A six year old boy named Christian had cancer. He was in his final days of life, and spring had begun in northeast Oklahoma, and numerous butterflies were spreading out across the land after the winter season passed. But this gift seldom lasted more than a week before the yearly exodus of butterflies departed.
Though most of the butterflies had already flown away, one friend had managed to trap one for the dying boy. Christian peered at the butterfly and then handed the jar to his mother, Marsha. “Mommy, please set him free. He’s like me, in a place he doesn’t like to be.” Marsha opened the window, took the lid off the bottle, and let the butterfly soar away. A wistful smile crossed Christian’s face. “I’m going to be like that butterfly when I fly away to Jesus in heaven.”
Christian died a few days later. There are few events filled with more anguish than a child’s death. Marsha and Gary dreaded going back to their country house filled with memories of their little boy. So friends drove them. As the car turned in to the driveway, an amazing sight awaited. The lawn was covered with hundreds of yellow butterflies. They rose in the air in a joyous aerial ballet. Marsha ran into their swirling midst. For several joyous moments, butterflies danced about her.
Grief returned as quickly as it had left, and Marsha stood alone in the yard where Christian had once played. Then a solitary butterfly returned and landed gently on her nose. It sat for several seconds, its wings gently caressing her tear-stained cheeks before flying away.
Nature has no explanation for butterflies awaiting a grieving mother two weeks after the annual migration had left. Marsha was convinced the butterfly that came back to caress her face was the one released from the hospital room. To this day, all of us are sure that we witnessed a miracle. God had orchestrated this to remind Marsha and Gary of what Christian had said: “I’m going to be like that butterfly and fly away to Jesus.”
Sometimes, when something terrible happens, something we couldn’t imagine, it’s hard to accept. Until… something miraculous happens, that changes our hearts forever.
The disciples of Jesus, the women who followed him as well, were in deep mourning, and Jesus their teacher was gone.
They sat alone, waiting, confused, broken, in tears and grief. Friday Jesus had died, Saturday had come and gone, and now it was early Sunday morning.
Mary of Magdala, went out early in the morning while it was still dark, to the tomb where Jesus body lay. As she approached, she was surprised to see that the stone over the entrance had been rolled away. She immediately left, running to find Peter and John, telling them of this.
Peter and John ran to the tomb, John arrived first, and peered into the tomb. Peter arrived next, and went into the tomb, finding the strips of linen where Jesus body was wrapped, and linen sitting separately, that was wrapped around his head. John wrote that he saw this, and believed.
I want you to remember that statement, he believed, he came to believe in that moment, something. But it doesn’t say what. Then, John and Peter left the tomb and went back to the place they were staying.
This is the setting we find ourselves in today, as we look at our scripture, which is John 20:11-18.
We have the tomb, empty, stone rolled away, early morning, the disciples leave, but Mary remains.
Starting in verse 11, it says, “11 Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb”
Mary is overwhelmed, I can only imagine the thought in her heart is “What is happening?” She is grieved, and confused. But, she stops, and looks into the tomb.
The message today is really going to be all about what it means to come to believe in a difficult truth that our minds have trouble accepting.
We often find ourselves not getting it. Not understanding. And we need to do what Mary does here, she slows down, sets aside the grief and confusion, and pauses. And looks clearly into the tomb. She looks at the thing that is causing her confusion. And God immediately begins to interact with her.
Next, verse 12, “…and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.”
She saw something she couldn’t explain. She saw, but she didn’t yet understand.
For years I read the Bible and couldn’t understand what it was trying to say to me. But finally one day, with God’s help, and by looking intently into it, something changed.
Mary sees these two beings, in the Greek, Angelos, (ang - geh - loss ) meaning a messenger from God.
It’s fascinating that the two angels are seated at the head and foot of where Jesus’ body had been laying in the tomb.
It reminds one of the ark of the covenant, a gold box, whose design was given by God himself to Moses, it went everywhere with God’s people and symbolized his presence with them. But it was also the place where offerings were made, blood offerings before the Lord.
