Flora First Christian Church - Flora, IN

March 23, 2008

John 20: 1-8

Man In a Grave

I was a boy when I heard the story about a man who worked the second shift at a local factory. He didn’t live too far from the factory so he often walked home in the late spring and summer. Once when he left the plant’s main gate as the third shift was beginning he decided to take the short cut home . . . through the cemetery. Little did he know that there was a freshly dug grave eight feet deep right in the path that he occasionally walked. The breath was nearly knocked out of him as he fell into the grave. He spent the next hour trying to climb out of the grave, but the sandy soil kept toppling in on him. After a while he dropped in exhaustion, huddled himself into one corner of the grave and decided to give up until morning when help would surely show up. In the darkness of those early hours, another local man was also making his way home and he decided to also take a short cut through the same cemetery. However, this guy was . . . inebriated. He didn’t see the freshly dug grave and he also fell in. He too began to scratch and claw his way out. The man sitting in the corner of the deep grave woke up and noticed the man trying to climb out. He spoke up and said, “You aren’t going to get out of here.” You know what . . . he did. In less than two seconds. In one leap! Meeting someone else in a grave is shocking and scary.

Mary’s Shock

I believe that we can relate to Mary Magdalene’s shock in the early morning hours when she and two other women went to the tomb of Jesus and discovering that it was empty. Mark tells us in his gospel that the women went with spices in the early morning to preserve the body, and they wondered how they would be able to move the large stone away from the opening that had sealed off the tomb. Matthew tells us that an earthquake occurred when they arrived and the stone rolled away by that force. Luke adds the detail that an earthquake took place while they were there that caused to stone to roll away. John tells us in his Gospel that it wasn’t just dawn, it was still dark. Where the women were headed was a specific graveyard: the garden where Joseph of Arimethia’s future grave had been dug into a hillside. Out of friendship, the grave had been given to Jesus. When they arrived there the three women received the surprise of their lives!
They slowly walked into the tomb, looked around and it was . . . an empty grave, just the strips of cloth which the body had been wrapped in were lying to the side.
And then they’re told by angels, “He is not here. He is risen! Don’t you remember what he told you? He said that this WOULD happen.”

It was Coming to Them

Oh, yeah. It was coming to them now, but . . . HOW COULD IT BE? Mary was now faced with the real possibility that Jesus her rabbi—her spiritual teacher was ALIVE! There really was life in the graveyard! John tells us in his Gospel that after the woman found the stone rolled away from the tomb entrance, she ran back into the city walls, found Peter and John and they ran to the tomb with her. They went inside and one of them believed, but they still didn’t understand that the scripture said that this would take place. After Peter and John saw all that they could see they left and went back to where they were staying. However, Mary stood outside the tomb crying. This was when Jesus came to her. He spoke, she wanted to grab him, but he tells her to hold off. He tells her not yet, but gives her the instruction to go and spread the message that she saw Him . . ALIVE. . . .outside the tomb . . . IN THE GRAVEYARD!

WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

SO . . . THERE REALLY IS LIFE TO BE FOUND IN A GRAVEYARD, A PLACE WHERE WE NEVER EXPECTED TO FIND IT, BUT NOW WE DO! What does it mean to find life in the graveyard? In other words what does the resurrection of Jesus Christ now mean?
We find life in the grave yard—when we accept with full conviction that CHRIST delivered on his promise that he would come back from the dead, just like the prophets’ said that the Messiah would.
We all need to realize that in the midst of our struggles that challenges and trials are what it means to be human. We discover life when we claim our Lord’s promise that he made within two weeks of his breaking free from the grave: “Those who are considered worthy of taking part in that age and in the resurrection from the dead . . . can no longer die. They . . . . are children of the resurrection. He is not the God of the dead, but of the living.” (Luke 20:35-36, 38, NIV)

The life that Mary found in the graveyard now means that DEATH HAS BEEN DEFEATED.

Man Freeing Coin From Child’s Throat

An American on vacation in Mexico was strolling outside his hotel in Acapulco, enjoying the sunny, warm Mexican weather. Suddenly, his attention was seized by the screams of a woman kneeling frantically in front of a child. The man knew just enough Spanish to determine that the child had swallowed a coin. Without thinking the man grabbed the child by the heels, held him upside down and slapped him on the back between the shoulder blades. A few seconds later an American quarter dropped from the child’s mouth, spun on the sidewalk and the man quickly picked it up. The woman who had been screaming, obviously the boy’s mother, was overcome with gratitude. In the best English she could muster she said, “Oh, muchas gracias, senor! Are you a doctora?” “No, senora,” the man replied sheepishly, “I work for the Internal Revenue Service.”

Death and Taxes

There’s an old saying that the only two certainties in this world are death and taxes. But we would be well advised to question the truth of that statement.
Well, it now appears that death isn’t what it used to be. As Jesus came back from the dead, by the power of God, He now has the power to bring others back from the dead. So now the only constant left in life is . . . taxes. Imagine that?!?

