The Greatest Epitaph

       Some great inventions just don’t catch on.  And I really can’t figure out why.

       In the 1980s, for example, an enterprising inventor came up with the idea of a talking tombstone. I saw a few in cemeteries.

        A photo of the deceased mounted was mounted behind a Lucite bubble. Next to it would be a button you could push to hear a greeting from the person buried there – recorded, I assume, before the time of death: “Thanks for stopping by to visit my gravesite.  Would you mind picking up any dried out flowers and picking any weeds while you’re here.”  Or an inveterate practical joker might shout, “Hey, watch where you’re standing.  Get off me!”

        For some reason, the talking tombstone never caught on.  But since modern technology would now allow the lips of the photo to actually move in synchronization with the recorded message, I think it’s time to try again. I think it would catch on.

       Actually, I prefer older graveyards.  Some of the epitaphs on older stones are classic.  In fact, a recent exhibit of early New England gravestones in New York City contained some real gems.

        One widow had inscribed on her husband’s stone: “Stranger, call this not a place of fear and gloom, to me it is a pleasant spot  -- it is my husband’s tomb. Those who knew him best deplored him most.”

       This was placed on the stone of a married couple:  “Here lies the body of Obediah Wilkinson and Ruth, his wife.  Their warfare is accomplished.”  (I’m sure they were no kin of mine.)

       An understanding husband probably placed this inscription on his wife’s stone: “She lived with me fifty years and died in a confidant hope of a better life.”

       An enterprising young widow put her husband under a gravestone that read:  “Sacred to the memory of Mr. Jacob Bates, who died August 6^th, 1800. His widow, aged 24, who mourns as one who can be comforted, lives at 7 Elm Street this village and possesses every qualification of a good wife.”

        Most epitaphs are written by man concerning man -- or in these stones from New England -- by woman concerning man or by man concerning woman.  They give a true or false estimate of the character of the departed and express, or fail to express, hope for the future.

       But there is a epitaph in an old graveyard in Israel which is very different.  It is not a eulogy.  It is not an estimate of character.  It is not the expression of a pious wish or hope.  It is just a bare fact.  But it is the most important of all facts. 

       It is the epitaph of Jesus.  “He is not here! He is risen!” 

       On previous Easters I have looked at the meaning of what happened this Easter morning almost two thousand years ago.  If this sermon leaves you with a “so what?”, I encourage you to check out the last nine Easter sermons I’ve preached that are on our web site.  This Easter morning I want us to look at the facts behind the meaning.  I want to look at the testimony of the first eyewitnesses to the resurrection as John records the event. 

       John deals with three people besides Jesus -- the center of it all.

       First, there is Mary Magdalene.

       Recent popular literature claims that Mary Magdalene was Jesus’ wife and the mother of their daughter who went by the unfortunate nickname “the Holy Grail.”  (Just imagine how she was teased in school.)  If you want more information on this, just go to the Louvre and read the paintings.  It’s all there.  Dan Brown tells us so.

       Popular fancy before the amazing revelations in The DaVinci Code said that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute who was reformed by her contact with Jesus.  In fact, a Christian ministry to prostitutes on the Sunset strip is called “The Magdalene Project.”  This was Mary’s image in popular works such as “Jesus Christ Superstar.” 

       But where did that get started?

       The repentant prostitute version began with a misunderstanding.  First, “the woman that was a sinner” who anointed Jesus’ feet in Luke 7 has, without the slightest justification, been identified as Mary of Magdala. Second, it has been assumed that the “seven demons” that Luke says Jesus cast out of Mary Magdalene is a metaphoric way of speaking bout the sin in her life.  But according to the Bible, demon possession normally revealed itself in illness or insanity -- not in moral failure.

       Repentant sinner.  Wife and mother.  There is absolutely no biblical evidence to support either version.  What we can say about Mary is that she is set free by Jesus and turns with joy and thankfulness to join the group of disciples. She follows Jesus to the cross, and beyond the cross.

       Then there is Peter.  The last time Peter appears in John’s gospel, he is crying in remorse. Three times Peter had denied that he knew Jesus while Jesus was on trial.  The last denial is accompanied by loud cursing and swearing which carries to the ears of Jesus as He stands before the chief priest.  Jesus turns and looked at Peter and Peter runs off into the night weeping bitterly. That is the last contact Peter had had with Jesus.  Now Peter believes that Jesus is dead and gone – and there will never be a chance to set things right..

