Have you ever been half-way through a passionate argument…and realized the other person was right? I bet if you were honest that most of you would say yes to that. And what do you do at that point? Do you continue to argue because you don’t want to lose the argument or do you admit it and do things right? Maybe you come to realize that - oh, no! - your spouse is right and squeezing the toothpaste from the bottom really is the best way. Or that maybe you should leave 5 minutes earlier instead of being late every time.
But what about a subject that is really important? Wouldn’t you want to know the truth? How many of you have ever been really wrong about something really important? You realize that somebody is speaking truth to you but you have been wrong about it all your life. And now, to change what you believe is going to change your whole life. What do you do? Do you continue to follow the wrong path just so you don’t look wrong? Or do you change your way of thinking and your life if necessary?
I have said before that I think that everybody, deep down, wants to know the truth. Nobody wants to go through life doing it wrong, even if some of us don’t always act like it. And we all want to think that we would change and follow the truth if it were revealed to us but - the truth is – most people don’t. And to get a good idea of this we need to see what our lives would be like without the truth…and with the truth.
And nowhere is that better illustrated than in our last installment of “Story Time”. In this sermon series we have looked at several of the great Old Testament stories; those old stories we were told and taught as little kids that involve great miracles but are really stories of great faith.
We saw the faith that it took Noah to build the ark. We saw the faith that it took Moses to just hold his hand out as God parted the Red Sea. And last week we looked at one of my favorites and saw young David, in great faith, sling a stone into the forehead of Goliath. And those are wonderful, powerful stories that show people using great faith and God showing great grace and mercy.
But I will be honest with you. If you want to jump on the unbelieving band wagon like lots of people have and say those stories are just myths or symbolic or can be explained away in some other way, then you can do that and still get to Heaven. Your eternity is not at stake if you don’t believe, as I do, that those events happened as literally and miraculously as they are written. I don’t know how you can decide some of the Bible is true and some of it is not but that’s another thing.
But you will have a problem; in fact, you will have an eternal problem if you don’t believe today’s “Story Time” is true. To put it biblically, if you do not believe this story is true and literal then you will spend eternity separated from God and Heaven in a real place called Hell. So, let’s see what life is like without the truth and what life is like with the truth in the Gospel of John, chapter 20, verses 1-18.
You know, as many times as I have read this story, I still can’t really wrap my head around it. I can’t comprehend what it must have been like to see anyone crucified, must less Jesus. But to see the One who was the Christ bleeding and dying, struggling to breathe, crying out and giving up His Spirit. It’s too much. My brain won’t let me process the whole gory scene. And to think He was abandoned by almost everyone who knew Him except John, the author of this book, and a few women, one of whom was Mary Magdalene.
Let’s pick up the story early Sunday morning as she goes to where Jesus was buried. John 20:1-18. “Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. 2 So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!” 3 So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. 4 Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5 He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. 6Then Simon Peter came along behind him and went straight into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, 7 as well as the cloth that had been wrapped around Jesus’ head. The cloth was still lying in its place, separate from the linen. 8 Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. 9 (They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.) 10Then the disciples went back to where they were staying. 11 Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb 12 and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot. 13 They asked her,“Woman, why are you crying?” “They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” 14 At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus. 15He asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.” 16 Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!”(which means “Teacher”). 17 Jesus said, “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.’” 18Mary 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.”
Luke chapter 8 tells us that Mary Magdalene had once been demon-possessed but since she had been healed she followed Jesus everywhere she could. I’m sure she had seen Him heal lots of people but it was the miracle in her own life that made her a believer. She had given up everything she had known and everything she had been taught and had followed Jesus, even to the cross.
I can’t imagine how difficult that had to be for her. The Savior, the Christ, God Himself had been killed. She saw it. She was there. She watched in horror as they whipped Him and beat Him and then pounded nails into His hands and feet and dropped that heavy cross into a hole and left Him there to die. She saw all of that. She watched Him take His last breath. She knew He didn’t just faint or swoon or pass out like some want to suggest. She watched Him die as dead as any corpse in the graveyard.
And now…now she just wanted to show Him respect even if He was dead but now somebody has moved or maybe even stolen His body! It’s almost more than she can bear. She doesn’t understand. She doesn’t know why. She doesn’t have the facts. She doesn’t know the truth. And she is miserable. Friday and Saturday were horrible enough but this is just too much.
She was evidently crying so hard and in so much pain that she couldn’t see clearly or think clearly. Some of you may be able to relate to that. It didn’t register to her that those men were angels in the tomb, nor did she even recognize Jesus when she saw Him at first. Have you ever been so hurt and wounded that you could just barely function at all? Your tears and the blackness in your heart blinded you from everything else?
That is how Mary Magdalene was here. And that is how it is to not have the truth. She wanted the truth. She was trying to get there but her mind couldn’t grasp it; not until Jesus called her name and revealed Himself to her. And look how that changed everything. She went from being blind with heartache to seeing Jesus for Who He really is and it changed her whole life.
She was blind without the truth but saw clearly with the truth and the first thing she wanted to do was worship Him. And while there is a time for that, Jesus said the first and most important thing she needed to do was to go and tell others. Do you know that our lives are contagious? What we know and even what we think we know are contagious and will spread to others.
She was miserable and blind without the truth but with the truth her life was changed and she now had a testimony. And look what a simple, yet powerful testimony it is. In verse 18, we see what she went and told the other disciples. “I have seen the Lord!”
“I have seen the Lord!” She had an encounter with the risen Savior and while she couldn’t explain everything, she could say that. The truth had been revealed to her and now she was obedient to go and tell others. She wanted them to know that her life had been changed. She wanted them to have the truth and not live in tears and blackness but to live in joy and peace that only Jesus could give.
And that is my sincere prayer for you today. I want you to know the truth. And the truth is that Jesus died on that cross, was buried and rose again to pay the price for your sin and mine because we couldn’t pay that price. In fact, Jesus Himself said in John 14:6, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No man comes to the Father except through Me.” The question now is, “What are you going to do with this truth?” Are you going to accept it, believe it and follow it or are you going to keep going down the wrong path?
Without the truth is eternal darkness, blindness and tears. With the truth you can have eternal joy and peace. The choice is yours today. I can’t make it for you and none of us are guaranteed another breath. What will you do with this truth?
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