Gospel of John [20:11-17]. Christ's Resurrection, part 4.
length: 63:06 - taught on Apr, 21 2015
Class Outline:
Title: Gospel of John [20:11-17]. Christ's Resurrection, part 4.
Announcements/opening prayer:
JOH 20:3 Peter therefore went forth, and the other disciple, and they were going to the tomb.
JOH 20:4 And the two were running together; and the other disciple ran ahead faster than Peter, and came to the tomb first;
JOH 20:5 and stooping and looking in, he saw the linen wrappings lying there; but he did not go in.
JOH 20:6 Simon Peter therefore also came, following him, and entered the tomb; and he beheld the linen wrappings lying there,
JOH 20:7 and the face-cloth, which had been on His head, not lying with the linen wrappings, but rolled up in a place by itself.
JOH 20:8 So the other disciple who had first come to the tomb entered then also, and he saw and believed.
JOH 20:9 For as yet they did not understand the Scripture, that He must rise again from the dead.
JOH 20:10 So the disciples went away again to their own homes.
Greek: So the disciples went away to themselves.
It does not indicate that they have homes to go to but the emphasis is on going away alone.
The Lord established victory over death and the grave. Now alive, no clothes could bind Him and no stone could hold Him. Note the contrast with Lazarus.
JOH 11:38 Jesus therefore again being deeply moved within, came to the tomb. Now it was a cave, and a stone was lying against it.
JOH 11:39 Jesus said, "Remove the stone." Martha, the sister of the deceased, said to Him, "Lord, by this time there will be a stench, for he has been dead four days."
JOH 11:40 Jesus said to her, "Did I not say to you, if you believe, you will see the glory of God?"
JOH 11:41 And so they removed the stone. And Jesus raised His eyes, and said, "Father, I thank Thee that Thou heardest Me.
JOH 11:42 "And I knew that Thou hearest Me always; but because of the people standing around I said it, that they may believe that Thou didst send Me."
JOH 11:43 And when He had said these things, He cried out with a loud voice, "Lazarus, come forth."
JOH 11:44 He who had died came forth, bound hand and foot with wrappings; and his face was wrapped around with a cloth. Jesus said to them, "Unbind him, and let him go."
The Lord passed right through the linen wrappings and head napkin and probably passed right through the stone covering the opening of the tomb.
For Lazarus the stone had to be rolled away and he had to be unbound. Yet Lazarus would die again. He was called back from the Paradise of Hades and the next time he died he would go straight to the Paradise of heaven.
The moment any believer dies he passes through the billions of miles of the heavens and directly to the presence of God in the third heaven. Thus says the Lord!
for we walk by faith, not by sight — we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord.
"And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.
"Father, I desire that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am, in order that they may behold My glory, which Thou hast given Me; for Thou didst love Me before the foundation of the world.
Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words.
And there shall no longer be any curse; and the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and His bond-servants shall serve Him; and they shall see His face, and His name shall be on their foreheads.
Since then the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil; and might deliver those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives.
Mary Magdalene has gone ahead of the other women and returned to the tomb. Her actions show a deeper love and make an opportunity for one of the tenderest moments in scripture.
The Lord and His angels return to the tomb after Peter and John leave. He could have appeared to them but for His own reasons chose to first appear to Mary Magdalene.
PRO 8:17 may have application though its context is wisdom.
"I love those who love me [wisdom];
And those who diligently seek me will find me.
JOH 20:11 But Mary was standing outside the tomb weeping; and so, as she wept, she stooped and looked into the tomb;
JOH 20:12 and she beheld two angels in white sitting, one at the head, and one at the feet, where the body of Jesus had been lying.
JOH 20:13 And they 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."
This time they do not repeat that He is risen but ask a question, knowing the resurrected Lord to be right behind her. In my mind they are enjoying themselves because they know within minutes Mary's tears of sorrow are going to be tears of joy.
The two angels at either end of the shelf where the body had been laying is a picture of the cherubim at either end of the mercy seat on the ark of the covenant.
Right at our beginning after our fall the two cherubim that guarded the east gate was the place of blood sacrifice. For centuries the high priest brought in the blood of the sacrifice on the Day of Atonement and sprinkled it on the mercy seat between the two golden cherubim.
