They Took Jesus Away

Intro

John 20:1–18 ESV

Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” So Peter went out with the other disciple, and they were going toward the tomb. Both of them were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. And stooping to look in, he saw the linen cloths lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen cloths lying there, and the face cloth, which had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen cloths but folded up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand the Scripture, that he must rise from the dead. Then the disciples went back to their homes. But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb, and as she wept she stooped to look into the tomb. And she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one at the feet. 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.” Having said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned and said to him in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means Teacher). 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.’ ” Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”—and that he had said these things to her.

John 20:

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pray

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I am constantly amazed at how applicable, and how relate-able scripture can be in our lives. Sure, there may be a couple thousand years between us. There may be a set of customs that I can in no way identify with, and situations that I will never experience, standing in the way, but that isn’t a bridge that God can’t build for us to cross.

Probably the most

That feeling, that idea, really hit home as I was studying the text for this week. What hit me the hardest, even after trying desperately to avoid it, was this idea presented by Mary in this moment.

“They have taken Him out of the tomb, and I don’t know where they have laid Him.”

They took Jesus away! I don’t know where He is! I mean, I left Him right here, but He’s gone!

[picofemptytomb]

This image, to me, is simultaneously heart breaking and eye opening. Understand, that this first Easter was no doubt a surprise to everyone. While Jesus had left many obvious hints, as scripture plainly outlines, there was little chance of them being able to follow those hints to their obvious end. Sure, we can look back on it now and fill in the blanks, but that wasn’t really possible then. No, when we are experiencing life, seeing God’s plan clearly, and filling in those blanks, it is seemingly impossible.

I mean, who could expect an empty tomb?

If we are honest, should those same events have happened to us, there is no way that we immediately come to the conclusion that Jesus had come back to life! None! Just like Mary, and then Peter and John, we would have run to go see that empty tomb, and then walked away angry about how they took Jesus away!

[prayingchildren]

Church, I know I am right about that just based on how we react to life around us! Just ask anyone who is inclined to talk to you about greater issues of faith, ask them why our children misbehave and don’t have faith or why the world is falling apart!

“They took Jesus out of schools.” “People have taken Jesus away from the dinner table.” Even some might so boldly claim that people “Take Jesus out of church.” Maybe they replace it with music, or recorded sermons, or lights and fog machines, or who knows what else!

Maybe they replace it with music, or recorded sermons, or lights and fog machines.

But that is what we think, isn’t it? At least at some point. Sure, with age or experience we can better put the pieces of the puzzle together, but our gut instinct, our first Hot Take - if you will - is that someone, somewhere, made a decision to take Jesus away!

[whereisjesuspic]

After all, when we were young, we left Jesus at school, or at the table, or at the church, so He should still be there, right?

While more figurative for us than it was literal for them, that is essentially what is going on here in this text. Mary, Peter, and John, had left Jesus somewhere. And when they got back to that place, He was nowhere to be found.

I am sure that feeling had to have been frightening. So frightening that their minds would go to the only place it could possibly go!

“Someone has done this!” “Someone has intentionally taken away the thing that I love!” “Someone else is at fault!”

It can’t be me, right? I mean, I know where I put Jesus. I know where He is in my life.

John 20:

John 20:15 ESV

Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.”

It is so true church. We come to church, either on Easter, or every other Sunday, and we have our own ideas of Jesus, each one of us, and sometimes when God challenges us to think differently, or live differently, or just be different, we react like Mary. We assume since Jesus was this before that He can never change us to see Him this other way. Since we did this with Jesus before, He could never call us to something new.

You see, for Mary, Jesus was dead. So if His body had been moved, it couldn’t be anything outside of her understanding of the situation in light of that death! And in this moment, church, Jesus stands right in front of her face and she still doesn’t recognize Him!

I imagine that Jesus is just as close to her as He could get in this moment, just right in her face, and there she is still filled with sorrow that someone has taken Him away!

“Why are you weeping?” “Whom are you seeking?” Can’t you see I’m right here!

Church, she couldn’t see Him because, like us sometimes, she was looking for a version of Him that no longer existed! She was looking for the Jesus she understood in that moment, not that one that had moved on to the next moment!

She knew Jesus as a corpse. And she was looking for a dead man, so this couldn’t be Jesus right in front of her.

[picofemptytomb]

And church, what is worse, is that she could plainly see that Jesus wasn’t in that tomb. So, if Jesus was God, then this could in fact be Him! But her despair and her dependence on her set of expectations of Jesus stops her from seeing Him for what He is now!

And we are that same way.

[talk about this verse and our unwillingness to see jesus…we can’t see Him if we are looking for a version of Him that He isn’t! Like mary. Likewise we can’t keep running after only the things that we think Jesus can do or be, because He is far greater than we could ever think or imagine!…talk about text a little…move toward the idea that the tomb is empty…Jesus left the tomb and is standing in front of us!]

Our situations, and our expectations, they prevent us from seeing how Jesus is working in our lives! When we act as if there is only one way to worship, or one way to understand, or we depend on things that we have always done, we shut the door on the Holy Spirit. We limit the reach of God in our lives, and in the lives of others.

John 20:16 ESV

Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned and said to him in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means Teacher).

