Our scripture passage today is from the Gospel of John. We've been looking at John for quite a while and we're going to jump ahead to the account of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus recorded in the Gospel of John in chapter 20. So beginning in verse 1 and reading through verse 18 of John chapter 20. Let us give attention to God's holy word. Now on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early while it was still dark. and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. 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. So Peter went out with the other disciple, and they were going toward the tomb. Both of them were running together. But the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. And stooping to look in, he saw the linen cloths lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came following him and went into the tomb. He saw the linen cloths lying there, and the face cloth, which had been on Jesus' head, not lined with the linen cloths, but folded up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple who had 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. And the disciples went back to their homes. But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. And as she wept, she stooped to look into the tomb. And she saw two angels in white sitting where the body of Jesus had lain. one at the head and one 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. Having 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 seeking? 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 Aramaic, Rabboni, which means teacher. Jesus said to her, do not cling 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. Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, I have seen the Lord and that he had said these things to her. And may God impress upon our hearts and our minds today the truth of his holy word. Amen. Years ago, pulled into a car wash, and to my delight, I noticed that the person who had been there before me had left while leaving time on the car wash. You know how these machines work. It's not the drive-through, but the one where you put money in, and the clock starts winding down, and you have to try to do a good job as quick as you can to wash and rinse your car. And so anyway, it appeared that someone had left, leaving more time on the clock. And that actually had happened to me a time or two, so it wasn't totally unheard of. So I was grateful and I started to quickly get as much done as I could before the magic buzzer notified me that my time had run out. I don't remember exactly how much time was on the device when I got there, but I washed for a little bit and looked at it, and I noticed there still was a good bit of time left, and so I washed some more, and then I looked again. And to my utter amazement, even shock, I noticed that there was now more time. on the clock than when I had checked it previously. That had never happened. And it kept going up. And being a good Presbyterian, I felt guilty about this and thought, I'm taking advantage of someone. And so I tried to like stop this craziness of what was happening. And okay, so now you know if you're a Presbyterian or not, right? If you felt guilty, and probably only a handful of us are, Presbyterian to the core, Scots, Irish, anyway. So anyway, I learned later that probably what happened was this was early on when credit cards were being used for these kind of machines. And if you didn't watch what you were doing, the clock was ticking and your bank account was declining. So anyway, strange as it may seem, and it is strange, that car wash incident for me was, it was a picture. It was actually a picture of heaven. and a picture of eternal life, a picture of what Jesus did through his resurrection. It's a picture that life is not winding down, but life is building up. You know, we live in a world where death kind of defines everything. Right? That things are winding down. Life is limited. But the resurrection changes all that. So what kind of a world do we live in? Here's a great illustration. Let's imagine that I have a cake in front of me, right? And I eat a slice of cake. Okay, I eat a couple slices of cake. All right? So after eating a slice or two of cake, how much cake do I have left? Well, in our world, you have less cake, right? Right? So you started like this, and now what is it? not that big of a cake. It's like this and you eat it and it goes down. What if, what if after eating a slice or two of cake it goes from this to this, right? It doesn't go down but it goes up. Let's imagine I have $50 and I go to the gas station to get gas in my car and I put in $30, right? In terms of our world, how much do I have left? Now, for me, this is higher math. I actually had to write it down. $20, right? I have $20. Because why? Because you live in a world that is defined by death, by everything being reduced. But what if after I put, what did I say, $30 of gas into the tank, I don't have $20. I have $80. What if I have $100? That's the resurrection. Jesus invading the world and turning everything upside down, a world where things don't get smaller, but they get bigger. In Christ and because of Christ, we live in a world through Christ where you and I actually have more time today than we did yesterday. in Christ, and because of the resurrection, your life is just getting started, no matter how old you are. It's the new world of resurrection life, a world where things are no longer defined by death, but defined by life. And when Jesus rose on that first Easter morning, which was, by the way, the day of the Jewish festival of first fruits, he opened the way to that different world. And