March 27, Easter Day

Lesson: John 20.1-18

Sermon Title: Voice Recognition

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INTRODUCTION

A Sunday School teacher had just finished telling her third graders about how Jesus was crucified and placed in a tomb with a great stone sealing the opening.

Then, wanting to share the excitement of the resurrection, she asked: "And what do you think were Jesus' first words when He came bursting out of that tomb alive?"

A hand shot up into the air from the rear of the classroom. Attached to it was the arm of a little girl. Leaping out of her chair she shouted out excitedly "I know, I know!"

"Good" said the teacher, "Tell us, what were Jesus first words."

And Extending her arms high into the air she said: "TA-DA!"

  1. Contrast this story with the following

James A. Harnish (Tampa, Florida), in his 1993 Easter sermon, tells the story of a little boy who was "not exactly happy about going to church on Easter Sunday morning.

His new shoes were too tight, his tie pinched his neck and the weather was just too beautiful to be cooped up inside

As he sulked in the back seat, his parents heard him mutter: 'I don't know why we have to go to church on Easter, anyway; they keep telling the same old story and it always comes out the same in the end.'"

    1. What if it does come out the same in the end.

    2. There is comfort and encouragement in the consistency.

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MAIN BODY:

  1. There is also an opportunity to explore the people experience at the time of the resurrection to see what we may learn that is helpful for us in our own lives of spiritual growth.

  2. Let us take a few minutes and rehearse the story!

    1. On Friday, the Sabbath intervened, so that the necessary wok of preparation for Jesus' burial could not take place.

      1. Early on a Sunday Mary Magdalene went to the tomb to finish the preparations for burial.

      2. She was not alone.

      3. When the women arrived at the tomb the stone and been rolled away and the tomb was empty.

      4. Mary Magdalene ran to tell this news to Peter and the Disciple whom Jesus loved (John).

      5. "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb and we do not know where they have laid him."

      6. At least Peter and John ran to the tomb to verify the absence of the body.

      7. John wins the race, but stands outside looking in.

      8. Peter enters and sees the linen wrappings on the shelf with the cloth that had been on Jesus head rolled up and not with the rest of the wrappings.

      9. John enters and also went in and looked.

    2. I cannot begin to imagine what was going through their minds.

  3. Their minds and hearts were not prepared for so stupendous an event.

    1. They did not yet understand the scriptures that Jesus must rise from the dead.

    2. When first reported to the disciples they believed it to be an idle tale.

Revelation, William T. Joyner

I used to wonder
    why God had trouble
    with revelation.
 Why couldn't he
    make himself known
    with such dramatic power
    that none could disbelieve?
 Then one day
    I tried it.
An agnostic
    strained to see me
     through the thick filter
     of his doubt,
     but he could not.
 Over and over
    he said,
    'Prove that you have worth:
    then I will believe.'
But I knew that he would not-
    even if I turned stones to bread,
    walked on water,
    and rose from the dead.
I was trapped
    by doubt,
And could reveal
    no more of myself
    than the other was willing to accept.
Then I knew
    why God had trouble
    with revelation.

      1. The disciples are not agnostics.

      2. They are at this point non-believers.

      3. They lack a faithful understanding of the proclamations of Jesus.

      4. They don't know him!

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    1. This reminds me of a conversation that Arthur Miller wrote in After the Fall.

      1. Quentin and Louise are engaged in a mystifying and confusing bit of conversation.

Quentin. "In seven years we had never had a meeting. Never, never what you'd call...a meeting."

Louise. "We don't seem . . . married."

Quentin. "We?"

Louise. "You don't pay any attention to me."

Quentin. "You mean like Friday night? When I didn't open the car door for you?"

Louise. "Well, that's a small thing, but it's part of what I mean, yes."

Quentin. "But I told you; you always opened the car door for yourself."

Louise. "I've always done everything for myself, but that doesn't mean it's right. Everybody notices it, Quentin."

Quentin. "What?"

Louise. "The way you behave toward me. I don't . . . exist. People are supposed to find out about each other. I am not all this uninteresting, Quentin. Many people, men and women, think I am interesting."

Quentin. "Well, I-- I-- I ... don't know what you mean."

Louise. ". . . You have no conception of what a woman is. . . ."

Quentin. "But I do pay attention--just last night I read you my whole brief."

Louise. "Quentin, you think reading a brief to a woman is talking to her?"

Quentin. "But that's what's on my mind."

Louise. "But if that's all on your mind what do you need a wife for?"