Now the blood sacrifice was done and the two angels sat on an empty seat upon which was no blood, of the mercy seat, Jesus Christ, was alive. There would never be a sacrifice again.
I believe this is why the resurrected Christ is never seen inside the tomb. Once He left He was never to return, symbolically revealing that the grave had no power over Him and never will as it is for all His believers. Here we see the angels inside and Christ standing outside.
For the death that He died, He died to sin, once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God.
who does not need daily, like those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins, and then for the sins of the people, because this He did once for all when He offered up Himself.
and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.
By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.
JOH 20:13 And they 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."
She doesn't know who "they" are but she is certain that whoever they are they took the body. It is uncertain if she can discern that these are angels or just men in very white clothes, which would have been odd for this time period. Mary is extremely upset as the lost body is added to the grief of His terrible death, which she witnessed.
JOH 20:14 When she had said this, she turned around, and beheld Jesus standing there, and did not know that it was Jesus.
It was said of the two men on the road to Emmaus that their eyes were kept from recognizing Jesus, but here is it likely just a case of Mary being blinded by tears, being only to make the rough outline of a man, and of course, completely not expecting Jesus to be standing behind her and certainly not a Jesus in perfect health without bruises or visible scars.
JOH 20:15a - Jesus said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?"
The kindly words which the supposed gardener addressed her encouraged her to think that now at last she had found someone who could tell her what had happened to the body of her Lord.
JOH 20:15b - Supposing Him to be the gardener, she said to Him, "Sir, if you have carried Him away, tell me where you have laid Him, and I will take Him away."
Mary was a woman of enterprise and substance. In our Lord's ministry she was willing to pay for whatever needs arose from her own finances and to do the work necessary to take care of the Lord's congregation. Like the virtuous wife of Pro 31, Mary is a caretaker and a woman of enterprise, though not a wife that we know of, but a caretaker of the Lord and His congregation.
As such a woman she, unlike anyone else we see in the narrative, will not rest until the body is found and she will take it herself and care for it. She will care for it and do the work necessary for that care. That is a woman of enterprise and substance.
Every day in the plan of God gives us something of substance to pursue and to do so with great enterprise. Will we be bored for all eternity? Eternal life started the moment you were saved.
The sympathetic stranger's kindly inquiry was insufficient for recognition. His calling her name was all that was necessary.
Immediately her distress vanished; here was something far better than she had dreamed possible. Instead of the dead body she had hoped to recover, she found herself face to face with her living Lord.
The Lord could have done this in a hundred different ways. He could have more directly approached her or He could have had the angels tell her that He would be walking up to her in a minute, but in this way He more surprises her.
Could it be that the Lord loves to surprise in life with deliverances from things in ways we do not expect so that we may often experience unexpected joy?
Weeping may last for the night,
But a shout of joy comes in the morning.
JOH 20:16 Jesus said to her, "Mary!" She turned and said to Him in Hebrew, "Rabboni!" (which means, Teacher).
After she spoke to the angels she turned around and found Jesus standing there but not recognizing Him. Verse 16 says that she turned again after she recognized His voice. She broke eye contact with Him in her impassioned plea for the body but then knowing it was Him she looked directly at Him. Not to take this too far, but there is a type here about occupation with Christ. When we recognize Him we will find it hard to take our eyes off of Him. When we see Him in every aspect of life, and our life as believers is His, then we will much more often find it hard to take our eyes off of Him.
She's looking around the graveyard, the surrounding hills, the walls of the city for possible places that His body might be when He's alive standing in front of her. Do we see the life that is Christ in every aspect of our lives, in the details of life? Do we look far off for where He might be when He is right next to you, in you, and in the very circumstance you find yourself?
And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fulness of Him who fills all in all.
one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.
Mary recognized His voice, so then He doesn't have to be with us physically. His voice is His word.
"To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name, and leads them out.
The word with which she greeted Him was probably her regular designation for Him. Rabboni was an Aramaic form, more emphatic and perhaps more honorific than the simpler 'Rabbi'.
John uses 'Hebrew' to include Aramaic (not to be confused with Arabic) as he did in JOH 19:13, 17. Both Hebrew and Aramaic are close relatives from the same Semitic language family.
JOH 20:17 Jesus said to her, "Stop clinging to Me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to My brethren, and say to them, 'I ascend to My Father and your Father, and My God and your God.'"
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