that's the world that is not just a promise of what happens when you die if you believe in Jesus and belong to him. That's true, but it's much more than that. This invasion of life is what happens now, what we can experience now. Our passage today is filled with lessons and encouragement of what that life is like. It may not say everything, but it says a great deal. So we'll look at a couple of these lessons. The first lesson is this. The first lesson of resurrection life from the story of our passage is that there's grace in the new life God gives. There's grace. Who's this first witness to the empty tomb? Who's the first person to encounter Jesus directly, visually, physically? It's Mary, a woman. Notice verses 1 and 2. Now on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early while it was still dark and saw that the stone had been taken away. 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. What is she saying? Jesus is gone. Now this is not hope, not yet, not hope that Jesus had come back to life even though he had promised that he would several times in his ministry. But this is alarm, this is despair. They've taken him, perhaps grave robbers took him. She doesn't know. Maybe the Jewish authorities who wanted Jesus gone, maybe they took him and they put him somewhere. She's going to repeat that phrase several times in this passage. Mary is frantic and desperate to hold on to Jesus. And we can appreciate that. Mary has had so much go on in her life, this love and appreciation for Jesus. Even if at this point it's just trying to honor the body, maybe trying to cherish the memory, there's going to be much more. But even at this point, we see her tenderness and her commitment to the Lord. The Bible tells us that Jesus cast seven demons out of Mary. When everyone saw a person, a woman, who maybe was out of control, they saw a person who was not much use to the community. What value was she? What did Jesus see? Jesus saw a child of God. Jesus saw a person worth saving. And Mary shows us all the hope of God's grace. There's hope for us here. There's grace of the Lord here in this resurrection for us. Mary wasn't too far gone. You're not too far gone. Your clock is not winding down. The prospects of God's work in your life and the hope for your life, they're really just beginning. He is risen. He is risen. Good news. Well, after Mary's announcement that the body of Jesus is missing, Peter and John run to the tomb. In this story, John gets there sooner, and he hesitates to go in. Peter comes after John and then enters the tomb. And John doesn't refer to himself by name. He's the human author of the Gospel of John. He doesn't say John. He says the one Jesus loved. So when you hear that, just know that that's John. So there's Peter and John. John hesitates to go in. Peter, maybe kind of being Peter, barges in. And here we come to the second lesson. from this passage about the resurrection and the life of the resurrection, and that is this. Not only is it grace, the great grace that saved a woman like Mary, but it's also eternal life. By God's power, it is certain and it lasts forever, and we see this demonstrated in the grave clothes. Notice verses six and seven. He saw the linen cloths lying there, and the face cloth which had been on Jesus' head, not lined with the linen cloths, but folded up in a place by itself. It's hard to imagine what Peter and John thought at this point. If anyone had stolen Jesus' body, they wouldn't have left the clothes there, those things that wrap Jesus' body. They wouldn't carry out a naked body. Grave robbers wouldn't do that, and certainly Jewish authorities wouldn't do that. Even though they didn't probably care a whole lot for Jesus, they would never show that kind of disrespect to the body. And there they are, they're tidy, cleaned up, folded up. And it's really a sign, an indication that what happened was thoughtful, it was purposeful, it was, you know, careful. And also, it's a clear sign that Jesus came out of those claws. We think of the resurrection of Jesus and not long before this, we had the resurrection of Lazarus and somebody said, I guess, you know, said, how did Lazarus get out of the grave? And the answer is he hopped, right? Because he was still, he comes out and then he's still in those clothes, right? They had to unbind him. Jesus was unbound. And that's significant because what it shows us is there was no other power or authority that worked on Jesus and the body of Jesus to raise him from the dead. There's been a number of examples of resurrections in the Bible, people coming back to life. And what happens? There's always an outside source, an outside person with power in God's name that raised that person. Nobody has the power to raise themselves, right? That's the point. Nobody has the power internally to bring themselves out from the realm of death, save one. And that one is Jesus. This is the great hope of the resurrection. Life is eternal because this power of God is in Christ. And again, unlike all those who were brought back to life, Jesus came back. It was a real physical body, but it was a different kind of body. It was a different kind of body. And even more importantly, the body in which Jesus came back to life was a body that would never die again. A risen Jesus, this is our hope. This is the power of everlasting life. It is in Christ. A risen Jesus is essential to Christianity. It's what makes it different really from every other religion of the world. Take some time this week and think about what are all the other religions of the world teach about their leader? What do all the other religions really explain and share as the vision of life? No