John 20 Easter M 2006(16-Apr-06)
John 20 Easter M 2006
(The sermon can be heard online at: http://www.tenth.ca/audio.htm)
When Robert and Joanne McMynn discovered a week ago last Tuesday that their son Graham, a 23-year-old U.B.C. computer student, had been kidnapped at gunpoint not far from their home in the Southlands of Vancouver, they felt agonizing despair…
They felt so desperate that against the counsel of the police they went on TV and pleaded with the captors for the release of their son… with a photo of their son in the background and defying conventional wisdom they announced to their captors, “we have money…”
Not certain whether they would ever see their son again, Robert and Joanne McMynn were descending in a downward spiral of despair…
What the McMynns were feeling was likely an echo of what Mary Magdalene felt the morning of the third day after Christ had been crucified…
As she came that Sunday morning to the tomb where Jesus dead body had been laid…
she must have felt as though her life was now completely empty….
Jesus had been her mentor, guide, and friend…
People have said when the great artist, Picasso died, it was like a huge shipwreck-- everyone closed to him felt, felt they were drowning…
Jesus Christ, the son of God, was the most charismatic person ever to walk the face of the earth, when he died those close to him felt like the oxygen of their world had been sucked out…
Perhaps no one felt this way more than Mary Magdalene… a woman with a sinful past, who had been had 7 demons cast of her, a woman on margins of society, who’s very life had been awakened with through her friendship with Jesus…
And Mary comes to his Jesus tomb early Sunday morning and if you have your Bibles,
please turn to John 20…
1 Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. 2 So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don't know where they have put him!"
Jesus Appears to Mary Magdalene
11 Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb 12 and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus' body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.
13 They asked her, "Woman, awhy are you crying?"
"They have taken my Lord away," she said, "and I don't know where they have put him." 14 At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.
15 He asked her, "Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?"
Thinking he was the gardener, she said, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him."
Mary stands outside the tomb weeping.
As she weeps, she kneels to look into the tomb and sees two angels sitting there, dressed in white, one at the head, the other at the foot of where Jesus' body had been laid.
They angels ask, "Why are you weeping?"
"They have taken my Master," she said, "and I don't know where they put him…
Her heart sinks. First her guide and friend Jesus had been murdered by his enemies, now his body had been stolen by grave robbers…
So she finds herself first in the presence of the gardener, it’s really Jesus Christ…
We don’t know for sure why, but after rising from the dead… Jesus appears first to Mary Magdalene…
I don’t know why Jesus after rising from the dead chose to appears first to this woman, but I’m glad he did he chose to appear first to troubled woman like Mary who had had a sinful past, had been demonized, who was a woman who a second class citizen, because if he appeared to her, it’s not such a far jump to believe Jesus could appear to you and me…
It’s interesting that Jesus appears first to Mary but she doesn’t recognize him… Jesus tends appear in our lives in all kinds of unexpected ways, before we ever we ever recognize who it is that in our life…
long before we ever even thought to seek Jesus, Jesus has been seeking us…
(optional…By the way, in this culture a woman’s testimony was not considered legally admissible in court, so if John (and the other writers of the Gospels Matthew, Mark and Luke) were “making this up” as a kind of “tall tale” hoping people would believe him, they would have had Jesus first appearing to the man, not a woman.)
Mary comes to tomb and sees the tomb in empty…
And she’s weeping…
Jesus, whom she does not recognize speaks to her and asks, "Woman, why are weeping? Who are you looking for?"
Mary assumes that he is the gardener and says "If you have taken him, tell me where you put him so I can care for him."
She turns and sees Jesus, but assumes he’s the gardener…
Sir she says if you have taken him away tell me where you have put him…
And Jesus says Mary…
He calls her by name…
The risen Lord is the one who calls us by name…
He is the one who sees us and he calls us by name…
And it being as we seen and named by Christ we are made whole.
Earlier this year, while in studying in California, I met a couple Thom and Jill Boyce.
