Easter: Jesus Doesn’t Play Hide-and-seeK (John 20.1-18)

Has this ever happened to you? You look for something, and you can’t find it…because you weren’t looking in the right place?

That’s exactly what’s happening on Easter morning. Everyone is looking for Jesus, and they think they know where he’ll be. But as it turns out, they’re looking in the wrong place.

Now before we get started, we have to remember what happened in the story just before this.

Three years earlier, a man named Jesus arrived in Israel and began teaching about the kingdom of God. He assembled a group of disciples to follow him and learn from him, and he traveled, teaching and healing people of their diseases.

He did this for three years, and people from all over the territory came to love him—but others came to hate him. Because Jesus wasn’t doing things the way the religious establishment in Israel did them, and people were turning away from that establishment to follow Jesus. So he was a big threat to these religious leaders. They came up with a plot to falsely accuse him of insurrection against the Roman Empire, so that Rome would have him killed.

And that’s exactly what happened. They falsely accused Jesus of crimes he didn’t commit, condemned him to death, killed him, and buried him.

What no one realized was why he let this happen. Jesus had incredible power, and he had proved it by doing incredible things—he could easily have escaped from Rome. So why didn’t he?

He chose to die, because he is the Son of God, God made man, the only person who could solve the problem of our sin, which is our rebellion against God that separates us from him. On the cross, Jesus took the sin of all of his people on himself, and God punished Jesus in the place of his people, so that we could be united to him.

But at this point of the story, no one realizes that yet. No one understands what just happened. His disciples are horrified and grief-stricken, because their Master, this man who had walked on water, healed the sick and raised the dead, has died, and has been put into a tomb.

That’s where we are when we pick up our story.

I. The Empty Tomb (vv. 1–10)

Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb.

Mary Magdalene had been following Jesus for a good while. She was close to him; she loved him and knew him well. So she comes to the tomb, early in the morning on the third day, when it’s still dark.

Some of us have done this before. We know people who have died, so we go to visit where they were buried.

But none of us have experienced what Mary did.

When she got there, she saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. Tombs in Israel were different than they are in France. They were usually dug into a hillside, and they had a door, like a small house. There was a small room inside with a table on which they laid the body. And then they rolled a stone, shaped like a giant, very thick coin, in front of the door, so it would be really hard to open.

When Mary shows up, she finds that the stone has been taken away.

This is, obviously, scary—no one wants to see an open tomb when they’re coming to visit. So she runs and gets the others. V. 2:

2 So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” 3 So Peter went out with the other disciple, and they were going toward the tomb. 4 Both of them were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5 And stooping to look in, he saw the linen cloths lying there, but he did not go in. 6 Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen cloths lying there, 7 and the face cloth, which had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen cloths but folded up in a place by itself. 8 Then the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; 9 for as yet they did not understand the Scripture, that he must rise from the dead. 10 Then the disciples went back to their homes.

Mary came to visit a grave—but the grave was empty. So she assumes that someone has taken the body. That makes sense. If someone wanted to make it look like Jesus had come back from the dead, this would be the way to do it. You see, even though Jesus had said this is what would happen, no one quite believed it yet. They believed something happened, but they didn’t understand what it was.

It’s very easy to see the right thing and still come to the wrong conclusion.

The tomb is empty, the cloths are lying there, Jesus is gone…but they still didn’t understand.

It’s important for us to understand that Easter didn’t start with joy; it started with confusion. When we find ourselves confused about God, that doesn’t mean we’re doing something wrong; that’s almost always how it starts.

But that’s not how it ends.

II. The Man Mary Doesn’t Know (vv. 11–15)

V. 11:

11 But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb, and as she wept she stooped to look into the tomb. 12 And she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one at the feet. 13 They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” 14 Having said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing, but she did not know that it was Jesus. 15 Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?” 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.”

So we see what happens here. Everyone is confused—no one knows what happened. The disciples leave, wanting to do something, to be active in the situation…but Mary doesn’t. She stays. Maybe it’s because she doesn’t know what to do, or maybe it’s just because she’s so sad. We don’t know; all we know is that she stands weeping outside the tomb, and looks into the tomb, and she sees two angels sitting there where Jesus was laid.

They ask her why she’s crying, and she tells them: it’s because someone has taken my Lord, and I don’t know where they put him. It’s still clear she doesn’t fully understand the situation.

But then, it gets even better.

When I was a kid my family took a trip across the United States. We stopped at a restaurant in Colorado, hundreds of miles from our home. And while we were waiting in line to get in the restaurant, my dad saw someone in line who looked very familiar, but he couldn’t quite place who it was.

This is the sort of thing that happens all the time, and it happens to Mary here in our text. She turns around and sees a man standing behind her. It’s Jesus!

But Mary doesn’t recognize him. Maybe his face was a little covered, or maybe it was just so outside the realm of her imagination that she couldn’t see him for who he was. But she doesn’t know it’s him.

The only thing she’s saying to everyone is, “My Master has been taken.” She’s looking for Jesus—and Jesus is right there, she’s talking to him…but she doesn’t know it’s him.

It’s possible to be very close to Jesus and still not recognize him.

Something needed to happen for Mary to understand what had happened, to understand it really was Jesus standing there with her.