other religion needs a risen savior. No other religion offers a risen savior. Buddhism doesn't think Buddha is alive now. And you know what? Buddhism doesn't need Buddha to be alive now. Judaism doesn't think Moses is alive. And Judaism, get this, doesn't need Moses to be alive. Islam doesn't think Muhammad is alive today. And Islam doesn't need Muhammad to be alive today. What makes all these other religions different? Because they may be philosophies, they are teachings, but they are teachings of moral life. They are teachings of religious experience. Christianity is far, far different. It's unlike any other religion. If Jesus is not alive, there is no Christianity, no credible Christianity. There's no point to it. Christianity is about God's grace that's given to those who have a relationship with a living Lord. The essence of this faith is only valid if Jesus is alive. And the bottom line is this, Jesus didn't cheat death, Jesus beat death. He beat it. He destroyed it. He opened the way to new life. And this is the power of God at work in all who belong to Jesus. The clock is not winding down. Time is getting better and longer because he is what? He is risen. And that's the lesson of a resurrected Lord. Another lesson, the third lesson of the resurrection, it leads to the truth about life. And this is found in the witness of the Bible, the description about the Bible that's found in our passage. You know, John saw the empty tomb, the grave closed, and the Bible says he believed, but his faith was still incomplete. Verses 8 and 9, it says, then the other disciple, this again is John, who had reached the tomb first also went in and he saw and believed. For as yet they did not understand the scripture that he, Jesus, must rise from the dead. So it was what? It was looking back and understanding what the Bible said that helped John and other disciples come to a more mature faith. Isn't that interesting? John, Peter, all the other disciples, they needed to look into the Bible to understand what was happening. Now these are the very people who saw with their own eyes the incredible miracles of Jesus. They heard with their own ears. the wonderful teachings of Jesus. And yet, what did they need to understand the significance of what is actually happening right before their eyes? They needed God's word. They needed the scriptures. And that point was the Old Testament. Friends, could it be that we need what our world needs today to understand God? To understand life, it's not a different experience or a stronger experience. What we need is not necessarily more evidence, but what we need is the witness of God's word, the truth of what God has said and has recorded for us in the Bible. That's where we find truth, the truth that leads to life. You know, the messages of life are all around you and they saturate you, they bombard you every day. But it is what God says about life, his truth, that actually leads to real life. And that's why you and I need to be saturated and filled with God's word. Again, think of it, if those who walked with Jesus If those who saw Him and heard Him in person needed the truth, even the truth of what you have is only part of your Bible, the Old Testament, if they needed that to grow in life, how much more do you need it? And here's the higher math, a lot. You need more of God's Word in your life. God's truth will lead and preserve us in the way of life. He's risen. Good news, there is grace. There is certainty of life and there is truth about what really is real and lasting and meaningful in life. And that leads us to a final lesson of, we learn from the resurrection in this passage and that is the holiness of new life. And this is seen in the angels of the passage. Each of these characters, each of these events tell us something. There's Mary, there's a grave close. Now there's angels. When the disciples see the empty tomb and leave, Mary remains behind weeping and then stoops down to look into the tomb. Now she's going to see something no one else has seen yet. Verse 11, she saw two angels in white. sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one at the feet. The presence of two angels and the whole context of what's happening here is actually meant to remind you, the reader, of another garden. Did you know that? We read this passage and we're meant to think of, I've somehow heard this before. This is like another garden, right? And indeed it is. This is the Garden of Eden. This calls to mind the Garden of Eden, and everything in the passage does that. In the Garden of Eden, this shows us the purity of life God intended, that was to be part of life in his presence. The garden parallels are throughout. Jesus was buried in a garden. The scene takes place in a garden. When Mary saw Jesus there for the first time, who did she think he was? This is important. She thought he was the gardener, right? Because John, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, wants to point out garden. I should have maybe read at the end of John chapter 19, 19 verse 41, It says now in the place where he was crucified, this is Jesus, there was a garden. And in the garden, a new tomb, which no one had been laid. So again, garden, garden, garden. And we remember God placed Adam and Eve in the first garden, why? So they could worship him and they could serve him and his creation. But that first couple sinned and they rebelled against God. And so what did God do? He placed angels to guard the entrance to the garden and to the tree of life that was in the garden so that those who had sinned and anyone who was not perfect in holiness and righteousness could not go in. They couldn't enter into the presence