Resurrected Hope

Good morning, Cruciform Church!

Have you ever sat and thought about the reality that there’s a 50-day period between Easter Sunday and Pentecost Sunday? That there is a span of time in the history of the church where the resurrection of Jesus has been accomplished but the resurrection power hasn’t been appropriated to God’s people yet. This time-frame is called EasterTide, and it’s a season we should take more notice of, because experientially we resonate with things the disciples experienced during that time. The ‘in-between’ or the ‘waiting’ season in life. Anyone been in one of those seasons? It’s like the intermission in a play, where it can feel like not much is going on–there’s uncertainty, confusion, fear, doubt, and even some hopelessness being experienced by the people of God as they wait for the story to unfold. It would do us well to ponder this time, because life often doesn’t go straight to the Power of Pentecost, but we can find ourselves sitting in the unknowns of the EasterTide valley.

Thankfully, Jesus doesn’t leave His people alone in the EasterTide Valley. Today we’re beginning a new sermon series for this season called Resurrection Rendezvous. We’re going to look at how the resurrected Jesus shows up in people’s lives to resurrect their stories.

Throughout this 7 week sermon series, we’re going to examine and experience this reality:

Wherever you find yourself, the resurrected Jesus is coming to find you and resurrect your story.

Therefore, it’s our hope, that as you journey with us through these Resurrection Rendezvous that Jesus has with His people in the Scriptures, the Spirit of God would actually lead to your own Resurrection Rendezvous with the Living Jesus.

Let’s Pray.

What do you do when you no longer see the light at the end of the tunnel? Have you ever experienced that? That feeling is what I’d call despair. Have you ever been in despair? Despair is a complete loss or absence of hope. Have you ever lost something, or someone that led you to a season of despair? You ever put all your eggs in one basket and that basket was taken away from you? Has hopelessness ever swept over your soul?

I’m not just talking about a feeling of difficulty, where you experience extreme difficulty, but you still see the light, ever so dimly, peering through the end of the tunnel. I’m talking about where experientially, that light gets extinguished. You can no longer see it. And now, there’s a shift from fight to simply living in the reality of what is going to be.

That person that was your rock is no longer your rock, and there’s nothing you can do about it. That job that gave you purpose was taken right out from underneath you. That community that gave you so much life, joy, and sense of belonging no longer exists. When the threads of your life seem to have unraveled right before your eyes. When you think to yourself, “there’s NO WAY life could ever be as good as it was when I had ______…Now everything is just like a consolation prize, and what’s the point in that?” You begin to feel as if you would prefer to just mourn the loss of what once was.

In despair, you no longer aim to thrive, you merely survive. You’re not really fighting for anything better than what is, you just kind of accept what seems to be the cards dealt, and you don’t even really play the game anymore.

You almost accept that the story you’d hoped for comes to a close, and everything beyond that is merely…meaningless. The story you’d hoped for now has a period on it, and the rest of this existence is just…credits rolling.

What do you do when you’re drowning in despair?

Today we will read about how the risen Jesus meets Mary Magdalene, who finds herself in despair, and He resurrects her hope. It is our hope and confidence that He can and will do the same for you. Let’s jump in.

If you’re a note-taker, the big idea of this Resurrection Rendezvous is...

When we find ourselves in despair, the Risen Jesus meets us there, calls us by name, and resurrects us to a living hope.

He resurrects our hope.

Tears at the Tomb (v. 11-13)

John 20:11–13 ESV

11 But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb, and as she wept she stooped to look into the tomb. 12 And she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one 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.”

This is Mary’s Mourning; She’s drowning in despair.

To set the scene, we need to understand who Mary Magdalene is and her relationship with Jesus so we get a fuller picture of why she’s in such despair.

Mary Magdalene loved and followed Jesus Christ.

Luke 8:1–3 ESV

1 Soon afterward he went on through cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. And the twelve were with him, 2 and also some women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, 3 and Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod’s household manager, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for them out of their means.

Luke 8:2 says that Mary Magdalene was a women who had been met by Jesus and healed of demon possession. In fact, the text says that seven demons had gone out of her. Jesus had met Mary Magdalene and sent her from oppression to freedom. It’s hard for us to grasp that in our culture because we don’t really have a strong concept for demon possession, but, I think we all have experienced oppression of the soul – be it some lingering vice that we cannot seem to get rid of, some internal battle of the soul that continually speaks a condemning word over us, some tormenting thoughts in our mind about something we’ve done that we cannot seem to get rid of, that haunts us day and night. Well, this was Mary, oppressed, and yet, even more-so -- completely oppressed. It says that she had been oppressed by seven demons - Scripturally, that seems to point to the reality of the total and complete oppression of Mary - seven is often spoken of as completeness in the Scripture.

