As we come to this text today, a text that most all of us are familiar with in at least some capacity, we have to be careful not to under value what has just taken place. We have to be careful not to think of the situation too lightly. The promised Messiah, Jesus Christ, has just been killed, murdered before the eyes of the people. Jesus gave the people hope that the Son of God had finally come to save them all. He had come to overthrow God’s enemies here on this earth and to restore God’s people to their rightful place. But all of this hope has now faded. All of this joy has now gone. The one who had power over the winds and the seas has breathed his last breath. I often wonder what it must have felt like to be in the audience that day. The film, The Passion of the Christ, that showed what the brutality of Jesus’ beatings might have looked like only served to peak my interest even more. Yes, I can imagine what it was like to see the beatings of whips made from leather, stone, and bone that were given to Jesus. I can imagine the pain that it must have caused as the barbs ripped from his flesh in a manner that I wouldn’t exactly call “with surgical precision.” I can even imagine the pain that it must have caused to carry a massive wooden cross up a hill after being beaten nearly to death. It’s even possible for me to imagine what it’s like for a spear to be driven into the side of a man. I know what a last breath looks like, so it’s possible for me to imagine Jesus’ final breath. But you see, you and I have a great benefit that the people of that day didn’t have. We know what comes next. We know that Jesus returns. We know that this isn’t the end of the story.
Can you imagine the mindset of those in the audience as they have just witnessed their promised Messiah, their One True hope, breathe his last breath. This was supposed to be God in human form. This was supposed to be the one with the power to conquer death. This was supposed to be the man who was going to save us all. And now he’s gone. He’s gone just as any man who has ever come before him. There had to be murmurs and thoughts, “Did we get this wrong? Was this really the promised Messiah that we heard about from Isaiah and Jeremiah? Was this the seed of the woman promised to Adam and Eve in the Garden? I don’t know what’s going on, tell me what’s going on! I just don’t understand.” It had to be a very numb feeling that gripped the followers of Christ who were there that day. Someone who they had placed so much trust, so much faith, so much of everything in was now dead. There’s no other way to put it, he was dead. No breath, no pulse, no nothing, he was dead.
Even those who were holding out hope for a miracle had to feel numb as they took Jesus’ lifeless body down from the cross, carried it to Joseph of Arimathea’s tomb, laid Jesus’ body inside, and rolled a massive boulder over the entrance. I mean, this was it. It had to be over. In their thinking in that moment, none of them probably could have fathomed Jesus coming out of that tomb. I mean, it took numerous Roman guards, physically fit men, to move this boulder into place. It’s not like this man who has just endured perhaps the most violent beating that anyone had ever seen could have the strength to move such a massive object. On top of that, there were guards preventing anyone from coming and helping Jesus escape even if by some miracle he was still alive. Yeah, things must have seemed pretty bleak.
Then we have the waiting period. If you have ever experienced the loss of a loved one or someone who means a great deal to you then you know what I’m talking about here. For us, after the funeral service, after the family gatherings, after life is supposed to get back to “normal”, that’s when the death of another becomes difficult. That’s when we are left with nothing but our thoughts. Nothing but our own what-if’s and did-I’s. And this went on for Jesus’ followers for 3 days; 3 days! This span of 3 days must have felt like an eternity. For some of his disciples, following Jesus was all that they had known for the better part of 3 years. They had to be looking at each other thinking, “Well, what now?” That’s not even dealing with the fact that one of their own was the one who gave Jesus over to the authorities. Their brother was the one who some could hold responsible for this series of events even taking place. Now there’s a void. Now there’s a hole in their lives where this man Jesus once resided.
Things must have seemed about as bad as they possibly could on that Sunday morning, but something had happened that changed everything. You see, when Mary Magdalene arrived at the tomb she made a discovery that changed the world. The stone was moved. Mary’s first thought was that someone had come in and stolen Jesus’ body. She runs to tell the Peter and another disciple, most likely John, what she has found. She tells them that Jesus’ body is gone and she doesn’t have a clue where it is. The two disciples take off in a footrace. They arrive at the tomb at various times. They see nothing so they go in for a closer look. Once inside, they find the linen cloths lying on the ground. They notice that the cloth that was laid on Jesus’ face is there as well, but there’s something odd about it. It had been folded. Surely, no person or persons who wanted to steal the body of this crucified man would take time to fold these discarded cloths. They stand there puzzled because as we’re told, “as yet they did not understand the Scripture, that he must rise from the dead.” Jesus told them earlier that he would be raised on the third day, but they didn’t understand.
