The resurrection run

23 March 2008

John 20:1-18

There is nothing more central to the Christian story than resurrection. From the dawn of Christendom, Easter Day has rung out with the words, “Early on the first day of the week …” (John 20:1). This is not only the beginning of John’s account of the risen Lord, but it paints a picture of the new beginning that God has brought about for all time.

Easter speaks against that awful characteristic of our age – boredom. How I cringe when I hear people say, ‘Been there, done that … bought the t-shirt.’ That kind of response can be added to … ‘Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt … burned the t-shirt.’

The one thing that Easter is not … is boring! It re-ignites all the questions about faith and about life. One minister in a suburban church looked out on the crowds that gathered on Easter Day and said, “Why, the last time I heard some of you singing it was ‘Silent Night’!”

The account of Easter has to be held together and observed as a piece. We must take notice of his betrayal, his denial, his arrest, his interrogation, his torture and his death – for only in doing so will we be able to grasp the power of Easter Day.

A church marketing newsletter called “The Churches Advertising Network”, tells how a campaign had been developed to attract people to church during the season of Easter. In this public relations campaign it was suggested that the cross be removed from the altar.

A recent survey had revealed that the cross was one of those symbols that the new generation of churchgoers thought “too churchy”.

One pastor, interviewed for the campaign, even gave his wholehearted endorsement, “We are going to attempt to concentrate on the resurrection, and not the death of Jesus.”

Easter without the cross. It’s a perplexing thought, isn’t it? Is it possible to have resurrection without crucifixion? No! It distorts the entire gospel if crucifixion is separated from resurrection. The road to the empty tomb will forever pass by a cross. The One who is raised from the dead is none other than the crucified Christ. Easter without a cross is a hoax – and not consistent with the gospel.

I want to draw your attention to the Johannine account of the resurrection. A good deal of the material we find in John 20 is distinctive to John. Yet what we find is consistent with the rest of the Easter narrative and reports the same events. We are told it was on the first day of the week and while it was still dark that Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance.

There are three people found running in this first resurrection account of John:

The run of one shocked at what she found - v.2

It is significant and appropriate that the gospel account should begin with the experience of Mary Magdalene and the early section of John that I concentrate upon prepares us for Jesus’ appearance to Mary in the second section of John (v.v. 11-18).

It is her observation of the empty tomb that leads her to run to Simon Peter and the other disciple to tell them what she had found, which in her words was, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb and we don’t know where they have put him.” (v.3)

There is no expectation of resurrection whatsoever – and this is important in understanding what Jesus will come to mean to her, as he meets her in the garden.

Marcus Dods wrote, “Mary standing without weeping is a concrete representative of a not uncommon state of mind. She stands wondering why she was ever so foolish, so heartless, as to leave the tomb at all.”

Perhaps this self-reproach is the beginning of an openness to find him. As Dods further wrote, “To mourn His absence is to desire and to invite his presence, and to invite His presence is to secure it.”

The first visual evidence is an empty tomb

Mary’s discovery of an empty tomb is what will precipitate her early morning dash to the other disciples. John gives us very little information, except that the tomb was empty, and the way he tells that is by talking about the stone having been removed from the entrance.

It will be Mary’s report which will stir Peter and John to visit Jesus’ tomb, not some excited anticipation of a miracle, or the recalling of what Jesus had said whilst with them. The bare and open tomb – no-one could have imagined or invented such a story. The greatest story in history flows from a calm and mysterious discovery of an empty tomb!

Mary’s response is one of bewilderment, borne out of love

Her first words to Peter say it all: “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb and we don’t know where they have put him!” There is a great pain in the words, but they remind us that to Mary even the corpse of Jesus was ‘the Lord’. Whatever it was that she said in its fulness was enough to excite Peter and the other disciple to set off immediately for the tomb.

The place of women in the early resurrection accounts would surpass the place in which one might have expected women to be found. The initial discovery of the empty tomb was by women.

We can remain in our sorrow and suffering

Mary is clearly someone in pain and her tears will speak volumes for all generations. Mary is certainly a person in need of comfort and she makes the journey to the tomb with a real sense of desire to do the right thing. When examined against the other gospel accounts, this would appear to be in order to anoint the body. She was in grief and her life had fallen apart – Oh, how she needed him!

