Summary
Pastor David gives an Easter message on how the resurrection of Jesus assures us that we are not forgotten, overlooked, or invisible. Through the story of Mary Magdalene at the tomb, he reminds us that Jesus comes to us personally, speaks our names, and invites us into resurrection life with Him.
Transcript
Good morning, Soli, you may be seated. And as you are, you can turn your Bibles back to John chapter 20, the gospel of John and the 20th chapter. Going to read just one verse for us this morning. John chapter 20, reading verse 16, hear the word of God. Jesus said to her, Miriam, and she turned and said to him in Aramaic, my rabbi, which means my teacher. This is the word of the Lord. Our Father in heaven, we have come to see Jesus this morning. We have not come to hear the words of man. We've come to hear the voice of Christ. There isn't one speak from the ascended enthronement from the right hand of the Father through the weakness and fallibility of a preacher out of an infallible and breathed out word. We have come to behold what Mary could not conceive that she could behold. A savior once dead, now risen from the dead in flesh, resurrected life, resurrected body, a new existence of life eternal, indestructible life. We would see Jesus this morning, but before we do, we would step in the Mary's shoes and traverse the grief that she experienced before you called her by name. May you call those this morning, Lord, by name, who are your sheep, and may they know they belong to you because they hear the certain sound of the voice of their Savior speaking to them. And any who may be dead in trespasses and sins here this morning, Lord, apart from you, we pray that you would call their name and that you would draw them to you. We pray this in Jesus' name, and amen. Who is this Mary of Magdala, the first one who comes to the tomb? Why is Mary of Magdala at the cross during the crucifixion? Why is Mary of Magdala the first witness in the Garden of Burial? Why is Mary of Magdala in such grief at the empty tomb? Why is Mary of Magdala the first person that Jesus reveals himself to after the resurrection? And why is Mary of Magdala chosen to be the first one to carry the impossible news of the resurrection to the disciples? Who is this Mary Magdala, this Mary of Magdala? Well, Mary is from a small fishing village named Magdala, the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee. The area where she lived was a hotbed of demon activity, a demon platoon lived there. We might say a legion of demons there regularly, destroying life. The Bible tells us that when Jesus sought out Mary, she was one who had seven demons possessing her. She was a woman possessed by seven demons until Jesus sought her out and delivered her. She was a disordered home for a fullness of demons, seven different demons, maybe wreaking seven different kinds of havoc on her body and her soul and her mind, with dehumanizing affliction, with no escape and no hope of salvation ever possible. Living a life demon possessed, a life of perpetual torture, then Jesus, then Jesus seeks her out and the unthinkable happens. She is delivered from the power and the authority of those seven demons by Jesus. And this deliverance is something that she will never forget. She will never leave it off in any way, shape or form. As a matter of fact, she will attach herself to Jesus. And from the time that she is delivered, she will follow Jesus all the way through his ministry, all the way through Holy Week, all the way to the cross, all the way to the tomb, and all the way to what she is confused about right now. You see, she would even become a patroness of the ministry of Jesus. According to Luke eight, she was part of her funds that funded the ministry of Jesus. She would give her all back to the one who released her and delivered her from the demonic powers that she was under and Mary loved greatly. He who has been forgiven much loves much. He who has been forgiven greatly loves greatly. And Mary loves the savior because she has been delivered from much. And we find her in chapter 20 and verse one, on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early while it was still dark. It is not only dark outside, it is dark inside Mary's soul. There is darkness deep inside of her and there is darkness surrounding her the outside. Well, what is the reason for this darkness? Well, she came to the tomb while it was early and still dark and she saw that the stone had been rolled away from the tomb. And she ran to Simon Peter and the other disciple whom Jesus loved and said, "They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb "and we do not know where they have laid him." She comes to the tomb and she recognizes with the stone rolled away. She doesn't quite look in yet. She just only knows that there's no way the body can be inside. And so it leads her to great grief and a doubling down of the darkness in her soul. And so we meet Mary in verse 11 after the exchange takes place between Peter and John. And in chapter 20 and verse 11 of the gospel of John says, "Mary stood weeping outside the tomb "and she wept as she stooped to look inside "the tomb four times in our passage." Four times in our passage, it highlights the fact that Mary is weeping uncontrollably because of the circumstances that she's facing. Twice in verse 11, once in verse 13 and once in verse 15, Mary is uncontrollably weeping. She is without consolation. There is nothing that will console her and exchange her grief for anything else. And so she