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March 23, 2008
Easter Sunday
John 20:1-8
Pastor Joel Zank

The Life-Changing Power of the Empty Tomb

(John 20:1-8)  Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. {2} So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don't know where they have put him!" {3} So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. {4} Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. {5} He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. {6} Then Simon Peter, who was behind him, arrived and went into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, {7} as well as the burial cloth that had been around Jesus' head. The cloth was folded up by itself, separate from the linen. {8} Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed.

In Christ Jesus, dear fellow redeemed who share in our Risen Lord’s victory over sin and death!

Throughout the season of Lent we traveled with Jesus on one cross-road after another, until this past Friday we came to an apparent “dead” end at Calvary. To some it may have seemed that our journey was over, but not so. Here we are this morning traveling one more cross-road. On this Easter Sunday, we make our way, in spirit, to the tomb where Jesus’ body has been laid. But why is that? Don’t we have more interesting places to go than a grave? Or if we insist on heading to a tomb today, aren’t there better ones to see? How about the tomb of King Tut? The gold and art from that Egyptian crypt have impressed millions and millions of people. All over the earth, the remains of kings, dictators, and princes are preserved, guarded, and admired. But we can’t even be sure about the exact location of our King’s burial. For this very reason, Muslims throughout the world have been known to heckle and mock Christian missionaries: “We have the tomb of our great prophet Mohammed,” they say, “but you Christians have nothing!”

They’re right aren’t they! That’s why we’re here celebrating today. We have “nothing,” and that “nothing” means everything to us!  That “nothing” has changed our lives. Today, on this final crossroad, we’re going to contemplate and celebrate the life-changing power of the empty tomb. The way we’re gong to do that is by contrasting how people come to and how they leave the empty tomb.

We’re traveling to the tomb this morning with three individuals: Mary Magdalene and two disciples, Peter and John. Mary is the first to arrive at our Savior’s grave. Here was a woman who was devoted to Jesus. His power had changed her life in more ways than one. It was Jesus who had cast seven demons out of her, and then, freed her from Satan himself by giving her faith to believe the saving promises of God. Mary wanted to show her gratitude to Jesus by following him. And Mary’s devotion didn’t end when she saw Jesus die. No, she and a group of other women made sure to find out where they laid his body so that they could return and pay their respects with a proper burial. That’s why  they  were on the road to the tomb so early on Sunday morning. What a depressing journey. There was no bounce in Mary’s step, only grief and sorrow in her heart. Her friend, her pastor, her healer was dead. As she plodded along to the cemetery, her sorrow was only deepened by the fact that she didn’t even know if it would be possible to pay her respects because there would be no way to budge the stone that covered the tomb. It seemed like life couldn’t get any worse, but just then it did. For when Mary arrived at the tomb, Jesus’ body was gone. You can hear the raw emotion in her voice, can’t you as she reports to Peter and John: “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where thy have put him.”? Chocked with grief, what could Mary do but sit outside the tomb and flood the earth with her tears?

What about us? Are we crying as we come to the tomb today? Does sadness fill our hearts? If we’re honest, we have to admit there’s a bit of Mary in all of us today. For some of us, the tears come this morning because we’re spending the first, or yet another Easter without a loved one whose death has left us with such a profound sense of loss, one that just won’t seem to go away.  For others the sadness is caused by the death of a dream. Life has only seemed to go from bad to worse, dashing every last hope of ours. Life’s troubles have drained the joy right out of us, making our trip to the tomb today, like Mary’s, one filled with grief and sorrow.

But Mary wasn’t the only one who traveled to the tomb that Sunday. After hearing Mary’s troubling news, Peter and John also headed there. While they too were filled with grief and sorrow, they were battling some other emotions as well. Take Peter for example. Jesus’ death may have been harder on him than anyone else. Not only did he have to deal with the grief of losing a mentor and friend, he had the millstones of guilt and shame hung around his neck. You remember. He had left his Savior’s side just hours after promising he’d die with Jesus rather than disown him. The same Peter who wanted to stay with Jesus forever, basking in light on the Mount of Transfiguration was nowhere to be found in the darkness of Mount Calvary.

Is it any different with us? Maybe this is the first time we’ve worshiped in months and we’re feeling guilty we haven’t been here more often. Or, like Peter, we profess loyalty to Jesus with our lips, but we say something so very different with our lives. We lie awake at night because we know we’re such lousy parents, such lousy spouses, such lousy employees, such lousy followers of Christ. Even on our trip to church we can’t seem to take our eyes off the rearview mirror of life where all we see is the cross of Jesus screaming at us - “Your sins did this!” Yes, like Peter, our trip to the tomb today is accompanied by guilt and shame.

We’ve already mentioned Mary and Peter, what about John. How did he come to the tomb? With grief and sorrow? Certainly. With guilt and shame? I suppose–he too had deserted Jesus in the garden on Thursday night. But there’s something else here. Let’s call it guarded skepticism. You see, we’re told elsewhere in Scripture that the disciples, John among them, did not believe the women’s report of a risen and missing Jesus. The women’s news “...seemed to them like nonsense” (Luke 24:11).