Jesus brings meaning into the damaged, as well as the mundane nature of our lives. There is a story of two garment workers in one of the sweatshops of New York City. One was a cutter and one was a stitcher. They were working side by side. They got to talking about holidays. One said he was looking forward to his holiday and the other said he was not going to bother this year. The question was asked, “Why?”
“I went to Africa last year. I went elephant hunting.”
“Did you get any elephants?”
“No – I found an elephant. He charged me, but my gun was jammed and I was killed.”
A little stunned, he looked at his friend and said, “What are you talking about, you were killed? You aren’t dead. You’re sitting here living.”
And the other fellow looked down at his scissors, looked across at the needle and fabric in his friend’s hands, and replied: “You call this living?”

Many people look at their lives and ask, “You call this living?” Easter is a resounding “Yes!” It is not unlike the words on a Belfast wall at the height of ‘The Troubles’, which asked, “Is there life before death?”

Mary was distressed at the sight of an empty tomb.

The run of one inspired by love – v.4

We are told that when Mary arrived and shared her news with the disciples that both Peter and the other disciple set out running themselves.

Let us first think about John, who we identify as the other disciple. We are given some quite specific language to identify John as the other disciple and we remind ourselves that he is so identified in John 13:23 as reclining next to Jesus at the table of betrayal – and in 19:26 we are told that John is the one to whom Jesus had particularly commended the care of his mother.

The story of John at Easter is, in one sense, one of the shortest, for in the matter of a few verses he is able to confess the reality of what he finds and how it points to resurrection – the fact that Jesus has been raised from the dead.

The second tangible evidence for the resurrection is that the clothes have been left

We are told that John outran Peter and if that is the case it would be understandable if he were the younger, fitter disciple. The Evangelist, who may well be the same John, takes some time describing the grave clothes.

As far as verse 8 is concerned, it would appear that John’s ‘believing’ seems to be a conviction that Jesus was raised from the dead and is directly related to him seeing the grave clothes.

In the same way that the impetuous Peter reacts instinctively, so does John in his quiet and reflective manner – quite typical of one who would become a great seer of the Christian community.

John’s is a run which leads to reverence and awe

The way the gospel writer tells the account is orderly and calm. It does not give the indication of violence and disturbance which the intervention by the authorities or grave robbers would have involved. It is as if Jesus’ body has passed straight through the grave clothes.

John Stott uses the vivid image which suggests that what they saw was “like a discarded chrysalis from which the butterfly has emerged”.

This is in sharp contrast to John 11 where Lazarus required to be freed from his grave clothes (11:44). His is the story of one restored to life, but who would one day die. When Jesus came out of the tomb, he came out – never to return.

Love takes a person so much further

Though there is a clear admission that John did not fully understand what had happened, as indicated in verse 9, he was certainly well on a journey which would result in faith.

One of our trips to North Carolina involved preaching not too far from Winston Salem where there is a wonderful Moravian settlement. Every Easter morning, in the early hours, thousands of people, many of them tourists who travel there especially for the event, make their way towards the courtyard in front of a 200 year old church, founded by the Moravians. Before daylight, 500 members of various brass bands echo hymns from different parts of the city. Everyone then converges on Salem Square to listen to the wonderful music.

As the first hint of the rising sun begins to soften the darkness, a hush falls over the vast throng of worshippers. When the church bell tolls at 6 am, their bishop emerges from the church and announces in a loud, unwavering voice, “Christ is Risen!” and the crowd thunders back, “Christ is Risen indeed!” Then the band begins to play, “Christ the Lord is Risen Today” and everyone joins in the singing.

But it is what happens next that is so telling. Then, in total silence, they walk in faithful procession to ‘God’s Acre’, which is an ancient cemetery where all the graves, with their newly polished gravestones, are covered with flowers. Even the oldest graves, some of them dating back 300 years, are decorated with forsythia, jonquils, tulips, azaleas – whatever happens to be blooming at the time. There is an awesome silence. One writer, who witnessed the event, said, “When you are in the midst of all this majesty and beauty, you cannot fail to believe in the resurrection.”

Now, I am not suggesting that Easter is simply an emotional experience which stirs the heart, but that at the centre of Easter is a message of love which holds eternal promise.