John 20:16

But thankfully, God is bigger than us, no matter what we might think to the contrary. Thankfully, we all are given the chance to come to that tomb and find the truth!

You see, in those empty moments in our own lives; those moments when life has seemingly stripped away everything we know, and everything we love, God reaches out, through the tomb, through the cross, and through this moment in scripture to remind us of two very real truths.

He is alive.

And not only that, church. He knows your name.

In fact, He knows everything about you! He knit together your innermost parts! He sees beyond the bravado and the bluster, or the insecurities and questions, and He knows everything there is to know about You!

And what is more, church, is that this text reminds us that it is for that very reason that He came out of the grave! Sure He needed to defeat death! Sure we needed another sign to understand that He alone is God! But just as important as all of that, this moment stands out to us as a reminder that He came out of that tomb so that we could know Him, and that we could know that He knows us and loves us!

You see, that isn’t Mary’s name up there, really. That’s your name. That’s my name! That is the name of every person to ever live! God gives us this moment so that we would know that it is for us that He came out of that tomb! And church, He gives us this moment as a chance to change everything, because honestly, everything changes for Mary when He calls her name!

All her doubt. All our doubt. All her fear. All our fear. Our inadequacies, our problems, they all vanish with the God of Creation looks at each of us in love and calls us by name!

At the end of the day, church, this moment reminds us that the empty tomb helps tell us who we are.

[talk about other accounts saying falling at His feet?…no matter what, this is the moment to talk about how no matter what we might think of Jesus, or our lives, everything changes when He calls our name! everything changes for Mary there…]

[the empty tomb tells us who we are! ]

John 20:

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.’ ”

And not just who we are, but who we are to be.

You see, the tomb reminds us that Jesus is always doing something new. He is always seeking ways to reach the lost. He is always working in and through us.

[the empty tomb reminds us that Jesus is always doing something new. He is always seeking ways to reach the lost. He is always working in and through us. The empty tomb reminds us that while Jesus is always the same, people change, and the way that He works to reach them changes too. The empty tomb tells us that Jesus is moving on! It isn’t our job to hold on to Him, like Mary, the way we want to! Our job is to let go of the reigns and just follow Him wherever He is going! The empty tomb proves to us, that no matter what, they can’t take Him away! He is risen! He is alive! He has come back from death to show us who we are! We have seen the Lord! And that empty tomb, it tells us that even if we think He isn’t there, He is standing right in front of us, asking us “whom are you seeking?” Are you seeking the risen Lord? Are you seeking the only Son of the Father? Are you seeking His peace, His joy, His love, His life? Are you seeking to touch others? Are you seeking to find ways to show this world that love? Are you seeking that or are you lamenting the fact that someone else took Jesus away? Church, no one can take Christ away. No one has ever, and no one ever will! Christ is there whether we can see Him or not! There in the empty tombs of our lives, there in the darkest moments of our existence, in the worst of us and the best of us. Christ is there, waiting for us to recognize Him! Waiting for us to stop staring into that tomb, and start rejoicing that He is alive! He is risen! He has returned for you and for me, and for the whole world! Don’t linger there, church! Follow Him! Follow Him out into the world as we go and do the work He has set aside for us from the beginning of time! And as you follow Him you will take Him wherever you go! And church, when you do that, there is nothing, and no one who could ever take Him away…or as Paul puts it,

The empty tomb reminds us that while Jesus is always the same, people change, and the way that they see the world, and the way that He works to reach them changes too. The empty tomb tells us that Jesus is moving on! It tells us that it isn’t our job to hold on to Him, like Mary, the way that we want to! Our job is to let go of the reigns and just follow Him wherever He is going! The empty tomb proves to us, that no matter what, they can’t take Him away!

He is risen! He is alive! He is real!

And He has come back from death to show us who we are! We have seen the Lord! And that empty tomb, it tells us that even if we think He isn’t there, He is standing right in front of us, asking us “whom are you seeking?” Are you seeking the risen Lord? Are you seeking the only Son of the Father? Are you seeking His peace, His joy, His love, His life? Are you seeking to touch others? Are you seeking to find ways to show this world that love? Are you seeking all of that or are you lamenting the fact that someone else took Jesus away?

Church, no one can take Christ away! No one has, and no one ever will! Christ is there whether we can see Him or not! And just as important, church, this moment reminds us that Christ doesn’t belong to us! Christ belongs to the whole world! To everyone! We can’t mold Him into our own image! All we can do is recognize Him for what He is, and follow Him!

Church, there in the empty tombs of our lives, there in the darkest moments of our existence - in the worst of us and the best of us - Christ is right there, waiting for us to recognize Him! Waiting for us to stop staring into that tomb, and start rejoicing that He is alive! Rejoicing that we are always in His presence! Rejoicing that He is risen! He has returned for you and for me, and for the whole world! Don’t linger there, church! Follow Him! Follow Him out into the world as we go and do the work He has set aside for us from the beginning of time! And as you follow Him you will take Him wherever you go! And church, when you do that, there is nothing, and no one who could ever take Him away…or as Paul puts it,

Romans 8:35–39 ESV

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

“For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

That empty tomb reminds us that Jesus is right there, right there with us. And no one, church, no one, nothing in this life or the next, can ever take that away.

[invitation]