John 20:11-23 “Sent by the Risen Savior”

0:56I don't know if that's a statewide thing here in Texas, but it was in Plano. Wacky Cake was the thing. So most mornings I sat there, you know, just kind of bored until that happened. But one day in the fall of 1992, I know. That was the year that happened. Many moons ago. The office lady said that all fifth graders would have the chance to go to Camp Cimarron. We were going to get to go for four nights and five days to hike and play games, to canoe and swim, to sleep in a cabin with our friends. Friends and miss an entire week of school.

1:36Never in my life had I listened so intently and taken such copious notes about the forms and the due dates. I'm sure my mother was astonished. But it's all because this announcement was good news and it demanded a response. Well, friends, last week Mary Magdalene and two other women brought spices to the tomb early on Sunday morning where Jesus was laid. And when they arrived, the stone had been rolled away, and we learned from the other accounts that two angels were there and met the women.

2:09I want you to listen to Luke 24. It says, And as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you while he was still in Galilee that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise? And they remembered his words. And returning from the tomb, they told all these things to the eleven and all the rest.

2:38So they ran and told the disciples. Peter and John then ran to the tomb. They also found the stone rolled away, the tomb empty, the linens laying there where Jesus had been, and the facecloth folded up in a place by itself. And John tells us that at that moment, he believed. The question is, What about Mary? What about the other disciples? Well, in our passage today, John is going to tell us how they came to faith. I mean, there is really solid evidence that Jesus has risen from the dead, as we just talked about. The stone is rolled away, the tomb is empty, the facecloth is folded up, it doesn't look like the grave was robbed. There's really solid evidence that he rose from the dead, but to this point, nobody has seen the risen Lord.

3:28You can believe that he's alive, but nobody's seen him. And so today, we're going to read John's account of Mary's encounter with the risen Jesus and how she was sent to announce this good news to the rest of the disciples, who were then sent to take that news to the rest of the world. And so, church, what we're going to learn and be challenged by today is that Jesus has sent us to announce the good news that he is alive.

4:02If you go back and look at verse 10, you see that Peter and John go back to their homes. So they had looked inside the tomb, they'd seen that it was empty. John believed, but then they just left the site of the grave. They probably didn't know what to do. But we learned here at the outset of our text today in verse 11 that Mary stayed behind. She stayed at the tomb a tangle of emotions. Mary is sad because she believes that Jesus, her Lord, is still dead.

4:37She stood right there at the foot of the cross when he was lifted up. She remained there at the cross when Jesus gave up his spirit and died. Mary is sad. Mary is probably angry because the stone has been rolled away. She doesn't know by who, she doesn't know where they took the body, and she is probably very angry because who would come and rob Jesus' grave, dishonoring him in that way? Mary's probably also anxious because if you remember, when Jesus met her, she was tormented by seven demons.

5:22And she might be thinking to herself, now that Jesus is gone, are they going to return? Is that going to start all over again in my life? So in her grief and confusion, she stoops down and looks into the tomb. And what does she find? Two angels in dazzling white sitting where Jesus' body had been laid to rest, one at the head and one at the feet. Jesus is crucified between two criminals, and he is raised between two angels. And they ask her, these angels ask her, woman, why are you weeping?

6:00And I want you to think about what the angels asked Mary and the other women earlier at the tomb: why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has arisen. Remember how he told you? This isn't a time for mourning, it's a time for dancing. Weeping may have tarried for the night, but joy comes with the morning, like Psalm 30 talked about in the call to worship today. This was a time for rejoicing, but Mary doesn't know that. You see, because by design, our minds look for rational explanations to seemingly supernatural events. Imagine if our minds weren't designed that way and we attributed everything that happened in life to supernatural occurrences.

6:49It would be impossible to live that way, at least on any kind of a predictable basis. By design, our minds are designed to look for rational explanations, and so that's what Mary is doing. She concludes that someone has come, rolled away the stone, and taken away the body of Jesus. And because she's already drawn that conclusion, when she turns around and sees Jesus standing right there, she doesn't recognize him. And I'm sure that same thing has happened to you before.

7:22It happens to me all the time. You're out in town somewhere, and you see somebody that you know or you're supposed to know. But because it's not the context that you usually see them in, you have no idea who that is. You can't place them. And heaven forbid, if they come over and talk to you, that Rolodex is cranking. And you're on cue, and you still haven't found their name. That happened to me just last week. I was back in the car before I realized who it was. I apologize if you're in the room.