Thom teaches Medicine at the University of California, describes coming across a young boy, no more than seven years of age afflicted with a terminal, disfiguring disease, called mucolipidosis.
“His eyes were clouded and protruded from his face as did his tongue, like the overstuffed contents of a pastry shell too small to contain it…
His gums, surrounding his peg like teeth, were similarly boated and were often bled.
This grotesque, little tomato-or-a-boy looked turned away even the most forgiving eyes…”
Whenever a doctor or nurse tried to offer medical care that didn’t help much, Blake responded with a raspy incoherent grunt and a flailing motion of his arm, which mean “Get out of my face.”
One July evening, Thom as held in the hospital late by some unanticipated events.
He approached Blake’s room at an unaccustomed hour.
His young single mom, who worked during the daylight hours at her own place of work, was sitting on the edge of the bed, deeply immersed in a conversion with Blake.
Thom stopped transfixed by this scene.
Blake’s mom was talking to him.
In hushed and comforting tones she spoke of the day, wondering how thing had gone, asking him about his new nurse, and reviewing the events of her own day at work.
As spoke, leaning over her son, her hand stroked his forehead and hair in a mundane gesture that filled the room with her love for the boy.
Blake eyes were moist, and utterly devoid of his stern resistance looked up into his mother’s face, absorbing every moment, every piece of her presence with him.
Relaxed and peaceful Blake seemed to melt into his mother’s eyes.
She stroked his round, swollen face and said him, “Oh my beautiful little boy.”
Thom said, Blake, was a child visibly changed by his mother’s love.
When we are seen for who we are by Christ and named we become whole.
The Gospel tells is the risen, wholly knows us and and names us and in that being known and being named we become whole…
In John 10 the good shepherd speaks and we know his voice…
Mary says, rabboni which simply means teacher and embraces Jesus…
Jesus says don’t hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to my Father…
Jesus seems to be saying to Mary, you can’t relate to me any in the way you have related to me in the past…
It used to be the case that Mary would interact with a physically present Jesus, now she would relate to him through the enduring presence of my Holy Spirit….
Jesus says, “Go instead to my brothers and sisters and tell them, 'I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.' "
Women in this culture rarely if ever enjoyed the status of courier….
So, for Mary Magdalene to be assigned as the first messenger of the greatest news of all time—the news that God had raised Jesus Christ had risen from the dead—was a big assignment!
When we meet the risen Lord, we were called by name and become whole and we receive a greater call for our lives….
When I first really encountered the risen Christ, I was a high school student…
That was during a time for me in my life when sports were really important…
I was reasonably good at high school level, captained a couple of teams, but I knew I had no real prospect a really successfully in sports at larger collegiate level…
I had a sister, though, who was this amazing natural athlete… the kind who would hardly practice and would make named MVP or all provincial volley ball player…
Once in a while I’d say if I had your body, more strong and stocky, I could be middle linebacker in the National Football League one…
She’s retort, well I had your skinny leg… I could be a runway model in New York…
After I met Christ as a teenager, we were driving down the King George Hwy in Surrey, stopping to drying buy 99 nursery and I said, I had your athletic gifts, I’d could making money playing sports one day…
She said… your life is going about something more important than sports…
Never forgot that…
When we meet the risen Christ, our lives will be much important that whatever our life’s biggest life goal at the time is.
Much bigger than just getting a degree, being a success in sports or art or a carrier, much bigger than finding a particular kind of partner or condo or having a particular kind of family… Our life purpose may involve one or more of those things…
But it involved something great, like Mary, our life purpose will also be about the declaring through our life, through who we are and what we do what we say… the great news ever that God has raised Jesus Christ from and dead and is alive….
I’ve been connecting with a friend who on his way starting to really meet the risen Lord.
He’s very gifted and now says, I want my life to be about a higher, purpose, I want my be a help find the hope in Christ…
I don’t see going in the “ministry” but his gifts and vocation as means to shine the light of Christ…
When we come to know the risen Christ… we are named and we are made whole, and we’re given the greatest purpose in the world--declaring the reality that Christ is risen in the way we live and in the hope we voice.
