John 20 The Mystery Behind the Miracle

You're listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Mattawan, Michigan, where we are growing in faith, community, and service.

This is a sermon series on the Psalms of Ascent by Pastor Don Filsack. Let's listen in.

Well, good morning. Happy Resurrection Sunday, Recast Church. He has risen. He's risen indeed.

I'm Don Filsack. I'm the lead pastor here. And yes, I am Don, and I am wearing a pink shirt.

I have heard it said that it takes a big man to wear a pink shirt, and that it takes a bigger man to make fun of that man who's wearing a pink shirt.

So I don't know if you've heard that as well. But I thought, you know, hey, Easter, springtime, why not give it a shot?

The early church began to meet together on Sundays, as opposed to the worship day of the

Jews, which was Saturday, the Sabbath, particularly because of what we've gathered together to celebrate this particular morning.

They gathered together and worshiped on the Lord's Day because, particularly, it was the day of the resurrection of the

Lord Jesus Christ. And so even in our gathering, all year long, the day that we gather together is seasoned and fashioned around that reality of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, an awesome and glorious truth and reality.

So I hope that that's what you've gathered together for this morning, is just to reflect on what it is that Christ has done for you and done for us in, certainly, in Good Friday, his sacrifice for us, but equally in the resurrection that we celebrate.

Please fill out the connection cards that you received when you walked in. You can turn those in in the black box back there.

Any offerings that you choose to give equally go in that same black box back there. Remember that anything that's marked expansion fund is going to go towards our eventual goal of building a building.

If it's your first time here with us this morning, we just ask that you do us a favor and take a free coffee mug that's on that table back there.

Just our way of saying thanks. We're glad that you've come to gather together with God's people to give us a shot this morning and glad that you're here.

If you're not going to use that offering envelope, there's a place to recycle that back there as well. And we can reuse that next week.

And so that's available for you back there as well. As we dive into the text this morning, obviously,

I'm taking a little bit of a break from Psalms. The Psalms that we've been going through just particularly this morning to focus in on and zero in on the resurrection.

And I'm going to ask you to put your detective hats on this morning, and we're going to attempt to solve a mystery. And just like any good detective begins with the facts and then draws conclusions from what they see, the text of scripture is going to give us a historical account that deals in facts, that deals in things that we have to deal with at face value.

It's going to tell us, it's going to explain a scene. It's actually technically going to explain what is called by one of the people in the text, a crime scene.

Something's been stolen according to one of the people in the text. And then we're going to have to try to, like the disciples who arrive at that crime scene, determine what indeed is truth, what indeed has happened.

The resurrection of Jesus Christ is historically supported by some very basic realities that we see.

The empty tomb, of course, is the number one evidence that we have, the number one thing that we're going to be looking at today. The first and foremost thing that stands forward is evidence.

It would have been very convenient for the Romans and the Jews to produce the body of Jesus Christ and to quell this uprising, this new group of people who were claiming

Jesus had raised from the dead. And if they could have, they would have squelched it. But to this day, no one has been able to produce the body of Jesus Christ because indeed the tomb was empty.

They would have loved, the Romans would have loved to discredit the disciples of Jesus Christ. The Romans and the

Jews both. But there was no body to be found in the tomb. Other evidences for the resurrection surround the glorious and amazing transformation of the disciples from fearful men on Friday, scattered, actually on Thursday night, rather,

Thursday night, scattered into the night when Jesus was arrested. Just that, that close -knit group of people, some who actually said,

I will die with you, Jesus, that the minute that it all goes down, they scatter. They run.

They're hiding, many of them, some of them even denying that very night that they even knew

Jesus Christ. Can you imagine where their heart has moved to in the fear of their own lives and saying, no,

I don't, I don't know him because they're watching what the authorities are doing to him all night long.

And yet those very men are the ones who we see just weeks later proclaiming the boldness of the gospel of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Just weeks of fleeing for their lives, denying that they even know him, and there was a transformation in them that's radical.

They had a dramatic transformation that provides a piece of evidence for the actual resurrection of Jesus Christ.

But as we dig into this text and look at the evidence, there's one thing that stands out as significant to me. One thing that as, and I think probably some of you, how many of you been around for a few

Easters? You've been around for a few, I think. A lot of us, some of you didn't raise your hand because you're like, duh,

I mean, it's obvious. You've been around for a while. So you, you've heard the

Easter story. You've, you've kicked it around. Maybe some of you raised in Sunday school class from the time you were an infant and you were in nursery and people were telling you the

Easter story and telling you about resurrection and telling you about the cross. And so it's sometimes difficult, you know, and to get something new out of it.

