This sermon was preached to Grace Church Guildford on 17 April 2022. The full video recording of the service can be found below along with the transcript.
Seeing is believing. That’s the common expression we use to explain that we need to see some evidence before we can accept something is true. For example, if I said to you I can fit fourteen cream eggs in my mouth at once, you would be right to respond, "I’ll believe that when I see it." It is right to be sceptical when people say things that seem impossible. If this is true when talking about cream eggs, how much more important is it when it comes to matters that actually impact your life! If you are going to build your life on something, you want to make sure you are not building it on a lie, if something seems to be improbable, you will want to see evidence for it before you believe it. Throughout our service this morning, from the opening words of the choir’s first song to the final words of that last reading, we have repeated one claim over and over, asserted that Jesus Christ rose from the dead. It’s a claim that may seem improbable, even impossible. Yet here we are gathered together to hear, pray and sing about it. If you are here this morning, or watching online, and are not a Christian, that is you are not repenting of your sin and trusting Jesus as your Lord and Saviour, how do you process all this? When you hear us declare Jesus is risen from the dead, what goes through your mind? Perhaps you think about it in the same way you think about the Easter bunny leaving chocolate eggs off for kids this morning. It’s a nice story that engages the kids, a festive activity bringing families together, a cultural tradition that connects us to the past. But a giant bunny delivering chocolate eggs, it’s hardly historical fact. And for you, the Easter story falls into the same category. The idea of someone coming back from the dead is so utterly unbelievable, you would need to see it to believe it!
If that is you this morning, it’s wonderful to have you with us, you are always welcome to come along to Sunday services here at Grace Church. However, as we begin our sermon, lest there be any doubt, you need to know this church is a group of Christians who really do believe Jesus rose from the dead. We believe there is a fundamental difference between the Easter bunny and the Easter story – the Easter bunny is fiction, and the Easter story is fact. We believe it is an historical fact Jesus was crucified and rose from the dead three days later just as the Bible says. If you kept reading through the part of the Bible we have been reading this morning, the New Testament, I don’t think this would surprise you, for you would see this has always been the case for those who follow Jesus. In fact, you would find that believing in the resurrection is part of what it means to be a Christian. In the book of Romans, the apostle Paul teaches we become Christians, not by being born to ‘Christian’ parents, or going to a ‘Christian’ school, or living in a ‘Christian’ country, or even coming to a ‘Christian’ church. Paul explains you can become a Christian by taking Jesus as Lord and believing he rose from the dead. In Romans 10:8-9 he says: "[this is] the message concerning faith that we proclaim: If you declare with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." Paul taught you cannot be a Christian and deny the resurrection. The resurrection is central to being a Christian, and as we shall see, it is central to all of Christianity.
You may say that is all well and good, we are free to follow our fancy, whether to believe in the Easter bunny or the Easter story. But for you personally, resurrection is so unbelievable, you would need to see it to believe it. Well, I wonder did you notice that in John 20, we read about a whole host of people who did exactly that: saw Jesus raised from the dead and so believed in his resurrection. In 20:1-29 we read how Mary, Peter, Thomas and the other disciples all saw and believed. But then, in 20:30-31, John stops speaking of those who saw and believed in the past, and started speaking about how we can see and believe in the present. You say you would need to see this resurrection in order to believe it? Well here in 20:30 John explains "these [things] are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name." John has written this chapter, this book, so that you today here in Guildford can see and believe. This morning we will consider our chapter in two: (1) How they saw and believed (20:1-29); (2) How we see and believe (20:30-31).
1. HOW THEY SAW AND BELIEVED (20:1-29)
In many ways, being a preacher at Easter is rather like being a stand up comedian telling a joke for which everyone has already heard the punchline. Or the author of a mystery novel writing a story for which readers already know the ending. It is hard to communicate the suspense and surprise of that first Easter morning when we all know how the mystery of the empty tomb will be solved. Yet, if we are to understand these events as they unfolded, we need to slow down, linger a little on each character and look at how they process what happens. John has written his account so we can do just that, for he takes time to tell us how each of them saw and believed. First, he focuses on Mary and then on the disciples. In each case he not only tells us how they see and believe, from doubt to faith, but also how their lives in that moment are transformed. When they meet the risen Lord, their lives change forever.
