Her teacher spoke her name.

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

John 20:16

Mary’s personal witness of Jesus after His resurrection is beautifully powerful. It is personally one of my favorite episodes in all of the gospels. She alone is given the gift of a first conversation with Jesus after His work is complete. She had been the bravest of His disciples. She was the first person there on that Sunday morning to find the empty tomb according to John’s gospel. She ran back to tell all the rest of the disciples. Her thrill (and her fear) are in this surprise. Peter and John foot race back and peered into an empty tomb. Incredulity seems to be their reaction. Mary returned after they left. She alone is there. Overcome with emotion, not quite believing that He could be risen, she weeps at what feels like to her even more tragedy.

This time as she looked into the tomb, two angels greeted her. She still believes someone must have moved Jesus’ body. All she wanted to do was to care for him by proper anointing. Turning around she is greeted by a man she thinks is a caretaker for the garden. Assuming Jesus had been moved to another nearby tomb, she asks this man to show her to the body. With the mere speaking of her name, “Mary”, Jesus transforms her understanding. She recognizes Jesus and in joy embraces her Lord. Her weeping, confusion, and fear are all gone at the powerful realization that Her Lord, who knew her by name, is alive! Her Teacher is alive! Her Savior tenderly turned her tears into joy again, all by simply saying her name as only He could.

A risen Jesus also stands today to be our Rabboni… our tender Teacher. He longs for our tears also to turn to joy. He gave Himself for us so that our happiness, combined with His holiness, could truly be complete in worship of Him. He has risen from the dead so that death no longer reigns in harsh tyranny over us. Our Teacher, Savior, and loving Lord is our life. And in joy known only in Him and by Him, no tomb can keep us from His joyful presence. He walked away from His tomb to love us. And He has assured by His resurrection that our graves will open a door where He will stand to greet us by name. That is the comfort and confidence Christians can have in the gospel!

remember and tell

And they remembered his words, and returning from the tomb they told all these things to the eleven and to all the rest.

Luke 24:8-9

Women were astounded to arrive there

     an open tomb

     an empty tomb

     echoing into that tomb

There were two voices from men suddenly there

     perplexed they heard

     frightened they bowed

     faces to the ground

They heard the angels say:

“Why are looking for a living Savior among the dead?”

     “Remember what He said?”

     “In Galilee He proclaimed

     The third day He’d be raised.”

The women then remembered and they rejoiced

     running from the tomb

     running to His disciples

     telling all they’d seen

And we too know the story by faith, gazing as well in His empty grave

     will we run?

     will we rejoice?

     will we tell His good news?

The resurrection is not a fraud.

Therefore order the tomb to be made secure until the third day, lest his disciples go and steal him away and tell the people, ‘He has risen from the dead,’ and the last fraud will be worse than the first.

Matthew 27:64

The scribes and Pharisees made one more post-crucifixion power move to attempt to permanently silence Jesus’ message. The disciples of Christ were still hiding in numb disbelief, but the authorities remembered that Jesus claimed He would be raised from the dead three days after He was buried. They went to Pilate, secured an elite Roman guard, and did everything humanly possible to secure the tomb from any fraudulent claim of resurrection.

In so doing, they made the gospel all the more powerful! Their fear made our faith real…because an entire legion of Rome’s finest could never have kept the angel from rolling that stone away from Jesus’ borrowed tomb! If anything, nobody could ever claim that the disciples outmuscled Rome’s finest to steal the body. When resurrection morning dawned, an angel and an earthquake led those Roman soldiers to faint in fear in front of two women who stayed quite conscious to bear eyewitness to it all! (Matthew 28:1-7)

The leaders were afraid of a fraud. But what they did to attempt to “secure” the tomb backfired. The truth would shake the very earth, would send a fearsome angel warrior to roll away a stone and turn the Roman army’s finest into tunic-soiling cry babies! No power on earth will stop our salvation from being accomplished. No human scheme can change God’s plans. 

Jesus is risen, we are redeemed, our Lord has defeated sin and death! The tomb could not be secured to prevent His resurrection! It was secured to prevent fraud. And so we can be confident in the historical, physical reality of the gospel’s completion as Jesus left behind an empty tomb to claim His authority as King of Kings, Lord of Lords, defeater of death for us! Amen!

His darkest day enlightens our darkest day.

Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour.

Matthew 27:45

As Jesus hung dying on the cross, a supernatural darkness enveloped Jerusalem and Israel. When the Father turned His face away from His Son, forsaking Him as He bore our sin, it is as if the universe itself turned away. The sun refused to light up this atrocity. Jesus, shrouded in darkness that symbolized all the evil done to Him and all the sins He bore on the cross, hung very much alone in His unique suffering. He cried out in His God-forsaken misery: “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?”

The darkness of that moment was unique to Jesus’ suffering and death. The sorrow on Jesus’ heart was an agony only He could know. The separation from the Father, as God the Father turned away from God the Son who bore all our sin upon Himself, was what Jesus had dreaded most while praying in Gethsemane just hours earlier. He now felt this in His aloneness, dying, bearing guilt, sorrow, and shame we cannot fully imagine, even in our darkest days.