Do you know what I'm saying by that? Like some of us can just take a glance at today and we go, oh, yeah, I remember what that's about. That's about Jesus and resurrection and all that stuff.

It's not about the eggs and we can talk a lot about what it's not about. It's not about the Easter bunny. It's not about all of that stuff.

But I love it when God kind of just zeros in for me on something specific, you know, whether it's Christmas or Easter or these routine traditions of the church.

Sometimes there's something that stands out and that's what I want to share with you this morning. On that first Easter nearly 2 ,000 years ago, the text that we're going to look at today tells us that the very first person believed that Jesus had raised from the dead.

The very first person in history to believe that Jesus Christ was indeed still alive or had raised up from death occurred on that very first Easter morning 2 ,000 years ago.

And it's interesting to me that this man that's going to end up being John, we're going to be looking at the gospel of John and we're going to see that it's him that's indicated as the first person who believed

Jesus was raised from the dead. But the interesting thing is that he stood there in that very tomb on the very day, the very morning that the resurrection happened.

And he believed. He exercised faith. He trusted that indeed the resurrection was real.

The text does not say that he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt.

That he had everything completely sewed up and completely understood all that there was to know about resurrection.

But he believed. And not only that, but the text will actually clearly and humbly indicate that he didn't even have all the connections yet.

He wasn't even, it's not like he studied the old testament scriptures to see that it was so and that it was a real reasoned argument that he went through a forensic science, you know, in the in the tomb and did all the

DNA testing and all of this stuff and and he hasn't even seen, at the point when he believes these things, he hasn't even seen the risen

Lord yet. And he believes, he trusts, he puts his faith in this truth.

The first believer in the resurrection accepted this amazing, glorious, world -changing event, standing there in that empty tomb by faith, based on trust.

And that is the call to all of us this morning. As we look at the evidences, as we see just a little bit that's offered to us in this text, what will you believe this morning?

What do you believe in the core of your being about this tomb? So let's open our bibles to John chapter 20 verses 1 to 10.

You can navigate over there in your app or whatever. If you have a bible, move over there. If you don't have a bible with you this morning,

I know that it kind of puts you on the spot, but it's very helpful. I really want everybody to have a copy of the word of God. So if you just lift your hand up, there's some guys back here who will bring you a bible.

And we do want everybody to have a copy of the word of God. If you don't own a bible or particularly an

English standard version, which is the version that I like to use, you can take one of those home with you. Just another gift to you.

But we want everybody to have a copy of the word of God with them. But follow along as we read

John 20 verses 1 to 10 this morning. Recast God's word revealed to us about history.

This is true and this is from God. Now on the first day of the week,

Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early while it was still dark and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb.

So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, They've taken the

Lord out of the tomb and we do not know where they've laid him. So Peter went out with the other disciple and they were going toward the tomb.

Both of them were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first and stooping to look in he saw the linen cloths lying there.

But he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came following him and went into the tomb. He saw the linen cloths lying there and the face cloth which had been on Jesus's head not lying with the linen cloths, but folded up in a place by itself.

Then the other disciple who had reached the tomb first also went in and he saw and believed.

For as yet they did not understand the scripture that he must rise from the dead. Then the disciples went back to their homes.

Let's pray as the band comes to lead us in worship on this Easter Sunday this morning. Father, I am grateful, rejoicing that you have brought us together as your people here this morning.

Father, we have an opportunity to hear a historical account. One that we all need to deal with in our in our minds and in our thoughts, but particularly in our hearts,

Father. I pray that you would that you would renew within us and those particularly who are your children those here who have believed in the resurrection and put their trust there.

Father, this would go so much deeper than just glancing at this text. But it would be a basis of life that resurrection would indeed be a part and parcel of our everyday life and recognition that this world is not all that there is, but there is hope beyond the grave.

There is hope beyond this life. Father, some are here and they're here just checking things out.

They're curious. They're investigating. Father, I pray that you would open eyes to the truth. Father, that you would grant to all of us a level of faith.

And some right now, Father, they just need even just a mustard seed, just a just a small sliver of faith to bring them to trust in you.

So, Father, I pray that today would be a day of faith, a day of believing, a day of trusting, and a day of recognition.

Father, a day of us being detectives coming into that empty tomb and seeing what what is true, what is real.

And as every detective is trying to seek the truth, Father, I pray that the truth would be brought to us this morning.

Father, I pray as we have an opportunity to worship you this morning in song, Lord, that you would help us to step before your throne in gratitude, rejoicing.

And particularly those who are your children who recognize the glory that the tomb was empty. Father, we have so much cause for rejoicing this morning that we serve a risen

Lord and we sing to him this morning in Jesus' name. What a glorious day it was when

Jesus rose from the dead. I love that song. Thank you very much for the band for leading us. I'm grateful for them.