We see this first in the case of Mary Magdalene. The fact she is the first to appear in the chapter commends her. In 19:25 we see she was among the few followers of Jesus who stood with him at the cross, and here we see she was the first to rise to see him in the tomb. In 20:1, we are told that even while it was still dark, she was already on her way. However, when she arrived, she found herself looking not at a sealed tomb, covered by a large boulder, but on an empty tomb, for the stone had been rolled away! Instantly, she concludes Christ’s body has been taken, likely stolen. Grave robbers were common at the time, so much so that a decade later the Emperor Claudius issued an edict that anyone convicted of stealing from a grave was to be executed. Mary seems to understand this is the case here, for in 20:2 she runs to tell the disciples, "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!" This conclusion causes her great distress. As if crucifixion as a criminal was not humiliating enough, now her Lord’s body had been stolen, his final resting place disturbed. It was too much for her to bear. She breaks down and in 2:11 we read she is left alone, standing outside the tomb, crying and weeping. In that moment, it seemed like she had lost everything. All she had thought was true in the past, her belief in Jesus as the promised Messiah, and all she hoped for in the future, had been ripped from her. She was left with nothing.
As we look at Mary weeping there, we are able to see what Christianity would look like without the resurrection. If Jesus was not raised, if his body was stolen or lost like Mary thought, then the only logical response is the one that Mary had: grief, despair, hopelessness. Without the resurrection, Jesus is simply another in a long line of human leaders who failed to fulfil their potential. 2000 years on from his death, we wouldn’t even know his name. Paul agrees, arguing Christianity stands or falls based on the truth of the resurrection. In 1 Corinthians 15:14, he says, "if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless...if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins [and] we are of all people most to be pitied." Did you hear that? If the resurrection didn’t really happen, then you may as well all go home now: enjoy the weather, have a nice holiday weekend, start your lunch early. For as Paul says, it is pointless for me to preach about a dead Messiah. Similarly, did you notice he said without the resurrection, Christian faith is futile, that is it can achieve nothing. Such ‘faith’ may give us some good ‘feelings’, provide a community group to belong to, a hobby to pass the time, but it can bring no forgiveness, no new life, no real lasting change. Paul makes clear that if the resurrection is not real, then the main message of Christianity is cancelled, crushed. You see, that main message of Christianity, the Gospel, tells us we have sinned against our good and holy Creator and deserve his eternal judgement as a result. And yet, we can be forgiven and brought back to him if we repent of sin and trust in Jesus, for he came to this world to die in our place, take the punishment we deserved for sin on the cross, and rose again from the dead to declare victory over sin and death. However, Paul explains, that if Christ stayed in that grave, we stay in our sins. That unless he is risen, we are not forgiven. Guilty before a holy God, deserving his just eternal judgement for turning away from him, living according to our own sinful desires. The resurrection is like the Jenga block at the bottom of the tower, if it is taken out the whole of Christianity comes crashing down. If the resurrection is fiction not fact, then Christianity is a con and we are all left standing in Mary’s shoes: filled with sorrow, overwhelmed by grief, without any hope.
How thankful we should be then, when we read that Jesus is in fact risen and reveals himself to Mary! When he does this, she seems to seize hold of him, perhaps as a parent might grab a child they thought was lost in a tragedy but then discovered is still alive, Mary can’t seem to let him go of Jesus, for in 20:17 he has to tell her to do so. But surely now we can understand why she clings so closely. He is not only the Lord that she loves, but the one on whom all her hopes are founded, the one who is the difference between despair and delight, grief and gladness. Christian, on this Easter morning, it is good to remember all our hopes hinge on a risen Jesus, that we ought to cling to him as closely as Mary does! Without a resurrected Lord, we are ruined. But with him, we are saved!
