I Have Seen the Lord

John 20:11-18

The New Revised Standard Version Jesus Appears to Mary Magdalene

11 But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; 12 and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. 13 They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” 14 When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. 15 Jesus said to her,

The word of God for the people of God

Thanks be to God.

I. Introduction:

In John 14:19, Jesus promised us and his twelve disciples, “Because I live, you will live too.”

But I wonder if Jesus’ words in John 14 resonate with us as it did with his disciples?

If it resonated the same, then we truly understand what Jesus is saying. We truly don’t understand his mission.

How many of us have gone looking for something expecting to find it but instead when we arrived where we needed to be, the thing that we were looking wasn’t there?

I can remember one morning a few years ago I went outside to get in my truck and head somewhere.

Now at the time JaLease and I were staying in Ashford Place Apartment Homes in Flowood and I used to park my truck in particular spot.

I go outside as I had done every morning and I press the unlock button on my truck key fob, thinking that I was unlocking my truck.

Here’s the deal, I didn’t hear my truck make a sound when I pressed the unlock button.

Initially, I’m thinking may something is wrong with my key. May the battery in the remote has died.

So, I say to myself, ok well I will just use the key the old fashioned way. But then I thought about it, JaLease has my spare key.

I go inside and get the spare key from JaLease.

I press the unlock button again. Still nothing!

Now at this point, I am thinking that maybe I am just losing some hearing.

So, I move out further towards the parking lot and to my surprise, my truck wasn’t where I usually park it.

Y’all I panicked. I immediately ran into the house all frazzled and flustered.

“Somebody stole my truck!”

“Somebody stole my truck!”

I yelled frantically to JaLease.

JaLease thinking I’ve lost my mind, says to me,

“Fool, what are you talking about?”

“Nobody stole your truck”

“Yes, someone did! Someone did steal my truck”

“Walter did you look in the parking lot.” She asked.

“How else would I know someone stole my truck JaLease?”

“No, Walter did you check the entire parking lot?”

“What do you mean did I check the entire parking lot. I’m not about to walk all around this apartment complex.”

“Come on, let’s go outside and look together.”

“I just told you someone stole my truck. It’s not parked in my spot. We need to call the police. Let’s call Toyota to see if they can track it. Whoever stole that truck and if they get caught, I want to prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law.”

“Walter, did you walk around to the side of our building?

“JaLease, what kind of crazy question is that? Why would I walk around the building?”

She looked me in my eye and I don’t think I have ever seen her as irritated with me as that morning.

The entire time I am saying to myself, she’s looking at me irritated and I’m the one with a missing truck.

She gets up, puts on her shoes and says,

“Come on boy so we can find your truck.”

Now at this point, I am very irritated because I am saying to myself, I already told you the darn truck is missing.

We go outside walk around to the side of our building and low and behold my truck was there by itself in the parking lot.

I’m both relieved and embarrassed at this point.

JaLease looked at me, shook her head, laughed and asked me, “how in the world could I forget where I parked my truck.

She then reminded me that I parked the truck there after we came from the movies because it was late and all the parking was taken.

I could not believe that I forgot where I parked my truck.

I went outside expecting to find my truck in it’s normal spot, only to forget that I parked it a few yards away somewhere else hours earlier.

II. Background of the text

When I think of expecting to find something but instead seeing something else, I am reminded of John’s account of the empty tomb.

Mary Magdalene arrives at Jesus’ tomb on the first day of the week before the crack of dawn.

Now we don’t know why Mary was at the tomb. Nothing else needed to be done.

Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus have already anointed and prepared Jesus’ body.

It could be Mary’s grief that brings her to the tomb.

Nevertheless, something has brought Mary to Jesus’ tomb but when she gets there, she finds something unexpected.

She finds that the stone had been rolled away.

When she sees this, she immediately runs to where Peter and John are and tells them,

“They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him”.

Now, there’s something I want you to pay attention to in this text.

Notice, John does not say that Mary went into the tomb and saw that the body was gone.

So, that begs the question, how did Mary know that no body was inside.

The stone is the key. In those days bodies of the deceased would be kept in caves and the caves would be sealed with a stone.

For today’s English, the word stone would not do the rock justice. It was more like a boulder.

There was a boulder covering the mouth of the cave to preserve the body.

This stone would also discourage grave robbers from attempting to rob the tomb.

Then on top of that, Pilate, at the request of the chief priest had two guards literally stand guard by the tomb because they feared the disciples would remove the stone and remove Jesus’ body and say that Jesus has been resurrected.

Mary gets there, the stone has been altered and even moved.

There were no guards standing or sitting guard. The soldiers were gone!

Mary has concluded the worse. She has concluded that someone has stolen the Lord’s body and she becomes frantic.

Again, where have they taken my Lord’s body?

It is not enough that you all brought false charges against him.

It is not enough that you gave him an illegal trial

It is not enough that y’all beat him to a bloody pulp.

It is not enough that y’all placed crowns of thorns on his head, placed a placard over his head and mocked him.

It is not enough that hung him and stretched him wide.

It is not enough that you speared him in the side.

But now, now you all have stolen his body. How low can you go?

Peter and John hears Mary out and they become frantic themselves so they run to the tomb to confirm what it is that Mary has just reported.

They get to the tomb and guess what, they see what Mary has reported.