I encourage you to get comfortable. I know we just took a break, but if at any time during the message you need to get up and get more coffee or juice or donuts while supplies last there, you can take advantage of that.

And then I encourage you to have your Bibles open. I know that you might have lost your place there, but I'd encourage you to have your Bible open to John chapter 20, verses 1 to 10.

It's beneficial for you to have that open on your lap because that's what we're going to walk through. And we're going to search through that text for clues together this morning about that empty tomb.

So we start off early in the morning. That was the first day of the week before the sun had arisen.

It's a Sunday. The Sabbath is now over. And we have to get our minds wrapped around this difference of the week that we don't really experience.

And that's we don't utilize Saturday as a Sabbath. We worship the Lord on Sunday. And so because of that we might have our week a little bit confused and we might need to get our minds wrapped around the fact that—how many of you love

Monday mornings? Monday morning, one of your favorite times? A handful? Really? A couple of you just nailed that.

Maybe I should ask the question the reverse and that might have been a more overwhelming response. How many of you don't like Mondays?

Monday morning isn't your favorite thing. And what you need to recognize is in that ancient culture, in that ancient society,

Sunday morning was Monday morning. Okay, they've just had a Sabbath. Saturday, their day of rest.

And so I imagine that after having a complete day of rest, very different than our our understanding, with no meal preparation.

The meals would have been prepared the night before. And so they didn't even have to light a fire. They would have eaten like cold bread or whatever, but it would have been unleavened stuff.

But they wouldn't even prepare a meal. There was no traveling on that day. I mean, I'm talking like a down day.

How many of you enjoy having a down day? Some of you are real workers and you're like the idea of a down day is the day that you get all the projects done around the house.

This is not that kind of day. The Sabbath day was a day of like just chilling, like laying on the chase lounge.

Okay, and you've got the food spread out right close to you because you can't take too many steps to get to the fridge. So you've got some of you are like, yeah, that sounds that sounds awesome.

I don't get a day like that very often. But then imagine what the Monday morning or in this case the

Sunday morning would be like after a day like that. Might be a little bit of time to get your gear spinning and get back into it.

And that's the morning that we're talking about here. Sunday morning in that ancient Jewish context 2 ,000 years ago.

But in that context early, like once in a while, I have an early

Monday morning breakfast appointment. You know, and it's like at six o 'clock before the sun comes up and it's like an early morning

Monday morning breakfast meeting. Before the sun even rises some women have gathered on this particular

Sunday. The Sabbath is over. And our author John only includes

Mary Magdalene in and he's going to follow her as the primary character for his own reasons.

And we I've got some hunches and some thoughts about why he might follow her. But the other gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke clue us in that there were more women than just Mary that took this early morning trip to the empty tomb.

John gives us a clue as well in verse two when Mary is reporting and says we do not know where they have laid him that there's more than one.

So he also incorporates the idea that there was more than one woman here. We don't want to get caught up too much in the details, but recognizing that this is a group of women traveling he's going to follow particularly the story of Mary Magdalene on this.

And I'd like you to put yourself in the shoes of these women as they walk the road toward the tomb.

I don't know what the conversation was like. One of the other gospel writers says that they at least discussed how in the world are we going to roll the stone away?

They recognized that the stone had been put there and so there's at least that level of conversation.

But I don't imagine it being a light -hearted conversation about getting their nails and hair done and and just kind of like where did you go shopping over the weekend?

And where did you go last Thursday? What did you do? I'm sure that there's a little bit more going on than that because they have just had probably the worst weekend of their lives.

They've had a really rough. I mean sometimes we have a rough weekend. This is an extremely crazy weekend.

On Thursday night their rabbi, their master, their teacher, the one whom they were putting trust and hope in, the one who was teaching them and the one that they were seeking to follow and emulate with their lives had been arrested late on Thursday.

He endured trials all through the evening being beaten and punched in the face and hit and spit upon and he was crucified the next morning and they were privy to all of these events.

They were connected with this and it's possible that John keys in on Mary Magdalene because John makes mention earlier of her being particularly a person that was present at the crucifixion of Jesus because she had experienced that.

She had been there when Jesus Christ died. Well, I think we all know this.

Some of you have seen the Passion of the Christ and you know that crucifixion, it was a terrible, terrible thing.

It was a terrible public spectacle of torture and humiliation. And of course even the best that we offer in cinematography, we are not going to show it in its full and complete humiliation.

But there are elements and aspects of that that none of us would sign up for even for a moment.

It was a very raw and real deterrent to criminal behavior and it was done in such a way that it was intended to leave a lasting impression.

