Seeking The Risen Jesus

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“When Jesus rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had driven seven demons.” Mark 16:9

Main Readings: John 14 & Mark 16

Supporting Readings: 1 Corinthians 15 & Luke 7:36-8:3

This morning’s message is all about how the love of Jesus and his people, for each other, sets us on a course to meet him face to face with resurrected bodies of our own.

Every year I’m on this earth, is a year that I’m more aware of bodily decline. Since I turned 40, I can’t sit on the floor comfortably for more than an hour without pins and needles.

As my neighbour pointed out to me this week, a running-distance that leaves him sucking for air, his 13-year-old can run without breaking sweat.

These are the realities of our earthly bodies. They are the kind of realities that persuade people to cover over the cracks and smooth out the wrinkles.

In other words, death confronts us. And with that confrontation comes a kind of desperation to actively repel death at all costs.

But Christians have hope where others don’t. The hope we have is the hope of resurrection life. Here’s a flavour of that hope from Colossians:

‘Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory’.

This is helpful because it tackles the psychological problem, we – even as Christians - have with our failing bodies as they steadily move towards the grave.

It’s a verse that recognises that we tend to have an earthly mindset that causes us to be gripped with the prospect of our own death - even producing in us that kind of desperation that everyone else has.

But, if we set our minds on things above, then Colossians holds out the promise that we’ll be freed from the grip of that desperation as we look death in the face.

As we fix our minds on things above, we find Jesus there. And we’re reminded that our lives are hidden with Jesus in God.

What does that mean? It means this: our union with Christ has resurrection value.

Jesus is not dead. He is risen! And since he is risen, he will come again. And when he appears, we will appear with him also; in the kind of glory he has been resurrected with.

So, if we can get our minds off the earth and get them onto heavenly things, then we will have resurrection hope that empowers us to continue living in this declining earthly tent.

That’s the hope what I want. And it’s the hope I want for you too. And I think this passage in Mark’s gospel can help us to that end.

Colossians describes us – Christians, as those for whom Christ ‘is our life’. Christians don’t have Christ as a useful accessory; they have him as their life.

And Mark brings back into his account the three women he mentioned in that last chapter who were watching the crucifixion from a distance - Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome.

These three are, demonstrated by their actions, the kind of people who regard Jesus as ‘their life’ - that is how they loved him. So, this will be helpful for us, I think.

Clearly the disciples loved Jesus. But it’s not any of them who made plans to anoint the body of the Lord Jesus after it had been interred in the tomb at speed.

It was not any of the disciples who rose early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, having already bought and prepared spices, to visit the tomb.

Rather, it was these three women. From the other gospel accounts, the group of women was larger than just the three that Mark names here, but it was these who had cared for the needs of the Lord Jesus right up to the cross and who now wanted to honour him by preparing his body for death in the proper manner.

In their eagerness to show Jesus the same love in death that they had for him life, it seems that it had not dawned on them that the tombstone, which Mark describes in verse 4 as ‘very large’ would be a substantial barrier to their plans.

And so, as it does dawn on them, they say to each other, ‘Who will roll it away?’

Love for Jesus had moved them in every detail of their plans up until now, but what about the stone? Will it be the decisive factor?

And the answer is ‘no’. They looked up, verse 4 says, and ‘saw that the stone…had been rolled away’.

There’s only one possible explanation for that unexpected development when we discount the theft of Jesus’ body. And we can discount theft easily.

After Jesus’ burial by Joseph of Arimathea, the Jewish leaders came to Pilate to ask him to make the tomb secure.

They specifically remembered that Jesus had said that he would rise again after the third day.

And they were worried that the disciples would steal the body from the tomb to give the appearance that Jesus had really risen.

So, Pilate did what they said - he posted Roman guards at the tomb and sealed the stone until the third day.

The guards, according to Matthew, were still present at the tomb when the angel that Mark refers to in verse 5 appeared there - probably just before these women arrived on the scene. Matthew says, ‘the guards were so afraid that they shook and became like dead men’.

