Personal Jesus
We are presented with the story of three disciples this morning. Three disciples whom Jesus sought each of them in the way that they needed to be found. Jesus was personal to them. Mary Magdalene, Peter and the Beloved Disciple. Let us hear their stories.
Scripture John 20:3-10
Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the cloth that had been on Jesus’s head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed, for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. Then the disciples returned to their homes.
The Beloved Disciple is the first to truly see the risen Christ. This disciple sees the risen Christ in signs and wonders – evidence of God’s work.
Beloved Disciple sees the sign of the work of God’s hand.
He sees the empty tomb.
He sees that the face cloth had been rolled up.
Rolled up like the face cloth on Lazareth had to be unrolled from his face.
Rolled up like the veil that Moses wore to not blind the Israelites after he had seen God.
The face cloth had been rolled up to unveil the true glory of Jesus.
The Beloved Disciple sees these signs as things that can only be done by the work of God.
God had rolled up these burial cloths.
God had unveiled the Risen Christ.
The Beloved Disciple sees and believes that God is at work. He might not know what God is doing but he knows that God is involved in Jesus no longer being in his tomb. Perhaps death didn’t have the last word.
The beloved disciple sees the risen Christ with their heart. They can see themselves in the works of God.
Peter’s Jesus isn’t in these grand works of God. Peter’s Jesus is something different.
Peter sees all the same things.
He runs the same path.
He rushes in first!
He sees all of these signs, all the same references that were made to the work of God.
He sees but doesn’t yet believe.
These two disciples leave, but they leave with very different emotions.
One leaving with hope. Anticipation. Waiting to see what God has done and will do and is doing.
One leaving, confused, sad, defeated, wondering how things could get any worse; his teacher has died, crucified, and he couldn’t even stand to watch and now the body of Jesus was missing.
Peter doesn’t even know who he is anymore.
He was shaping his whole identity around what Jesus had been teaching.
He had been looking forward to when Jesus would rule as Messiah. Jesus would be the Christ for his people.
Peter Sees but doesn’t fully see, he doesn’t see the hand of God at work because he isn’t looking for it, he’s looking for the God he expected to find.
The risen Jesus isn’t personal for Peter yet.
Scripture: John 20:11-18
But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb, and she saw two angels in white sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, “Do not touch me, because 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.’ ” Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord,” and she told them that he had said these things to her.
Each of our disciples needed to see Jesus differently in order to truly see the Risen Christ. They each needed their own personal Jesus.
I was writing this sermon and a song covered by Johnny Cash kept creeping into my head. Do you know this song, Personal Jesus?
Your own, personal, Jesus
Someone to hear your prayers
Someone who cares…
Mary doesn’t leave when the other disciples do.
She stays, still mourning, she’s weeping in the garden.
She bends over to look inside the tomb but it is no longer empty.
She sees two angels, one where Jesus’ feet would have been and one where his head was laid.
The angels ask her, “Woman, why are you weeping?”
“They have taken away my Lord”
She can’t find HER Jesus.
She’s not sure what has happened, she’s now looking for answers, not only mourning.
Mary “turns” she sees the Gardner.
She says, still clinging to the reality that her experience has tethered her to, “If you have carried him away, tell me where you have taken him, I’ll go get him.”
In this moment though, it is much more than just personal to Mary.
Mary is in the garden, just like Adam and Eve were in the garden.
The Gardner in Eve’s story was the presence of God.
When Mary sees the Gardner, she’s not wrong, her gut is telling her who she’s seeing – this is the Gardner – the Gardner with the capital G – This is God
But this isn’t her Jesus yet.
This moment is a reversal of the symbolic moment that sin came into the world.
But it’s not personal for Mary yet.
Some of us need to get personal to truly see what’s right in front of us.
Jesus sees her on the verge of belief, almost grasping the full truth of what God is doing and Jesus who was fully human and fully divine reaches out with the wisdom of his human experience.
Speaking in Mary’s language, in Aramaic “Mariam”
In the most human of ways, the most personal of ways, Jesus calls her by name.
He knows she isn’t seeing through these signs and wonders and Jesus gets personal.
He calls her by name.
Her eyes are opened,
She’s the first to SEE the risen Christ.
She sees him with her eyes and her heart.
She runs and proclaims her personal experience, she doesn’t say the words that Jesus tells her to say. She says “I have seen the Lord” –
Mary has truly seen.
“I have SEEN”
Even when Mary didn’t recognize Jesus, Jesus recognized her.
She didn’t fully see him, but he saw her, all of her, and met her where she was;
Jesus saw her and declared himself to her in a way that she could see him.
And here is the Good News, my friends; he’ll find us the way we need to be found. Jesus isn’t afraid to get personal.
There’s one disciple in our scripture today who hasn’t seen the risen Christ. He hasn’t seen or believed. Jesus knows that Peter has some things in the way of him seeing Jesus, seeing the risen Christ. Peter is saddled with shame and remorse, the kind that is blinding. The kind that keeps us from seeing.
Jesus meets Peter in the same way that Jesus called him to be a disciple. Jesus meets him on the beach and helps Peter see that he has already been absolved of the things that are blinding him from seeing the risen Christ.
Jesus knows Peter and goes to Peter. He found Peter the way that Peter needed to be found. Jesus gets personal. Just like Jesus goes to the people who need him, Jesus will find us the way that each of us needs to be found. There’s no way that we can be lost.
Peter needing extra attention, needing the personal connection, needed Jesus to come to him on the beach, Peter needing to be reminded that he’s absolved from all the things that caused him shame and remorse – none of these were disqualifiers for Peter as Christ’s disciple. Peter still becomes a leader in Christ’s church, the presence of Jesus on earth.
The end of this chapter of John says “These scriptures are written so that you may continue to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing, you may have life in his name.” We do have life in the name of Christ. When we forget it, hear this good news, you have a personal Jesus. He’ll find us the way we need to be found. There is no being lost to Christ.
Risen Christ,
Let us see your works, the results of your presence on earth,
let us see the signs and wonders that can only be a result of God’s work.
Let us believe that you are risen indeed,
let us believe that because we are yours,
we are also free from death.
Let us see and believe that you will always find us. We can never be lost from you.
Amen and Alleluia