The run of one uninhibited but disturbed – v. 6

We notice that Simon Peter is outstripped by John but, when they arrive at the actual tomb, Simon Peter, who came along behind him, went straight into the tomb. This is so characteristic of Peter. You cannot journey through Easter without considering the one who knew what it was to deny Jesus … And who could ever forget Jesus’ glance at Peter?

What we see in Peter here seems to be in keeping with every other recorded action of Peter. The last time Peter had seen his Lord was when merely a ‘look’ of his cruelly-denied Friend and Master had broken his heart.

There is no hesitation for him

After all, for Peter, what was there to lose? He, personally, was deeply troubled and he was anxious to get inside the tomb to see what had happened.

In one sense, you could argue that Peter is returning to his old character. He comes out of the shadows of denial and rejoins his nature – with all its possible ‘impetuosity’ and eagerness – which, when taken hold of by the Holy Spirit, will make him the great leader of the Jerusalem Church.

This would be the next step on his journey to faith

I cannot help but see Peter as a person on a journey. You could call the biblical account ‘the making of a leader’.

It is not difficult to see that these would be great stories, once the leader is in place. Peter had made a long journey from the lakeside as a fisherman to soon be the leader of the band of disciples – Think of his calling, Caesarea Philippi, the dark denial, the look of Jesus, the resurrection discovery, and back by the lakeside.

This is the making of a great apostle and leader

We hold this account up with John 21: 1-19 when the scene changes dramatically to the Galilee. Peter appears prominent once again. His relationship with Jesus is restored, but there is more to deal with for full spiritual restoration.

Most great leaders recognise that their greatest strengths flow from their potential weakness. The one who denied him will one day know what it is to be so committed to him … to the point of death in Rome!

If you ever read the gospel accounts of the resurrection as a whole, one of the striking features can at first seem rather unusual … that the first reaction of the men and women who came to the tomb was not of joy – but of bewilderment and fear. The immediate impact of the resurrection was confusion and apprehension.

John M Braaten wrote, “Mary Magdalene was in shock and the disciples, regardless of John’s comment that one of the disciples believed, were clearly unnerved by it all. After all, they went from that tomb and locked themselves in a secret room.”

If we are going to understand the power that is embedded in the meaning of Easter, we will need to overcome one of the difficulties we have in celebrating Easter 2,000 years on – and that is that we have come to understand Easter without any surprise or shock. After all, we have been waiting for it throughout Lent. You could say we expect it and we plan for it. Whilst that is true for us, it certainly was not so for the first disciples. What happens on the first Easter violates all the accepted laws of nature. It challenges what all intelligent people understand the case to be. And yet, at the same time, it opens the doors on a new life for us all.

That is the good news that emerges from this graveyard scene. Jesus Christ has been raised from the dead so that you and I might live in the assurance that there are no doors of life or death that are locked to us.

This triumphant message is illustrated powerfully in a scene from T S Eliot’s “Murder in the Cathedral” –

A number of priests are working to bar the doors of the church. They are barring the doors against people who are seeking to assassinate the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Thomas, the Archbishop, will not permit it although he knows it is for his own safety. He says to his priests, “Unbar the door. Throw open the doors! I will not have the house of prayer, the church of Christ, the sanctuary, turned into a fortress. The church shall be open, even to our enemies, open the door!”

The priests think he has gone mad. They tell him that he would bar the door against wild animals, why not against people who have become like beasts?

His answer rings out clearly, “We have fought the beasts and have conquered. Now is the triumph of the cross. Open the door. I command it! Open the door!”

On this Easter Day, we unlock the door on all those things that would shut us in – fear, guilt, anxiety, insecurity – all that would destroy our community and we invite the life-transforming power of Christ to change our lives today.

The message of Easter is an invitation to encounter the Risen Lord in our place of meeting. The tomb was empty, the Lord was indeed risen – had been raised by the power of God.

These truths are not shut off in some cul-de-sac of history, but have been proven by people for close on two thousand years. Resurrection is not merely a tenet of belief or a confession of faith; it is our reason for being – and without which we have nothing to say.

What made Mary, Peter and John athletes in the garden scene was news that forever energises God’s people – and that is that Jesus Christ has been raised and we must go tell the world!

Christian Life