4/4/21 John 20:1-18 “He Lives Today!”

02 Apr 4/4/21 John 20:1-18 “He Lives Today!”

4/4/21   John 20:1-18        “He Lives Today!”

It is finally Easter morning and it is time to celebrate.  I have noticed this past week how we have not commercialized Easter quite like we have Christmas.  Around July 4, the stores start to get their Christmas stuff ready so that they can sell a lot of stuff and make a lot of money.  This has been going on for years and I don’t suppose that there is any way to stop it.  And I don’t think that we necessarily have to stop it anyway.  We just have to guard our hearts so that the things we do for Christmas come from a Christian heart.  But we don’t see much of this type of thing for Easter.  Oh, we have a few bunnies and Easter eggs, but it is nothing like Christmas.  I heard someone say that they were asked recently if Easter was on a Sunday this year.  Be that as it may, we all know that we came from a physical birth like that of Jesus.  However, we don’t all believe that we will be raised from the dead just the way Jesus was raised.  I would guess that there are people here today that have a hard time believing that Jesus actually rose from being dead after 3 days.  You may also have a hard time to believe that you will live on into eternity with Jesus.  That is why the world doesn’t really want to celebrate this holiday as much.  They don’t believe.  Today we are going to look at one of the 4 eye witness accounts of how Jesus was not in the tomb on Easter morning.  I will also be drawing information from the other 3 accounts.  Hopefully by the end of the sermon we will all be ready to celebrate that Jesus rose from the dead not just to save all of us, but to save you.

And just what do you need to be saved from?  Yourself!  Let me explain real quick.  God is all powerful and He made all things including us.  Adam and Eve, the first humans, lived in a perfect world in the Garden of Eden.  It was perfect until sin entered through the serpent.  To live in God’s garden, things had to be perfect so Adam and Eve were expelled from there after they sinned.  They were no longer perfect.  This set up the system of sacrifices that were used for centuries where unblemished animals were sacrificed to God and God would forgive their sins.  However, this had to be done every year.  Finally, God sent His Son Jesus Christ to live with us and have a perfect, unblemished life.  Then this week about 2000 years ago, Jesus went willingly to the cross to die once and for all.  He died for all our sins.  He was the final sacrifice.  This sacrifice is to cover all sins that will ever take place.  This is why we are so jubilant at Easter.  And Jesus not only died for our sins, but He was raised up again.  Up from the grave He arose.  Death and sin have no hold on Jesus and they don’t have to have a hold on you either.  All you have to do is accept Jesus as God and let Him live on inside of you.  This is the Good News.

As we begin in our reading, we find that the tomb is empty.  Mary Magdalene is the 1^st one to the tomb early on Sunday morning.  She is frantic.  The tomb is empty.  She runs to the others and tells Peter and John what has happened.  They in turn run to the tomb.  Peter goes inside and finds it empty.  All he finds are the strips of linen and the burial cloth which is neatly folded.  He is wondering just what happened.  Finally, we have John entering the tomb and he sees and he believes.

Let us begin with John.  He sees and he believes.  It doesn’t get a lot easier than this.  John was probably the closest friend of Jesus.  He has been with Him since the beginning of the ministry.  He saw all the great wonders of Jesus including the transfiguration where Moses and Elijah came to talk with Jesus.  He was at the trial on Friday.  He saw all the terrible things that were done to Jesus.  We had a totally innocent man who was beaten to an inch of his life.  He was so badly hurt that He couldn’t even carry his own cross; someone else had to take it.  Then this innocent man was nailed to the cross and suffered a most horrific death.  John saw all of this.  He was at the foot of the cross when Jesus died.  He was the one that Jesus told to take care of his mother.  John had seen all of these things and much, much more.  He enters the empty tomb and he believes.

I think that we have many people today who are just like John.  Many of you have been through life.  You have seen the ups and downs.  You have experienced the death of a loved one, divorce, financial ruin or maybe an ongoing bout of sadness.  You have come through all of these things in one piece because of your love for Jesus Christ.  Notice that I said your love.  We all know that Jesus loves us.  But what we sometimes try to forget is that we have to love Him in return.  This is what John does when he believes.

One of the amazing things about our world today is that we don’t have to see to believe. What I mean by this is that Jesus is not walking on the earth for us to see.  John got to see all of the miracles that Jesus performed 1^st hand.  We don’t get to see that, or do we?  I would guess that if I asked today how many of you have seen the miracles of Jesus, I would get most of you to raise your hands.  There are so many things that happen today that are seemingly impossible by worldly standards.  Healings happen every day.  God moments happen every day.  Miracles happen daily.  Jesus works in our lives all the time and many of you know this and see the face of Jesus in many of the things going on in the world.  You believe.  Don’t ever stop believing.

The next person I would like to look at a little here is Peter.  If you remember Peter is the disciple who is most like us.  He thought he could walk on water until he took his eyes off of Jesus.  He swore to be true to Jesus through anything.  Then he denied him 3 times before the rooster crowed.  He has always had a great heart but he doesn’t quite seem to get it.  The same thing is happening here.

John beats Peter to the tomb but he waits outside.  Peter comes up and goes right into the tomb.  There he finds that there is no Jesus.  John comes in and believes.  Peter comes in and begins to look for Jesus.  He is wondering what has happened.  Peter is a bit skeptical.