And that’s just it. Even though Jesus had told them numerous times that this was to come about, he never did so in a direct manner in which the disciples understood. They primarily took all of these foretellings and foreshadowings of Jesus to mean something important, but what exactly they didn’t know. We know, because we have 2000 years of history and get to look at this 2000 years after the fact. Over the course of the next 8 days, Jesus would make himself known to all of his disciples. We have in our text today Jesus coming to Mary Magdalene while she was still crying outside of the tomb. Two angels pointed to something behind her and as she turns to see what is behind her she hears, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?” After some confusion and a case of mistaken identity she hears this man say her name, “Mary.” She knew in an instant who this figure standing there was. She knew that this was the one who she had just witnessed a few days earlier breathe his last breath. She knew that her Savior lived.
Going back to the act of imagining what it must have been like at Jesus’ crucifixion, think about how Mary Magdalene must have felt. Imagine what must have been going through her head. Have you ever been riding down the road and see something that doesn’t look quite right. We do what’s called a double-take. It doesn’t register with us what we just saw so we have to look again to make sure that what we saw was in fact real. Even after confirming that it was indeed real, it takes a while for that sight to process fully in our minds. It’s highly doubtful that while she was on her way to inform the disciples of what she had seen, that Mary could shake this image from her mind. She probably asked herself over and over again whether or not what she had witnessed was real.
Indeed it was real. Indeed, it was Jesus Christ who had risen from the dead. As the Apostle’s Creed says, “he was crucified, dead, and buried. On the third day he arose again from the dead.” No doubt, this is something that Mary Magdalene didn’t forget for the rest of her life. And how could she. I mean, she witnessed what Christians consider to be the most significant event in human history. She was the first person to witness the resurrected Christ. Out of all of the people who Jesus could have appeared before after rising up from the dead, he appears to Mary Magdalene. No, there’s no way that Mary could forget the fact that her Savior was alive and well.
The question now becomes, “Do you?” Do you remember that your Savior lives? Do you forget that he is risen? Do you live a life that shows that your Redeemer arose and left the tomb, or is it as if Jesus is still there? You see, this story, this series of events is much larger than a story of someone dying. This is much more than a story of someone being raised from the dead. Jesus raised the widow’s son. He raised Lazarus. There aren’t days in the Christian calendar that are devoted to those events. As amazing as this conquering of death may be, it isn’t the central focus of the story of Jesus Christ. The focus is what was accomplished with this particular death and resurrection. You see, way back in the book of Genesis, God created a covenant with Adam. This covenant, the covenant of works, stated that perfect obedience to God’s will would achieve one’s salvation. The problem is that this agreement didn’t last too long. Or at least, the reality of fulfilling this agreement didn’t. It’s not until Jesus Christ that we have someone who is capable of living in complete obedience to God’s will. And that’s exactly what he did. You see, from the moment that Jesus Christ came into this world, he was perfectly obedient to God. He never sinned, he never fell short of God’s commands, he never slipped up. This perfect life lived by Christ Jesus paid the price. It paid the price that was owed for this covenant of works. It paid for the sins of every person from Adam to Noah to David to Paul to Martin Luther and John Calvin to you to me and to everyone who comes after us. It’s not as if this was an act just to prove that Jesus Christ could conquer death. No, he had already proved that. This wasn’t about proving anything. This was about a price; a price that was owed not because of anything that he had done, but because of what we have done, what we are doing, and what we will do. This is God paying Himself for a debt that we owe. God loves us, and He knows that we don’t have the ability to pay this debt. So, out of His gracious love, He gives us the gift of His Son. He gives us the second person of the Trinity.
As we try in our minds to picture what it must have looked like as Jesus breathed his last breath while nailed to the cross, it is in that moment that our price was paid. Friends, I can’t stress to you the importance of knowing and showing that your Savior arose and walked out of that tomb. Your faith is something to be taken very seriously. It should shape the entirety of your being. There is not aspect of your life that your faith does not affect. I encourage you to live each and every day with the full assurance that your Savior has left the tomb and now sits at the right hand of the Father until such time as he shall come again. As Christians, let’s commit to living a life that shows to all those around us that we know that the tomb, on this very day, is indeed empty, and our Savior has risen from the dead. Glory be to God; in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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