7:53I'm also getting older, and so that might be part of the problem. Mary, though, is not expecting to see Jesus. It is dark, it's still early, she's been crying, and so Jesus asks her, Woman, why are you weeping? It's the same question that the angels asked, except now it's Jesus himself asking the question. And then he adds, This, whom are you seeking? It's like Jesus is asking her, Who are you looking for? This is a tomb, it's the third day.

8:29So you can't be looking for me. I'm alive. I'm right here, just like I promised. But, friends, Mary is convinced that this man standing before her has to be the gardener. And maybe he's the one that took Jesus' body away. And so Mary asks where he's been taken, and she offers to retrieve him. Because remember, the original reason that she came to the tomb, along with the other ladies, was to anoint Jesus' body with those spices.

9:00So, mentally, she's still on that track. She's still looking for a dead body. And the bottom line is, Mary didn't see Jesus because she didn't expect to see Jesus. Church, we cannot blame Mary for not recognizing Jesus standing right in front of her because we also fail to see Jesus in our everyday lives because we aren't looking for him. I want you to think for just a moment: when is the last time that you recall being aware of the presence of the Lord?

9:45When is the last time that you could say, along with Jacob, surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it? When is the last time that you thought to yourself, I've been praying for this, and God is answering my prayer right now? Brothers and sisters, we do not have a deistic faith, one that believes that God set the universe in motion and now has nothing at all to do with it. No, we have a Christian faith, a biblical faith, a resurrection faith that believes that Jesus is alive and that He Is at work all around us and in us every single day of our lives. That's what we believe. We believe that when we pray, God hears and answers us.

10:45We believe in a God who is transcendent, who dwells in the heavens in unapproachable light, but who is also imminent, who is right here, right now among us in this place of worship, and in our homes, and at our jobs, and everywhere we go in the community. That is what we believe. But friends, we are a forgetful people. And we don't often live as though that is the case. Instead, we live like deists, as people who believe that God is out there somewhere, but he doesn't have anything to do with our everyday lives.

11:30And because that's the way that we function, we often don't pray and ask God for things that have to do with our everyday lives. If we do pray, we're not living on high alert, looking for answers to those prayers, believing that if he doesn't answer us today, then surely he will answer us tomorrow. And if he doesn't answer us tomorrow, surely he will answer us in the future in a way that may be mysterious. In confounding, but also a way that is better, because God is a God of infinite wisdom, and He always knows what is best for us.

12:12Many professing Christians wander through life in a kind of fog, the same fog that Mary was in that Sunday morning 2,000 years ago. And so we wake up and we go to work or school. We come home and we eat and we do our chores and we entertain ourselves and we go to bed, completely unaware of the presence of Christ in and around us. I want you to listen to Andrew Peterson's introduction to the book Every Moment Holy.

12:54He says, This: This book reminds us that there are no unsacred moments. There are only sacred moments, and moments we have forgotten are sacred. If that's true, then it is our duty to reclaim the sacredness of our lives, of life itself. And the first step is to remember, to remember the dream of Eden that shimmers at the edges of things, to remember that the madman on the corner was made in God's image, to remember that work and play and sorrow. Suffering and celebration are all sentences in a good story being told by God, a story arcing its way to a new creation. By remembering the holiness of each moment, we banish that old Gnostic ghost and thwart its lie that there's nothing holy about flesh and bone, soil and stone, work and pleasure, and all tangible, tactile, visible things.

13:56The resurrection of Jesus sent shockwaves into every molecule of creation, even into this crazy century of ones and zeros and jet engines. If the gospel is true, then it matters in all of time and space. The gospel matters even here, even now. My friends, Mary did not see Jesus because she did not expect to see Jesus. And I tell you the truth: we will not see Jesus in our everyday lives if we do not expect to see Jesus.

14:39So let's receive Andrew Peterson's challenge to reclaim the sacredness of our lives and live expecting to see Christ and expecting to see Him at work all around us every day. In other words, let's learn and relearn. How to walk by faith. That'd be a great place to end the sermon, but I'm in verse 15, so verse 16. Jesus said to her, Mary. She turned and said to him in Aramaic, Rabboni, which means teacher. The moment Jesus called Mary by name, she recognized him.