       The third character is John himself.  In this passage from his gospel John talks about his own awakening into faith.

       Mary arrives at the tomb first with several other women.

       First century Jews visited the tomb of a loved one for three days after the body had been laid to rest.  They believed the spirit of a dead person hovered around the tomb for three days; but left once the body started to smell.  Jesus’ friends can’t come to the tomb on the Sabbath because they would violate the law.  They have to wait until Sunday morning but they come early -- before it is light.

       Matthew, Mark, and Luke tell us that the women bring spices to anoint Jesus’ body -- apparently to finish the work begun by Nicodemus who had only a very brief time to work before the start of the Sabbath.  Mark tells us that they are worried about how they can roll away the heavy stone that lays across the door to the tomb.

       A large, flat stone like a cartwheel was rolled along a groove with a high lip cut from the living rock.  I saw tombs from the 1^st century like this one in Israel .  The stones were much too heavy for a woman or a group of women to move without help.  In addition, Matthew tells us that the tomb of Jesus is sealed with the official seal of the Roman governor and that the tomb was guarded by Roman soldiers.

       But when the women arrive, there are no soldiers and no seal on the door. The stone is not only rolled away -- it has been completely lifted out of the deep channel and thrown to the side.    This is what the Greek verb means here. Mary sees the stone lifted away from the tomb.  She immediately turns around and runs to find Peter and John.

       There are two significant insights John gives us here.  The first is about Peter.  Even though Peter denied Jesus, he is still recognized as a part of the apostolic band and even as a leader.  He is the one Mary goes to with her shocking news.

       The second insight is about John himself.  Peter and John have been rivals.  John and his brother James ask Jesus to promise them the places at His right and left hand when He becomes the ruler.  This is a deliberate power-play against Peter -- the other member of the inner group of three.  But now the game-playing is over.   A new relationship takes root.

       Apparently John follows Peter into the night after he denies Jesus.  John knows Peter’s shame better than anyone.  He is there when it happened.   But Mary finds Peter and John together.  This begins a friendship that runs through the book of Acts where it is Peter and John walking together who perform the first miracle in the name of the risen Christ.

       Mary comes to Peter and John with her news.  They immediately take off at top speed toward the tomb.  John is younger.  He outruns Peter and arrives at the tomb first.  He stoops and peers inside but doesn’t go in.  Peter comes panting up and doesn’t stop -- not Peter – not today.  He runs right in.  John sees the linen cloths and, perhaps, assumes that Jesus is still inside.  Peter runs inside and finds that Jesus is not there at all.  The grave cloths are lying there but the body of Jesus is missing.

       John enters the tomb and stands beside Peter.   He sees the burial shroud and the napkin for the head lying neatly in place. This is not the work of grave robbers because grave robbers are never that neat.  This is not the work of friends because no friend would dishonor the body by carrying it away unwrapped.  And how could either robbers or friends have gotten past the Roman guard?  John records that he “saw and believed.” 

       Now we’re not sure what he believes.  John confesses that he did not remember Jesus’ words about rising from the dead.  But, he believes something.  He believes that God has done something entirely out of the ordinary and that those empty clothes have a story to tell.

       John and Peter return home.  Mary stays at the tomb crying loudly.  That’s the verb John uses – klaio..  This isn’t a quiet, restrained, dignified shedding of tears.  It’s a loud lamentation. 

       Then Mary looks in the tomb.  She sees two angels sitting where Jesus had been laid -- one at the head and the other at the feet.  She treats these heavenly visitors very matter-of-factly – all her thoughts are on Jesus and she can’t stop to process angels.  They ask her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” she answers, “because they have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid Him.
       That’s enough conversation with angels for Mary.  Perhaps she feels someone behind her because she turns around and sees Jesus.  But through her tears, she does not recognize Him.

       Jesus asks her: “Woman, why are you weeping?  Whom do you seek?”  This might have put Mary on the right track.  She was looking for a “what” -- a corpse.  Jesus asks her a question about a “whom”..a living person.

       But Mary is too filled with grief to be aware of subtle differences in wording.  She says, “Sir, if you have taken Him away, tell me where you have laid him and I will take Him away.”  She assumes that this man she believes to be the gardener must know exactly what she is talking about -- knows that the “Him” Mary keeps referring to is Jesus.  Everyone must know who she is thinking about.  “I will take Him away.”

