I Have Seen the Lord

By Sarah Lee

John 20: 1-18
Key Verse 20: 18
            Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them that he had said these things to her. Let’s think about a question together: How real and important is the resurrection to me?

I. John’s account and what it reveals
John gives a detailed, personal account of Jesus’ resurrection. How do we evaluate this testimony? John begins: early in the morning, when it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance 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!”. The series of events that follow reveal the raw surprise of the disciples. Verses 3 to 10 are then told as if in slow motion steps. The disciples are running, John outruns Peter, John does not go in but bends over to look, Peter goes straight in, john finally goes in, both see the strips of linen, both retire to where they were staying. When someone is accused of committing a crime, they will often retell their side of the story in great detail: where they were at the moment of the crime, exactly what they were doing and in what order they did something. John’s account holds a similar structure. The disciples were later accused of taking Jesus’ body at night, but we see from John’s story that this could not be true. The reaction to run to the tomb and even the fact that John writes the disciples still did not understand from Scripture that Christ had to rise from the dead shows the unexpectedness of Mary’s news. In verse 8, John reveals more about his thought. It says he “saw and believed”. After seeing the strips of linen and the burial cloth left behind, we can assume that what the disciples believed was Jesus’ body was indeed missing. The first part of this passage, John’s perspective is open-ended. It requires us to consider: Did Jesus rise from the dead? Or was his body stolen? John’s narration starts from Mary’s discovery of the open tomb, to the disciple’s reaction to the news, and ends the first part with a lack of closure. Perhaps the disciples honestly felt confused and not quite certain of the implications of Jesus’ missing body.

The second part consists of going into more detail with Mary’s account. Look at verse 11 and 12: 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.

When we think of Mary, do we understand her sorrow or her feeling of loss? Can you think of a time when you lost something so valuable and dear to you? For me, it was the chance to break a school running record. As many of you already know, I am passionate about running. When I run I experience a sense of success and victory after races. Running helped me feel in tune with God and with who I was. I had trained very hard and built up a confidence and strength in my ability to break the record. I believe Mary had that same confidence and strength because of her relationship with Jesus. Jesus had driven seven demons out of Mary and she knew Jesus understood her deeply. But now, feelings of grief and failure began to flood in her. Jesus’ missing body meant that Mary could not even perform her final act of love for him and bring closure to his undignified, horrific death. When I missed the school record by 2 seconds, I felt the same devastation and loss that Mary felt. My world was shaken, I felt weak and meaningless. What does this do to our perspective? For me, I doubted my fitness and I thought about God’s sovereignty. For Mary, Jesus’ missing body did not mean victory over death, it brought desperation and confusion.

Mary, John, and Simon Peter were real people. It is easy to think of them as characters in some fantasy novel with the right amount of drama and supernatural phenomena. But their experiences with Jesus are real and are told to us through John’s story. Let’s think back to the question raised at the beginning: How real and important is the resurrection to me? We can think deeply about this when we look at John’s story. John does not force his story onto us. Rather, he tells it simply and honestly. According to verse 9, John and Peter still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead. And Mary remained weeping out side of the tomb. We should try to understand that each of these individuals are just like you and me. Just because they lived in Jesus’ time did not mean they fully understood or realized the message behind the resurrection. And as John tells his account, we must make our own decision to learn from these personal encounters with Jesus and grow in understanding of the message.
What does John’s account further show us? John’s account shows that Jesus loves and cares for each one of us –and he understands each one of us and knows our name. It’s easy for us to think: Jesus rose ago 2,000 years ago, that was then. But no, Jesus is just as alive as he was when he appeared to Mary and as he appears to many today. We see Jesus’ resurrection manifested both visually through the strips of linen and acoustically: Jesus calls us. These things we can hear, see, perhaps touch. But Jesus also gives us something more important than just evidence that he rose again. Jesus gives us the intangible: faith and perspective about our lives.