(The sermon can be heard online at: http://www.tenth.ca/audio.htm)
When Robert and Joanne McMynn discovered a week ago last Tuesday that their son Graham, a 23-year-old U.B.C. computer student, had been kidnapped at gunpoint not far from their home in the Southlands of Vancouver, they felt agonizing despair…
They felt so desperate that against the counsel of the police they went on TV and pleaded with the captors for the release of their son… with a photo of their son in the background and defying conventional wisdom they announced to their captors, “we have money…”
Not certain whether they would ever see their son again, Robert and Joanne McMynn were descending in a downward spiral of despair…
What the McMynns were feeling was likely an echo of what Mary Magdalene felt the morning of the third day after Christ had been crucified…
As she came that Sunday morning to the tomb where Jesus dead body had been laid…
she must have felt as though her life was now completely empty….
Jesus had been her mentor, guide, and friend…
People have said when the great artist, Picasso died, it was like a huge shipwreck-- everyone closed to him felt, felt they were drowning…
Jesus Christ, the son of God, was the most charismatic person ever to walk the face of the earth, when he died those close to him felt like the oxygen of their world had been sucked out…
Perhaps no one felt this way more than Mary Magdalene… a woman with a sinful past, who had been had 7 demons cast of her, a woman on margins of society, who’s very life had been awakened with through her friendship with Jesus…
And Mary comes to his Jesus tomb early Sunday morning and if you have your Bibles,
please turn to John 20…
1 Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. 2 So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don't know where they have put him!"
Jesus Appears to Mary Magdalene
11 Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb 12 and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus' body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.
13 They asked her, "Woman, awhy are you crying?"
"They have taken my Lord away," she said, "and I don't know where they have put him." 14 At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.
15 He asked her, "Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?"
Thinking he was the gardener, she said, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him."
Mary stands outside the tomb weeping.
As she weeps, she kneels to look into the tomb and sees two angels sitting there, dressed in white, one at the head, the other at the foot of where Jesus' body had been laid.
They angels ask, "Why are you weeping?"
"They have taken my Master," she said, "and I don't know where they put him…
Her heart sinks. First her guide and friend Jesus had been murdered by his enemies, now his body had been stolen by grave robbers…
So she finds herself first in the presence of the gardener, it’s really Jesus Christ…
We don’t know for sure why, but after rising from the dead… Jesus appears first to Mary Magdalene…
I don’t know why Jesus after rising from the dead chose to appears first to this woman, but I’m glad he did he chose to appear first to troubled woman like Mary who had had a sinful past, had been demonized, who was a woman who a second class citizen, because if he appeared to her, it’s not such a far jump to believe Jesus could appear to you and me…
It’s interesting that Jesus appears first to Mary but she doesn’t recognize him… Jesus tends appear in our lives in all kinds of unexpected ways, before we ever we ever recognize who it is that in our life…
long before we ever even thought to seek Jesus, Jesus has been seeking us…
(optional…By the way, in this culture a woman’s testimony was not considered legally admissible in court, so if John (and the other writers of the Gospels Matthew, Mark and Luke) were “making this up” as a kind of “tall tale” hoping people would believe him, they would have had Jesus first appearing to the man, not a woman.)
Mary comes to tomb and sees the tomb in empty…
And she’s weeping…
Jesus, whom she does not recognize speaks to her and asks, "Woman, why are weeping? Who are you looking for?"
Mary assumes that he is the gardener and says "If you have taken him, tell me where you put him so I can care for him."
She turns and sees Jesus, but assumes he’s the gardener…
Sir she says if you have taken him away tell me where you have put him…
And Jesus says Mary…
He calls her by name…
The risen Lord is the one who calls us by name…
He is the one who sees us and he calls us by name…
And it being as we seen and named by Christ we are made whole.
Earlier this year, while in studying in California, I met a couple Thom and Jill Boyce.
Thom teaches Medicine at the University of California, describes coming across a young boy, no more than seven years of age afflicted with a terminal, disfiguring disease, called mucolipidosis.