       How is she going to carry a dead body?  Where was she going to take Him?  Like the angels, these are small things in comparison to her grief.  She turns away from Jesus without waiting for an answer.  Jesus says to her “Mary!”  She turns back to him and says to Him Rabboni…teacher.”

       Why is it that Mary does not recognize Jesus at first until He calls her name?

       Well she doesn’t expect to see Him.  He is out of place.  It’s like when I once didn’t recognize a friend from college when I bumped into him on a jungle road in Guatemala .  He didn’t belong there so He didn’t register.

       Then there are her tears.  They blind her eyes and they blind her heart.  She is focused on her own pain.  That prevents her from seeing anything that is going on outside of herself.  She can’t even recognize or deal with the fact that there are angels sitting where Jesus had been laid. That should have told her something but she is too focused on her own pain to see it.

       Third, there is the fact that she keeps looking in the wrong direction.  She turns her back on Jesus because she cannot keep her eyes off His tomb.

       Jesus calls Mary by name.  This familiar act in a familiar voice brings a shock of recognition.  She turns and calls him by the Hebrew title, “Rabboni” -- teacher.

       Mary’s immediate instinct is to try to re-establish the old relationship with Jesus -- the relationship of teacher. This may be why Jesus tells her, “Don’t hold on to me.”  It’s not that His resurrection body is off-limits.  Just a week later Jesus tells Thomas in the Upper Room to touch Him.  But Mary is told not to hold on because she has a wrong idea of what is happening. 

         Mary assumes that everything will be like it uses to be.  Jesus says: “Stop clinging 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.” 

       After this the early Christian community did not use the term “rabbi” or “rabboni” to refer to Jesus.  He becomes the Lord.  Mary Magdalene learns quickly.  She went and says to the disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord.”  She tells them what He said to her.

       There is no reason to think that Mary is a particularly important person.  Yet it was to her and not to Peter, John, James or any of the leaders that Jesus first appears.  We should not miss the message that God’s priorities aren’t our priorities.  We would have expected one or more the Apostles, or, if a woman, then Jesus’ mother.

      But all of the gospel records agree that it was the women, and particularly Mary of Magdala, who first discover that Jesus has won the victory over death. The first preachers of the gospel in the Christian church are these women.  And Luke tells us that the other disciples don’t believe them.

       They are slow to believe.  It’s all too incredible.  Apparently it was only the enemies of Jesus who remember His promise to rise from the dead. They take the trouble to seal the stone and place a guard.  The Disciples don’t remember or believe.

        And yet they do come to remember and believe. This first appearance to Mary is just the start.  Later that day Jesus appears to Peter.  Then He appears to two disciples on the Emmaus road.  Finally He appears to ten of the Apostles in the Upper Room.  Later, Paul writes, He appeared to as many as 500 people at one time.  This goes on for forty days.  The Disciples get the message.  They learn that this Jesus who died on the cross and rose again from the dead is the Son of God. 

        As Paul puts it, in his letter to the Romans, Jesus was “declared to be the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead”. It is the resurrection from the dead that puts the seal of truth to Christ’s claim to be the Son of God.  After the resurrection, the disciples worshiped Jesus.  They never worshipped him or tried to worship Him before the resurrection.  But after the resurrection, they did worship Him --  for the resurrection filled them with awe, and they knew beyond a doubt that God was in Christ.

       I have talked way more about the events of Easter this morning than I have about the meaning of Easter.  You need to know that facts so you can begin to wrestle with the meaning of the facts for your own life.  You need to be able to wrestle with the meaning and authority of His promises. 

       If you haven’t figured out the meaning – if you don’t have the deep personal hope for yourself and your loved ones that is God’s Easter gift – then please come and talk.  Easter is an historic event.  But Easter isn’t just about history.  Easter is about Jesus and about you and Jesus.

      “He is not here! He is risen!’ is the greatest of all possible epitaphs. It is not the epitaph of Jesus.  Jesus doesn’t have a grave.  It is, instead, the epitaph of death itself.  Easter tells us that while death happens – the death rate is still one to a customer – death is not necessarily the end.  For the tomb of Jesus isn’t really empty.  Sin and death are buried there -- our sin and our death.  And over their grave is the epitaph, “He is not here!!! He is risen!!! 

        Their epitaph.  But our door to a life filled with hope and with the confident expectation of good things to come.