15:35This is such a beautiful moment, and it reminds us of Jesus' words back in John chapter 10. The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. Christian, you are not a number to the Lord. You are not a nameless face or a faceless name. You are his dearly beloved. He knows you, and he knows every single thing about you. And he loves you. When Jesus calls, his voice is unmistakable. That's what you see here with Mary. She did not recognize his body. Think about. That for a minute. She didn't recognize his body, but she did recognize his voice. Just like every Christian, every child of God recognizes the voice of the Good Shepherd. All of us recognize his voice. When he spoke, Mary knew it was Jesus, and according to the other gospel accounts, she threw herself down at his feet and she clung to him, like many others did throughout his life. And as John reports, that Mary does here. But look how Jesus responds: verse 17: Jesus said to her, Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.

17:25Do not cling to me. It's not hard to understand Mary's reaction. She had lost Jesus once through death. She thought she had lost Jesus again when his body was not in the tomb. She wasn't about to lose him for a third time. And so she clung to him. She held on because she was so relieved and so scared to lose him again. And I don't doubt that she would have held on to him all day, but Jesus says, Do not cling to me. Me.

18:01Why does he say that? Because Mary is the first and only person who has seen him alive. And other people need to know that Jesus has risen from the grave. So he says to her, Do not cling to me, but go. Jesus had an important mission for Mary, and that was to go to the disciples, whom he refers to as my brothers. Isn't that remarkable? Through faith, Jesus is our brother. Go to my brothers and tell them that I am alive, and I'm going to be ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.

18:46He's showing us that while he has a special relationship with God the Father, we too share a great relationship with God the Father. It is both the same and different than the one that Jesus shares with his Father. So in other words, Mary is being sent to announce the good news of Jesus' resurrection because she was the first witness to it. And I want you to look at verse 18 because the language here is so very important. Look at this verse. Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, I have seen the Lord, and that he had said these things to her.

19:33Mary wanted to cling to Jesus, but Jesus sent her to go and announce that he is alive. Church, this moment is a picture of our own struggle. We would prefer to stay at the feet of Jesus, worshiping him. We would prefer to stay within the walls of the church building with other Christians. We would prefer to stay within the walls of our own homes with our family. That's the choice that so many Christians have made here in our country. We have made the choice to withdraw from society and to create our own subculture.

20:21Where for many professing Christians, we don't have meaningful contact or meaningful relationships with non-believers. That is a problem. Because in a real sense, we are clinging to Jesus when he has sent us on a mission to announce the good news that he has been raised from the dead. That's the mission that we've been given. Friends, none of us can reach the world alone. We can't reach this city. We can't reach even our own neighborhood. But we must be obedient to Jesus. Jesus, who has commanded us to go and announce the good news that he is alive and that he offers forgiveness and eternal life to anyone who repents and believes in him.

21:13And so I want to encourage you in your evangelism to start small. To simply offer to read the Bible with someone in your life that you're not sure if they're a believer or not, or you know is not a Christian. There's been lots of research conducted that many people are interested in the Bible, but they won't pick it up and they won't read it because they're too intimidated. But if you offer to read the Bible with a coworker or a friend, chances are they will say yes.

21:50Go to your neighbor. Introduce yourself or reintroduce yourself. If you're in that awkward position that so many Americans are, especially after COVID, where you met each other years ago but now haven't seen them in years, because you just drive into your garage, close the door, go in the back door, and then do the same thing the next day. Go to your neighbor, invite them over. Grab one of the invite cards that we keep right by the front doors. I think they're in the back of your seats too. I'm not sure, but you can check. These have a space to write your name and number. They've got our church's address, a map, a QR code. Where they can go to the website, carry one of these in your wallet. Carry one of these in your purse.

22:37When you're at a restaurant, ask the server, hey, we're Christians, and we're going to pray for our meal in just a minute. Is there anything we can pray for you about? And then at the end of the meal, when you leave a very generous tip, leave one of these cards and say, We'd love for you to join us at our church. If you're discouraged in your evangelism, we have this green book that's available for free right out in the lobby. It's called What If I'm Discouraged in My Evangelism?

23:08I feel like that's a great fit. It doesn't matter what your plan is, but I want to encourage you to have a plan for evangelism. Because, friends, we've been sent to announce the good news. That's the beauty of Christianity. We're not going to people with a heavy law and more rules saying, if you'd like to become a Christian, all you need to do is clean up your life, make 12,000 changes, and be perfect. We get to announce that Jesus lived and died and rose again so that you can be forgiven and have eternal life through faith. That is great news. People may believe it or not.