So what I’m trying to say is that Jesus met Mary Magdalene in a state of complete oppression, and miraculously set her free. Like, He released her to a freedom that she didn’t even have a construct for in her head. Almost like an, I didn’t even know this kind of freedom was a possibility.

To help you out a bit – on a smaller scale, have you ever met anyone like that? Anyone that loved you in a kind of way that shook up your thoughts of what it meant to be loved? Someone that supported and cared for you in a way that blew up your idea of what it means to love/care for?

I’ve experienced that in a way: a friend in my life that I felt like I needed to share more of who I am with, which included sharing some struggles in my life that have brought me a lot of shame. I was terrified to do so, because the struggles are ugly, and evil, and I was fearful that if I exposed them to that person, it would move them away from me. But, I as fearful as it was, I wanted to be known truly, so I shared. And to my amazement, that vulnerability with my vices actually moved the person closer to me in care and compassion. Truthfully, it blew my mind that someone had the capacity to move towards me in love like that. Honestly, it has helped me see to an even greater degree how God loves me infinitely beyond that.

And how did you feel about that person? I’m sure you felt affection that you couldn’t even express. That person holds a dear spot in my heart.

This was Mary Magdalene and Jesus. Complete oppression. People probably didn’t draw near to her, for she had this demonic oppression about her. And what did Jesus do?

When everyone else stays away, Jesus comes near and heals.

Jesus changed Mary Magdalene’s life. And after that, she followed Him in His ministry. She saw Him perform miracles, healings, she saw His humble strength. She saw His love for the outcast. She saw Him bring life out of dead things. She heard Him talk of how the Kingdom of Heaven was at hand. She helped financially provide for the needs of Jesus and His disciples. She held a prominent role among the women disciples of Jesus, always the first mentioned out of the group. She loved Jesus dearly.

And now, it was this Mary Magdalene who was at Jesus’ crucifixion. Who saw the man who changed her life and whom she banked her hope and purpose and joy on nailed to a cross. This man she saw, who she thought would be the Messiah, dead on the cross and buried in the tomb.

Hopes, gone. Dreams, gone. Future, gone. Despair.

And as we get into our text, we are told in the gospel accounts that Mary Magdalene and some others go to the tomb of Jesus with burial spices to anoint Jesus in the tomb. But what happens when she gets there? She finds and empty tomb, and no Jesus there. Now, you have to understand that we have the privilege of the whole story of Scripture before us. To Mary, though, she saw the empty tomb and didn’t think risen, she thought, stolen.

Not only was she in agony because the man who changed her life was no longer alive with her, but she was in agony because she couldn’t even go properly honor his memory. She couldn’t cover his decaying body with burial spices to help with the stench. The one whom she loved, whom was mistreated before His death, now was even suffering beyond His death - she couldn’t properly honor Him. This is what she expresses in the text, right? The angels ask her, “why are you crying?” and she says, “They have taken away my Lord, and I don’t know where they’ve put Him.”

So we find Mary Magdalene in great despair. Her purpose, future, hope was crushed – the man who ushered them in was no longer with her. And on top of that, His body was just treated as disposable. Moved around without telling anyone. And she didn’t know where He was.

Mary was in despair. Hopeless. Exceedingly sad.

She is drowning in despair.

You ever been there, where you’ve experienced a loss and you simply don’t know what to do anymore? You just sit there in agony.

And Church, we, like Mary, oftentimes find ourselves with tears at the tomb.

I can imagine, in a very real way, for Mary this seemed like a ‘period’ on her story. What was life about now? What if the seven spirits come back into me? He’s not here to protect me anymore?

She was at the tomb to memorialize the Messiah, and really, memorialize what once was in her life.

Mary went to mourn and to memorialize the Messiah.

What Mary didn’t know is that you cannot memorialize the Messiah. You memorialize things that are dead, and she’s about to find out that the Messiah is indeed alive. Her despair is about to be turned into delight, but it’s going require a shift in her mind.

The Messiah’s Meeting (v. 14-15)

John 20:14–15 ESV

14 Having said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing, but she did not know that it was Jesus. 15 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.”

So as Mary Magdalene is sitting here in her despair, she has a sense that someone moved behind her. She turns around and sees this man. This man, in fact, was her resurrection rendezvous with Jesus, but she didn’t realize it was Jesus yet.