They go a step further and actually goes up to the tomb to look inside.

And what they find inside the tomb is shocking.

They see empty burial clothes and linen but no body.

Peter and John see this and they head home. They are trying to figure out what this mean.

Could someone have really stole this body?

Meanwhile Mary is still at the tomb and she’s weeping. You can tell that Mary is experiencing grief and now that grief has been acerbated by the thought of someone stealing the Lord’s body.

Then something in Mary causes her to bend over to look into the tomb.

Suddenly, she sees two angels. One at the head of where Jesus’ body laid and one at the foot.

The angels ask Mary why she is weeping.

She again confirms that she believes that Jesus’ body has been taken.

Before the angels could respond.

She turns around and sees a man standing there but she doesn’t recognize him.

Jesus asks her, “why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?”

Jesus is unrecognizable to her and she assumes that he’s the gardener.

She asks him, “where have you taken my Lord. Tell me and I will rebury him.”

Jesus calls her name and she immediately gets excited. She can’t believe it.

She immediately embrace Jesus.

Notice something here. Can you see how Mary, Peter, nor John remembered what Jesus told them in John 14:19,

“Because I live, you will live too.”

At least two times in the last few days of Jesus’ life, he told the disciples, his closest friends what to expect yet they didn’t know what to expect. After all, they witnessed Jesus raising Mary’s own brother from the dead.

How many times have we arrived at the tomb not realizing what’s happening or knowing what to expect?

We know the stories. Like the disciples, we see the signs and wonders, yet we easily forget.

We come to the tombsof our lives grieving as one grieves without hope. We come to the tomb seeing the stone rolled away and still ask ourselves, “Where is Jesus.”

I’ve lost my job where are you Jesus?

I’m sick and don’t know if I will get well. Where are you Jesus?

I don’t know how I will be able to pay my bills this month. Where is Jesus?

I lost my loved one, where are you Jesus?

And like he did with Mary, Jesus calls our names and reminds us that he’s no longer inside the tomb. He’s right there with us.

Jesus reminds us that he lives and because he lives, we don’t face the spiritual forces of wickedness alone.

We know this because he overcame and defeated the worse of wickedness; death.

And because of his resurrection, we too are able to overcome the grave.

Where is the Lord? The Lord is right there with you and I carrying our burdens.

Notice what Jesus instructs Mary to do after he reveals himself to her.

He tells her to run and tell her brothers that he is indeed alive.

Now look at how Mary shares the good news with the disciples.

Y’all I love this and to me it is the most beautiful phrase in all of the resurrection story:

“I have seen the Lord!”

Allow me to repeat that:

“I have seen the Lord!”

When Mary found Jesus. When she realized his presence. She didn’t keep it to herself.

She went and told the others, “I have seen the Lord!”

She left no doubts about it. She was firm in what she said. She left nothing for interpretation.

She said, I have seen the Lord.

In other words, I have experienced the risen Lord. I have walked with him and talked with him and he told me I am his own.

Yes, I have seen the Lord for myself. He is resurrected!

Can you imagine the excitement Mary must’ve felt?

The eagerness and urgency she had in sharing this good news.

Can you imagine?

Have you all ever recieved news so good that it was just impossible to keep to yourselves?

I believe Mary is experiencing this right here in this text.

Three times. Three times one of them looked into the tomb. Three people looked into the tomb and each saw something different. But only one was able to perceive what was happening.

Only one recognized that Jesus had risen and that person was no other than the woman in this story.

Jesus has given a woman the first honor of sharing the gospel.

Why?

In one of his sermons, Gregory the Great wrote,

“So the sin of mankind is buried in the very place whence [sin] came forth. For whereas in Paradise the woman gave the man the deadly fruit, now a woman from the sepulchar announced life to men; a woman [now] delivers the message of Him who raises us from the dead, as a woman had earlier delivered the words of the serpent who slew us.”

Jesus is leaving no doubt that his resurrection is tied to the fall. He is leaving no doubt that he has conquered that which we could not conquer.

Jesus’ resurrection takes us back to God’s original intent for humanity and that was at the garden.

He has saved that which could not save itself.

And because he lives, we live. And he wanted Mary to be the one to announce it.

Mary proclaimed that Good News over 2000 years ago and today we celebrate that Good News.

But here’s the thing, we must do more than celebrate the resurrection on this day.

Jesus is wanting us to leave the tomb behind so that we may go out and tell the world that we have seen the Lord.

He wants us to tell others that we have seen him in those times of uncertainty.

We have seen him in those times of grief.

We have seen him in those moments of disappoint.

We have seen him when we didn’t know how we would make ends meet.

We have seen him when my children didn’t always do what I raised them to do.

We have seen the Lord

But here’s the problem.

We leave the tomb and don’t tell a soul that we’ve seen Jesus.

People are out here lost in the world.

They believe that they have no hope.

We don’t invite them to join us for church. We don’t start Bible studies in our homes. We don’t allow ourselves to be vulnerable and tell people I know what you’re going through because I have gone through it. But I have seen the Lord and yes indeed he is rise.

This thing that you’re going through will not have the victory.

We’ve got to leave the tomb and share the good news.

Jesus simply wants us to tell the good news!

We have seen the Lord and that

He is Risen. He is Risen Indeed.