only thinks she knows is simply to weep over the double loss of her Lord. She lost him once on the cross. And now when she loses him again with the absence of his body, here is a storm of tears and grief for love. She was expecting to find a corpse. Was never on her radar, but the possibility of this one Jesus, whatever rise from the dead, that's not even in her realm of thinking. And now the one to whom all her hopes were pinned there is doubly lost. And in verse 12, it says, "She saw two angels in white "as she stooped and looked into the tomb. "She saw two angels in white sitting there "where the body of Jesus had lain one at the head "and one at the feet." Some number of things happening here. The first thing that Mary sees when she looks inside the tomb is not what she wants to see, the body of Jesus so that she can bring spice to it and care for that body that she loves so much. But she sees two angels sitting in white. I don't know about you, but if I'm ducking my head into a tomb where I expect to see a dead man and I see two angels sitting there dressed in white, there's one thing I can promise you, I am setting a new personal record for speed out of there. I'm going. Like I'm racing Peter and John, I'm out. Like I am fleeing the scene and I might be as white as the angels are white. And you know what in scripture, oftentimes when people meet an angel, that's exactly what happens, they freak out. But not Mary. Mary almost like doesn't see them. Her grief is so great that she misses the whole thing entirely the angels are completely lost on her. I mean, she's like, who cares? She's just weeping. But her grief is so great, not only does she miss the angels, she misses the signs and symbols that are before her that speak. You see here is our two angels sitting on a slab, hovering over a slab. Anybody who knows the scriptures knows that if you have two angels hovering over a slab, we've seen this before. It's called the mercy seat. It's called the Ark of the Covenant, where two cherubim hover over the lid of the Ark of the Covenant. And it is the mercy seat where the high priest once a year sprinkles blood onto to sanctify the tabernacle and the temple, and where atonement is made for the sins of God's people. And so when Mary looks inside, here she sees this symbolism of the mercy seat. Jesus is the mercy seat. He is the one great sacrifice for sin. And he's not there, which is actually the best news possible, but she can't conceive of it. And her grief is so great, she can't even see the sign. But like Narnia, it's even a deeper sign. A deeper sign that goes back before Exodus, all the way to the Garden of Gethsemane, where if you remember Adam and Eve are pushed out of the garden. And cherubim are established at the gate of the garden and a flaming sword so that they cannot enter in again and eat the tree of life. But here we have a new Eve that's welcomed into the garden. You see, welcomed by angels, not pushed out by angels. This is the Garden of Eden reversed in Jesus as he stepped out on the first day of the week, steps out as a new Adam into a new garden so he will meet a representative of the new Eve, the church, all taking place in a garden. You see the Bible moves from the garden to the wilderness, to the wilderness, to a garden, to a garden, to a garden city. And our future is the garden city of the new heavens and the new earth. And the only reason we can have that hope of a new creation someday is because Jesus and this garden. Well, what about the sword? What about the cursed sword that kept Adam and Eve out of the garden? Well, that sword had already fallen on Good Friday. The curse that would keep man out of the garden had been answered by Jesus on Good Friday as he received the sword of that curse so that he could open Eden back up again and we could move forward into our new home. You see, not only is Jesus the mercy seat, he's the last Adam that reverses all of the damage that the first Adam himself did. And so it's right that we begin in a garden and that Jesus rises in a garden and meets the first witness in a garden. In verse 13, the angels speak to her and she's unfazed. Woman, why are you weeping? She said to them, they have taken away my Lord. Not just the Lord, but my Lord. And I do not know where they have laid him. Mary remains frozen in grief, weeping, fixated on the absence of the dead body of Jesus. And of course it prevents her from seeing everything that's before her to see. But even in the midst of that, there is this faith that she has that this one is her Lord even in a death that she cannot conceive of and a double loss that she's grieving over. In verse 14, having said this, she turned around and she saw Jesus standing, but she did not know that it was Jesus. She turns around and it's dark still and her eyes are swollen with tears and salt and weeping. And she looks and there's Jesus, the last person that she's expecting to see alive so she doesn't see him for who he is. She's looking for a corpse, not for a gardener. But there he is before her and why would she, why would she be able to recognize him with her eyes in the condition that she is with her expectations of the way that they are with the darkness of the morning. And she remembers good Friday. She remembers the flogging. She remembers the torture. She remembers the pulling out of his beard. She remembers him not being able ultimately to carry his own cross. Simon of Cyrene would have to do that as he staggered under the weight. She remembers him hanging there on