2023-04-09 Faith Renewed

FAITH RENEWED (John 20:1-9) April 9, 2023 Read John 20:1-9 - After Jesus' death, His disciples were devastated. Faith failed as their fondest hopes for the future went up in smoke. Despair replaced certainty. Their problem, of course, was their faith was in the wrong thing. They just knew Jesus was King and the kingdom was just around the corner. They believed it. With all their hearts. But they didn't know Jesus nearly as well as they thought. Reminds me of a time Winston Churchill was seeking a new assistant. An aunt brought a young man to him to apply. But before introducing him she said, "Remember, you will see all of Winston's faults in the first five hours. It will take you a lifetime to discover his virtues." That was the disciples. To them, Jesus had failed. So powerful, yet allowing himself to be arrested, tried and killed? He'd failed. Something must be wrong. And indeed, it was. But the failure was not in Jesus. It was in their expectations. They were about to discover they'd only begun to know Jesus. Faith would return, but with a reset of expectations. I pray their journey to renewal can restore our own hope and faith in this unparalleled Savior. I. Faith Extinguished Imagine the disciples' feeling on Friday night after Jesus' crucifixion earlier that day. On Sunday Jesus had entered Jerusalem to great acclaim, declaring publicly for the first time He was indeed the Messiah. All their dreams were coming true. He'd bested the Jewish leaders in public debate all week. Last night, they'd celebrated Passover with Him. All seemed well. And THEN, just that fast, it all came undone. He'd predicted one of them would betray Him. Then He'd gone gotten Himself arrested without a fight. Six bogus trials led to His beating and execution. How could it be? Everything they'd hoped and worked for was gone. The lights had gone out on their faith. Now, on Sunday, Mary arrives at the tomb 1c) "while it was still dark." Yes, it was physically dark, but John often uses light and dark metaphorically. He's telling us the light was still out on their faith. The intervening time had made no difference. They were as perplexed and lost as ever - completely in the dark concerning the meaning of what had happened. Humanly speaking, It's all over! Their leader is dead; kingdom expectations are dashed; faith is extinguished and hope with it. Their despair is understandable. And yet - and yet, it didn't need to be that way. Didn't their own Bible predict Messiah would die. Isa 53:5: "But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed." Isn't that what just happened? And didn't their own Bible predict resurrection? Psa 16:10: "For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, or let your holy one see corruption." Wasn't this all depicted by type in the "resurrection" of Isaac when Abe was asked to sacrifice him - in the rescue of Jonah after 3 days in the belly of the whale - in the deliverance of Joseph from an Egyptian hell-hole to become PM of the land? It was there, but, 9 for as yet they did not understand the Scripture, that he must rise from the dead." Knowing the Word would've saved a lot of angst. Even more - Jesus had told them this! Mark 8:31: "And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again.32) And he said this plainly." He'd predicted death and resurrection. But they did not believe Him. Not a single disciple said "Oh, yeah. He told us He'd rise again!" Not one. Instead, like Mary, they all looked for a human explanation: 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." The idea of resurrection wasn't their 1st thought; it wasn't their 2nd thought. In fact, it was no thought at all. Faith was extinguished. Circumstances snuffed it out. Ever been there? Things don't go as we wish and suddenly, we're "under the circumstances?" There's an old story of a contest in which artists were to submit artwork showing peace. Some showed beautiful sunsets, others pastoral settings. But the prize went to an artist who painted a bird in its nest, attached to a branch protruding from the edge of a thundering waterfall. Beautiful, isn't it? There was peace inside the nest. The disciples, against all they'd been told, got out of the nest, believed circumstances rather than God, and lost their faith. If you lack faith today, perhaps you're outside the nest. II. Faith Emerging Now, at the tomb and Peter and John find a series of facts that begin to penetrate their minds and urge them to renewed faith. Mary has told them the body has been taken away by an undefined "they". But the facts Peter and John encounter