So, there was no steeling away of Jesus’ body. If the Roman guards had have broken the seal or let it be broken, they would have been executed - simple as that.

So, the only available explanation for the open tomb is the one Mark alludes to in verse 5 and that Matthew tells us happened - namely that the angel rolled the stone away.

Now, even though the account in Mark gives the impression all three women went into the tomb, I’m not convinced that was the case. I think Mary the mother of James, and Salome went in, but that Mary Magdalene turned and ran to tell Peter and John.

The reason I think that is the case is because John, in his account, says that Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance.

‘So, she came running to Peter and John saying, they have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him’.

It’s possible Mary didn’t know about the posted guards and that’s why she jumped to the conclusion he’d been taken.

What is clear though is that, if she had gone into the tomb with the other two women, she would have known Jesus had risen. BecauseMark says in verse 6 that the angel told the women not to be alarmed, ‘you are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him’.

There’s no reason Mary would have said anything other to Peter and John, except that he had risen, if she had heard what the angel said in the tomb. So, I don’t think she went into the tomb with the other two women in verse 5.

I think it’s important to know that this was the case because of what happens next with Mary Magdalene and the significance of it.

So, I’m not going into detail here to fill out the sermon, but to show you something about Mary and her love for Jesus.

But, sticking with Mark’s account: Mary the mother of James, and Salome did enter the tomb, and Mark says they were ‘alarmed’.

I think that their courage is amazing. The hardened Roman guards were so afraid of this angelic figure they fell down like dead men. So, for the two women to be only ‘alarmed’ is quite something. Perhaps it testifies to their faith in God.

And it turns out it is not as they had feared: Jesus’ body hasn’t been taken away. It is that he has risen! He said he would rise, and he has!

What does it mean that Jesus has risen from the dead? It means death no longer has mastery over Jesus - it did have mastery over him – for three days - but he rose and now it doesn’t have mastery anymore.

It means exactly what he says about himself in Revelation,

‘I am the Living One; I was dead, and now look, I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and hades’.

It means he is the ‘first fruits from the dead’ as 1 Corinthians 15 says.

And it’s important to grasp that Jesus didn’t rise with a corruptible body like Lazarus did, or like Jairus’ daughter did, or like the windows son in Elijah’s day.

Jesus was raised with an incorruptible body - that is to say, with a glorified body. That’s why he is the first fruits from the dead.

No one was ever resurrected before Jesus like Jesus - or since Jesus, like Jesus. His resurrection stands as the model for the resurrection event that is going to accompany his return.

But you should know that an incorruptible body is not an immaterial body either. And we can see that from what the angel says to the women in verse 7.

He says, ‘Jesus is going ahead of you into Galilee, and you will see him there, just as he told you’. So, Jesus’ resurrection-self is one that is recognisable to people who had seen him before his death, and one that is placeable – in time and space.

It’s not ethereal; it’s not ghostly – it has substance like ours does, but it’s gloriously perfected. And it’s not subjected any more to decay - it cannot ever die again!

These are the qualities of Jesus’ resurrected body, and they will be the qualities of our resurrected bodies also, when he returns.

Glorious qualities that we can look forward to receiving at the end of all things!

The angel conveyed these things to the women by what he said, but he also gave them an instruction. He said, ‘go tell the disciples and Peter that they will see him in Galilee’.

There must have been a deep sense of self-loathing I imagine amongst the disciples. And for obvious reasons in Peter’s heart especially.

They had all deserted him the garden, not just Peter. And so, this is an especially precious message from the risen Lord Jesus to his unfaithful disciples; that he will remain faithful to them; and that he won’t disown them.

The greatest demonstration of that loving tendency towards his disciples was that he would fellowship with them in person again, in Galilee - their home district.