the cross, crucified. She remembers him dead in the spear, puncturing his side and blood and water pouring out. The Bible says that she followed at a distance as they carried the body of Jesus to the tomb, his limp body. The last thing that she's expecting is anything more than a corpse. And so she does not recognize him. There's also the possibility that she does not recognize him because of the relationship between his pre-resurrection body and his post-resurrection body. We know it's a body, we know it's in fleshed. We know Jesus rose from the dead and he rose from the dead in the body that he died in because the scars were still there and he could eat. And so for that is a real resurrection, not a phantom resurrection. We don't believe and confess that Jesus is raised in your heart. We believe that he was raised physically from the dead. And Jesus speaks and he answers, I asked Mary two questions in verse 15. The first one again is, "Woman, why are you weeping?" I'm right here. Secondly, "Whom are you seeking?" Not, "What are you seeking?" But "Whom are you seeking?" Mary bypasses the questions, not relevant to her and her moment. And supposing him to be the gardener. There's no reason to suppose him to be the gardener because he is the gardener. He is the new Adam in the new creation in resurrection and he has come and resurrected to tend his new creation gardener, which she is a part of. She is the first of the new Eve, the church, the bride of Christ. And here is the capital G gardener raised from the dead in the garden with the beginnings of the new Eve, the church. And she is right to recognize him as the gardener. She's just got the wrong gardener on her mind. She doesn't know that this is the gardener that her soul and her heart craves for to be alive. And notice that she's heard his voice and there's nothing. She heard him speak and he asks two questions and nothing. She's still fixated on caring for a corpse. She said to the gardener, "Sir, if you have carried him away, "I love this. "I don't picture Mary as a six foot 10 woman, "but sometimes your emotions get the best of you. "Tell me where he is and you've laid him "and I will carry him away." Have you ever just thought yourself a little stronger than you are? And then you get to the moment it's like, oops. Right? Well, Mary's like, look, whatever day I will get him, I will take care, I will bring him back, I will do it. Probably speaking beyond her ability right now, though I wouldn't doubt it. Sometimes you give a woman a strength and some adrenaline and they can do some amazing things like have babies. So it's pretty amazing what women can do. But she's convinced that she can do this. And everything is about to change. Everything is about to change in just one word for Mary. She's still weeping. Jesus calls it. Why are you still weeping? Nothing's changed. The empty tomb hasn't changed her. Jesus speaking to her hasn't changed her. But everything is gonna change. Just one word. In just one word, her world is going to change. In just one word, her darkness is going to turn to light. In just one word, death is going to come to life. In just one word, weeping will turn to joy. Just one word, three syllables in the Greek. Verse 16, "And Jesus said to her, 'Mereum, merium, and spring exploded in her soul.' When she heard the voice of her name, in the voice she had heard before." That's all it took was just to hear the shepherd say her name. A name that she had heard him say so many times before. And it always, every time he said it, grabbed her heart. And here it is again, merium. You see the scripture tells us these words in John 10. The sheep hear his voice and he calls his own sheep by name. We hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name, the scriptures tell us. And the sheep follow him, why they know the voice of that shepherd, you see, a stranger won't follow. But when a stranger hears Jesus speak, they flee from him for they don't know the voice, you see. But those who are the sheep of Jesus hear his voice and he knows their name and he speaks their name and they follow him in John 10 and 27 says, "My sheep hear my voice and I know them." And they follow me and I give them eternal life and they will never perish. And no one will snatch them out of my hand. My father who has given them to me is greater than all. And no one is able to snatch them out of my father's hand. I and the father are one. You see, that's all it took. That's all it took for merium was to hear her name in the voice of her savior. There's no theothony here. No burning bush, no transfiguration. And Jesus does not tell her, look, I'm the one you're looking for. Jesus could have said right there, I'm alive. I'm alive. I was dead. Now I'm alive, look it's me. He doesn't do that. Of all the options available to Jesus, Jesus doesn't tell Mary who he is. He tells her who she is. Mary, Merium, you're the sheep, you're mine. You're my named sheep. And I am the shepherd, Merium, you are known by name. You are loved by name. Just hearing her name in the voice of the shepherd and the world became a different place. The darkness turned to light, morning came, and she became something new. You see, it's incredible. You know, when I was an older teenager, 16 through 19 years old, my favorite TV show was Cheers. My buddies, we were supposed to go to junior college, sorry mom and dad, we were supposed to go to junior college classes, and instead we met and watched Cheers. Oh well, it happens. We could have been like doing other