On the ark of the covenant box there were two gold angel on either side of it.
It almost gives the picture, of Jesus body laid between the two cherubim on the ark of the covenant, laid in the middle as an offering accepted by the Lord, an offering for sin.
The angelic beings, these messengers of God, spoke to Mary.
In verse 13: They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?”
It’s a question intended to bring hope, I believe. Why are you crying? Something is happening here, that is bigger than you understand.
But Mary watched Jesus die on the cross. She lacks hope. She’s caught in the old thing, but god is doing a new thing.
Jesus told them numerous times he would die and be raised but they just couldn’t quite accept such a foreign reality.
It’s the same with us today, God often does something so unexpected we can’t fathom it. We just can’t see it. We can’t perceive it.
It’s like a scripture we read 1000 times but the 1001th time we finally see the core of it’s meaning.
And it’s not surprising we can’t fathom things like resurrection very well. We live in a scientific and technologically advanced era, and many of us particularly my generation, gen Z were raised in a modernist philosophy of life, that heavily promoted science and technology and pooh-poohed and patronized religion as a backwards myth of the past needing to be left behind by society.
Which leaves many in my generation with a giant barrier to coming to Christ, they’ve been propagandized against it. And it makes the journey much longer and more difficult. It’s such a foreign concept, organized religion, that it feels almost completely foreign. But it isn’t insurmountable either. We can come to believe.
The moment we simply allow ourselves to be open to a spiritual experience with God, the door cracks open, and that spiritual journey begins. And step by step, we learn about God, and grow in Him, and eventually it brings us to His son Jesus, and asking Him to be our Lord and savior.
Yet Mary still doesn’t understand. She says to them:
“They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.”
She thinks the body of Jesus has been stolen. She can’t conceive the possibility that something other than that is happening, even after seeing two angels sitting in the tomb. But then, something happened…
Verse 14: “At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.”
Someone is standing behind Mary, and out of the corner of her eye she spots him, and turns to face him.
It was Jesus.
But she didn’t recognize him.
Next, verse 15 He asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”
Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”
Even looking directly at Jesus, hearing his voice speak to her, she is not able to conceive of the reality that Jesus is alive.
And this is brings us to the big question, what does it really take to come to believe? It takes encounter. Jesus said no one can come to me unless the Father draws them to me. Only by God’s grace can we perceive the new thing he is doing.
When we open ourselves to an encounter with God, we can’t go any further than that. We can keep knocking, keep seeking, but ultimately, it’s up to God to respond to our request to know Him. And let me tell you this; he does. Maybe not in the exact timing we desire, but my goodness, God shows up. He really is quite real.
Here we see Jesus take the action, to help open the eyes of His dear friend.
Verse 16: Jesus said to her, “Mary.”
She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”).
Jesus calls her by name.
She realizes at last. She comes to believe. He wakes up his friend to the truth, with one word: Her name, Mary.
Her eyes are opened. She finally gets it. Jesus is alive. He is risen. Just as he said to them, it was true after all. He really did rise from the dead.
Can you imagine what she felt as she looked into his face?
Every hope she had lost came back to life again, every dream she longed for, that she thought had died with Jesus, was now alive once again.
All was well. Her sins were forgiven.
Heaven was open to her. All the broken dreams.. came to life again. It wasn’t over.
Jesus is alive.
She must’ve run to him and embraced him. Because in verse 17…
17 Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father.”
I think Jesus was helping Mary understand that he wasn’t going to be staying on the Earth in the same way she remembered. She’d spent the last few years with Jesus and the disciples almost daily. But, it would be different now. Because Jesus would be ascending soon to the place he came from: Heaven, the place where God the Father dwells.
But I love the message Jesus gives her, to share with the disciples in the second part of verse 17.
He continues saying, “Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”
They are family now.
Never once until after the resurrection does Jesus refer to his disciples as his brothers. By Jesus death on the cross, and His resurrection from the dead, he has brought them and us, into the family of God.
He calls them brothers.
He says God is their Father now, and their God.