II. Jesus’ Two Questions
Jesus asked Mary two questions: 1) why are you crying? 2) Who is it you are looking for? How would most of us respond to these questions? Mary’s answer is clear in verses 13 to 15: Jesus had been taken away from her and she did not know where they had put him. Before Mary met Jesus, her life must have been frustrating. Mary may have been looking for answers to questions like: Why am I here? What is the point of living? Why do I feel empty? Each one of us has our own life problem. There are things that we don’t want anyone to know about us and we try to keep it buried deep inside. How does Jesus’ resurrection change that for us? Let’s look at Mary’s experience. Mary was in such grief that she could not even recognize Jesus standing right before her. How could she think Jesus was the gardener after all the time she spent with him? It seems almost comical that Mary could be so blinded by her grief. But I don’t think she is that much different from any one of us. How many times have I been blinded by my own ideas, emotions, and expectations? My selfishness blocked my perspective in very shameful, embarrassing way. One night, I came home from school very tired and stressed. I ate dinner and decided I was going to take a nap right before I started homework. My mother came into the room and had her laptop with her. She is currently studying for her PhD in Nursing and often has to write long papers that need grammatical revision. I felt so much irritation that I snatched the laptop from her, and from my laying position on the bed, began to pound out revisions and make angry comments about how none of her writing made sense. I felt controlled by impatience and rebellion. After 30 seconds of angry revising, my mother grabbed her laptop from my abuse and told me to forget about it. The shame and regret for my action flooded in immediately and all I could do was remain in my bed and begin crying. My father came down to my room a short while later and told me in a very concerned voice that mom was crying. He told me that he has seen my mother mad and emotional before, but he rarely sees her cry. In that moment I felt disgusted because of the hurt and offense I directed towards my mom. Why couldn’t I revise her paper willingly and patiently? I apologized to my mother soon after and told her I would revise her paper whenever she needed me to.

Sometimes we behave in ways we don’t expect or that make us feel regretful later. We may cry because of our many mistakes or feel angry and frustrated with life. Things feel stained by our own imperfection and sin. So, we try to make up for it somehow by looking for solutions through pleasure, competition, materialism, friends, intimate relationships, or drugs. Jesus asks us why are you crying? Who are you looking for, what are you looking for? I might tell Jesus that I am crying because I often feel like a failure. I might tell Jesus that I am crying because I am proud. I might tell Jesus that I am crying because I am jealous. I am looking for love, I am looking for success, I am looking for peace. Do I believe that through his resurrection, Jesus made all things perfect and reconciled? Advice columns today might tell you that we are looking for satisfaction and happiness and it’s OK to find these things however you want to. It feels like we’ve been given a lot of freedom in our society. But at the end of the day, this freedom has often felt like suffocation. Jesus knows who we are and what we are looking for—but are we willing to look to Jesus for this satisfaction?

III. Jesus’ message
Jesus called Mary by her name and immediately she turned toward him and cried out “Rabboni!” Her eyes were suddenly opened and she could see Jesus standing there in front of her. While Mary was still in her grief and clouded perspective, Jesus pulled her out of the murkiness of her emotion. Mary’s life was transformed when she heard Jesus call her name. It is a very interesting thing that ever since I was little, my father’s voice always pierces through my deepest sleep. When we are about to run on a late schedule for school, my father will often stand at the top of the stairs and call my name, “Sarah”. Immediately I wake up and respond as if I have been awake already. I once pointed this out to my father and he suggested it was because he would call my name while I was still in my mother. Whatever the case may be, it brings up a point: if my earthly father is capable of speaking to me through the deepest realms of sleeping, how much more can God’s voice penetrate my core? For Mary, hearing Jesus call her by name shook her out of her grief and helped her see Jesus right before her.

Do you believe God created you with a perfect plan in mind? Do you believe he knows how many hairs you have on your head? How many times you have used the word “like” in a sentence? What you really feel deep inside?

Jesus calls each one of us by our name. Why does he call me? Why does he call you? Things don’t end there. Jesus had something more to tell to Mary, to me, and to you.

In verse 17, Jesus gives Mary the most important message: “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”
Mary found what she had been looking for, but Jesus told her not to hold on to him. There was so much more to Jesus’ resurrection than just his body being present again that Mary had to understand. We have been reunited to Father God. God can now be called our Father and our God. Jesus’ words give us life that wakes us up. It disciplines us, motivates us, encourages us, grows us, builds us up, teaches us, and gives us love and attention.

