us. On that cross as Jesus was dying, not only was His body on that cross but I believe nailed to that cross was the hope and love of the disciples, Mary and many others that had hoped for a new life free from a life of pain and hopelessness.

The scripture today tells the story of one such person that seems to have lost all hope for that life and is trying to come to grips with a life that is now going to be much different from the one she had hoped for. We pick the story up with Mary going to the tomb early in the morning and finding it empty she runs to find Peter and John and tells them that the body is missing and believing it stolen. They return to the tomb with Mary and see exactly what she had said, the disciples eventually go in and only find the burial clothes, but no Jeus. The disciples return to their homes and Mary is left standing at the entrance of the tomb grieving not only the death of Jesus but now believing the body to be stolen, her grief has multiplied and probably thinking about how much worse this can get for her and the others.

It seems all to real for us that when we find ourselves grieving a great loss, bad news that changes our life or anything that could forever alter our life in a tragic way, we find ourselves having that grief compounded by other things that make it worse and we find ourselves standing at the empty tomb thinking how much worse this can get. Life as we know it isn’t fair at times it seems, maybe we haven’t be fair to ourselves through decisions we make that may cause these problems but no matter what the cause is, we find ourselves facing immense sadness that just has us stunned, not knowing what to do.

Maybe we look into that tomb searching for Jesus only to find that He isn’t there, we call out to Him for help but can’t hear His voice calling back and we’re just left standing there alone, feeling as if the whole world has just collapsed on us. It is in those moments when we think all is lost, that this is it, a plane is getting ready to fly into us and the tomb is empty that we find Jesus, maybe a Jesus unlike one we have ever seen.

The resurrection gives us this peace we can’t fully understand knowing that Jesus loves us so much that he was willing to die for our sins. Jesus had lived with the people and performed many signs to show who he was and the people, at least in part, loved Him and many hated Him. Many of the people prior to His crucifixion and waited for a savior to come and save them from a life of oppression, sadness and lost hope and they finally have Him with them, the problem is that many wanted a savior that would deliver them now, in the moment, they wanted a earthly savior and not an everlasting one. They wanted a savior; they just didn’t want the one they got.

As Mary was standing at the tomb grieving, she looked into the tomb and saw two angels sitting where Jesus had laid and they asked her why she was weeping and she said, “Because they have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid Him” (NKJV). She then turns around and sees Jesus standing there but in the hurt of her grief she didn’t recognize Him. Jesus asks Mary, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?” In her state of mind, she believes this to be the gardener so she tells Him to tell her what he as done with Jesus, and she will go get him. It wasn’t until Jesus said to her, “Mary!” that she then knew it was Jesus.

Mary had been so consumed with grief that as Thomas Brodie explains in his commentary, “The Gospel According to John” that the sight of the angles made no impression on her, the world became void and it’s people divided into an impersonal ‘They’ and a lonely sound, ‘I don’t know.’” This is what grief does to us, it can confuse us to the point where we can’t see anything good when it’s standing right in front of us and everything no matter what intent it has simply becomes bad and we can’t see good in anything. Now Jesus repeats the question, but He adds something extra, “whom do you seek?”

Jesus adds this twist that has had many people confused before and after the resurrection. “Whom do you seek?” For some this may be an easy question to answer but for others it has us still standing at the tomb trying to figure out the answer. So, whom do you seek when life takes that unexpected turn, has you sitting on the porch of your life possibly facing the end of your life, forces you down a road you don’t want to be on, or has you hearing a doctor telling you a diagnosis that you don’t want to hear, grieving a death of someone we love, whom do you seek?

Are you seeking the Jesus that many were wanting to see as they walked with him from town to town, walking the roads with him and hearing him teach them about a life they can have with the Father, yet they still wanted a savior to delivery them immediately? Jesus never said life in this world would be an easy one, He told us that this life we may suffer at times but for those that follow Him, that are true disciples will have a life much better than what we could ever imagine here.

Now this isn’t the first time Jesus asked a question like this. In John 1:38 when John was with two of his disciples and said, “Look, the Lamb of God!” When they heard John say this and they follow Jesus and when Jesus saw them, he asked, “What do you want?” Andrew Lincoln in Black’s New Testament Commentary said that “it’s an ironic misunderstanding…not only does Mary think that Jesus is the gardener, but she is also asking him about the location of his own body.” Mary’s location at the tomb is much like ours in time of great trial when we don’t have the relationship with Jesus as we should, we find ourselves “standing outside, crying.” We are standing outside of spiritual relationship we should have and the result of that is weeping because we are apart from God. Grief grieved correctly is healing, even Jesus cried but Mary’s grief had her stopped in her tracks, she couldn’t make progress and that is when Jesus showed himself to her as predicted.

Remember further back in John when Jesus was describing the shepherd and the flock in chapter 10:3 “…and the sheep listen to His voice. He calls them by name.” The revelation to Mary came as Jesus called her by name, “Mary” When hearing her name, she knew who He was, this time she saw Him much differently. Mary went from tears of mourning to tears of rejoicing crying out “Rabboni!” Now, Mary knew because Jesus called her back just as He said He would for us all.

Often when we stand at the tomb of grief it seems like a final desolate place, a place of endings because nothing new grows therebut because of the love Jesus has for us a tomb that is now empty is a symbol of new beginnings and new life. The next time you find yourself facing a situation that you don’t understand, one that may seem to be the end of all that you know, you think this is the end remember that nothing is impossible for Him. When Mary and the others had reached their lowest point they had faced, maybe you face that place right now, and grief from whatever you face overtakes you, has you frozen in your tracks, you find yourself standing outside a tomb weeping, not knowing how you will continue, remember the words of Jesus teaching that the seed that fell on good soil that the earth became a place of transformation and new life. Jesus delivers His people from pain, hardship and even grief and He can do so in unexpected ways.

It is because of Easter we remember Jesus showing up in a new way and because the tomb is empty, Mary moves from weeping and fear, not knowing where Jesus’ body was to knowing the destination of where He was going. Just as that plane I mentioned earlier when I thought that this was it for me, at the last moment, it pulled a hard high right bank and passed over me and no matter how silly it may sound about how I felt in that moment, it was real to me and the sound of it turning away from me doesn’t compare to Mary hearing Christ speak her name and then we too can say as Mary did, “I have seen the Lord!”