The Resurrection is either TRUE OR FALSE

It all hangs on the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. If He didn’t really rise from the dead, then Jesus was a liar, the Bible is fiction and Christianity is a total scam. Either the resurrection is true, or it is false. If it is false, then the eleven disciples of Jesus vainly died the death of martyrs, the early Christians who were fed to lions in Roman coliseums threw their lives away for nothing, and the Christians suffering today around the globe are suffering for a lie, because they all accepted the resurrection of Jesus Christ .
People will suffer and die for all sorts of silly causes, but to die for a lie that they know to be a lie isn’t one of them.
The empty tomb in the Jerusalem garden proclaims now to the world that death has lost its power.

Jesus Is Who He Claims to Be

Second, the empty tomb and the living breathing Christ who walked away from it, means that He is who He claimed to be. The Jewish high priest wanted Jesus crucified because according to them, He was making himself equal with God. And they were right. He was. A few weeks before Jesus was crucified he was traveling from Galilee to Jericho. On that trip Jesus made his disciples more than a tad nervous when he told them that the Son of Man would be handed over to the Gentiles, put to death and after three days rise again. If He was right about that, it stands to reason that He was right about his identity as well. Indeed, who else but the Son of God could manage to come back from the dead?

Lee Strobel illustration

Those of you who attended one of the Good Friday services heard me speak of Lee Strobel and the research he did on the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. In another of his books, God’s Outrageous Claims, he talks again about his journey to personally discovering the risen Christ as Lord and Savior. This one time fervent atheist said that he “used to consider the Resurrection to be a laughable fairy tale.” After all, he was trained at the Yale Law School to think rationally and his years of reporting crime trials at the Chicago Tribune had toughened him to be a natural cynic. What got him curious were the changes that he saw in his wife after she became a Christian. She was different. He then spent nearly two years studying the Bible and interviewing some of the nation’s top Bible scholars in his journey to discover for himself the truth of Jesus’ resurrection and His claims of being the Son of God. All of the proofs of history which concluded that there was no way anyone could survive a crucifixion by the Roman Empire made it credible. With this evidence and the living change seen in the lives of Christians around him he came to know Christ personally and that HE WAS WHO HE SAID HE WAS.

At Lazarus’ Grave

Jesus was standing outside the grave of his friend Lazarus, when he said to his sister Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies.” (John 11: 25) A few minutes later Jesus called Lazarus to come out of the grave. That was a promise he would deliver. Jesus was also telling all who saw him that day: “I will come back to life from the dead, just as Lazarus did.”

No Fear

The empty tomb validates all that Christ taught us about God. God is a loving parent—A LOVING Father in heaven who always watches over His children. Whatever our need is, God is always there.
Jesus’ promise: “In the world you will have trouble, but be of good cheer—be brave—for I have conquered the world.” (John 16:32-33)
Finding life in the graveyard means that we have no reason to fear this life.

Walking After Dark

Last spring Bev and I began a walking regiment. Our route was around the outside loop of a Seymour cemetery that is just a tad shorter than the walking trail at the Flora Park. There is generally always others there walking. When daylight savings began last year we were able to start our walks between 8:00 and 8:30 in the evening and finish up a 3 mile walk in the twilight. As summer moved on we stuck with the 8:00 – 8:30 time, but often ended our walk in the dark. No big deal. One evening while we were walking and talking Bev said to me: “You know, my Mom and sister think our walking out here is a little weird and spooky.” I turned and said “Aw, they’ve been watching too many movies.” A few moments later I said to Bev, “Why don’t you tell Helen and Janet that they could walk with us, and to bring a box of matches and strike them ever so often and if the air lights up neon green then we all know to make tracks and high tail it out of there.” Bev gave me the look rolled her eyes at me, and then I said: “I guess I’ve been watching too many movies—but I KNOW that they’re just movies.”
The truth is: as a Christian I’ve got nothing to be worried about in a graveyard, ever! Spiritually speaking there’s nothing that can get me. I’m safe . . . in the daylight, in the dark, in an abandoned house, out on the streets or even in a grave yard. Because of the open grave of Jesus Christ nothing that deals with death can harm me. Because of Christ’s resurrection and His ownership of me—I’m safe. Like the Apostle Paul—all of our songs today ARE “Oh death, where is your sting?”

What Is Your Graveyard?

This morning, I ask you: what is your graveyard? Where is life absent? Is life absent in the daily work place? Are you stressed out from trying to juggle work, relationships, finances, and family and you just can’t go on? Is your graveyard sorrow and bereavement of missing those who have touched your life and are no longer present and you just can’t seem to live without them? Is your graveyard a broken relationship that once was blossoming and beautiful, but now appears to have gone by the wayside due to the human ego, pride, or vanity? Does your life seem to be missing the joy and hope that can take us to the next day? Is Jesus just a historical figure or is he the son of God and a friend who want to give you life? If He is the later, then SOMEONE ALIVE IS STANDING AMONG YOU and his message is the same today as it was to Mary in a cemetery “Go tell them I am live.” (John 20). Amen!