Now we get to where many Americans are today.  There is still something like 75% of Americans say that they are Christians.  This would really be great if most of them even knew what they were talking about.  It seems to me that most Christians today want to be able to pick and choose what they like in the Bible for their own well-being.  I’m not going to get specific on this because you all know what I mean.  We do not want a God that tells us what to do.  We are also skeptical about who God is and what He can and cannot do or worse yet what He should and should not do.  We like to be the ones that tell God what to do!

And besides we do not have a God that tells us what to do.  This is what God tells us.  He tells us how we can have eternal life with Him.  This is another reason why we need Jesus to go to the cross and be raised up again.  You see, we are all given the choice.  You can either follow Jesus or not.  This is pretty much the only choice you will ever make in your life time that will have lasting consequences.  There is no in between.  You are either for Him or against Him.  He has set it up so that everyone in the world will have a chance to follow Him.  If you know of anyone who you are pretty sure didn’t end up in heaven, then you can know for sure that it was their choice to end up where they are.  Jesus wants us all to be with Him but because many of us cannot get past being skeptical, we fail.

But we also have to realize that Jesus is a God of many chances.  Peter has been given many chances and here we find that he will need at least one more.  Our God is a God of love and He will continue to give you many chances to come to Him, more than you deserve.  You will generally have chances up until you die.  Then you run out of chances.

Finally, we have Mary Magdalene.  She is one of the most maligned people of the Bible.  There have been many things written about her.  Most of the things that have been written about her are pure speculation.  Some of the things are outright fiction.  We assume that she was from Magdala but we don’t know for sure.  The only thing we really know about her was that Jesus drove 7 demons from her.  Nowhere does the Bible tell us that she was a prostitute.  And all of the premises that she was married to Jesus are an outright lie.  She was a grateful disciple because Jesus had saved her life.

Mary comes to the tomb and is frantic.  She runs to tell the others.  She doesn’t know what has happened.  Her dear friend is dead.  Jesus is not only dead but now someone has stolen His body.  The reason that she was so upset was because of all the things that Jesus had done for her.  He had saved her from the 7 demons.  One of the problems we have today is that people don’t even believe in demons.  I have known people who are demon possessed.  It is scary.  It is like these people have no control.  Our so-called experts will label such a person as mentally ill and give drugs that only do some good; but they refuse to even consider demon possession.  It is estimated that at least 40% of people who are mentally ill and are hospitalized are actually suffering from demons.  This is a serious problem.  It was then and it is today.  Several times we read of Jesus casting out demons.  And this is what he did for Mary.  So why won’t you believe?

Now, we have Mary who is very grateful to this man who cast out demons from her with just a word.  Mary is finally at peace.  She has a peace that she has never known before.  One of the things that people sometimes tell us after coming back from a mental illness is the inner peace that they finally have.  This is also one of the things I experienced the moment I asked Jesus to take control of my life.  I felt like a 2-ton weight had been instantly lifted from my shoulders.  I felt an inner peace that I had never known.  Think about this a little.  This is what Jesus can do for you.

And she got this peace and I did also because we have been forgiven.  This is one of those words that we don’t think about very often because it comes so naturally to us Christians.  When you sin against God or do things that He doesn’t want you to do, you need to go to Him to ask for forgiveness.  God will grant this if you go to Him.  Otherwise, the sins will continue to grow and fester.  Uncontrolled sin is like a cancer.  We all have it but unless we confess them to Jesus and ask for forgiveness they continue to grow and grow.  And because Jesus wants to have conversations with you, you have to ask.  When you do this then you get the leadership that Mary had in Jesus.  Mary had someone to believe in and to lead her.  You can have this too.

Today I have tried to briefly present 3 people who were at the tomb of Jesus.  There were others also.  We had the assembly of trained and highly skilled guards who had mysteriously all fallen asleep.  These people could probably represent total non-believers.  We may have a few of these listening today.  If this is where you are at, then come back and visit us again.  You will soon see the work of Jesus Christ first hand.  There may be those here that only come on Easter and Christmas.  I say the same thing to you.  Come back and you will find out what Jesus has in store for you.  It will only be something good.  Jesus wants to have a conversation with you.  Don’t be afraid of Him.  Just come to Him.  He can give you a very good life.

But I think that most of the people here today are of these 3 types of people.  We have the believers who are absolutely rock strong and I thank you for your presence in my life.  We have the Mary’s who are really emotional and excited but they are not sure just yet what they are excited about.  I say to you keep listening and it will become clear.  We also have the skeptics who aren’t sure any of this happened.  You too have to keep on listening.  Pick up a Bible and read it.  Join a Bible study.  Most skeptics have never even read the Bible.

But most of all remember this and I’ve said this before.  Confucius is dead.  Mohammed is dead.  Buddha is dead as is Joseph Smith.  Only in Christ do we find a Resurrected Lord who is alive.  No other religious leader in the world can make this claim.  Jesus Christ lives today!

Ken Kersten tells the story of a Sunday school teacher who had just finished telling her third graders how Jesus was crucified and placed in a tomb with a great stone sealing the opening.  She had gotten all excited telling the story as I might sometimes do when I preach and she wanted this excitement to rub off on the students.  So, she asks all excited like, “What do you think the first words were that Jesus spoke after He came out of the tomb.”  A hand shot up in the back and a little girl leapt high from her chair and said, “I know!  I know!”  “Good!” said the teacher.  “Tell us, what were Jesus’ first words?”  She extended her hands high in the air and said, “TA-DA!”

The Resurrection is the climax of our heritage.  Our Lord Jesus Christ lives on forever and you can too.  TA-DA!  And thank you, Jesus, for first loving us.  Let’s pray.