suggest something not so easily explained. A. The Rolled Stone - That raised a question Mary missed How, and by whom was the stone rolled away? Mark notes the stone: Mark 16:4b: "was very large" which concerned other women visitors: Mark 16:3: "And they were saying to one another, 'Who will rollaway the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?'" Furthermore, in response to Jewish concerns about the disciples stealing the body: Mt 27:65-66: "65 Pilate said to them, "You have a guard of soldiers. Go, make it as secure as you can." 66 So they went and made the tomb secure by sealing the stone and setting a guard." The tomb was sealed, guarded and secured by Romans. So how was it moved, and by whom? By the Romans? Hardly. Their credibility was at stake. They had reason to keep Jesus in the tomb, not move Him. The Jews? They'd requested the guard to start with. Had they moved Jesus, surely they would have produced the body later when they encountered the apostles preaching Jesus' resurrection. The Disciples? They were afraid of their own shadow - hardly candidates to perform a grave robbery against Roman soldiers. And would they to a man have died for a message they knew to be a lie had they moved Jesus' body? So, who did move the stone? Mt tells us: 28:2: "And behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it." An angel moved it -- not to let Jesus out but to let the world in! Without human explanation, that rolled stone must have got Peter and John's inquisitive juices flowing. B. The Empty tomb - Sometimes we miss obvious, compelling evidence -- like the empty tomb. The fact that it's there and empty demands an explanation. It speaks Jesus' resurrection in many ways. First, John, along with the other gospel writers, reports that it was women who first found it. In a culture, where women couldn't even testify in court. This points to its reality. If made up, women would never have been the finders. The tomb was empty, all agree. Oxford historian, C. H. Dodd: "[The tomb] was visited and found empty. There is not a scrap of evidence, from religious or secular sources, that anyone ever disputed that fact." So, how do you explain it naturally? No one had means, motive and opportunity to steal the body. Lee Strobel, Yale-trained attorney and legal editor for the Chicago Tribune, after a 2-year study to disprove the resurrection became a devout believer. He said: "the great irony was this: it would require much more faith for me to maintain my atheism than to trust in Jesus of Nazareth!" For Peter and John, the empty tomb was evidence hidden in plain sight. No credible explanation has ever been given for that empty tomb - not the unbelievable "swoon theory" that Jesus wasn't really dead - not the theory that the women got the wrong tomb - not the idea that someone stole the body. All have failed the test of rational explanation. Cambridge-educated Sir Norman Anderson, who taught at Harvard and Princeton and was dean of the Faculty of Laws at the U. of London concluded after a lifetime of studying this issue: "The empty tomb, then, forms a veritable rock on which all rationalistic theories of the Resurrection dash themselves in vain." C. The Empty Clothing - The biggest clue of all. In v. 6, Peter enters the tomb and he saw. The word is θεωρέω, from which we get "theorize". The word indicates their little brains are starting to overheat - realizing this isn't normal - even for a grave robbery. Then in v. 8, John saw (εἶδον) and believed. He saw with understanding - like, "I see what you mean." John saw the clothing - and he got it. Jesus was risen. But why? First, note the clothing was "lying" (κεῖμαι). It's a specific Greek word that means "lying in an orderly fashion" - lying undisturbed! In those days, bodies were wrapped with linen cloth, not ordinary clothes. When Jesus raised Laz: Jn 11:44: "The man who had died came out, his hands and feet bound with linen strips, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, "Unbind him, and let him go." John and Peter had seen that. But here the burial wrappings look like the body has simply vacated their enclosure without disturbing it -- like Jesus' body passed through the linens, leaving them to drop in place. - like the body vaporized! Seeing this, their brains go into high gear absorbing the implications of what they see. What they see is impossible naturally! Jesus could never have unentangled Himself from the wrappings nor moved the stone on his own. But if someone else moved Him, how and why leave the wrappings intact? Why leave valuable spices behind? A robber would have moved