Bible Passage: John 20:11-18
Pastor: Joel Jenswold
Sermon Date: April 4, 2021

Our Easter service was live streamed. As a result, the service begins at the 15:40 minute mark.

Bulletin Easter Sunday

He Lives, My Jesus!

In the name of, and to the eternal glory of, Jesus, the Resurrection and the Life,

How would you have handled it?  How would you have handled publicity for the single greatest event the world has ever known: the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead?  What if you were the publicity manager and had to plan the appearances of the risen Christ?  Keeping in mind publicity managers always go for maximum exposure and maximum effect, where would you start?

Would you have scheduled a huge venue for Jesus’ first appearance?  Maybe something like a ticker-tape parade down Main Street in Jerusalem.  That would be maximum exposure for sure!  Maybe for maximum effect you might schedule the first appearance in front of the Sanhedrin, so those hate-filled and hate-fueled enemies of Jesus would have to “eat crow.”  Can you imagine the effect that would have had?

It may come as a surprise then to hear the words of Mark 16:9:  After Jesus had risen early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene.  The first appearance was to just one soul, to a single weeping friend.  The text we consider this festival morning is the record of that first appearance.  It was not about maximum exposure.  It was not about maximum effect.  It was about maximum comfort for one, single soul.  It was so that one single person could say:  He Lives, My Jesus!

 There’s a little “backstory” we should fill in so we know what is happening in our text.  Mary Magdalene, the woman in our text, was part of a group of women who had gone out to Jesus’ tomb early on Sunday morning with the plan of finishing embalming Jesus’ body.  As they approached the tomb, they saw that the stone which had sealed the tomb had been rolled away and the tomb was open!  It seems at this point Mary Magdalene doesn’t go with the others to the tomb, but she bolts back into the city to tell Peter and John that the tomb is open and she assumes someone has taken Jesus’ body.

The three of them then race out to the tomb.  John is the speediest one and gets there first, but hesitates outside the entrance.  Peter arrives next and blows right in.  Mary then arrives and stands outside the tomb.  After Peter and John examine the scene, they head back.  Mary stays.

Our text tells us, Mary stood outside facing the tomb, weeping (v. 11).  And she wasn’t just sniffling quietly into a hanky.  The word used in the Greek is the word for sobbing.  She is completely undone!  She summons the will to look into the tomb.  Two angels dressed in white are in there!  She doesn’t recognize them as angels.  They ask her what seems to be a heartless question:  Woman, why are you weeping? (v. 13)  Mary answers, Because they have taken away my Lord, and I don’t know where they have laid him. (v. 13)

 Aha!  This is why she sobs!  She calls Jesus, my Lord.  “My.”  This was very personal for Mary!  Jesus was “her” Jesus!  This was the Jesus who had rescued her.  We are told in Luke’s gospel that Jesus had cast seven demons out of Mary.  Seven demons from hell had possessed her!  Can you imagine what life must have been like for Mary in that condition, if you can call living with demons inside you “life”?  Can you even begin to imagine the joy of being rescued from that?  From that time on, Mary followed Jesus everywhere.  For Mary, Jesus was not just “Lord” and “Jesus.”  He was “my Lord!”  “My Jesus!”  But they had killed her Lord, her Jesus.  That was horrible enough.  Now the enemies of Jesus won’t even let him rest in peace but have stolen his body.  It is all too much.

She turns around.  There is a man standing there.  The gardener, maybe?  He asks her exactly the same question as the angels.  Why are you crying?  And then adds, Who are you looking for? (v. 15)  Mary begs the man to just tell her where the body is and she will go and shoulder the body back to the tomb herself.  She just wanted her Jesus!

The risen Jesus speaks again.  This time, one word.  It was the most individual, personal word the risen Jesus could have spoken.  He said her name.  Mary. (v. 16)  And in that moment, she breathes again!  It must have felt as the demons had been thrown out again!  She knows!  Rabboni!

 We are told in our text that Mary’s word for Jesus means “Teacher.”  It does.  But it means just a little bit more.  The Hebrew word for “teacher” is “rav.”  If you put “i” on it you get “rabbi.”  That little suffix “i” is “my” in Hebrew.  What Mary says is a form of that.  “Rabboni” is really, “My teacher!”  This was personal!  Mary knew, “He lives, my Jesus!”  She never wanted to be without her Jesus again!  She grabs hold of Jesus and doesn’t want to let go!  Jesus gently tells her she is going to have to let go, he needs to ascend to the Father.  And he has work for her to do:  Go to my brothers and tell them…

Dear friends, Mary’s risen Jesus is your risen Jesus, too. Take this day very personally!  For what does Easter mean if it means nothing to YOU?  Oh, indeed this day is marked by large worship services.  Historically Easter Sunday is when churches see their largest crowds.  And this day would seem incomplete without “corporate” worship  – “corporate” means the larger body.  Remember last year when we couldn’t gather “corporately” to worship?  Something felt missing when we couldn’t be together.  But today is also about singing in the first person singular, “I know that my Redeemer lives!”

This day is for every one of us who has ever stood at the grave of someone we love and sobbed.  This is a day to turn and see the risen, living Jesus.  My Jesus!  He lives, my Jesus!  Why am I crying like Jesus is dead?  He lives!  He lives for me!  This victory over sin and death and the devil and the demons and hell and funeral homes and caskets and cemeteries and gravestones, it’s for me.   Why am I afraid of death?  Why am I afraid of ANYTHING!    He lives, my Jesus!  It’s for me!  All of it!  His ascension to his Father and my Father…it’s to prepare a place for ME!  Exit this building today knowing, singing, confessing:  “He lives, MY Jesus!”

And remember, Mary’s task is still our task, too.  We rejoice that we are able to say, “He lives, my Jesus!”  But that must never lead us to say, “I’ve got mine, let them eat cake.”  Jesus wants us to tell others.  Jesus wants us to say to our children, to our friends, to our neighbors, to our community, to those who weep, to that one, single soul:  He lives, and he’s your Jesus, too!

I am so thankful that the appearances of the risen Lord Jesus were not handled by a publicity agency from Madison Avenue, but by that great Shepherd of the sheep (Hebrews 13:20) who came back from the dead, who always gives unto each individual soul what is due unto it at the proper time.  He didn’t show himself for maximum exposure or effect.  But that each soul might know, and sing:

He lives!  All glory to his name!

He lives, my Jesus, still the same!

Oh, the sweet joy this sentence gives:

I know that my Redeemer lives!  (CW 152:8)

Amen!

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