Have you ever considered why the Romans crucified? Why this method? It was intentionally meant to stick with you.

You were meant to walk away or to observe or to see a crucifixion and go I don't want to rub them the wrong way.

I don't want to cross the Romans. I don't want to go against their laws. That could be me.

And so it was intentionally meant to stick and to lodge in the minds of those who observed it and saw it as a show of power.

A show, where do you see a sign of human power? Human authority?

Crucifixion. A place where people exert their strength. It was intentionally meant to leave a lasting impression.

I'm sure that those who were followers of Jesus Christ had a very vivid memory of those events that happened on Friday.

Makes me wonder if Mary got up early on Sunday morning or if she was already up all night anyways.

In sorrow and in turmoil in her soul over what she had experienced and saw. But while it was still dark, she and a few other women arrived at the tomb to find our first clue in the text.

The large stone in front of the tomb had been indeed rolled away. The stone that Matthew tells us was sealed by a

Roman seal not to be broken except under penalty. See the cross under penalty.

This is a stone that had been assigned to a group of Roman guards for the weekend. And it's likely that the women expected to be granted permission to enter the tomb as those who were coming to finish the burial, the burial proceedings and preparing the body.

And they were hopeful, I'm sure, that the guards may help them move the stone. But now they arrive on the scene.

Stone is rolled away, seal is broken, no guards in sight. Immediately, if we were to step there 2 ,000 years ago, come upon the tomb, we ought to have some level of confusion.

Okay, we know how the story ends. We know where this is all going. And so it's very hard for us to enter into the situation without the knowledge and actually experience it the way that it would have felt to them that morning.

But how many of you would agree that that would be a confusing sight? It would be confusing to step up there and say, you know, what's happened here?

And we have our first clue. But we do not have anywhere near complete knowledge yet. At this point,

Mary and likely a couple of the other women ran to the place where Peter and John were and some of the other disciples to give a report of this first evidence, this first clue that they've seen.

And everything in the remainder of this text occurs with haste. There's movement, there's pace, there's running, there's urgency.

Mary is running. And as she knocks on their door, huffing and puffing, how many of you think they might have startled in that room?

Whether they were praying or whether they were asleep, I'm sure that a knock on the door, I mean, they were indicted as followers of Jesus Christ, right?

They had just observed their master and their teacher and their leader be crucified. They're hiding out and they hear a knock at the door.

I'd imagine everybody to some degree was startled. And this is interesting because I think

Mary here does what many of us do. We do this in all different facets and areas of our life, particularly on social media.

We have a tendency to do what she's just done here. But with the little evidence she has, Mary lets us know how she has interpreted with her eyes, or interpreted rather with her mind, what her eyes have seen.

She's taken in one piece of information and she jumps to a conclusion that Jesus's body has been stolen.

She reports a crime scene in essence. There's been a theft that's occurred.

They, she says, stole his body and we don't know where they took him.

The text doesn't tell us in any clarity who Mary believes took the body of Jesus or why they would even want to steal the body of Jesus.

But notice how quickly her mind and her heart have jumped to conclusions. And I would suggest to you that we are all a culture of very poor detectives, if not lazy detectives.

I think that's true of all of us. We often take and run with one piece of information, make a lot of assumptions about that one piece of information.

Who cares if the source was Wikipedia or our friend's Facebook page or a tweet that we got?

And we take that information and we run with it. So like the telephone game goes from the eyes of Mary.

She sees the empty, well, she sees the the stone rolled away in the empty tomb.

She sees that there are no guards there. The Roman seal has been broken. And she passes it along as a mystery of a stolen body.

She passes that along just like the telephone game that you played when you were kids. One person communicates to another person, that communicates to another person.

And after just the first generation of from the source to the next step, we can see how quickly things move away from what is true or what is real.

But fortunately in the middle of that telephone game, Peter and John could easily just pass that along. But instead they go back to the original source.

And decide to see for themselves. The wording in the text indicates that Peter took the initiative to head off to verify these things.

Luke's gospel tells us that the disciples actually thought that the women were going stark raving mad. We don't even understand.

The words you're saying make no sense. We want to go check it out ourselves. They thought they were speaking nonsense.

And said if you're saying this is empty, we're going to check it out. So again in haste, we're back to running again.

The women ran to the to where the men were and now the men are running back to the tomb. And Peter is identified by name.

But John refers to himself by a title, which I'm going to explain a little bit more in depth later. But he entitles himself the beloved of Jesus.

The one whom Jesus loved. And this title, we know that this is

John. And we know it particularly, he uses it all throughout his gospel. But it's made explicit.