Death always brings some darkness with it, even for believers. And the deeper we love, the more the darkness feels impenetrable. Yet Jesus bore the darkest day so that the death we now know is different. Grief and agony still attend mortality. But our choice to mourn death can be changed dramatically. Because Jesus has borne the darkest day, we have hope. A sunrise comes much sooner because Jesus did not stay shrouded in this darkness. He arose on the third day… a “Son Rise” that illuminates a Christian with hope. Even when dark death steals from us, Jesus gives back with a bright and sure hope. We still grieve, and should grieve. But that confident hope in Christ breaks through the clouds!

I’ve felt that darkest of days. But never without also clinging to hope that when my own personal darkest day arrives, I will be brought into the presence of my bright Savior! Though sadness should attend the emotionally healthy grieving of any death… mourning is finite and comes to a finish. And Christians trust Jesus as a pink glow on the horizon of even our darkest days warms us to the love of the Risen Son, inexplicably strengthened by rays of hope upon our faces by all He has done! We can smile through the tears. Our darkest days are truly undone!

He knew no sin

Two others, who were criminals, were led away to be put to death with him.

Luke 23:32

Marched up Calvary’s hill

carrying a cross He did not deserve

weighted with sins not His own

the Man of Sorrows, come here to serve

On that dark day, not alone

a criminal on either side

Friend of sinners, by evil surrounded

the Lord of Glory now crucified

Jesus, what did You do

to receive such scorn in Your humility?

Condemned by all for our transgressions

dying to bring peace in eternity

You are perfect, spotless Lamb of God

we are guilty sinners… every one

yet by Your merciful shed blood

our redemption and adoption are now done

God made Him Who knew no sin

to be sin for us… criminals at either hand

so now in Jesus forgiven and free

we can proclaim His grace in every land

He knew no sin, but He knew us

and on the cross we were on His heart

so what was once enmity with God

would become family in Christ… no more apart

Praise to Jesus Who knew no sin!

Praise to the Lamb Who was slain!

Praise to the Lord, risen from the dead!

Seated at the hand of the Father to reign!

Two criminals died with Jesus that day

guilty of their sin with no defense

one mocked a Savior on the cross

the other believed and Jesus covered his offense

Jesus knew no sin, our Savior friend

yet even dying, He forgave a thief

How much more should we trust in Him

to find mercy, and our soul’s relief?

our voices in that moment

And all the people answered, “His blood be on us and on our children!”

Matthew 27:25

The last words that Matthew records coming from Jesus’ official trial before Pilate, the Roman authority who granted execution, was this interchange between Pilate and the frenzied crowd. Pilate made the dramatic gesture, an emphatic dodge of responsibility, washing his hands and declaring himself innocent in the decision to hand Jesus over to be crucified.

The crowd by this time is in a fury of hatred. They speak viciously without realizing just how prophetic their words would be. They literally said they didn’t care if Jesus bled out all over them and their children. They were perfectly fine being the executioners of Jesus. But what they did not realize is that the crowd spoke for sinners everywhere for all time. Jesus would shed His blood for even their murder of Him. He would die for their children and for every generation after them. He would shed His blood so that sinners everywhere for all time, in any situation, could come to Him to be covered by His bloody sacrifice, find forgiveness, and receive eternal life.

In this horrific prophetic chant: “His blood be on us…” is the power of the gospel and the essence of what we must believe to be saved. Because Jesus’ blood covers sin, forgives our trespasses, and heals our souls, we benefit from what was a hateful cry to kill Him. Our voices in essence were in that very moment.

And as a sinner in need of salvation, at one point of my life, I prayed in trust knowing my sins deserved hell, but that Jesus died to forgive me. And in that moment of belief, my voice joined a chorus, not of hate, but of faith, accepting Jesus’ blood on me for the forgiveness and grace that I needed. Sinners may have cried out for His blood to be shed. Sinners wanted Jesus dead. But now sinners in need find grace, healing, and eternity with God because His blood is upon us. God’s grace turns gloriously full circle. His blood be on us! His blood be on our children! His blood be on me! Amen!

silence in His suffering

But he gave him no answer, not even to a single charge, so that the governor was greatly amazed.

Matthew 27:14

Jesus, even in His silence, was compelling. He refused to answer the absurd accusations of His accusers. His only replay was to Pilate’s question: “Are you the King of the Jews?” Four words from Jesus back to Pilate were His only defense: “You have said so.” Jesus let the raging hate of His accusers just flow on past. He was going to carry even their murderous rage upon Himself all the way to the cross, offering to atone even that outrageous sin.

Jesus was standing at that moment before Pilate exactly as the prophet Isaiah foretold:

“He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,

yet he opened not his mouth;

like a lamb is led to the slaughter,

and like a sheep before its shearers is silent,

so he opened not his mouth.”

Isaiah 53:7

Jesus,

In Your silence before Your suffering You amazed Your accusers. You amaze me even now. My sinful flesh would want to attack when attacked. I’d demand justice in the face of such false accusation. I thank You that the cross was unfair, Your trials unjust, and Your silence left it all unanswered. You were driven to obey the Father to bring many sons and daughters to glory by Your saving grace. Thank You for Your silence. Thank You for Your suffering. Thank You for Your salvation!

Amen