Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. 2 So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!” 3 So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. 4 Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5 He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. 6 Then Simon Peter, who was behind him, arrived and went into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, 7 as well as the burial cloth that had been around Jesus’ head. The cloth was folded up by itself, separate from the linen. 8 Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. 9 (They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.) Jn. 20:1-9[1]

As a church we are nearly two years in the process of studying the book of John and we are nearly through.  I believed that God would bless this journey and I have assurance that He has, as He always does.  Why John?  Because he was the Beloved disciple - the “disciple that Jesus loved”.  I think that John saw Christ as no one else did.  And through that heart perspective, that most intimate friendship with Christ he gives a rich account of the Savior.  For new Christians, John should be the first book that they read, followed by 1 John.  John captures the heart of God, the heart of the gospel.

In the final chapters, the narrative becomes a study of significant characters.  Sort of like the movie that ends with captions that tell us what happened to the main characters.  So recently we have looked at many of them – some good, some bad.  Today we look through they eyes of Mary Magdalene.

(2.) Mary Magdalene, i.e., Mary of Magdala, a town on the western shore of the Lake of Tiberias. She is for the first time noticed in Luke 8:3 as one of the women who “ministered to Christ of their substance.” Their motive was that of gratitude for deliverances he had wrought for them. Out of Mary were cast seven demons. Gratitude to her great Deliverer prompted her to become his follower. These women accompanied him also on his last journey to Jerusalem (Matt. 27:55; Mark 15:41; Luke 23:55). They stood near the cross. There Mary remained till all was over, and the body was taken down and laid in Joseph’s tomb. Again, in the earliest dawn of the first day of the week she, with Salome and Mary the mother of James (Matt. 28:1; Mark 16:2), came to the sepulchre, bringing with them sweet spices, that they might anoint the body of Jesus. They found the sepulchre empty, but saw the “vision of angels” (Matt. 28:5). She hastens to tell Peter and John, who were probably living together at this time (John 20:1, 2), and again immediately returns to the sepulchre. There she lingers thoughtfully, weeping at the door of the tomb. The risen Lord appears to her, but at first she knows him not. His utterance of her name “Mary” recalls her to consciousness, and she utters the joyful, reverent cry, “Rabboni.” She would fain cling to him, but he forbids her, saying, “Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father.” This is the last record regarding Mary of Magdala, who now returned to Jerusalem. The idea that this Mary was “the woman who was a sinner,” or that she was unchaste, is altogether groundless. [2]

First mentioned by Luke in chapter 8, verse 3, she was a long term follower of Christ delivered from 7 demons.  She is not to be confused with the woman who anointed Jesus at the home of Simon the Pharisee.  Among others, Mary accompanied Christ on his last journey to Jerusalem.

She stayed at the site of the crucifixion until it was totally finished until the last gun was fired.  It has always amazed me that she was there when the disciples, other than John,  were hiding for fear.  It would only be a courageous kind of love that is willing to risk that association that would keep a person there on that God forsaken hillside.  That is what Calvary was you know.  The place where God executed judgement for my sin on his only Son.  It is that place that heard the anguished, echoed cries of Christ lifted to a blackened heaven, “My God, My God – why have you forsaken me?”  Mary heard those words.  She saw the bloodied beaten body, lifeless, pierced, hanging there.  It is likely that she followed Joseph and Nicodemus as they laid the body in the rock tomb.

And then she withdrew for the Sabbath day, sundown Friday evening through sundown on Saturday.

The scripture tells us that early, while it was still dark, she arrived at the tomb.  I wonder how she spent those hours.  Certainly in mourning.  They would have been long hours, dark, perhaps sleepless nights.

1.  Sleepless Nights

Did you ever spend a sleepless night?  Most of us have known it at one time or the other and for a variety of reasons.  Perhaps, like Mary, grief has tossed you back and forth in the dark of the night.  Maybe it’s been a death, maybe a divorce.  Perhaps some other fractured or bruised relationship.  I know that I have laid awake, working over things that have slipped unresolved into the darkness.  When pride has kept me from resolving some issue with my wife – I pay for that – always.  The scripture says,

22 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; 23 to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24 and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. 25 Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor, for we are all members of one body. 26 “In your anger do not sin”a: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, 27 and do not give the devil a foothold. Ephesians 4:22-27 (NIV)[3]

Maybe the sleeplessness comes because a child is out in the night and you don’t know where they are.  Or maybe, better than that, they are crying in the crib and there’s nothing that you can do except to sit there and hold them.  I wonder if God has done the same for me at times when I have been inconsolable – times when I was unaware that I was being “held” in large eternal arms.  I suspect that this has happened many times.

Perhaps, regret holds you wide awake in it’s relentless grip or a sense of guilt or conviction for some unconfessed wrong that you are successfully concealing from everyone except God who sees all and knows all.  And there in the black night He sees you and you know it and there is no darkness too great to hide your sin from God.

2.  Circumstantial Notions

And so Mary finds herself in the darkness walking toward an empty tomb, mourning needlessly for a risen Savior.  And in that grieved state she finds it empty and draws some erroneous conclusions.

“They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!”