A similar transformation takes place for the disciples. Alerted to the absence of Christ’s body by Mary in 20:2, some arrive to investigate the tomb. Peter takes the lead and looks around to try and work out what happened. In 20:6-7, he sees the tomb is empty, the grave clothes are left behind and the cloth for Christ’s face set aside. What does Peter make of it all? Is he a first century Sherlock Holmes? Can he put all these pieces of the puzzle together? Apparently not. We have no record of his investigation’s conclusion, but instead are simply told in 20:10 that when Mary lingers, "the disciples went back to where they were staying." There is a similar anti-climax later. In 20:18 we read, "Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: "I have seen the Lord!" And she told them that he had said these things to her." What lifechanging news she had to share! And yet, did you notice how Jesus’ disciples respond to it? In 2:19, we are simply told that same evening they locked themselves away, terrified of the Jewish leaders. Apart from a comment about himself, which we will consider later, John doesn’t tell us what the disciples were thinking. Instead, he paints a picture of stunned silence, detached disbelief, doubt that these things could be true. The person who personifies this best is Thomas in 20:25. He gets a bad name, is often called ‘Doubting Thomas’, yet we see that many other disciples had the same doubts. Back in 20:18, Mary told them "I have seen the Lord!", but they don’t seem to believe until Jesus appears in 20:20 and shows his crucified hands and side. Thomas is hardly less believing than the others, just bolder in declaring his doubts. He requests similar evidence to what they required. He may have heard it from them, but until Thomas sees it, he will not believe.
If Mary reminds us what Christianity looks like without the resurrection, the disciples remind us what it looks like with the resurrection. Here the disciples are unable to dispel their lingering doubts and are terrified by the Jewish leaders, fearing they might kill them like they did Jesus. And yet, after they see and believe, all this begins to change. Just 50 days later, at Pentecost in Acts 2, the same men who are here unable to believe in the resurrection and hide away in a locked room, will stand out in the open city and testify to thousands that Jesus rose from the dead. In Acts 4, they are dragged before the very Jewish leaders who so terrify them here but still refuse to stop spreading the good news of the resurrection. And throughout the rest of the book, that is exactly what they do, as they begin to take the good news of Christ’s death and resurrection to all the world. How can we explain this transformation? From fear to fearlessness, from doubt about the resurrection to declaring it to all the world? Well, here in John 20 we see it is the appearance of their risen Lord, and the ongoing presence of his Holy Spirit which he promises in 20:22. That is what causes this remarkable change. Because they saw and believed, they were sure of the truth of the resurrection, so much so, they were willing to suffer much for it. See here that without the resurrection, Christianity is redundant. But with it, it is triumphant. If Jesus is not raised, then the Christian faith is futile, pointless, powerless. However, if Jesus is raised, then the Christian faith is a fire that can never be put out. It is unstoppable. It is able to accomplish all of its claims, keep all of its promises: provide forgiveness, save us from God’s coming judgement, bring us into eternal life. Brothers and sisters, if we have a God who raises the dead, then that redraws the map of experience in this world, that rewrites the rules of this board game of life. We saw if the resurrection is removed from Christianity, it collapses like a Jenga tower. But similarly, if the finality and fear of death is removed from the normal way of life in this world, then that too crumbles. For if Jesus was raised from the dead, then we too will rise. Then death is not the end, but just a transition to the better, fuller, richer life that awaits all who repent of sin and trust in him. This short life becomes a period of preparation and investment for that forever, neverending, life of eternity. If Jesus is raised, then death becomes a door, the grave becomes a gateway, the coffin carries us into the presence of our risen Lord. So whether by illness, unexpected tragedy, or suffering and persecution, we need not fear taking that final step. We need not fear falling asleep in Jesus, for we know one day we will rise just as he did. Do you see what a difference it makes? As we will sing shortly, ‘Let the church with gladness; Hymns of triumph sing; For her Lord now liveth; Death hath lost its sting.’
