Reflections on "Jesus Is the One Raised from the Dead" John 20: 1-18; Isaiah 65: 18-25

This sermon probably reads better than it was preached.  It worked a bit better at the chapel service where I preached from the pulpit.  I preached holding my notes due to how the sanctuary was set-up for Easter in sanctuary service, and it did not go as well. The correct flow of words was to important to lose the ability to read the notes easily, which impacted the delivery.

It turned into a fun sermon to write -- lots of neat stuff  I had not explored previously in an Easter sermon.

Introduction: Ann Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Prayer: “I don’t have the right personality for Good Friday, for crucifixion: I’d like to skip ahead to the resurrection. In fact, I’d like to skip ahead to the resurrection vision of one of the kids in our Sunday School, who drew a picture of the Easter Bunny outside the tomb: everlasting life and a basket full of chocolates. Now you’re talking.” (141).

What do we do with the resurrection?

The Gospel of John describes the surroundings related to the empty tomb a bit differently than the others gospels – he seems to go out of his way to connect the empty tomb with other stories of God's people.

This morning, I have three questions for you, all of which grow of the particular way in which the Gospel of John tells the story of the resurrection.

Move 1: Question #1 -- Whom are you looking for this morning?

a. IN the opening chapter of the Gospel of John, two of John the Baptist's disciples meet Jesus, and he looks at them and asks, “What are you looking for?”

1. Turn out, the disciples were looking for the Lamb of God, the Messiah.

2. Now in the garden at the empty tomb, the one Mary thinks is the gardener asks her a similar question, “For whom are you looking.”

3. I'm not sure Mary even knows how to answer that question.

5. her most honest answer might have been, “I am looking for the body of the my dead friend Jesus.”

6. She won't find Jesus' dead body, but she is looking at Jesus, the one who is raised from the dead.

b. For whom are you looking this morning?

1. Someone recently called me in a tear-filled voice tears shared the good news that her loved one, for whom we had been praying, had received the best possible news following the surgery. Healing was taking place. Are you looking for someone who offers healing of body of Spirit?

2. As I mentioned in this month's newsletter, today is my parents wedding anniversary. I am keenly aware of our human mortality this morning and the hope of eternal life. Are you looking for the one who overcomes death and offers us the hope that death is not the end?

4. Mary and the other disciples were surely crushed at the death of Christ. She needed the resurrected Christ to give her hope and new life. Maybe you are here and have had your dreams crushed, and you are looking for the one who can offer you new possibilities.

5. Some of us arrive here today feeling beat up and betrayed. Maybe not like as bad as Judas betraying Christ, but you feel alone, as if there is no one you can trust in the world. Are you looking for the one who befriends you and loves you no matter what?

6. When Christ was walking among them and performing miracles, I suspect the world seemed full of possibilities, but now as Mary approaches the tomb that morning, the only possibility the world seemed to offer was death. Are you looking for the one who offers new life?

c. As Jesus, the resurrected one, calls Mary by name, he invites her into a new reality.

1. Where crushed dreams are restored.

2. where hope replaces despair.

3. Where the vision of a new heaven and a new earth that Isaiah had prophesied about years before now seems possible.

d. Those first disciples found whom they were looking for, the Messiah, when the met Jesus.

1. They knew that when they heard him speak and watched him perform miracles.

2. Now Mary discovers that the one she mistakes as a gardener outside the empty tomb, is the resurrected resurrected one.

3. If you come here this morning looking for the Messiah, the one who can change your life, the one who brings you hope, he is alive and among us.

Move 2: Second question – Are you ready for what God has done for you?

a. My theology professor from seminary suggested that as Christ was convicted and crucified by the authorities, the world convicts God of forsaking Christ and letting Christ die.

1. But the empty tomb tells a different story.

2. the verdict against God has been overturned.

3. God has acted decisively to raise Christ from the dead. .

b. The Gospel of John, unlike the other three gospels, places the empty tomb in a garden.