24:01But everybody should want to believe that it's true. Let's pick up in verse 19. On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, Peace be with you. When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Well, as we know, the disciples ran away when Jesus was arrested in the garden. They were frightened, and nothing that has happened since them has made them less scared.

24:47And now it's Sunday evening on the day that Jesus rose. And we know that Peter and John have seen the empty tomb. Perhaps the other disciples went after they said it was empty and checked it out for themselves, but all of them now are hiding in this locked room. And they're hiding in this locked room because they're really scared of what the Jews might do to them. That's probably a well-founded fear. Keep in mind that when he was in the courtyard of the high priest, everybody there knew who Peter was. It wasn't like it was a mystery to them. They all knew who his disciples were. Jesus was famous. So they're hiding in this locked room, and all of a sudden, Jesus comes and stands in the room with them.

25:31Now, some conclude that Jesus miraculously passed through the walls in order to do this, and that is possible, but I think it's important to remember: Jesus is not a spirit. He is alive in a physical body that physically rose from the dead. So I think it's more likely that he just miraculously unlocked the door, just as the angel of the Lord does in Acts chapter 12 for Peter. But however, he gets there, he's now standing in the room with them, and his first words are: peace be with you.

26:11Now, consider how you might respond if your teacher and friend, whom you know for a fact was dead and buried, suddenly appeared to you inside of a locked room. You would probably be freaking out, frantically trying to make sense of what is going on. You would probably think it can't be him, because remember, by design, our minds look for rational explanations to seemingly supernatural occurrences. And Jesus understands that. So, what does he do? He shows them his hands and he shows them his side.

26:51And I want you to think about that for a minute. Because, friends, our resurrected bodies are going to be perfect. No crying. No pain, no tears, nothing wrong with our resurrected bodies. But on the risen body of the Lord Jesus, you have the marks from the nails and the marks from the spear in his side as an eternal witness to the fact that Jesus rose bodily in the exact same body that was crucified, died, and was buried. An eternal witness to that fact.

27:29And so the disciples hear his voice, just like Mary, and they see his resurrected body. And the text says they were glad. You see, Christianity does not call for blind faith, it doesn't call us to believe that Jesus is alive in spite of the evidence or with no evidence whatsoever. No, on the contrary, the writer of these historical accounts provide lots of evidence to support the claim that Jesus is alive, and they invite all of us to examine the evidence for ourselves and draw our own conclusions.

28:14So, friends, if you've been under the impression that Christianity is asking for faith in spite of the evidence, or if you've been under the impression that Christianity is asking for faith without any evidence at all, I hope you can see that's not the case. Case. Because we Christians believe in Jesus because we have read the eyewitness accounts and because we have considered the evidence for ourselves and concluded that Jesus is alive. You may look at the evidence and still not believe that Jesus is alive, that he is the Savior, that he is the Messiah, the promised one that can deliver you from your sin and its consequences. That's fine, but there is lots of evidence to consider.

29:04And so if you haven't done so, we would encourage you to look at the evidence, to draw the conclusion for yourself about whether Jesus is who he claimed to be. Verse 21. Jesus said to them again, Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you. And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them. If you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.

29:43It's so interesting to me that Jesus repeats, peace be with you. It's like he knows the inner turmoil that the disciples are experiencing. Because at first, they're probably like, Jesus is dead. What are we going to do? And he says to them, peace be with you. And now they're like, Jesus is alive. What are we going to do? And he says to them, peace be with you. Just like with Mary Magdalene, the disciples aren't going to be allowed, though, to just sit here and cling to Jesus at his feet.

30:23No, instead, he sends them. He says, just as the Father has sent me, so I am sending you. And think about that for a moment. How did the Father send Jesus? He sent him in the flesh to seek and to save the lost. In the flesh to seek. As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you. Friends, we are being sent out in the flesh, incarnationally, to seek the lost. We don't save the lost, that's God's job. But it's our job to announce the good news, to go to these in our lives, and to say that Jesus is alive, to go in the flesh.

31:18It is very hard to try to do ministry if you're not in the flesh. I think we learned that very well during COVID. It is not the same. So we can use technology, but that technology is ultimately going to fall short of going in the flesh to seek the lost in our lives and to tell them this good news that Jesus is alive. So he sends them, but remember, these guys are scared to death. They showed that in the garden. They're showing it now hiding in a locked room. How could Jesus send them anywhere? Well, that is the encouragement that comes in verse 22, which is the promise of the Holy Spirit. You may remember that a few days earlier, on that last night they spent together in the upper room, Jesus promised to send the Holy Spirit, who would teach them all things and bring to remembrance everything that he said. He was promising to empower them with his Holy Spirit. And some Christians see this moment as the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. But given what happens in Acts chapter 2, I don't think that's the case. Instead, I think this is Jesus telling the disciples to receive the Holy Spirit who will be poured out on them at a later time. And I think Luke's gospel confirms that understanding. Listen to Luke 24:49.