III. The Man Who Knows Mary (v. 16)

So let’s remember where we were. Mary arrived at the empty tomb; she ran to get the disciples, who came and then saw and then left. Two angels appeared in the tomb, and Mary asked them who’s taken Jesus; then Jesus himself shows up behind her, asking why she’s crying, and Mary doesn’t recognize him; she thinks he’s the gardener, and says, “If you’ve taken him, please tell me where you put him.”

And everything changes with one word that Jesus says.

V. 16:

16 Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned and said to him in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means Teacher).

Jesus didn’t say, “Hey, it’s me! I’m alive! Why don’t you recognize me?” He didn’t give her a lengthy teaching. He didn’t explain what was happening to her.

All he did was say her name.

Remember before, when I told you about our trip across the United States, and how my dad saw someone in line who looked familiar, but he couldn’t quite tell who it was? Well, after a minute, that man looked at my dad, and he said his name—and suddenly, my dad remembered him. It was his old roommate in college, someone he hadn’t seen for twenty years. He didn’t recognize him because both of our families lived very far away from this city. We didn’t plan on meeting there, so my dad didn’t even realize it was him!

That’s sort of what happens here. Mary doesn’t know who the man behind her is; but he knows her, and he says her name. That’s the only thing that changes. They’re still in the same place, in the same situation, and he’s still the same person.

But when Jesus says Mary’s name, she recognizes him.

She doesn’t figure out some difficult mystery. She’s not convinced by a rational argument. She hears him call her name.

It’s sort of surprising, but this is how it works. Jesus didn’t just die and resurrect to save “people” (in general); he knows people personally. He knows your name. He knows my name. He knew us before he ever made us. It’s exactly what he said to his disciples earlier in this gospel—in John 10, he called himself “the good shepherd,” who “lays down his life for his sheep”. He said, “The sheep hear [the good shepherd’s] voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.”

What changed everything for Mary wasn’t that she figured out some difficult mystery. She wasn’t convinced by a rational argument. She simply heard Jesus call her name—and because he knew her, she recognized him.

IV. Go Tell (vv. 17–18)

Kids, what do you do when you’ve been on a trip or when you get out of school and you see your parents? If it’s been a long time, you yell, “Daddy! Mommy!” and you run to them to give them a hug. That’s good, and that’s probably what Mary wanted to do. She was so excited to see Jesus alive again that she probably wanted to stay there with him, just to see him and talk to him and be with him.

But Jesus makes it clear that now that he’s been raised, they’ve got work to do. He says (v. 17):

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.’ ”

To put it another way, Easter is the most glorious day we can think of, because it means that Jesus really did everything he came to do. Martin Luther called it “the great exchange”. Imagine you have a report card that tells everything you ever did in your life, that we will have to show to God. In order to be united to God, we need a perfect report card, with no red at all.

None of us are perfect; in all of our report cards there would be red everywhere.

Jesus, though, lived a life without sin. His report card is perfect: no red at all. At the cross, he took our report cards with all of our red, showed them to God, and was punished for our sin. And at his resurrection, he gave us his perfect report card, so that we can show ourselves to God, and he can open it and see that in this report card, there’s no red. So God says, “You’re perfect. Just like my Son.”

Easter is the proof that Jesus really did accomplish this incredible gift for us. And now that he’s done it, we can’t keep it to ourselves.

He tells Mary to go find the disciples and tell them that he is going to God—but he says it in a way he’s never said it before. Several times in the gospels, he’s referred to God as “our Father,” but in sort of a general way. He’s made it clear that his relationship to the Father is particular. But now he says, “I’m going to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.”

Because Jesus is alive, people can now belong to God as Father—people can be adopted by God as his sons and daughters.

So what does Mary do? V. 18:

18 Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”—and that he had said these things to her.

She goes from crying to announcing. She’s not sad anymore; now she’s excited, and courageous.

This is pretty incredible—at this time in history, in this society, women were not sent to give important news to men. And yet, the first person Jesus sent to proclaim the message of Easter wasn’t a preacher, or a leader, or someone who had great confidence or a position of authority. It was a woman, who had just been crying, and who now has this incredible message that she proclaims to the rest of Jesus’s people.

Conclusion

The pattern we see in this story is what we always see.

It starts with confusion. “What’s going on? What’s true? Can I really believe this? Can I trust it?”

Then Jesus meets us—in some way or another, he helps us to recognize him for who he is.

And finally, he sends us—he tells us to go and tell others about him.

Now let me ask you something. Kids—do you understand everything I’ve said today? Probably not.

Grown-ups: do you understand everything about this story? Do you understand how God works in every circumstance? No, you don’t.

And that’s okay. We see here that we don’t have to understand everything to come to Jesus. All we have to do is come.

And if you’ve seen him, you can speak. It doesn’t have to be complicated or polished; you don’t need every answer to every question. Look at what Mary said. “I have seen the Lord!”

That’s enough.

On Easter morning, everything changed—not when the tomb was empty, but when Jesus said Mary’s name.

And he still does the same thing today.

He invites us to come to him—and we see here that if we come to him, he is there. Jesus doesn’t play Hide-and-Seek. He is not far off, he’s not distant; He knows our names.

It’s incredible: when we look for Jesus, he’s there, because he is wherever we are. And we can look for him at any time, in any place.

He is here. Come to him.