1. In our Lenten Bible study this week we saw a garden that tradition suggests was the garden Mary went to that first Easter morning.

2. It was a beautiful, tranquil place – the kind f place where you might find God.

3. The presence of the tomb in a garden also takes us back to the Garden of Eden.

4. Takes us back to that time before Adam and Eve eat from the forbidden fruit; a time when when humans and God were in right relationship; a time when God would look over creation and call it good

b. In that context, we realize the implications of what God has done by raising Christ from the dead.

1. The resurrection is not about a scientific oddity.

2. The resurrection is not about some miracle in which we have to believe.

3. the resurrection of Christ reveals that God has deemed you worthy of being saved. That God has declared the world worth saving.

4. The resurrection of Christ means that God values being in right relationship with us enough to let Christ die on the cross and then raise him from the dead.

5. The resurrection means that God wants you to be a new creation.

c. Are you ready for that?

1. It means giving up looking in the mirror and seeing the person who is not good enough and instead seeing the person God has said is worth saving.

2. It means giving up on all the reasons we cannot move into those new possibilities God puts before us and claiming that new creation God calls us to be.

3. I recently had a conversation with someone who was in the interview process for what appeared to be an exciting new job situation.

AS the person shared with me about the new job and how the interview process, they was clearly some apprehension. I thought maybe the person was afraid of not getting the job, so in all my pastoral care wisdom I asked, “Are you scared of not getting the job?”

After a long pause, the person replied, “No. I'm scared that I might actually choose me. That they might actually think I'm the one who can do this job.”

4. Its' easier not to be the chosen one. To just go along with how things are.

4. The empty tomb is God saying, “I choose you. Come and be a new creation.”

Are you ready for what God has done for you?

Move 3: Third question – what are you going to tell the world?

a. Remember, the crucifixion of Christ was very public.

1. Like the Little Caesar guitar man who hopes that if he makes a spectacle of himself on the sidewalk on Main St. you will step in and buy some some pizza, the Romans make crucifixion a public spectacle.

2. The Romans wanted lots of people walking by to see the gruesome death and be reminded, and to tell others, do not mess with the Roman government.

3. If you were in Jerusalem around the time when Jesus was crucified, you probably saw it or heard about it. We remember that in the Gospel of Luke when the resurrected Christ meets some followers on the way to Emmaus, they ask him, “are you the only in Jerusalem who hasn't heard about the crucifixion of Jesus?”

5. Christ's crucifixion is there for everyone to see.

b. In contrast, in the Gospel of John, Mary arrives at the tomb while it was still dark.

1. In the pre-dawn solitude of the garden she discovers the tomb is empty.

2. she has to go tell the Peter and the beloved disciple that the tomb is empty.

3. and after the resurrected Christ reveals himself to her, Mary has to go and tell those who she meets, “I have seen the Lord.”

4. No crowd of people to witness the resurrection.

5. the story of Jesus being raised from the dead will be heard only when Mary and the other disciples tell others.

c. We remember that later in the Gospel of John, Jesus appears on the beach to some of the disciples. As Jesus talks with Peter, he tells him, “Feed my sheep.”

1. IN other words, go and share the good news of my resurrection through your words and deeds.

2. WE live in a world that desperately needs to know the good news of the resurrection.

Are you going to tell the world?

Conclusion: The Easter bunny brings candy for a day or two; the resurrected Christ brings good news for a lifetime and beyond.

Sources used:

The parts that refer to the connection between the garden where the tomb is and the Garden of Eden were supported by: http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?lect_date=4/8/2012&tab=4 Lucy Lind HoganHugh Latimer Elderdice Professor of Preaching and Worship

Wesley Theological Seminary
Washington, D.C. 

The section on the public nature of Roman crucifixions was found in A Hitchhiker's Guide to Jesus by Bruce N. Fisk and 24 Hours that Changed the World by Adam Hamilton.