2. HOW WE SEE AND BELIEVE (20:30-31)
Of course, that’s all well and good for Mary and the disciples, Jesus physically appeared to them, they were able to look on his hands and sides. But what about us today? How can we see and believe? Does the Lord need to appear to us before we can believe that he is alive? Well, Jesus answers this question in 20:29. After Thomas sees and believes, Jesus declares, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." Jesus explicitly teaches there will be those who will believe without a direct appearance like Mary and the disciples received. And that is exactly what we see throughout the rest of the Bible, for after Jesus ascends to his Father, as he said in 20:17, we read of thousands coming to believe through hearing about his resurrection, rather than seeing it themselves. We often say seeing is believing, yet here we are told there will be those who believe without seeing. Or better, believe without seeing with their eyes. For we should be careful not to equate or limit seeing to sight. There is more than one type of seeing. A blind man can understand much even though he never sees it through his eyes. And even for us who do have our sight, we cannot always depend on it to determine what is true. We say seeing is believing, but we also say looks can be deceiving. In every area of our life, we depend and rely upon the testimony of others to determine what is reliable. This is true with respect to all historical events, from WWI to Napoleon to Julius Caesar to Jesus Christ. By examining evidence, we can see things our eyes could never perceive. Did you notice that is exactly what John tells us to do in 20:30-31? Having just recorded Jesus’ saying there will be those who do not see and yet believe, John states: "Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe...". John writes so we can believe. So those who never perceive by sight can still see that Jesus rose from the dead. In John 20, two ways are highlighted that we see apart from sight: (1) Reason; and (2) Revelation.
We get a glimpse of the first one, reason, early in the chapter. You see, while Peter demonstrates he is not the first century equivalent of Sherlock Holmes, John displays far greater powers of observation and deduction. Peter saw the discarded grave clothes in an empty tomb and was uncertain what to conclude. But our author John, who refers to himself using the pseudonym "the other disciple, the one Jesus loved" (20:2), examines the same evidence but comes to a different conclusion. We read in 2:8, "Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed." That is, John believed in the resurrection before he seen Jesus later in 20:19. He is the first in that group of people who Jesus speaks of in 20:29, those who are blessed because they have not seen him and yet have believed. What is it about the empty tomb that convinced John? What did he see there that brought him to belief? Mary looked at it and concluded that somebody had taken the body of Jesus, but for John this didn’t match the facts. Yes, the body was gone, but the graveclothes were left behind. The strips of linen that were carefully wrapped around the body from head to toe had been removed. Why would robbers do that? Strip a body naked before carrying it away? It would make it more difficult to carry and increase the chance of them being caught! And then there is the face covering, which seems to have been set aside, carefully put back in the very place where his head had been. Whoever did this didn’t do it roughly or in a rush, but carefully, deliberately. This is like getting your car getting broken into and finding the thief has hoovered up all the glass from your broken window. That would be a strange crime scene! From the other gospel accounts we know a guard had been placed on the tomb to prevent such a robbery happening. What happened to those Roman soldiers? What made them abandon the body they were sent to protect? John looks at this evidence and reasons something special took place. He sees far from the resurrection being an unlikely conclusion, it is the only conclusion that makes sense.
Today, if we stop to reason through the evidence of the empty tomb, we come to the very same conclusion. Not only do we have all the evidence that John had then, but today we have even more evidence pointing to it. For example, there is the martyrdom of many of these men we read of in our chapter. Peter was likely crucified on a Roman cross, just like Jesus, and John was tortured and sent into exile. Why? For what cause did these men, and many others, suffer such brutality? Well, at its heart was their persistence in proclaiming Jesus rose from the dead! These men were willing to suffer and die for the sake of the resurrection, for refusing to accept it was mere myth or superstition. Of course, many die believing false causes, but few go willing, even gladly, to die for claims they know are false. Clearly, something happened that first Easter, something transformed them to such an extent that they were sure, certain that Jesus was alive. The resurrection could not have been a fabrication of the disciples. Or consider the evidence from records of other historians in this period. There are three historical facts that Pagan, Roman, Jewish and Christian historians all agree on: (1) Jesus was a real man in history; (2) He was crucified; and (3) From the very beginning, his followers claimed that rose from the dead. If you are here and not a believer this morning, how do you put those pieces of the puzzle together? Jesus really was alive, and he really did die. Those two facts can be proved from countless historical sources beyond all reasonable doubt. So, what happened next? What caused his followers to believe he was alive? Could it be that Jesus really did rise from the dead? Don’t shrug your shoulders, sit on the fence, fail to investigate. Set yourself to answer that question. Wrestle until you arrive at a conclusion. As we seen, if Jesus was not raised, then none of this Christian stuff matters. But if he is alive, then he really is the Messiah, or as Thomas puts it in 20:20, our Lord and God, the one we must all bow before. Friend, follow that trail of investigation, examine the evidence, reason with these matters. And, as that famous detective, Sherlock Holmes, put it: ‘When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.’ For 2000 years no one has been able to find a better answer to the mystery of the empty tomb than the resurrection. Just as John examined the evidence and believed, we too can do the same.