quickly! A decaying body needed wrapping to move. They'd never have taken time to unwrap the clothes then refold them. Why would anyone steal away a naked body?! A rapid analysis of the scene screamed only one solution - resurrection! And the face cloth. That enveloped the head apart from the body wrappings -- exactly what they saw. It was 7d) "folded up in a place by itself." "Folded" (ἐντυλίσσω) = to twirl or wrap. And there it is, rolled up right where the head should have been, but empty! The shape and location of the head wrapping suggested a body passed right through it without disturbing it. Such was the amazing site John and Peter saw that morning. John Stott says, "They saw grave clothes still wound but empty as though the body had passed right thru them, like a discarded chrysalis from which the butterfly has emerged." Absolute proof of resurrection - No. Compelling evidence - Absolutely! In Conan Doyle's The Sign of Four, we find Sherlock Holmes saying, "When you have eliminated all which is possible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." For Peter and John there was no plausible explanation for the rolled stone, the empty tomb and the grave clothing. As they "theorized", the improbable was all that was left! Resurrection!! III. Faith Embraced John got it. 8 Then the other disciple [John], who had reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed." I imagine he might have explained, "Don't you see Peter? These wrappings are exactly as Nic and Joseph left them Friday night. Yet the body is gone. No thief would have left things like this. Clearly, Jesus' body passed through the clothes and is risen. It's just like He said - remember?" And John believed. Faith renewed - stronger than ever. More vibrant! John is the first to believe without actually seeing Jesus. Later in the day, the disciples will see Jesus - all but Thomas. He refused to believe until he also saw Jesus personally. When he did, he quickly believed. 29 Jesus said to him, "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." Millions since have come to faith without actually seeing Him. But John was first. He set the pattern. This is not a "lead-in-the-dark" faith; it's based on evidence. The disciples should have known. Jesus had repeatedly told them He'd be killed and rise again. But because they didn't understand it, they ignored it. When the risen Jesus meets two disciples on the Emmaus Road and finds them distraught that He has died, He calls them "foolish ones" and "slow of heart" because they did not "believe all that the prophets have spoken" (Lu 24:15). Jesus never asks for faith in nothing. There is always evidence we ignore at our own peril. Perhaps that's you today. Faith is extinguished because things haven't gone the way you expected. The job promotion didn't happen; the son or daughter has strayed; the cancer didn't go away. So, where's God? Where? May I urge you to come to the cross and find Him there taking your place; and then come to the empty tomb and find a risen Lord. LORD! I urge you -- believe in Him -- not without evidence, but because of the evidence. Conc - The disciples' faith revived when they realized they had not a dead hero, but a living Lord. That changed everything. It turned doubting Thomas, and foot-in-mouth-disease Peter and persecuting Paul into little Christs who turned the world upside down - because they saw the truth of the risen Christ. Have impossible circumstances led to flagging faith for you this morning? Then take heart. The impossible has happened. David has defeated Goliath. Daniel has escaped the Lion's den. Mary did have a virgin birth. And the Lamb has KO'd the dragon. The tomb is empty. The cure for flagging faith is renewed faith in a living Lord - the Lord of the impossible. Let's pray. Philip was a boy with Down's syndrome who attended a 3rd-grade SS class. The kids were kind but stand-offish. One Easter, the teacher brought some large empty egg-shaped containers to class. Each child was instructed to go outside and find some symbol of new life to put into the egg. The eggs were piled up and opened one-by-one by the teacher. They came back with a variety of flowers, leaves, grass, etc. The last one was empty. The kids complained, "That's stupid. Who didn't do his assignment?" Philip spoke up: "That's mine." One child exclaimed, "But you did it wrong, Philip." Philip insisted, "No, I didn't. It's empty bc the tomb was empty bc Jesus was alive." Philip gained ready acceptance from then on. When he died shortly after, the whole class laid flowers on the casket. The teacher laid an empty egg on it. 7