things. So, but if you know the story of the TV show Cheers, sometimes you wanna go what? Where everybody knows your name, right? Where everybody knows your name. So there's this little church gathered in this pub. Was it in Boston, John? Was it in Boston? In Boston? Yes, in Boston, right? And the reason why those people go there is because it's the one place in the world they're not a number or an it or just a something. It's the one place in the world where who they are is recognized and welcomed and named and everybody knows everybody's name in that little world there. You know, we're living in such a time, we're living in a suicidal culture because people so badly want their names to be known. There's a breakdown somewhere, there's a breakdown somewhere to where people would not be named personally with other persons, and so they push their name out onto social media presentations, looking for the vindication and honoring of their name. I just need someone to heart this or to like this. And then it doesn't happen because it's fleeting and it's fickle and it's impersonal and it's cold and it's created a suicidal culture and the curated character of what people put online anyways is a lie, it's the way they want people to perceive their names, right? If you limit yourself to about three or four pictures, here's a story I can tell you about three men in our church, Denny Deutsch, Chris Jenkins and Jason Webster. If you limit yourself to three pictures on the internet, on the Instagram, I'm not saying you guys have problem with what you put on my Instagram, but if you limit yourself to three pictures on Instagram, here's what it looked like. They left their wives, moved over to Italy and are living the high life. (audience laughing) If you look at three pictures, right? Well, they would tell you that if you looked at the other pictures, there was a whole flock of teenagers with them. It wasn't just the three of them and they weren't just living the high life, they had responsibilities there too and oh by the way, the trip ended. They came home and soul life begins again and it's work and it's all that's right. But what we do, they didn't do that, but people do that because they wanna curate for themselves a life they don't have. They want their name to be known and recognized. They wanna be loved in that way in a personal kind of way. And now we have an electronic way of doing it and they think it's gonna satisfy and it never will. That's why it creates the anxiety and depression and suicide culture that we have, you see. And so Jesus says, "Miri yum." You see, here is Mary, a person with a past and a particular story whose life would have ended in darkness and anonymity and death. And now she is named by the only one whose acknowledgement and recognition matters or counts. Her identity is that Jesus knows her name and he calls her by name and her story comes back to life. And I'm just gonna say this because I know that there are many visitors here this morning, so I'm talking to the sheep of solely. I'm talking to the membership of solely and if you want to spill over, that's great. If our church is not like our savior here and better than a bar in Boston. If you don't know the names of the other sheep in your church that you share life with and cross over out of your little groups, I'm not sure we have a reason to exist. Soley was planted so that people could come here and be found and be named and be loved. To extend to others the naming that Jesus has for us, you see, we're here in our new old digs again and the opportunity opens back up freshly for us to reconsider the life of our church now that we're gonna be able to have meals together and we can see each other this morning. But if we're gonna be a church that's like our savior, we need to know each other's names and we need to name each other in love and grace. And that means everybody. That means the people that you're uncomfortable with. That means the porcupines. That means the people who never talk and the people who never shut up. It means the small people and the old people. It means all of those whom the Lord has grafted into the church of Jesus Christ at Soley, David Gloria Church. This is the place where everybody should have a name and be personally known and loved. And when their world is coming apart, this should be the people that comes alongside of them, like our savior and names them. New light and life and hope reborn comes into people's lives with a word, fitly chosen and spoken. So sometimes we have to get our eyes off of our navels and off those stinking devices and look up and look around. There are some people in this room who are living their best life now, well done you, it's not gonna last. There are some people in this room whose depression and suffering and inner turmoil is so great they can hardly lift their heads. And they shouldn't be suffering alone. Not if they have a church. Not if they have a church. You see, Jesus orchestrated this moment just for Mary so that the tears of grief could be wiped away from her eyes and her response is three syllables in the Greek. Myrium rabonai, my teacher. It's a term of endearment, it's a response of devotion for Mary. And of course she does what anybody would do, right? She just grips him with a bear hug. Jesus said to her in verse 17, "Do not cling to me." It's actually in the Greek it's stopped clinging to me so it's not like you had a problem with the initial hug. It's like we can't stay there in this way. Stop clinging to me, I'm gonna let you