However, it is not just reason, it is also revelation. It is God’s Word, the Bible, that allows us to see the resurrection. In 20:9, John notes that while he reasoned his way to the resurrection at the empty tomb, the disciples "did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead." That is, they were not yet aware of the way that the Old Testament again and again, hundreds and thousands of years before these events, predicted that Jesus would not only die, but also rise. So much so, that when Paul comes to describe the central truths of Christianity, he explains in 1 Corinthians 15:3-4: "that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures." The Old Testament predicted that Jesus would both die for our sins and rise again on the third day, and that is exactly what the New Testament records. And not just that, but Jesus himself predicted this would be the case. For example, in John 2:22 Jesus said his body would be destroyed and raised in three days. At the time, John explains they didn’t understand what he meant, but now they were able to recognise he was speaking of the resurrection. Finally, the Bible not only provides predictions of the resurrection, but also eyewitness testimony of it. This is exactly what the book of John, and the other three gospels, are! We see it so clearly there in 20:30-31. Why did John write all of this down? Well he tells us he has composed his book to show us the signs Jesus performed in the presence of his disciples, the last and greatest of these being his resurrection. John knows that we will not see with our own eyes, and so because he saw with his, he writes these things down, provides us with eyewitness testimony of the events. As he explains at the beginning of another of his books in the Bible, in 1 John 1:3: ‘We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us.' They saw with their eyes so we can see without our eyes. They saw and believed so we can see and believe.
As we close, there in 20:31, we are reminded of both the content and consequence of such belief. Here is a nutshell, in just a few words, is the essence, heart, core of Christianity. What do Christians believe? Here John says, ‘that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God’. That is, Jesus is promised Saviour, the one who came to die on the cross to take the punishment for sin for all who will turn and trust in him, and rose from the dead three days later to declare that their debt for sin had been settled and death itself had been destroyed. That’s what Christians believe. But do you see that John answers a second question there in 20:31, not just what they believe, but what they receive. Not just the content of their faith, but also the consequence, for he finishes the chapter by saying ‘these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God,and that by believing you may have life in his name.’ Everyone here this morning will one day die. The Bible teaches that those who reject this good news of salvation in Jesus, who will not believe in him, they will suffer God’s just judgement for their sin themselves, their physical death will just be the beginning, for they will suffer in eternal death forever. And yet, for those who repent of their sin and believe in Jesus, follow him as their Lord and Saviour, for Christians, their death becomes a door to life. They will enjoy eternal life with Jesus, and on the last day, even their body will be raised again, just as Jesus’ was here. Perhaps no one has put the message better than Jesus himself, for back in John 11:25-26 we read: ‘Jesus said, "I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; andwhoever lives by believing in mewill never die.Do you believe this?"Friends, how do you answer that question of Jesus’ this morning? ‘Do you believe this?’ Teenagers and young people, doyou, not your friends or parents, doyoupersonally believe this this Easter? Do you have this life that Jesus offers? If you are visiting with us this morning, now you haveseenthe resurrection in Scripture,do you believe? If you have any questions, we would love to talk with you about them. You can come chat to me afterwards, or simply say something to someone you know here at Grace Church. Is there a better way to spend lunchtime this Easter Sunday, than speaking together about the resurrection and the life that Jesus gives to all who see and believe?
ALEXANDER ARRELL