It’s interesting that oftentimes in the resurrection rendezvous, the people who spent much time with Jesus didn’t recognize Him at first. Perhaps it’s because He had a resurrected body, yet the text says He still bears the marks of His suffering.

I’d say in Mary’s case, she had no capacity for the possibility of hope in Jesus being alive. She was in despair about finding the dead body to memorialize it; She was way beyond the question of “is my Messiah dead?” She watched Him die. She saw the blood and water flow out of his spear-pierced side. She saw them carry Him away and lay Him in the tomb.

Her hopelessness was way beyond the possibility of resurrection. She was just hoping to be able to mourn the end of Jesus’ story properly, and thus the end of her story. Things would never be the same.

But the Messiah meets Mary in her despair.He doesn’t leave her there.

He comes to her and asks her two questions, one of which sums up what we need to ponder. Jesus comes to her and asks her 1) Why are you weeping? and, two, our RESURRECTION RENDEZVOUS QUESTION: 2) Whom are you seeking?

Think of how significant it is the Jesus meets Mary and Jesus meets you and me at the place of mourning, despair, and death.

If you’re putting your hope in something or someone other than the risen Jesus, sooner or later you will realize you are just like Mary, in despair at the tomb. Either you realize you’re there now, weeping at the loss of what once was–what once seemed to give purpose, joy, life, direction, peace–which now has disappeared. Or, the expiration date of those things is fast approaching, and you will find yourself soon in despair at the tomb. People and jobs and things are often gifts of God that are meant to point us to God’s goodness, kindness, love, etc., but if those things or people point to themselves as the source of life, they’ll lead you to the tomb. That’s because nothing in this world was created to pull you out of your soul’s despair and into eternal hope. Only the risen king Jesus, God Himself can do that.

The reality of our existence is that apart from the resurrected Jesus pulling us out, we’re all at the tomb. We’re all in the place of death, looking for life. We’re trying to make these things in our lives that expire be our source of life, but they too will die. We’ve all rejected the One who is the source of life–God Himself–and exchanged Him for other things as our source. That is what sin is–to reject the One True God as the source and strength of life and to make other things that source. It’s idolatry, to reject God as God and make other things our God. Hoping things that are not God will satisfy us like God. That is the default of the human heart. In keeping with our story here, this is what we do:

We’re playing with tomb toys hoping they’re eternal treasures. Or we’ve embraced grave garments and given in to despair that these garments are all there will ever be.

We all find ourselves at the tomb. Either we’re playing with the tomb toys, deceiving ourselves that they are giving us true life–yet it won’t last. Or, we’ve put our hope in some tomb toys that we no longer have, and are mourning the loss of what they once did for us. In despair, for we know that these temporary things didn’t give our soul what it needed.

What toys in the tomb are you playing with?

Are you playing with a sin that gives you a temporary sense of comfort – perhaps a relationship you know you should be in – an addictive pattern that you know doesn’t truly satisfy you – or giving your all to a job at the neglect of loving family or neighbors – are you playing with those tomb toys?

Are you memorializing something or someone – having given up hope at this life ever being more than what it was with that thing? (That thing would be a tomb toy).

Or, we’ve come to embody some grave garments that have defined us and kept us from any sort of hope. We’re wearing shame of past decisions, shame of things about us that we just don’t like, shame of what has been done to us. We wear these garments and believe that’s all there ever will be.

Where has your despair led you to dwell?

Perhaps you’ve done something that you feel as if has put a ‘the end’ on your life? That there’s no coming back from. That you simply cannot bounce back and live a renewed life of purpose from. That you deserve to remain in the tomb without hope.

Perhaps you’ve been defined negatively by someone and you’ve never been able to shake that label, and you’ve just embraced that garment.

This is the space where Jesus wants to meet you. He wants to meet you in your mourning memorial and bring you into His eternal family.

He meets us and asks us, in our despair, whom do we seek?

If you are seeking a tomb-toy to give you true life, you will be led to despair over and over and over again. It is the most hopeless of lives to try and find eternal joy in things that expire. And that’s all of us. We memorialize what once was, what we once thought would give us joy. We just wallow in our sorrows and hopelessness.

And when it gets bad enough, we wear grave garments and mourn. We give up hope. Life is truly a period. In our sorrow and shame, we become defined by these garments as who we truly are.

And church, this is where the resurrected Jesus meets us. In the tomb, at the ‘end’ our stories, to turn our despair into delight, into hope.