hug me for a bit. But then you gotta let go 'cause there's something else going on here. But I want you to feel this. Imagine you take your five year old with you to Disneyland and your five year old gets lost. Not for one hour, not for two hours, but for three hours at Disneyland. Put yourself as a parent in those shoes. I don't know about you, I'm a grandparent and I've been tearing Disneyland pieces, looking for my Nolan. And after three hours, you just don't know if you're gonna see your kid again because there's wicked people in the world. All of a sudden here comes Mickey Mouse and he found your kid and he's bringing your kid to you after three hours. What kind of hug is that gonna be? That's what this hug is. That's what this hug is. But Jesus says you gotta stop clinging to me and notice he doesn't hug a ghost. He's huggable, which means it's flesh. Do not cling to me for I have not yet ascended to the Father. So there's something new has to happen, Mary. I have to ascend. My work's not done yet. I still am waiting, my enthronement in heaven as the new Adam, the Pentecostal spirit that I will pour out that will grant my presence and power to you and the church. The promises that still need to be fulfilled and the mode of presence by which I will be open to all, not just you. I must finish this. And then notice how this drips with grace. Jesus, do not cling to me for I have not yet ascended to the Father, but go to my brothers. My brothers. What kind of brothers? Oh, you know the men who denied me? The men who scattered? The men who ran for their lives like cowards? The men who were ashamed of me? Go to those brothers. And this is the first time in the Bible where Jesus identifies himself as a brother of the disciples. These are the men who absolutely let Jesus down all the way and you wanna know what he does. He not only names Miriam Miriam, he names these guys my brothers. I'm not done with them yet. They might have failed and ran, but I am not finished with them. Yet they might have been ashamed of me, but I'm not ashamed of them, Jesus says. There is a restoration and a mission that is coming to them. And all of that because he says, "I am ascending to my Father and your Father and to my God and your God." In other words, Jesus is saying that because of what I've done, there is a new relationship with the Father. I've always had one, now you have one. He's always been my Father, now he's your Father by grace. And what I'm doing, Jesus says, "I'm creating brothers and sisters so that I might bring them home to my Father and your Father so that you can share in my relationship with the Father." You see, as adopted sons and daughters of God, we don't have secondary status or tertiary status. We are members of the family and we share in all the blessings and privileges that Jesus does, that he shares with us, including his inheritance. When the Father looks at you, he sees you as a brother or sister of Jesus. You are in that family and he is your Father in every way. And he shares, you have the same standing before that Father as Jesus does. The same standing. His is because he's the eternal begotten Son of God. Yours is by grace, but it's a shared life, you see. A shared family. It's incredible, named, owned as family, access, blessing, inheritance, all of it because we're named by Jesus. So go to my brothers and tell them that I'm finishing. But now my God is your God and my Father is your Father. And then Mary, who thought that her duty that day, her commission that day, was guess what? To spice a corpse. Now it's to go tell the truth. Verse 18, "You go tell my brothers, "Berry Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, "I have seen the Lord." And then he said these things to her. See Mary is given a mission, a mission on the other side of being named. She is the first witness to the resurrection. She's given the first mission of the resurrection. Jesus is raised, he is risen, and that means, listen church, that means there is no meaninglessness in life. There's no meaninglessness in life. There's not one part of life for God's people that's meaningless because Jesus is raised from the dead. And he's given us a mission and that is to go. And as we're going to testify to the risen Lord, that there is named life in him, named personal life with God in him because of Jesus and the resurrection. And it is our privilege to carry that treasure and be broken out so that it gets out to other people. And if you are here this morning and you don't know Christ, you have not closed with Christ, you have not sought him out, you have not drawn near to him, he is speaking to you right now through my voice. And he is saying, come to me, I've already come to you in the word. I'm right here in your mouth, I'm right there in your heart. I believe in your heart that I have been raised from the dead and you will be saved right now if you are here and you are not saved, close with Jesus. He has drawn near to you right now, close with him, trust him, say yes to him, receive your name being named by him right now. Do not linger, do not hold off, do not put it off until a better time. Right now is the day of salvation. This is the day of resurrection, close with Christ if you are apart from him. And if you are already his sheep, hear your name as you come to the Lord's table today. Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, take your word and seal it unto us for the glory of your name. And may the risen Christ be exalted in our hearts today in Jesus' name, amen.