For those of you who are wondering why in the world would anybody assume that that's John, the author of this, the disciple of Jesus.

He actually states outright in the next chapter at the very end of his book in John chapter 20, 21 verses 20 through 24.

If you read that section, he uses that title for himself again and says it is and that is me who's writing to you.

I am he who is the disciple whom Jesus loves. So he obviously had used that title for himself multiple times.

But here we have a foot race. Peter took the lead in running. He takes off and John joins him and they're running together.

And John had game and outran Peter. What we have here is a little apostolic race.

And if you're already planning your relay team for the new earth, I would recommend Elijah at least.

You know, you want him on your team. That dude outran a chariot. Okay, and then you want John, you certainly,

I mean at least over Peter, you want John on your team. But now if you're putting together a caving team and you want somebody who's brave and willing to enter a cave in the darkness,

Peter is your man. Because he's brave in this text and and John gets to the tomb first.

But John either out of fear or confusion or being somewhat winded for just winning the race doesn't immediately go into the tomb, but instead it says he he stooped down and peered into the cave.

Now I want to give John some some credit here and cut him some slack. He outruns

Peter. They're on their way to the tomb. He arrives. He peeks in. But it was after all against Roman law to go past that seal.

Just by being present at the tomb, they're risking significant retribution from the

Romans. They're the risk of being accused of being the ones who broke the seal. Do you see how

I mean they might be kind of implicated? If the Romans were to happen to walk up at the time where John and Peter are poking around this tomb, the body's not in there and the the stone has been rolled away.

The seal has been broken. What's going to happen to John and Peter? So they're at risk even just being present there.

So John looked in and saw our second clue. The first being the stone rolled away, but he saw now the linen cloths lying on the preparation bench in the same place where the body of Jesus had been laid for the past three days.

Interestingly, the word for saw in verse five is the same as the word that saw for what what

Mary did in verse one. And it's a word. We have actually three different words in Greek.

Completely different words for the word saw in this text. Now English translators try their best to do a good job with this and it's very very difficult because we use the word like for example the word saw.

We use it in so many different ways that it can be really hard to break free from translating certain

Greek words that way. But there's three different uses that are significant in the text. It's significant the way that the word saw is used.

So when John arrives he peeks in. The word is peeked, glanced, just took it in.

He just kind of like took a glance. Now, I don't know how far behind him Peter was huffing and puffing down the trail, but I don't know how much time he had.

It appears to be not a whole lot of time because he just takes a glance in. Just to check it out.

And when he checks it out, he just sees strictly that the grave cloths are there alone in the place where the body in.

By implication, he can at least see that the body isn't there, but the cloths are. When Peter arrives, picture him huffing and puffing.

Okay, he's just been huffing it there. He acts just like we might expect. Those of you who feel like you've gotten to know

Peter to some degree through studying for 1 Peter and through some of the discussions or through some of the other gospels are kind of understanding that he's the one who steps out of the boat and onto the water.

And he's the one who tells Jesus, well, don't just, don't just wash my feet, but wash my head of my hands too.

You know, I mean just, just he kind of goes all out and he's quick to answer. Well, you're the Christ, the son of the living

God, and he's just very quick and always willing to. So he barges into the tomb. He gets there not really thinking like, oh hey, we could get, you know, prosecuted for this.

This could, we could be accused of being the ones who rolled the stone away. He barges right in and he also saw the linen cloths lying there, but then he takes in another piece of evidence, the face cloth which had been on Jesus's head.

And he observes that it's been folded up and carefully laid aside, not where he would expect it to be. Okay, so it's, it's folded up.

It's, it's nice and neat and orderly. The word saw in verse 6,

Peter steps in and saw is a different Greek word meaning to investigate or to carefully observe.

John arrives, glances in. Mary earlier arrived, glanced at the empty tomb.

Peter dives in headfirst and investigates and carefully observes it. John came and took a glance.

Peter came to investigate. So we have some evidence laid out already.

We have a broken seal. We have the guards that have been dispersed. We have the stone that was rolled back.

And now the linen cloths are lying where the body of Jesus had once been. And the cloth that once covered the face of the

Lord is now folded and carefully set aside on the bench of preparation where the body would have been placed waiting its final interment.

Peter observes when he investigates the empty tomb. When he walked in, he walked into an orderly situation.

Not a chaotic mess that we would expect in the instance of a, of a robbery as Mary had indicated.

And here's where our detective work should kick in. We've approached a crime scene. The report has gone out that a robbery has occurred.

Someone has stolen a body. But when we arrive, we find that the grave cloths are right where the body used to be, sitting in the same place.

So somebody would have had to move the body, take the, unwrap it, put it back, put the cloth back where the body had once been.