He doesn’t wait to meet us until we get things right. He doesn’t wait for Mary to understand the reality of the resurrection before He pursues her. He doesn’t wait for us to drop our tomb toys before He comes after us. He isn’t a God who sits high and waits for your to climb to us. He is a God you meets us in the tomb we’ve dug for ourselves. He meets us in the despair that we’ve drowned in, and comes to rescue us. He comes to the place of death and calls us into life.

The Messiah’s Call (16-18)

John 20:16–18 ESV

16 Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned and said to him in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means Teacher). 17 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.’ ” 18 Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”—and that he had said these things to her.

In one word, the Risen Jesus turned Mary Magdalene’s Despair into Delight. One Word, and Hope is Resurrected.

In one word, the Risen Jesus turns the period into a comma. The end of her life into never-ending life.

He comes into her tomb and calls her name.

Mary.

That one word showed her that the one she was seeking was actually seeking her. She thought she was coming to mourn the end of Jesus’ story, but Jesus was coming to truly begin hers. He called her His own, into His family.

John 10:27–28 ESV

27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.

The Great Shepherd, Jesus, comes into our tombs of despair and hopelessness and calls us by name. He calls us personally. Intimately.

Those called by Jesus hear His voice and follow Him. He gives them eternal life, and they will never perish. They are safe forever–no one can snatch them out of His hand.

The gospel that we hinge our lives on is the truth that Jesus comes to us in our tombs of sin, hopelessness, and despair and calls us by name out of them.

He and He alone has the power and the authority to do so because our tomb became His.

I don’t know if you know on today, but the tomb that Mary Magdalene went, the one that her teacher and rabbi Jesus was laid in, was actually supposed to be her tomb. It was actually supposed to be my tomb.

You see, because all of us humans have rejected the One who is worthy of our lives, our love, our devotion and our trust. We’ve all leaned on everything but God to give us that hope, worth, and value. We’ve worshiped everything but the One True God. And because of that, because of that sin, there’s a forever tomb with our names on it. And church, we deserve that tomb. We deserve that destruction, and the wrath of God that comes upon those who betray Him, the only fountain of life, peace and joy.

But God, because of His great love and mercy, didn’t allow our tombs to take us. Instead, Jesus came down as the perfect sacrifice for our sins. He came down and lived the live of perfect worship, love, and obedience to God the Father. And He took that right standing, and instead of keeping it to Himself, He traded with us sinners. He took on our sinfulness, and gave us His righteousness. He went into our tombs and suffered the consequences that we deserved. He paid the price for our sins before God the Father. He absorbed our sins.

To help you out, church, I’m trying to announce to you today that Jesus is the Divine Sponge who absorbed our sin and shame in the tomb.

You see, we humans are sopping wet, soaked with sin. And what we do is that we try to find others who can act as sponges to absorb our sin and our shame on themselves. But try as we may, we find that they too are soaked with sin, through and through. You know a wet sponge has no capacity to absorb.

And here is humanity, hopeless and helpless sin-soaked sponges in our tombs, playing around with tomb toys and wearing garments of the grave. Wet sponges with no capacity to absorb. We need a Divinely Dry Sponge.

And what Jesus did, is that Jesus became our Divine Sponge, who, on His own, had no drop of sin absorbed into Him, and instead of staying clean and unsoaked, He came down into the dirt on His Divine Cleaning mission.

Side note, church, you know that, in order for a sponge to be effective, it must get close to the mess. Sponges gotta go where the dirt is.

So Jesus comes down into our sin soaked lives as the Divine Sponge and He ABSORBS every last drop of our sin soaked souls into Himself. He is so effective that He takes every last droplet of sin into Himself, that you are dry once again. He takes on your sin and gives you His cleanliness.

He died the sinners death that you and I deserved, absorbing the wrath of God for our sin. God wrung Him out with His wrath.

But Church, Jesus, because of His perfection as the Divine Sponge, was wrung out in full–the penalty for sin was paid. And Jesus came back to life, clean, conquering, having dealt with your sin and given you His cleanliness, and came back clean. And Alive.

Jesus doesn’t stay there in the tomb. On the third day from his crucifixion, He got up out of the grave, showing that He had indeed defeated the penalty and power of sin–death. The penalty is erased for all who trust in Christ’s sacrificial death for them.

So He meets us in our tombs, that became His, and He calls us by name.

If you’re not a follower of Jesus, but you realize that you yourself have been playing around in tomb toys, full of despair because these things you’ve hoped in to give you true happiness, peace, joy have failed you, or you’ve lost those things. If you’ve worn grave garments of sin and shame and unworthiness far too long, well, the extent Jesus has gone to absorb your sin and save your soul shows you the extent of your worth and belovedness in God the Father’s eyes. Jesus is coming and He’s calling you by name. He knows every disobedient thing you’ve done against God and neighbor, and He still, because of His great love, took your tomb. He wants to absorb your sin and shame, forever.