Are we guarded skeptics when it comes to believing in Jesus and all he’s done to save us? Have you ever found yourself saying, “I want to believe, I just don’t know if I can.”? “There are so many stories out there of what happened on that first Easter, how do I know this is the truth? Maybe all this is a legend that developed years later. I’ve never seen anyone rise from the dead–is it reasonable to believe this is true? And even if it is, is it reasonable to believe that something that happened to Jesus so long ago has any impact on my life today?” Friends, I will be the first to admit that throughout my life, Satan has worked such doubts in me, as I’m sure he has in you. At times, my trip–our trip to the tomb has been made with guarded skepticism, just like John’s.

But like John, it’s not important how we come to the tomb, but how we leave it. Don’t you see? The empty tomb has life-changing power! Look what it did for John.

John reports in our text that after he went inside the tomb and found the burial cloths arranged as they were, “He saw and believed” (20:8). The empty tomb converted John’s guarded skepticism into guaranteed certainty. And it does the same for us. The empty tomb proves Jesus is who claims to be. His empty tomb together with his resurrection appearances to literally hundreds of eyewitnesses guarantee that Jesus was not just some popular religious leader, but was and is the Son of God! After all, only God has the power to raise himself from the dead, and yes, that kind of power can easily touch my life all these centuries later! The empty tomb leads us to stop doubting and believe. The very sight of it sends us on our way with a faith that’s not limping on guarded skepticism but is leaning securely on the guaranteed certainties of God’s promises fulfilled in Christ.

The life-changing power of the empty tomb doesn’t stop there. The empty tomb looks at our guilt and shame and applies God’s comfort and grace. Go back to Peter for a moment, the disciple who “...wept bitterly” (Matthew 26:75) over his burden of guilt. Listen to God address that guilt at the empty tomb. It was there God’s angel told the women, “Go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee’” (Mark 16:7). Later on, Jesus would personally apply his grace and comfort to Peter by reinstating him as his spokesman. Think of it! Here’s a man who turned his back on Jesus more than once, yet Jesus went out of his way to say, “I forgive you. Your guilt is gone.” That’s why Peter could later write, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Peter 1:3). The empty tomb gives you that same “new birth.” The empty tomb gives you that same “living hope.” The Bible says, “[Jesus] was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification” (Romans 4:25). The empty tomb declares you to be innocent. The empty tomb guarantees that your sins are forgiven and forgotten. What grace! What comfort! Think of how this changes your life and mine! We stumbled to the empty tomb this morning under the weight of our sins and guilt–guilt over sporadic worship, over frequent denials of Christ, over shameful behavior toward others. We came burdened with the knowledge that these and our many other sins have earned us God’s hatred and a place in hell forever. But the empty tomb lifts all that awful weight from our shoulders–all of it. For what does the tomb tell us, but that our Substitute, the one who suffered the unspeakable horrors of hell in our place, the one who died to pay sin’s wages for us, has conquered our hell and has broken our curse! How do we know this? Because he lives to tell us so! One beautiful word comes echoing out of that empty tomb this morning, a word from God’s mouth meant for your ears.  “Forgiven!” That’s one you are, dear friend, forgiven!

Doesn’t that make you glad? Doesn’t that make you want to celebrate? Sure it does, and that’s more evidence of the life-changing power of the empty tomb–it turns our grief to gladness and our sorrow to celebration. That’s what it did for Mary. She came to the tomb full of sorrow. She lingered there crying, believing her Lord had been stolen. But when Jesus appeared to her straight from that empty tomb, her tears of sorrow became tears of joy. The grief that had filled her life for a time gave way to gladness that will last an eternity. Christ’s tomb has the same effect on our lives for its emptiness fills Christ’s promise to you with such power: “Because I live, you also will live” (John 14:9). The empty tomb guarantees that we will walk away from this life of grief and sorrow into a brand new life where there are no more tears, no more pain, no more sorrow. In fact, believing this, as we do, changes our perspective on the grief and sorrow we brought with us to the tomb today. We realize how temporary they are.

To illustrate, I’d like you to picture in your mind’s eye a favorite Easter painting of mine. It’s a picture of the cross of Calvary as seen through the doorway of the empty tomb. The tomb’s vantage point changes everything, doesn’t it? Viewed by itself, the cross, even an empty cross is a reminder of the seriousness of our sin. Sin causes death–the death that still awaits us if Christ’s body still lies buried in a borrowed tomb. But Christ is not there; his tomb is empty and because it is, we can look through its open door and see the cross from a whole new perspective. What was once a symbol of death is now our claim to life, life with our God now and forever. What life-changing power indeed all from an empty tomb, a tomb that shouts to us this day and every day: Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia and amen!*