32:45He says, And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high. So Jesus speaks peace to the disciples. Commissions them to go out with the good news and tells them to receive the Holy Spirit. And then he concludes with this statement, verse 23 again: if you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them. If you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.

33:19Now, what in the world is Jesus saying? I mean, it sounds at first glance like he's saying, We have the power to forgive or not forgive people. That's how the Catholic church has understood that verse and other verses in Scripture for many hundreds of years. It's why they have the system of the priesthood where you have to go and confess your sins to a priest. But, friends, we know that Jesus is our mediator, like 1 Timothy talks about. There's one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. So, that can't be what this means. What does Jesus mean?

33:55To understand this verse, we need to go back to his interaction with Nicodemus in John chapter 3. Look at what Jesus did in that interaction and how he explains this in John 3:16 through 18. For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Now, all of that is the context. Listen to this verse: Whoever believes in him. him is not condemned. But whoever does not believe is condemned already because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.

34:44You see, friends, those words are crucial for understanding verse 23. Because according to Jesus, if you believe in him, you will not be condemned. But if you don't believe in him, you are condemned already. So when the disciples go out to share the good news, or when you and I go out to share the good news, we can tell anybody who believes in Jesus, your sins are forgiven. We can tell anybody who does not believe in Jesus, your sins are not forgiven, because what we're saying is, Jesus said this. We are not saying, in my opinion, your sins are forgiven, or in my opinion, your sins are not forgiven. We are saying, according to the words of Christ, your sins are forgiven or not based on your response to him.

35:42We are simply declaring the verdict based on how people respond to the gospel. So, friends, we are here today announcing and celebrating the good news that Jesus has been raised from the dead, that he lived a sinless and miraculous life. Life, that he was crucified, died, and was buried as the prophets foretold, that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures, and that any who repent and believe in him will be forgiven and granted eternal life.

36:18But, friends, you must look at the evidence and you must decide today what you believe about Jesus. You have to decide if you think that he and all of his apostles were telling the truth about who he was. And you have to decide whether to respond in repentance and faith or in rejection. Because as Jesus said to Nicodemus, if you believe, you will be saved. But if you don't believe, you stand condemned already. Because you've rejected the one and only way to be saved, which is faith in the person and work of Jesus.

37:04If you have received Christ already, then the Good Shepherd has welcomed you into His fold. He's given you a peace that passes understanding, and that is a wonderful thing. But Christians, we must remember that Jesus said that He has other sheep that are not of this fold, and He has sent us to go seek out those sheep to announce the good news that Jesus is alive. And to call them to follow him, the good shepherd. We cannot stay and cling to Jesus when there are so many around us in class and at our jobs and in our neighborhoods and even in our own homes who do not know and worship Jesus.

37:52And so the challenge for us this morning is to be like Mary, to set aside that desire to stay clinging to Jesus and instead to go and announce to the world the good news that he is alive. Let's pray. Jesus, there is no better news than that you are alive. We celebrate that this morning as we do every single Sunday morning when we gather together. And we pray that the celebration that we have in this place on Sundays would spill out into the rest of our lives.

39:00Such that our joy and our hope is evident to the people around us. Where instead of never being asked for a reason for the hope that is within us, we would start to have more and more people ask us, why do you have such joy? Why do you have such hope? Why do you have such peace? Don't you watch the news? Don't you see what's going on around us? God, we want opportunities to announce the good news that Jesus is alive, and so we pray for them.

39:37We pray that you would give us opportunities to share our faith. And we pray that many of them would come to faith in Christ over the next several months so that we have multiple baptisms every single week because so many people are professing faith in Jesus. God, forgive us for living like deists who don't expect to see you and don't expect to see you at work all around us. Give us faith, God, great faith. The faith of Mary who went and ran and said, I have seen the Lord.

40:24God, we thank you for your word. And we thank you most of all that Jesus is alive. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. Thank you for listening to the sermon audio from New Life Baptist Church in College Station, Texas. For more information or to support our ministry, visit us online at newlifecs.net.