So He’s calling your name. He’s calling you into His family. He just wants you to embrace and receive the gift of His grace.

Hearing His voice calling your name, calling you out of despair, out of hopelessness, and into His family, will, like Mary, turn your despair into delight, as a child in the family of God forever. Nothing can take you out of that.

If you’re just embracing Jesus now or have been a follower of Christ for a while... notice where this call goes from there. He calls us from the grave, out of the grave. He doesn’t make you His and call you to stay in the grave for a memorial service waiting for Him to come back. He’s not dead, He’s alive. And He’s calling you into life!

If He’s the Comeback King, we’re Comeback Kids. And Comeback Kids are Freed From Having to Play with Tomb Toys or Wear Grave Garments.

So if Jesus is calling your name, He’s calling you out of the grave…that means there’s some things that led you into that grave that He’s calling you to let go of. There’s some ‘tomb toys’ that you’ve been playing with that have given you temporary satisfaction that’s actually compounding your despair, because they’ll never be enough…He’s calling you to drop them.

I was convicted in this for although I know He’s calling me out of the grave, and I’ve sought to follow Him out of the grave, from time to time, I can start to try and memorialize Him at the grave. It’s like, in my struggles with sin and shame, I can almost prefer the grave to memorialize over life in Him. The memorializing allows me to “love Him” for dying for me, but allows me to kind of sit in sadness in the tomb, just waiting for when He’s going to call me home. It’s almost easier to memorialize the Messiah than follow Him out of the graves. We can live our lives like Jesus is still in the tomb. And if you sit around in or near the tomb long enough, you start to look at those toys again and are tempted to believe the lie that there’s life here. That’s not true. It’s a lie of the devil, and the gospel is that Jesus does absorb your sin, but also conquered it that you may have eternal life NOW in knowing and following Him, free from their grip on you. You are already free from them.

There’s some grave garments that you’ve been wearing for far too long – clothed in shame, clothed in guilt, clothed in despair, that He’s calling you to leave in the grave. Grave Garments aren’t fitting for Comeback Kids. You can look at the Savior and see His nail-pierced hands and spear-pierced side to show you that on the cross, He Himself wore those grave garments for you. Those lies of identity that you embraced are no longer true of you. Those garments are gone. And He’s clothed you with gospel garments. Garments of beloved-ness. Garments of adoration. Garments of freedom. You’ve gotta leave the tomb toys and grave garments behind - the gospel garments are way better. They lead to life and are satisfying. He’s calling you out of the tomb and into life. He’s clothed you in His righteousness.

Get out the grave. Jesus is calling your name. He’s conquered your shame. You are His.

If anyone is in Christ, He is a new creation. The old has gone, behold, the new has come. He’s calling you out of your grave in this resurrection rendezvous. Like Mary Magdalene, He’s calling you into a living hope. He’s calling you and commissioning you to now tell the others that you have seen the risen Lord. Is there anyone in here who would testify that they’ve seen the LORD? That He’s absorbed their shame. That some grave garments you used to wear have been ripped away by the grace of God. That some tomb toys you used to just play with constantly, you’ve now left in the grave and got up out that grave and into life.

That’s what this resurrection rendezvous is about.

When we find ourselves in despair, the Risen Jesus meets us there, calls us by name, and resurrects us to a living hope.

That hope is Jesus Himself, a living hope in Him.

Colossians says that the riches of the glory is Christ in us, the hope of glory.

Jesus makes that claim in John 11: “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.”

We’re praying you’ve had a resurrection rendezvous with the one who can resurrect your despair to an eternal living hope.

A couple questions to ponder as we move into reflection:

Are you looking for life in a grave? We urge you to respond to the Savior calling your name out of that grave and into life.

What grave garments are you still wearing? By His grace, through faith, Jesus has been clothed in your grave garments and clothed you with gospel garments–as His fully-known, fully-loved, fully-righteous sons and daughters.

What tomb toys are you playing with? Or, are you memorializing Jesus, not allowing the resurrected Jesus to call you into life? See Him as the one who died for that foolish sin, and by His love, repent, turn back to Him calling you to embrace Him as better treasure than your sin and walk out of that grave.

No matter where you find yourself, the antidote is the same:

Allow Him to meet you at the grave in your despair. Listen for Him calling your name. And receive His loving call, and walk out of the grave, trusting His gospel grace to have paid for your tomb toys and grave garments, giving you resurrection life.