This is encouragement: that in spite our ongoing failures and sins - providing we’re not making peace with those failures and sins - Jesus will never disown us, and we will see him face to face in the end.

Our prospects of seeing Jesus are fixed and definite; and when we see him, we will be like him.

The two women left that tomb afraid and confused, which is understandable. But they did let their fear get the better of them, and as a result, they failed to do what the angel had told them to do - verse 8 says, ‘they said nothing to anyone because they were afraid’.

They had started the day well, but at this point they hadn’t heeded the word of their Lord Jesus through the angel.

For the moment, fear overtook them. And we’ll see in a minute that it’s only together with Mary Magdalene that they are faithful in this task that Jesus had set them.

Mary’s response to everything that’s happening here is more akin than anyone’s, in this account, to the exhortation that we find at the end of the most detailed passage we have about our resurrection in the whole of the New Testament - and that’s in 1 Corinthians 15.

Paul says that for us-Christians, ‘Death has been swallowed up in victory’ - he means we will certainly rise from the dead.

Death no longer has mastery over us either because God gives us victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. As he rose, we will rise because we’re united to him by his death.

And then he says, because of that resurrection reality, ‘stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labour is not vain’.

He says ‘let nothing move you’ but I think these two women were moved - moved by their fear. And that caused them to forego the task the Lord Jesus had laid at their feet.

Encouragingly and helpfully, Luke tells us they did eventually tell the eleven what they had encountered, but it would seem to have been only when Mary Magdalene did so, that they found the courage for it.

Mary seems to have been more faithful in the face of all that unraveled that morning. And I want to show you that, and draw some conclusions from it.

Mark’s gospel says here in verse 9 that Jesus, ‘after he had risen early on the first day of the week, appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had driven seven demons’.

The resurrected Jesus did not appear first to Peter, or to James, or to John, or to Andrew. He did not appear first to his mother who had seen him die on the cross. He appeared first to a woman who had previously been possessed by no less than seven evil spirits.

Here’s what I think happened after Mary ran from the tomb. Like John says, Mary ran and found Peter and John and told them that Jesus was missing from the tomb.

Then they ran to the tomb, with John getting there first. By this time the women and the angel were gone. John says, Peter went into the tomb and found only the strips of linen and the cloth that had been wrapped around Jesus’ head.

John then says that he himself also went in and saw and believed. And he quickly adds that ‘they still didn’t understand from scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead’.

So, it seems that John and Peter hadn’t believed Mary’s story that Jesus’ body was gone – but now they’d seen it for themselves, they did believe her.

John says the disciples went back, but Mary stood outside the tomb crying.

Ok, so Mary returned with Peter and John to the tomb, but whereas they left, she stayed. And she stayed weeping. And this is so telling.

Mary’s mission to find and anoint Jesus’ body is not completed yet. She’s still on that mission. She remained faithful when others withdrew.

Jesus had spoken before about enduring to the end, and her persistence that morning is a powerful picture of that endurance.

She’s so connected to Jesus, it would seem, that she’s moved to tears by the sadness that it is to her - not being able to show Jesus the love that she has for him in her heart, by completing her task.

And now, at last, she does look into the tomb and there are suddenly two angels - not none, not one, but two - one at the head and one at the foot of where Jesus had been laid.

They ask her why she’s crying, and she replies, ‘they have taken by Lord away and I do not know where they have put him’. Hear the Lordship of Jesus to Mary in these words. Her motives; her actions are dictated by love for her Lord Jesus.

And then she turns, and she sees the Lord! At first, she thinks he’s the gardener. He says to her ‘why are you crying. Who is it you are looking for?’

She replies, ‘Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him’. And Jesus said to her, ‘Mary’ and she cried out ‘teacher’.

It’s a beautiful moment of encounter between the risen Christ and his faithful, devoted follower.

With Mary, it’s her love for the Lord that compels her in everything she does.

Her love for Jesus moves her to get Peter and John because they can help her find Jesus.