of a holy and righteous God. And there those angels stood on guard, blocking the way. But now another garden. And in this garden, because of what took place, as John says, in this garden where Jesus died, in this garden where Jesus would rise, God's children could now, what? They could worship Him. They could serve Him in holiness and righteousness. Because Jesus died and because Jesus rose again, the way to life is opened up. The angels have stood down. And even now, extend the invitation to enter in. There is goodness and holiness, the holiness of life by God's mercy. The two angels at the tomb are also meant to remind us of another scene of the Old Testament, the two angels on the Ark of the Covenant. Just as there were two angels in the tomb, one at the head, very important, John lays this out, one at the head and one at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain, so too did the Ark of the Covenant have two angels positioned in the same exact way. Notice Exodus 30, verses 8 and 9, speaking of these angels. one cherub at the one end and one cherub on the other end of the ark, of one piece with the mercy seat that he made the cherubim on its two ends. The cherubim spread out their wings above, overshadowing the mercy seat with their wings, with their faces one to another toward the mercy seat where the faces of the cherubim, you see it, two angels focused on the mercy seat that was between them. And it was right there at that place, the middle of the ark, the mercy seat, where the very blood of sacrifice was poured once a year to cover the sins of the people. And now these angels are making the message clear. The sacrifice promised long ago was now fulfilled by Jesus. Jesus who gave his life on the cross, his blood was poured out. Jesus is the Ark of the Covenant. Not only is the holiness of God satisfied in him, but we who belong to Jesus have that holiness, his holiness, given to us as a gift. You are washed. You are holy. This is the gift of new life in the resurrection. He is risen. Well, today, those who belong to Jesus belong to eternity. They belong to life. And again, time is not getting shorter. It's not winding down. Time is getting longer. Now, without Jesus, the clock is winding down and your days are numbered. But in Christ, the Lord of life who conquered death, life is just beginning. That means not only the length of life, that means the significance of life. Those who belong to Christ now live differently because they see life differently. The hope of what will be true one day in heaven forever changes everything about how we live here and now. Ephesians chapter 2 verses 4 to 6 say this, God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved and raised up with him, seated with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Because of that, because of the resurrection, those who belong to Jesus are raised up even now, even now. Even now, Jesus is breathing life into the death of our world. He's working life into the death of your earthly existence right now. And just as Mary heard the call of Jesus and believed, You too can hear the voice of the Lord calling you today out of death into life and you can believe. Believe the grace of new life, right? Remember Mary. Believe grace and the grace of new life. You are not too far gone. God is with you in your struggles. He meets you in your brokenness. He uses your failures. Are you with me? He uses your failures even more than your strengths because of the resurrection. Because life has conquered death. You can trust the certainty of eternal life. Remember those grave clothes, right? You have more time to live today than you did yesterday. Think about that. Reflect on that. Trust the certainty of eternal life. Trust the timeframe of eternal life. You don't need to, get this, you don't need to squeeze more out of life, the life you have now. You need to squeeze eternity into the life God has given you. Right? That's what this is about. And without Christ, the clock is ticking. Everyone's trying to suck and squeeze as much life as they can get. But you belong to Jesus, the Lord of life. So what you need to do is to squeeze the reality of eternity into your here and now. Without a risen Lord, you would never do that. You would never get there. But praise God, he's risen. He's risen. You can follow the truth of life, of new life. Let God's word shape what is real. Remember how they lurk to the scriptures in the Easter story. Let God's word shape what is real, the things that seem so secure, right? The things you can touch, the things you can manage, right? The things you can manipulate. This is real life. No! The things you can touch are passing away. But the Bible says the things that are unseen, the things that belong to eternity, that is real. That is what lasts. And you need God's truth to help you understand and to see that God's truth stands. And knowing God's truth helps you stand. and then accept the holiness of new life. You are washed. You are clean. Christ died for you. Christ rose for you. His work is complete. There is nothing to add to it but to believe and to live in it. These are gifts of resurrection life. Reflect on them. Delight in them. gifts that you can receive, and then likewise gifts for us to share. Jesus is alive. He is risen. Praise God. He is risen indeed. Let us pray. Lord, we thank you for the great hope and witness that we have in you. We know that first Resurrection Day launched a new day, a new season of life. And Lord, now each Lord's Day, each Sunday, we gather to be your resurrection people. So help us to see this truth, help us to live and walk in this truth. We ask it in your name, oh Lord, amen.