A new family had now been formed through Jesus’ victory.
Do you believe you are family with God? Not just a distant worshiper, but close and intimate with your Father, with Jesus who calls you brother, calls you sister! Do you believe it? Do you feel it? He is risen!
So off Mary goes, to deliver the message.
Verse 18 Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them that he had said these things to her.
Notice that when Mary first saw Jesus she called him teacher. But as she went away, the final truth came to her, all the pieces of the puzzle came together.
And as she burst through the doors to find the disciples, she said to them, “I’ve seen the Lord.” I’ve seen God. At last, the full picture comes together. Jesus is alive, and Jesus is Lord.
I remember in 2012 when I called upon the name of Jesus, at rock bottom after years of addiction and drinking, I didn’t fully understand yet, I just prayed a simple prayer, believing Jesus could help me.
But one day in a church service, New Day Christian Church in Weston, Wisconsin, it clicked into place, I realized Jesus had died for me, to wash away my sins, and I believe I was born again in that service. I remember as I left the pastor looked at me, and it was like he knew from the Lord, he said you look different today Justin, with a smile. And I was.
As Mary leaves, she understands. And she testifies. I saw the Lord Jesus, he’s alive. He is risen!
She was told to deliver a message. We also have a message to deliver: This community needs to know, Jesus is alive.
So in conclusion today, I want you to notice the progression that Mary and the disciples had to go through after they saw Jesus die.
They had to slowly come to believe and accept what was really true. We all go through this in life when facing a difficult reality. And sometimes just as much even if it’s something good. It seems too good to be true, right? But it’s really real.
At times I’ve wrestled with the resurrection of Jesus because it feels just too good to be true. I’ve lived a dark life, been through horrible things, abuse, and mistreatment, and abandonment, so my first thought is, this world isn’t like that, which is true, this world isn’t like that, but Jesus is not of this world. It’s not too good to be true. It’s too good not to be true. Because God is perfectly good. And the biggest fact for me is, I saw my life radically turned around, from such a low rock bottom, to where I’m at today. If Jesus wasn’t risen, he couldn’t have done that. That is the fact of resurrection at work still today. Jesus is risen, but Jesus also raises people today. He raised me. And he’s raised all of us up from our past dead lives, to where we are today.
So let’s put it all together now.
Mary struggling to perceive ultimate reality.
She sees the two angels, like the angels over the ark of the covenant where Jesus body lay, the offering made and accepted on our behalf.
Mary sees this, but the body gone.
Hope begins to replace despair. Why are you crying? They ask her.
She’s asked a second time by Jesus, Why are you crying? Hope begins to turn to joy.
Jesus speaks her name “Mary” and by this, reveals himself to Her in His resurrection form.
She comes to believe, it begins the wakening in her soul. Hope and joy begin to grow.
She is given a message to share: She is family with God now.
She carries the message to the disciples, telling them, I’ve seen God.
She has come to believe, and it has changed her life forever.
Now, what about us… Let Jesus waken you to the truth.
He’s alive, not just then, but now, in your life. You can walk with Him, talk with Him, he is your brother, he has made God to be your Father and Lord.
Walk with him every day. He is alive now, today, we can’t cling to him physically as Mary tried to do, but cling to him spiritually! For he is returning physically one day soon to rule over this Earth.
In the meantime he is able to be with all of us at the same time daily. He is no longer restricted by space or time, as he was during his short time on Earth. He can be everywhere now, and with each of us at the same time. He’s with us every moment.
He is alive.
And he tells us to go, like Mary, and tell our friends and family and our city, “ I have seen the Lord and he changed my life! He’s really alive. You can know Him as your brother too!”
Hallelujah, thank you Jesus, you are risen today! We praise your Holy name. Thank you Jesus, you are alive in our lives every day, and you are coming again soon!
Remember the little boy at the beginning, his simple faith that Jesus would take him, like the butterfly, can you have that same faith, despite all the pain you’ve been through, Jesus is calling you to take his hand, and walk with Him. And he will part the waters for you.