And the face cover has been folded nice and neat and set off to the side. This is like a kidnapping where someone has stolen someone and took the time to remove their diamond earrings and their 24 karat necklace, their bracelets, and their wallet with a hundred dollars in it and did the laundry on the way out.

Okay, that's, that's the kind of picture that we have here. We might have some further questions if somebody said there was a kidnapping that occurred and those are all the events that we had as evidences.

Particularly one thing that we need to understand is the value of linen during this time. Linen cloth was a commodity during this era.

It was valuable. And generally speaking, those who want to steal a body would be in a hurry and not take the time to remove the grave cloths or to fold the face cloth nice and neat and place it on the bench.

Peter investigates. And then John, probably emboldened by Peter, went in and saw, saw as well.

And finally, this last use of the word saw in verse 8 is yet again a different Greek word and it means to perceive with comprehension.

To perceive with comprehension. Like when we use that phrase in English, oh,

I see. What do we mean when we say, oh, I see. Oh, I get it.

Oh, I understand now. You might say that to a professor who's trying to teach you something or to some of one of your teachers in school and they're trying to describe something to you or put it out on the whiteboard and say, oh,

I see. You comprehend it. You're getting it. It's sinking in. John follows

Peter. Peter investigates. Lends, I would say, some level of boldness to John who has refused to enter in but watching

Peter and seeing he's okay, he steps in too, and he takes it a step further and perceives it with comprehension.

Oh, I get it. And not only did the apostle see it, but he has seen just enough, he got it just enough to believe.

He saw enough to believe. He didn't get enough to know beyond a shadow of a doubt

He didn't have it proven to him by reasoned logic. He didn't have somebody there in a history lesson in the empty tomb where somebody was like, well, here's the historical evidence.

He didn't have the the benefit of forensic science on his side, but he saw enough to believe that Jesus had indeed raised from death.

Interestingly, verse 9 tells us clearly that John didn't even make the connection between the

Old Testament prophecies and the resurrection yet. He didn't reason to himself and say, of course, of course

Jesus is raised from the dead because the Old Testament points to that. The disciples were not all gloriously and honestly, the disciples were not all the sharpest tools in the shed, which really ought to give us all some hope right, that it doesn't rest on our intellectual ability to express faith in Christ.

How many of you grateful like me on that one? It's not our, it's not our intellectual prowess that is required of us to come to an understanding and saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.

Grateful for the example of John. Had just enough evidence, just enough there.

And I find this to be a beautiful reality that John, who didn't have it all reasoned out,

John, who had to borrow the boldness of his friend Peter to even be present in that empty tomb,

John, who didn't even make the connection between the Old Testament and the resurrection, he believed.

On that first Easter, the first man expressed faith in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And it was a simple man, fast runner, one whose claim to fame was that Jesus loved him.

I love it the way that that reminds me of a children's song. As if the best thing that John could think to title himself was one whom

Jesus loved. Like think about titles that you love. Think about what you would love to be known as.

John loved to be known as somebody that Jesus loved. That was enough for him. It's one of the best things that could be said of any one of us, is that I'm somebody that Jesus loved.

And that's the way John titles himself. That kind of simplicity. A man who took the meager evidence available to him and perceived with comprehension.

To this simple man, God gave a mustard seed of faith.

And he was granted the ability to see that this isn't the case of a stolen body.

This is the case of the Lord over all things rising from the dead.

Our text this morning ends with the disciples going back home. I'm sure with a lot of discussion.

Imagine that conversation. But we all know the story doesn't end there. We've been given this evidence and I'm giving you the evidence this morning on this

Easter of the empty tomb. But there's more evidences. There's a lot more. Story goes on.

In this very chapter, Jesus himself will reveal himself as the risen

Lord to many people. Mary Magdalene. He's going to appear to her. To ten of the disciples in the upper room without Thomas present.

They all go to Thomas and say, you're not going to believe it. The Lord appeared to us and he says, you're right. I'm not going to believe it.

Absolutely. I'm not going to believe it. Not until I can put, Thomas's words, not until I can put my hand in his side.

Not until I can see the the holes from the nails in his wrists.

Well, I believe. If you're not convincing me just with some talk about an empty tomb, we all know how tombs can get empty pretty quick with somebody stealing the body or whatever.

He had to be proven to. And how many of you are grateful for Thomas? I'm grateful for John, a simple man who was able to take in just a little bit and was given a seat of faith by God in that instance.

But I'm also grateful for Thomas because I can be a doubter. I can have in my mind. I need to see it. I need to touch it.

I need to have some evidences. And Jesus obliges Thomas. Says here, he appears to him at the end of chapter 20.