“His eyes were clouded and protruded from his face as did his tongue, like the overstuffed contents of a pastry shell too small to contain it…
His gums, surrounding his peg like teeth, were similarly boated and were often bled.
This grotesque, little tomato-or-a-boy looked turned away even the most forgiving eyes…”
Whenever a doctor or nurse tried to offer medical care that didn’t help much, Blake responded with a raspy incoherent grunt and a flailing motion of his arm, which mean “Get out of my face.”
One July evening, Thom as held in the hospital late by some unanticipated events.
He approached Blake’s room at an unaccustomed hour.
His young single mom, who worked during the daylight hours at her own place of work, was sitting on the edge of the bed, deeply immersed in a conversion with Blake.
Thom stopped transfixed by this scene.
Blake’s mom was talking to him.
In hushed and comforting tones she spoke of the day, wondering how thing had gone, asking him about his new nurse, and reviewing the events of her own day at work.
As spoke, leaning over her son, her hand stroked his forehead and hair in a mundane gesture that filled the room with her love for the boy.
Blake eyes were moist, and utterly devoid of his stern resistance looked up into his mother’s face, absorbing every moment, every piece of her presence with him.
Relaxed and peaceful Blake seemed to melt into his mother’s eyes.
She stroked his round, swollen face and said him, “Oh my beautiful little boy.”
Thom said, Blake, was a child visibly changed by his mother’s love.
When we are seen for who we are by Christ and named we become whole.
The Gospel tells is the risen, wholly knows us and and names us and in that being known and being named we become whole…
In John 10 the good shepherd speaks and we know his voice…
Mary says, rabboni which simply means teacher and embraces Jesus…
Jesus says don’t hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to my Father…
Jesus seems to be saying to Mary, you can’t relate to me any in the way you have related to me in the past…
It used to be the case that Mary would interact with a physically present Jesus, now she would relate to him through the enduring presence of my Holy Spirit….
Jesus says, “Go instead to my brothers and sisters and tell them, 'I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.' "
Women in this culture rarely if ever enjoyed the status of courier….
So, for Mary Magdalene to be assigned as the first messenger of the greatest news of all time—the news that God had raised Jesus Christ had risen from the dead—was a big assignment!
When we meet the risen Lord, we were called by name and become whole and we receive a greater call for our lives….
When I first really encountered the risen Christ, I was a high school student…
That was during a time for me in my life when sports were really important…
I was reasonably good at high school level, captained a couple of teams, but I knew I had no real prospect a really successfully in sports at larger collegiate level…
I had a sister, though, who was this amazing natural athlete… the kind who would hardly practice and would make named MVP or all provincial volley ball player…
Once in a while I’d say if I had your body, more strong and stocky, I could be middle linebacker in the National Football League one…
She’s retort, well I had your skinny leg… I could be a runway model in New York…
After I met Christ as a teenager, we were driving down the King George Hwy in Surrey, stopping to drying buy 99 nursery and I said, I had your athletic gifts, I’d could making money playing sports one day…
She said… your life is going about something more important than sports…
Never forgot that…
When we meet the risen Christ, our lives will be much important that whatever our life’s biggest life goal at the time is.
Much bigger than just getting a degree, being a success in sports or art or a carrier, much bigger than finding a particular kind of partner or condo or having a particular kind of family… Our life purpose may involve one or more of those things…
But it involved something great, like Mary, our life purpose will also be about the declaring through our life, through who we are and what we do what we say… the great news ever that God has raised Jesus Christ from and dead and is alive….
I’ve been connecting with a friend who on his way starting to really meet the risen Lord.
He’s very gifted and now says, I want my life to be about a higher, purpose, I want my be a help find the hope in Christ…
I don’t see going in the “ministry” but his gifts and vocation as means to shine the light of Christ…
When we come to know the risen Christ… we are named and we are made whole, and we’re given the greatest purpose in the world--declaring the reality that Christ is risen in the way we live and in the hope we voice.
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