Quentin. "Now what kind of a question is that?"

Louise. "Quentin, that's the question!"

Quentin. "What's the question?"

Louise. "What am I to you? Do you ... do you ever ask me anything? Anything personal?"

Quentin. "But Louise, what am I supposed to ask you? I know you!"

Louise. "No. You don't know me. . . ."

    1. They ought to have known.

      1. Jesus told them often enough.

39But he answered them, "An evil and adulterous generation asks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. 40For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so for three days and three nights the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth. Matthew 12:39-40 (NRSVA)

31Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. Mark 8:31 (NRSVA)

22saying, "The Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised." Luke 9:22 (NRSVA)

50I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed! Luke 12:50 (NRSVA)

37For I tell you, this scripture must be fulfilled in me, 'And he was counted among the lawless'; and indeed what is written about me is being fulfilled." Luke 22:37 (NRSVA)

14And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, John 3:14 (NRSVA)

33Jesus then said, "I will be with you a little while longer, and then I am going to him who sent me. John 7:33 (NRSVA)

33Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, 'Where I am going, you cannot come.' John 13:33 (NRSVA)

28You heard me say to you, 'I am going away, and I am coming to you.' If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father, because the Father is greater than I. John 14:28 (NRSVA)

5But now I am going to him who sent me; yet none of you asks me, 'Where are you going?' John 16:5 (NRSVA)

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  1. Mary is disconsolate

    1. She returns to the garden with Peter and John and stands outside the tomb crying.

    2. She bends over to check out her first look into the tomb and sees two angels.

      1. They ask her why she is crying.

      2. Mary answers that they have taken her Lord away and she doesn't know where they have put him.

    3. She hears a sound behind her and turns and sees a man she takes to be the gardener.

      1. The gardener asks her why she is crying and who it is that she is looking for.

      2. Mary asks him, "If you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him."

      3. The gardener says, "Mary."

    4. Mary's world changes dramatically.

      1. She recognizes the risen Christ.

      2. This is pure voice recognition.

      3. This is what people often put you through in a phone call.

Don't you just hate it. The phone rings. You pick it up and answer, "Shultz residence." The other person begins to talk and you have no idea who it is. Sometimes it is a unsolicited call. Sometimes it is a mechanically reproduced call. Sometimes it is a person who has something very important to say, something that you need to be listening to, but who in the world is on the other end of the phone line?

Sometimes if you listen real good you can catch a word or tone of voice of that helps you to grasp the person's name. At other times you need to interrupt what is being said by asking, "Who is calling, please"

    1. Mary falls at this feet and seeks to grasp him around the ankles.

      1. He remonstrates with her not to hold on to him because he has not yet ascended to the Father.

      2. Mary of Magdala rushes to the disciples and proclaims that she has seen the Lord.

  1. In this little vignette there is an important clue that helps us to realize how we may see and recognize the risen Christ.

    1. What finally penetrated her grief and registered in her mind?

      1. What finally caught Mary's attention?

      2. It was the loving word of Jesus as he spoke her name.

    2. Are our minds prepared to understand the scriptures?

    3. What do we see

While talking with his minister one day, a parishioner revealed that he had an important business deal and couldn't pick up his wife from the airport. He was looking for someone to pick her up for him. The minister said: "I'll be glad to pick up your wife, but how will I know what she looks like? I've never seen her before." The man described his wife like this: "That's easy. When the whole dismal place lights up, as if the sun suddenly came from behind the clouds, just find the source of that radiance. That'll be my wife."

    1. What do we hear?

    2. Does it make a difference when Jesus calls our name?

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CONCLUSION

  1. Remember the boy who did not want to go to church on Easter.

He said: "I don't know why we have to go to church on Easter, anyway; they keep telling the same old story and it always comes out the same in the end."

    1. John Killinger, in Letting God Bless You (1) cites Herman Melville's Moby Dick, the great novel about the American whaling industry of the 19th century.

"There is an unforgettable passage about a ship's lantern that hung in the captain's room on the Pequod. No matter which way the ship yawed and hawed in the rolling, pitching waves, the lantern always hung down exactly perpendicular to a line drawn through the center of the earth.

As Melville said, it 'revealed the false, lying levels' of everything around it." So it is with Easter. So it is with Christ.

    1. May the light of his love revealed in his resurrection provide the spark of life that becomes a living flame leading to everlasting life. Amen.

1. John Killinger, Letting God Bless You. Nashville: Abingdon, 1992], 74,

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