Here. You said it. Thomas didn't even say I, you had to prove it to me. The first thing he says when he sees

Thomas is, I know, I know you're doubting. Why? Because he's the Lord over all. He knows all. So he approaches

Thomas and says, see right here. See the holes. See the hole in my side. These scriptures present themselves as a historical account.

I believe that is what is recorded here by John in this chapter is history.

It is not myth that happened. Nobody in the text is saying, and these things occurred just near the outskirts of Mordor in Middle Earth.

This is not in Narnia. It happened in the city of Jerusalem.

You can find it on a map. You can go visit these places. It didn't happen in a galaxy far, far away.

But it happened about 2 ,000 years ago in real time and in real history.

The evidence that the tomb was empty is basically irrefutable. What you do with that is up to you.

Historians, where do you think, why do you think there's so many theories of what happened here? Because they can't, they can't get away with dismissing the empty tomb.

And so there's the swoon theory. The swoon theory that says, well, on the cross Jesus was beaten up and bruised pretty bad.

They buried him, but he came back like he's never really dead. You go through the things that Jesus went through,

I think it's going to be pretty hard to convince people you're doing okay. Right? Or the stolen body again, that the

Romans stole the body. Well, the Romans had every interest in in pushing down this new sect of Judaism that they thought

Christianity was at the beginning. And they would have said, well, our bad. Show the body of Jesus and be done with it.

The Jews, the same thing. The disciples. Some people have said, well, the disciples stole the body.

And obviously they were there present. They were there that morning and they could have done that. And then they go and proceed to die for faith in the proclamation that Jesus raised from the dead.

Kind of about the time that somebody was about to crucify you, like Peter was crucified. He might kind of say, well, hold on just a second.

Just a minute. We stole the body. It's all different kinds of, all different kinds of ways of discussing this.

And it's up to you to to rationalize this, to understand it, to come to a conclusion about it, to investigate these things.

Again, John was not afforded complete and utter knowledge. That's not what saving faith looks like.

It doesn't look like you going, okay, now I've got enough. There's, it's not going to be proven to you beyond a shadow of a doubt.

There's going to be an element, what I'm trying to communicate, is there's going to be an element of faith involved in this for everybody in the room.

An element of trust. How do you process this evidence? Some of you are going to be like that, like, like, like John and at the beginning, when he first arrives at the scene, or like Mary when she arrives, and you're just going to glance at the evidence, that Greek word that just means to glance or to take a peek at it.

I would suggest to you that there are predominantly two types of glancers, two types of people who will peek at the evidence.

First, some of you were raised in the church, and it just takes a lot to get your attention anymore. Just true.

It takes a lot to get your attention. It takes a lot to, you're like, I've heard this message, Don. I've heard

John chapter 20, verses 1 through 10 spoken of at other Easter's. I've heard other pastors, and I'm sure you've heard somebody speak better on this.

And so you're here, and you're like, yeah, this kind of stuff, yep, another Easter, we'll move on to next week, and we'll just kind of keep rolling.

And you think you've looked at the empty tomb from every angle. My question for those of you in this camp is to consider have you perceived the empty tomb with comprehension?

Have you allowed your heart to engage with the truth and reality of resurrection? Have you looked at the empty tomb and recognized its significance for your life?

A life lived with the resurrection in mind is a life that stores up treasure for the new earth, where we will indeed be raised to new life with Jesus Christ.

It flavors all of our decisions, it flavors where we choose to live, and how we choose to roll at the place of our employment, and in our neighborhoods, and where we are in life, and the types of callings that we recognize are placed on us.

Because if resurrection is true, then this is not all there is. Anybody want to say amen to that?

This is not all there is, and that is the life that is afforded by the heart that beats of resurrection, of truth.

And by the way, our hope is not to be in some ethereal place on the clouds strumming harps.

Like how do you even do that if you don't have a body? Like have you ever, I mean people don't think very clearly about this, but if you're just like a disembodied spirit in heaven floating on the clouds, you can't even strum the harp.

You can't do that. Like your hand will go right through it. It doesn't work. You will have a body for eternity in the future, and that is the hope.

That is what Jesus, that's why the tomb was empty, was to show us the way that it's going to go for us who are in Jesus Christ.

Real resurrection. Not like zombies. Real resurrection with a with a restored body.

What will we look like? I don't know. I love to talk about that, and I love to think about that. There's a great book by Randy Elkhorn called

Heaven. Thick book. Awesome read, just about him thinking and conceiving of what we know from God.

A lot of it's speculation, but I think it's fun speculation. I think it's enjoyable to think about the way that God is and the way that he has rolled, and I think he gets the word a little bit wrong.