You may be at a troubled point in your life in these days as well.  There are times when this drives us deeper to discover the resource of our faith.  It causes us to pick up the scriptures and to search them for hope or direction or inspiration.  It causes us to cry out in desperation to God in prayer.  It would be wonderful if we could be just as concerned when there is no crisis.  It would be wonderful if we were daily desperate for God – the chorus says; “I’m desperate for you, I’m lost without you . . .”

And one of our all too common struggles is that we tend to misinterpret the activity of God or simply to miss it altogether.  We think He is gone, left without a forwarding address and mistakenly we fear that we are alone.

Here are some things to keep in mind when the night separates you from God.

§         There are times when the process of God’s transforming grace is painful.  Sometimes it hurts.  One of the most painful processes is the diminishing of self – He increases – we decrease.  There has to be less of us in order for there to be more of Him.

§         Sometimes we have to lay good things to rest.  What could have been more difficult than to allow for the death of Christ.  He told them that it would be better for them that He go away.

§         God in never inactive in the lives of His children and in the lives of lost people.  When they thought He was dead in a borrowed tomb, he was storming the gates of hell.

3.  Surprising Need

And then in response to Mary’s news, the 6AM runners club was founded, the charter members being John the faster and Peter the finisher.  John got there first and looked through the entryway.  Peter couldn’t get stopped and ran right inside.

They saw the evidence that the body was gone and the wrapping were left.  And the scripture tells us that the only thing that they could conclude at this point was that the body was gone.

“They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.”

It’s incredible to me that they still did not get it.  It wasn’t as though Jesus had not attempted to tell them what was going to happen.  We read throughout the gospel accounts, that Jesus tried to prepare his disciples for what was to come.  But they didn’t hear it.  Maybe because they didn’t want to hear it.  They had their minds made up as to the way that things would unfold and this was nowhere in the script.

I am always surprised when I see my brothers and sisters in the Lord wrestling to the point of turning away from God because of the storms and the tests of life.

We are slow to get it as well and it’s not as though God has not tried to tell us – to prepare us.  And when we find ourselves in those places, the tight spots, we are surprised as though what we are experiencing should never have come to us.

Whatever you may be facing today, I believe that God has already attempted to provide you with an understanding that is meant to help you to find your way through the struggle.

He’s done that through His Word.

 Let’s take a minute to review today some of the things that God has already told us.

§         You will have “trouble” or difficult times.  Count on it.  It doesn’t mean that God has left or that He doesn’t love you or that He is punishing you. 

33 “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” John 16:33 (NIV)[4]

As a child of God you get to go through the same things that others face but you have help that others don’t have when they stand apart from Christ.  The Bible says:

43 “You have heard that it was said, y‘You shall love your neighbor zand hate your enemy.’ 44 6But I say to you, alove your enemies, bless those who curse you, bdo good to those who hate you, and pray cfor those who spitefully use you and persecute you, 45 that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for dHe makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. Matthew 5:43-45 (NKJV)[5]

§         You are not meant to “worry” unchecked.  God does not intend for you to allow your mind to speculate about the negative possibilities so that it robs you of peace.

25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his lifea?

28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. Matthew 6:25-34 (NIV)[6]

It’s natural to have concern but it is human to hold on to it and it is fatal to carry it for too long too closely.

18 Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word; 19 but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful. Mark 4:18-19 (NIV)[7]

Spiritual ineffectiveness is bred in a worrisome spirit.  Churches are halted by faithless approaches to God- following.  There are people who are willing to follow as long as they can see, but that is the limit.

What is a person to do?

7 Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. 1 Peter 5:7 (NIV)[8]

§         You were meant to have peace regardless of the circumstances of life.

27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. John 14:27 (NIV)[9]

3 You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast,

because he trusts in you. 4 Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord, the Lord, is the Rock eternal. Isaiah 26:3-4 (NIV)[10]

§         The grace of God is our hope.

8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Ephesians 2:8-10 (NIV)[11]

9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 2 Corinthians 12:9 (NIV)[12]

I’d like to remind you today that His grace is inexhaustible.  You can’t possibly draw this well dry.  Doesn’t matter what you’ve done or how many times you’ve done it.  It doesn’t matter whether your sin is that which you’ve committed prior to knowing Him or the sin that you have committed after coming to know Him.

He is our Hope.

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[1]  The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984. Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

[2]Easton, M. (1996, c1897). Easton's Bible dictionary. Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.

a  Psalm 4:4

[3]  The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984. Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

[4]  The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984. Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

y  Lev. 19:18

z  Deut. 23:3–6; Ps. 41:10

6  NU But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you

a  Luke 6:27; Rom. 12:14

b  [Rom. 12:20]

c  Luke 23:34; Acts 7:60; 1 Cor. 4:12; 1 Pet. 2:23

d  Job 25:3; Ps. 65:9–13; Luke 12:16, 17; Acts 14:17

[5]  The New King James Version. 1996, c1982. Nashville: Thomas Nelson.

a  Or single cubit to his height

[6]  The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984. Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

[7]  The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984. Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

[8]  The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984. Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

[9]  The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984. Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

[10]  The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984. Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

[11]  The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984. Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

[12]  The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984. Grand Rapids: Zondervan.