Word of Salvation – Vol.32 No.14 – April 1987
He Saw… And Believed
EASTER SERMON
Sermon by Rev. A. I. DeGraaf on John 20:8b
Readings: John 20:1-9
Singing: BoW.S.6; H.402; Ps.H. 234:3,4; 357
What a strange Sunday morning that was!
So many things happen at the same time that even now it seems impossible to fit it all neatly together! The life of all Jesus’ followers had revolved around him for all these years, and now suddenly their Lord and Lover, their teacher an life’s Organiser, had vanished! Stricken from life by cruel execution! Their own life was in danger. What Jesus’ enemies could do against Him, the Mighty Master, they sure could do against them..!
“What shall we do now?” Well, typical, women then solve THAT question. They always find something to DO. Blessed gift. In the house where a death has occurred, they come and produce tea or coffee, something to eat, and someone is quietly doing some cleaning. Here, too: they go and look after the Master’s Body.
What had happened on Friday night was quite something! That fortune’s worth of spices given by these strange men, Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, that costly linen, that executive-style tomb in that beautiful setting…! Still, it all had been done so much in a hurry to beat the Sabbath sunset deadline! No good angering the Pharisees even more: they had killed the Master, one never knew what they’d do next. And after al it was the Lord’s command: No work on the Sabbath! Little did they know that there inside that grave the Creator and Ruler of the World was having the last of these Jewish work-first-and-rest-then Sabbaths! From Sunday morning on it would be a brand new routine: the liberation cycle of day-of-the-Lord first and then work afterwards.
Little did they know. So there the women traipse off at morning’s first light to finish the job of caring for the body. They were going to touch that body which would make them unclean for the law – God hated death for it meant sin – unclean said God! But they love their Master and they accepted that uncleanness – did thy have a hint already that by His death that Master had taken every uncleanness away from them forever?
Yes… women find things to do. That is a help when coping with grief. But the disciples sit and wonder. What now? Their career is on the skids: Their Master is dead…! But then all turmoil breaks loose! Mary of Magdala comes bursting into the room crying: “They have taken the Body away!” Peter and John look at each other: More trouble? They want to find out and rush off. Fit fellows, used to hard bodily work: they run. John faster than Peter… after all he’s younger. But he is polite: he waits for his older mate. That’s the way they were in those days. They go in… but there are no angels this time. Angels helped the women… but these men who had heard Jesus’ teaching… they should be able to draw their own conclusions. After all: the Master left them with clear evidence. They both see it. But Peter is too pre-occupied. Too much filled with grief and sorrow over what he had done to His master. Sin can do that. Even sin of which you repented as Peter had: it can fill your mind so that you do not see what others see. The Master would take care of that… would take care of Peter in His own personal way later on that day. But John sees… and believes! That’s what our text says: JOHN SAW… AND BELIEVED.
- WHO WAS IT that saw?
John. Who’d stood at the cross. Who himself had watched his Friend die. He had seen death in the face. Jesus’ death. Which was his own death. The terror of God’s judgement over our sin-filled lives of rebellion. John… one of the sons of thunder who had wanted fire from heaven to burn up the inhospitable Samaritans and who had expected to sit at Jesus’ right hand in the Kingdom-to-come…! But instead he had looked at Jesus’ death. And – as he would later write in his gospel: he had heard that cry of triumph from Jesus’ dying lips: “IT IS FINISHED! I have done it all!” Complete remission for all your sins! John who had heard Jesus say: “The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinners… John who had heard Him say before: “The Son of Man, when lifted up, will draw all people to Himself…!” Now he looked into the grave, and stood by that stone slab on which the body had lain… he saw…!
- Well, what was it then that he saw?
You know, we as children in our various children’s bibles have learned it often the wrong way: Just a nice story of how to make the bed before you leave the bedroom in the morning. Graveclothes neatly folded…! The wrapping around the head carefully put aside…But that is not what the Greek original suggests. There we read that what John saw… was the whole cocoon that was wrapped around Jesus’ body on that Friday night, spices and all, still there as it had been when Jesus had been in it… the head bandage where His head had been fold around fold, layer around layer… but caved in, empty: the body had left it… without touching it…!
That’s what John saw: what no thief could have managed, and what a Jesus who never had been dead but only unconscious, could not have managed either upon leaving the tomb cave. Only one who had arisen with a new body could have done that: he had done the same thing with those grave clothes that he was to do that night with a closed and locked door!
And what – that very morning, he had done with that big round stone in the mouth of the grave. Because Matthew tells us that an angel rolled that away after Jesus had left the grave already!! What John saw was the evidence of a new and radiant life that had burst forth on that marvellous morning. He saw it…!
- And he believed!
You see, to see is not always to believe. Paul says in Ephesians 1:18 that in order to believe one needs not just the eyes in one’s head but also the eyes of the heart open. Otherwise you can hear the mightiest sermons and remain bored. You can see the signs and seals of the Supper of the Lord, but all you notice is that the bread is stale and the port is cheap.
The soldiers, that very Easter morning, had seen an angel and had felt the earthquake. They had seen all that and still were flying away for a fistful of dollars. But when in Jesus’ death you have seen your own death, you will with joy see in His new life your own life everlasting. Then in faith you see the Son of God coming to you and you know: now the battle has been fought and my life is forever secure: nothing now can separate me from the love of God. To believe is to take note of the facts! And surely facts are there: Christ did things here on this earth, he came out of a tomb that you still can visit today, and appeared to people who for the testimony of what their own eyes had seen gladly would give their lives, as many did.
The facts are there and no one is asked to kiss his brain good-bye in order to embrace the Christian faith. But then to believe is more than to say: “Yes I think it is true”. To believe is to say: “God, thank You for doing this for ME!” To see in Jesus my Prince of life, My Ransom paid, who was let out of the grave after having done all that was necessary. He died my death… now I may live my life forever because of Him.
John saw and believed. May God give you all this Easter, happiness and joy, even if the doctor diagnoses cancer, or you have to go through the tunnel of bereavement and loneliness. Even if you lose all you had here on earth, you will never lose the love of God, or the hope of new heavens and a new earth and your place in it. Because death could not hold Him, the Prince of Life. The Father has accepted the receipt: “Yes my Son, I agree with you, it is finished!”
The rest of the Grand Restoration is only a matter of time. John saw… and he believed. What do you see today? You see a community of believers even in Russia, and you have seen covenant children standing up for this Jesus. You see a piece of bread and a cup of wine. Strange signs… but of an unquenchable life. God has not given up on His world and He has not given up on His small people either. He turned the tide of death and escaped the shroud of the grave. Have a look through the eyes of witness John: the evidence is there: not just of His life, but your own as well!
AMEN.