I don't like the word heaven. Heaven is where those who have gone before us, their body is still in the grave. They haven't been resurrected yet.

Heaven is the destination of everyone who dies in Christ. They are there currently in a in a location without the resurrection yet, but their hope is that one day when

Jesus returns, he will bring them with him to be reunited with their body and live on the new earth. The new earth is our destination forever and ever and ever.

A place with tables and and stuff and interactions and real people and food and animals and and plants and all the kinds of things, but but without sin.

Without brokenness. Without disease. Without cancer. Without devastation. Without catastrophe.

And Jesus Christ will reign forever and ever and ever as the pierced one.

The one who paid it all for us. Once in a while,

I go off on a rabbit trail, and that was a rabbit trail. Easter bunny trail?

No. Take me a second to figure out where I was going with all that. Our hope for being set free from sin is bound up in what we do with this evidence.

Will we come to the place of perceiving with the little comprehension we have and believe by faith that God did indeed raise

Jesus Christ from the dead to be the Lord and Savior of all who come to him by faith?

God is not asking for you to have it all sewed up and figured out. He's asking for you to trust him.

That's what he wants of you this morning. Trust him and to believe him. The Apostle Paul explained the importance of the resurrection to salvation in these terms.

If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, you confess that he's King, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

Confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

And that resurrection that he experienced is the first fruits of your hope. The first fruits of the reality that you will be raised when he comes back.

Jesus died as a sacrifice for our sins, but he was raised as the victor over sin and death.

Somebody may be confused a little bit about the, we're saved at the cross, we remember the cross every week at communion, and we come to that table and remember his body, and body that was broken for us, and his blood that was shed for us, and where is that?

And where's the resurrection? And the resurrection sometimes when I was a child felt like an add -on. It's like well, we were saved at the cross.

So this is just like we're extra saved at the resurrection, right? It's just like the, it's bonus material. It's like the icing on the cake or something like that.

This is important for us to understand. At the cross, he dealt with the penalty of our sin. The, the punishment that we deserved was, was meted out on him, was doled out on him, and he received the punishment that you and I deserved.

But at the empty tomb, he dealt with the consequences of our sin.

Penalty of this, of our sin at the cross, consequences of sin at the resurrection.

Without the resurrection, death and sin would have the final word.

If we served a Lord and Savior that was not alive, death would be the victory.

But there on that first Easter, with, with borrowed boldness, without all the answers, without all the connections, and without all the loose ends sewed up,

John believed, and he was used to do amazing things for the

Lord. And he is now in heaven with Jesus Christ, awaiting his own resurrection.

Maybe you're here this morning, and you're actually here on borrowed boldness. Somebody else had the boldness to invite you, to come in and take in the evidence.

Maybe you are, you're, you are ready to take the next step of investigating. But maybe for some of you, you're ready to believe.

Maybe you've come with a heart to investigate, and you now perceive enough to express a simple faith that Jesus did indeed raise from the dead.

If you'd like to begin your journey of faith today, please come up front at the end of the service. I'm, I'm going to stay up here this week.

I'm not going to go out to the door, but I'm going to stay up here, and you can come up and at the front at the end of the service, and come and talk with me if you'd like to start a relationship with Jesus Christ based on your faith.

On trust and faith in him. I'd love to talk with anyone who is interested in believing

Jesus just like John did on that first Easter so long ago. So what we're going to do is we're going to,

I'm going to pray. I'm going to set the stage for communion. I'm going to pray. Uh, we'll take communion together, um, and then

I'll come back up here, close the service, and then I'll be available up here. When I talk about communion, communion is an awesome reminder of the reality that Jesus died for our sins.

He paid that penalty for us. We can celebrate this death knowing that it wasn't the end of the story, but just the beginning.

So come to the table if you have believed that Jesus is Lord, and have asked him to save you.

If you're still investigating, I'd encourage you to just sit back and take in this song that the band is going to come and lead us in.

Let's pray. Father, I thank you so much for this glorious text that reveals and opens our eyes to the initial faith of John that shows us that he with with his eyes saw, but with his heart perceived in a knowing way, and he put his trust in the reality that you raised your son from the dead.

The consequences of our sin leads to death, and that that has been broken, completely busted by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Father, we look forward to that day when resurrection is real for all of your people.

Father, when you send Jesus back to collect those who are yours, Father, we look forward to that day recognizing that right now this is a mess.

There's sin, and there's all kinds of corruption. There's all kinds of distractions and all kinds of things that draw us away from you. Father, I pray that I pray you would send

Jesus soon. Father, I pray come Lord quickly. But in the meantime,

Father, help us to walk with you in boldness and in directness and in care and in love in this culture that you've placed us in.