Her love for Jesus moves her to return with Peter and John so she might complete her mission to anoint Jesus’ body.

Her love for Jesus moves her to linger when Peter and John leave.

Her love for Jesus moves her to seek him when talking to angels - angels that cause Roman soldiers to collapse on the floor.

And when she encounters the man, she thinks is the gardener.

Her love for Jesus causes her to weep, that she can’t do what she set out to do for him.

And then, at last, her love for Jesus brings her to the resurrected Jesus.

On the day of Jesus’ resurrection, Mary seems to be the most visibly moved by love – the most steadfast in her pursuit of Jesus, when others have pulled back.

That doesn’t necessarily mean her love was greater than theirs, but it is, at this moment at least, more evident.

And we can ask ourselves ‘why is Mary seemingly more moved than anybody else with love for Jesus?’ And maybe the answer lies in this saying of Jesus.

He said to a Pharisee, suppose two people owed money to a moneylender. One owed 500 denarii and the other fifty. Neither had the means to pay him back, so he forgave the debts of both.

Jesus asked, ‘which will love him more?’ The Pharisee said, ‘the one who was forgiven more’. And Jesus said, ‘you’ve judged correctly’.

Jesus said that to show that the sinful woman who had just anointed him had done so because her many sins had been forgiven.

He said, she showed her great love by her actions - anointing Jesus with oil.

And then he turned to the Pharisee and said, ‘whoever has been forgiven little loves little’.

And just five verses after that account, we find that Mary Magdalene was supporting Jesus out of her own means after being freed from seven evil spirits.

So, there seems to be a correlation, at least in Jesus’ mind, between the magnitude of the sin that has been forgiven and the magnitude of love in action that is visible in a person’s life.

In Mary there was overflowing action because her love was so great. And her love was so great because her appreciation of the magnitude of her own sin, which she had been forgiven, was so great.

In reality, we don’t know if Mary’s sin was greater than Peter’s or John’s - it was different, but greater - can’t be told.

But what we can say was greater, at that time, was the appreciation she had of her sin and the forgiveness she had received from Jesus.

It is something we can all get a deeper appreciation of. Paul regarded himself as the ‘chief of sinners’. How could he know that? He couldn’t. But in his estimation his sin against Jesus had been very great indeed and Jesus has forgiven it all.

He said of himself, ‘O wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!’

Mary’s love for Jesus – born out of his love for her – brought her to the resurrected Jesus.

And our love for Jesus – born out of his love for us – will bring us to the resurrected Jesus too.

1 Corinthians 2:9 says, ‘no eye has seen, no ear has heard, no human mind has conceived - the things God has prepared for those who love him’.

2 Timothy 4:8 says, ‘there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award me on that day - and not only to me, but to all who have longed for his appearing’.

Those who long for him are, like Mary, those who love him.

James 1:12, ‘Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him’.

Mary had trials that day, but she persevered. And having stood the test, she encountered her favourite, most beloved, person in all the world - her Lord Jesus.

And we can follow in her footsteps. We can learn to love the Lord Jesus more and more as we remember how very much he has forgiven us also!

Our sense of it will increase as we gaze steadfastly at the holiness of Jesus – seen in the bible.

And it will increase as we comprehend the holiness that God has saved us to and see increasingly how far short, we have fallen of it – this we see in the bible also.

Encountering these truths just makes us marvel more and more at the loving kindness of God towards us in Jesus.

And it makes us marvel at the love that Jesus has shown us in the forgiveness he has bought for us with his precious blood on the cross.

We are left crying out – ‘what am I that you are mindful of me!’ And day by day we draw closer to our precious saviour, Jesus. Until at last, we will see him face to face, and then we will be with him forever!

Finally, verse 10 says Mary went and told those who had been with Jesus and who were mourning and weeping that he had risen.

And we’ll see what the disciples did with that information when we return for the final instalment of Mark’s gospel in a couple of weeks’ time.