I Have Seen The Lord

John 20:1-18

18 or 20 years ago, a Christian magazine went looking for a powerful image of Jesus to put on the cover of their anniversary issue.  After searching through a number of submissions, they settled on a striking silhouette of a somewhat Middle Eastern looking young man with long curly hair, and a scruffy beard.  Imagine their surprise when after the magazine hit the newsstands, they discovered that the image on their cover was not Jesus, but singer songwriter, Bob Dylan.  I’ll bet something was blowing the wind at the next meeting of their editorial board.  And I don’t doubt that their times were a changing …. OK, I’ll quit. 

But it really shouldn’t be so surprising that the magazine made this mistake, after all, as we read in this mornings’ scripture lesson folks have had trouble recognizing Jesus for 2,000 years.  Take Mary Magdalene for example. 
Mary, as you will remember was one of Jesus closest friends and most devoted followers.  For at least a couple of years, Mary had walked and talked with Jesus.  She had heard his teaching, and witnessed many of his miracles.  She had financially supported his ministry, and was one of only 4 followers who stood at the foot of the cross to witness his death. 

And now Mary was the very first person to rush to Jesus’ grave to mourn his death on Easter Sunday.  There is no question that Jesus and Mary had an extremely close relationship, and that she held him more dear than pretty much any other person on the planet.  However, despite their closeness, despite their familiarity, and regardless of the fact that she had spent literally hundreds of days of her life by his side, as she stood weeping outside of the tomb that morning, when Jesus came and stood right behind her asking who she was looking for, she didn’t know who he was.  As I said, people have had trouble recognizing Jesus for thousands of years.

In fact, if we’re honest about it, most of us have probably on occasion failed to recognize Jesus when he has shown up in our lives.   Think about it.   In Matthew chapter 28, verse 20, just before he ascended to Heaven Jesus said to his disciples, “Lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age.”Have you ever thought about the implications of those words?  In that one short sentence Jesus promised his disciples, ancient and modern, that he wouldalways be around. 

But despite Jesus’ promise to be with us always, just like Mary and her inability to recognize Jesus outside of the tomb that Easter morning,far too often we too fail to see Jesus when he shows up in the midst of our everyday lives. And as we see exemplified in Mary’s experience on that first Easter morning, there are two things in particular that tend to prevent us from recognizing Jesus when he shows up, and the first of them is the tears in our eyes.

Verse 11 of our passage tells us, “Mary stood weeping outside the tomb, and as she wept she stooped to look into the tomb.”   The first reason that Mary didn’t recognize Jesus is because her eyes were full of tears.  You see, the grief that Mary felt prevented her from believing the impossibly good news that Jesus could be standing behind her.  Despite the fact that Jesus had told his disciples repeatedly that he would rise again, Mary’s tears betrayed her lack of faith in Jesus’ ability to fulfill his promise, and Mary’s grief blinded her to Jesus’ presence in the garden that morning. 

And in a similar way, we too can allow our tears to blind us to Jesus’ presence in our lives.  We have all known the sort of grief that Mary felt that morning.  Perhaps it is caused by the loss of a job, or the pain of having your heart broken by someone that you love.  Maybe it is the grief caused by a serious illness, or the death of a loved one that fills your eyes with the tears of frustration and disappointment.  Whatever the cause, one thing isfor certain, we can’t clearly see Jesus with tears in our eyes.  Like Mary, our tears, literal and metaphorical,can sometimes indicate a lack of eternal perspective, and prevent us from putting our trust in God’s infinite ability to do all things, and make all things well.   And so, if we want to be able to recognize the presence of Jesus in our lives, we have to wipe the tears from our eyes.

But tears weren’t all that was blinding Mary to Jesus’ presence that morning.  For in addition to the tears that were blinding her eyes, it also seems that Mary was having a bit of a problem with hersense of direction as well.  We pick up the story in verse 13, “The angels said to her, “Woman why are you weeping?”  She said to them, “Because they have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.”  Saying this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing, but she did not know that it was Jesus.”  It might seem pretty obvious to us, but the second reason that Mary didn’t recognize Jesus was because she was looking the wrong direction.  Mary was staring into the tomb, while Jesus was standing directly behind her.

Once again, we have a lot in common with Mary.   Mary was looking in the tomb because, despite the fact that Jesus had told his disciples repeatedly that he would indeed raise on the 3rd day, she couldn’t imagine that God’s power could be that great.  And so Mary’s limited understanding of what was possible with and through the power of God caused her to look for Jesus in the tomb among the dead, while he was standing right behind her in the land of the living.  Her limited faith in God’s ability to do the improbable and the impossible caused her to literally turn her back on Christ.  

In a very similar way, we too frequently overlook Jesus’ presence in our lives because of our limited belief in the power of God.   We go through the everyday experiences of our lives expecting the ordinary, while God is working all around us in extraordinary ways.  The result is, that we quite frequently miss Jesus when he’s standing right behind us.

Here’s what I’m talking about.  A few years ago, when my 14 year old son Nick was about 5 years old, he had a planters wart on the bottom of his foot.  One summer evening as he sat on my lap in the living room we were looking at the wart and decided to say a prayer to God to take it away.  Literally 3 or 4 days later we were sitting back in that same chair and instinctively, I lifted Nick’s foot to look at the bottom and inspect the wart, and what do you think I saw?  Nothing!  The wart, and every trace that it had ever been there was gone.  In my surprise, I said to Nick, “Babe, what happened to that wart?  Where did it go?”  In a cool even tone that suggested that he couldn’t believe my naiveté, Nick replied, “Dad, don’t’ you remember that we prayed for God to take it away?” 

Now we all know that God doesn’t always take away every burden from our lives in the same way that he removed that wart from Nick’s foot.  But the power of the Easter story, and the fact that Jesus, crucified and buried on Friday, was standing right behind the unsuspecting Mary Magdalene on Sunday morning, is that it reminds us that when we believe in, and trust ourselves to the unimaginable love and power of God, great things become possible.  The love and power that raised Jesus from the dead might not take away all our problems and grief, but it will most certainly give us vision, strength and faith to be what Paul referred to as “More than conquerors through him who loved us.”

You see, Easter brings us the promise that the resurrected Christ offers every single one of us an unfailing and eternal source of power that never leaves our side.  Every moment of every hour, of every day of our lives Jesus is present and ready to offer us strength, hope, and promise if we are willing to look for him, and recognize him when he shows up.  When we wipe away the tears of life’s grief, and fix our eyes on Jesus, opening our hearts to the new reality made possible by his resurrection, we, like Mary can declare “I have seen the Lord” knowing that Jesus’ presence in our lives makes all things possible.
Amen.