Jesus also gives us faith that is real. In The Business of Heaven by C.S. Lewis, Lewis writes:“..if what you call your ‘faith’ in Christ does not involve taking the slightest notice of what He says, then it is not Faith at all –not faith or truth in Him, but only intellectual acceptance of some theory about Him”

Today our society values reasonable, intellectual thinking. It demands evidence and facts in order for belief to be validated. But Jesus’ message is simpler than that. Jesus’ message is to claim God and our Father God now that we have been set free from death. Jesus wants us to go and make disciples, and to ultimately encounter Jesus and make a declaration likes Mary’s: I have seen the Lord.

Wow, this seems like really heavy, loaded stuff. Maybe you’re not at a point to make a personal declaration. Maybe you are still wondering if Jesus’ resurrection is real. Where ever you are, whether you are like a John, Peter, or Mary, remember that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. The power of Jesus’ resurrection remains as strong as it was then, today. By faith, we can accept this message and struggle to learn, grow, and understand it in its full power and weight.

Let’s read our key verse, verse 18 together: Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them that he had said these things to her.

Can we say Mary’s sentence together one more time? “I have seen the Lord!” Congratulations! You have just made the life-changing confession!! Unfortunately, just saying the phrase does not bring belief or immediate transformation. We need to see victorious Jesus standing in front of us. If only it was that easy…

Mary’s confession came from deep within her. Her grief was transformed into peace, freedom, and happiness because she heard Jesus call her name. She could declare: I have seen the Lord.

I, too, have seen the Lord. When I saw Jesus, I no longer felt the need to retreat to angry, emotional music or self-harm. The twisted idea of love and happiness fell from my eyes and all I could see was true grace and love from Father God. Life became full, meaningful. However, it did not mean my struggles ended after one encounter with Jesus. We have what may be called root sins from which all periphery sins branch. We must pull out these roots within us one by one in order to experience true freedom. These root sins are lust, pride, anger, greed, envy, indulgence, and laziness.

Did you know that girls and even I can also be lustful? Do you think we don’t get ideas when we see those hunky models on Hollister bags or other good looking men on the street? I struggle to keep my gaze straight and not even put useless thoughts into my mind. Sometimes I just want to indulge in the plot of a chick-flick and fantasize about my own love story. But now I am dead to my sin. We are now dead to our sins and it is all because Jesus conquered death and gives us that victory.

I want to finish with a final story that comes from one of my favorite books The Chronicles of Narnia. In it, a young boy named Eustace who has acted horridly and selfishly up to this point comes across a dragon’s cave. He witnesses a monstrous, haggardly dragon crawl from the cave, collapse, and die. Upon entering the cave Eustace discovers heaps of gold, jewels, and other treasures. In his delight, he dons a golden bracelet. Soon he is fast asleep in a mountain of golden coins. Upon waking, Eustace feels a throbbing on his wrist and discovers that he has transformed into a similar monstrous dragon. He realizes that the greed of men before him also transformed them into dragons and that death has become his certain fate. With this, Eustace frantically begins to rip the scales off of his arms. At first, it seems to work and he can feel the first, then second layer peel away. But as Eustace tries to penetrate deeper, he fails to shed any more of his horrible skin. Eustace’s companions soon come across him but do not recognize him no matter how much he puffs smoke and blows fire. Misunderstood and abandoned, Eustace collapses, prepared to die. 

Then, a large lion appears before him. His paws are wide and strong, his mane full, and his stature commanding and full of greatness. The lion asks Eustace if he wants to be a boy again and tells him that his attempts to shed his own skin are futile. The lion is the only one who can remove the scales, but there is a cost. Eustace will have to experience great pain that comes with shedding his serpentine skin. The lion then takes his mighty claws and digs into the scales. The first layer is pulled away with a difference far greater than Eustace’s previous attempts. The depth of the first penetration is frightening but liberating. Soon Eustace finds himself back in his smooth, young skin.

Jesus is like the lion who frees us from the suffocating skin of sin we find ourselves bound in. It is difficult to come to Jesus as we are: so full of root sins. We cannot shed our sinful nature by our own power though. Jesus’ death and resurrection is the only thing that has the full power to free us from our enslavement to sin. When we make the declaration: I have seen the Lord, we invite Jesus to peel away the deepest layers of our sinful nature and become new beings.

The final verse in John’s gospel is verse 31. It says: But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah the Son of God and that by believing you may have life in his name. Jesus already died and rose again. He did it so that you and I could truly start living. I pray that we may hear Jesus calling us by name, and see him standing in front of us. Then we can make say from our hearts: I have seen the Lord!