what great words those are. I'm gonna ask you to please remain standing, to take your Bibles and turn to John's Gospel, the 20th chapter. John chapter 20. Scripture reading today is gonna be one verse. I'm gonna read verse 15. However, the message will be the first 15 verses. But for the Scripture reading, it's just this one verse. Verse 15. And verse 15 has been called one of the most touching sentences in all human literature. Think of that. Well, it's actually the last part of verse 15. That last sentence is one of the most touching sentences in all of human literature. I believe that to be true. And so John chapter 20, verse 15, God's word says this. 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. Let's pray. Father in heaven, how grateful we are to have your word before us. Lord, we thank you that you haven't left us to grope around in the dark, but you have revealed yourself to us through your word. Lord, we thank you for this book. We thank you for these words, and we ask, Lord, that now as your word is preached, we ask, Lord, that you'd be merciful to us. We ask that I would handle your word accurately, and we ask, Lord, that your Holy Spirit would lead us into truth, that you would open our eyes, that you would give us understanding for your glory For our good, we pray in Jesus' name, amen. You may please be seated. And I'm gonna take you back to just 40 years ago. It was almost exactly 40 years ago. I had to fly from LAX to Newark, New Jersey. And it was pretty special for me because I had never flown further than San Francisco to L.A., which is, what, about an hour. But now, because I'm going all the way back east, going all the way to Newark, New Jersey, now it's going to be, what, about a six-hour flight. And on a six-hour flight, I didn't know this, they serve you a meal. You get a meal. It's peanuts between San Francisco and L.A. You get a meal. But not only that, a movie. And they say, we're now going to show our in-flight movie. And they said what it was. And I'm thinking, how wonderful is this? I want to see the movie. And they said, our flight attendants will be coming down the aisle with these headphones. So if you want to see the movie, tell her that you need a headphone. And so I'm on the aisle seat about halfway back in the plane, another half of the plane behind me. She comes up as she walks by, she says to me, would you like headphones? And I said, yeah, yeah, I want to hear the movie. But she said headphones. And if you know, they look like a stethoscope. They go like a Y. And then you take that cord and you plug it into the armrest. but she said headphones. If she had said stethoscope, I would have known what to do. But she said, would you like your headphones? I said, yeah. And so what do you do with headphones? You put them on your head. And so I put it on my head, but you're supposed to wear it like a stethoscope, but I put it on top of my head. And then I had the cord coming down in front of my face and into the, the thing. And I'm watching the movie and I had to keep moving the course because it kept getting in my way. And I'm thinking, boy, this is uncomfortable. This is really ridiculous. You'd think they could improve on this. And I looked across the aisle to see if the guy next to me across the aisle was having the same trouble. And when I looked and he looked at me and he had them on correctly, And then I realized, and I quickly took him off, kind of slumped down in my seat thinking, there's a whole half of a plane behind me that could see this thing on that guy's head. And I was just literally afraid to turn around and make eye contact with anybody. We have a word for that. It's called embarrassment. I mean, I was clearly embarrassed. But as you know, embarrassment doesn't last long. It's just a feeling, it's just here for a little bit, and then it's gone. But there's another word. That word is humiliation. Humiliation is different. And traditionally, humiliation is undeserved. When we're humiliated, we're being treated unfairly. We're being treated in a way that really we don't deserve, and we're treated in a way that we lose our dignity in the sight of others. I mention that because theologians refer to different states of Christ, the different states that he went through, and one of them is what they call humiliation. the humiliation of Jesus Christ. And the humiliation of Christ is something that we began looking at back in December, at Christmas, because the humiliation of Christ is a progression, and it begins with his birth. His birth to a peasant woman, born into poverty, that's just the beginning. And when he begins his public ministry, then he gets baptized. And you think, why? He's sinless. Why does he need to be baptized? He was baptized because he's identifying with us, with us people, with us sinners. And so his baptism was identification with us, whom he is going to save. But then it gets worse. He goes to the desert. He has to go to the desert where he doesn't eat for 40 days, where he's tempted by the devil. And it gets worse. As he says, the foxes have holes and the birds have nests, but the son of man has nowhere to lay his head. And then it gets worse as the people reject him. And then it gets worse as he's scourged and beaten. And then it gets worse as he's put on a cross and finally crucified. And that final act of humiliation, crucifixion of Christ, is what you guys looked at last Thursday night at our Monday Thursday service. And you all left here after taking communion, you all left here silently. Why? Because you witnessed the ultimate humiliation of Jesus Christ dying on a cross as a criminal. And it's a somber event. And so you leave quietly. But today, today is different. Today we now see the exaltation of Christ. Today things change. We see the resurrection of Christ. And ultimately what you will see is that the resurrection of Christ is a real event that took place in space and time and should have a profound effect on how you live. And so I have only two points today. Two points to this. We see the prophecy and then we see what I'm going to call the proof. The prophecy and the proof. First the prophecy. Now remember there are two kinds of prophecy in the Bible. You have, first of all, what is called verbal prophecy. Verbal prophecy is like when Isaiah says, behold, the virgin shall conceive and shall bear a child. That's verbal prophecy. It's when Jesus says, just as Jonah was three days in the belly of the fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the belly of the earth. It's like when Jesus says, destroy this temple, and in three days, I will raise it up. That's all verbal prophecy. But then there is what is called typical prophecy or prophecy by picture. And we have that all through the Old Testament. For example, Joseph, remember Joseph? Joseph is the beloved son of his father, because he's a son of his old age. He's loved by his father. His father sends him to go check on the welfare of your brothers who are far away. They're tending to the flock. Go check on their welfare. Here comes Joseph to check on the welfare of his brothers. And what do they do? Remember, they hated him. And so they throw him in a pit that he can't get out of with no food or water to leave him to die. They basically, you know, throw him in the ground to die. And as you know, through the providence of God through a series of events, he's taken out of that pit. He's as good as dead, but he's taken out of that pit, and he goes on into Egypt, and he goes on to be the right-hand man of the Pharaoh, and ends up being the very one who saves his brothers from a famine. Or he can go even before that. to Genesis 22. Genesis 22, you have Abraham and Isaac. Remember what happens there. God tells Abraham, I want you to sacrifice your son, your only son whom you love. Sacrifice him. Abraham takes him out lays his son out there, takes the knife, he's about to sacrifice his own son. You know the story, the angel stops him, says, oh, no, don't do it. Now we know that you believe, now we know that you trust. And so, what does it show us though? It's a picture of Christ. Here's the beloved son, he's there. The father goes to kill him. The angel stops him, and what happens? This son who is as good as dead, he's as good as dead, rises up. And that's a picture, a picture of Christ. In fact, the writer of Hebrews says so. The writer of Hebrews says that by faith, when he was tested, Abraham offered up Isaac. and he considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead. But then here's what the writer says, from which figuratively speaking, he did receive him back. Figuratively speaking, he received Isaac back from the dead. He was as good as dead. But again, it all points you to Christ, points you to Christ and his resurrection. That's the prophecy. By both word and picture, we're told that God's Messiah will rise from the dead. But now the proof. Last week we looked at Mary of Bethany. Today we look at another woman. Today we look at Mary Magdalene. And we actually don't know as much about Mary Magdalene as we think we do. We do know this much though. We know that she was an object of Christ's special grace. Luke 8 tells us that Christ cast seven demons out of her. Tradition says that she was a prostitute. We don't know that at all. That's just tradition. That's somebody making that up. We do not know that she was a prostitute. But we do know that Christ saved her from something terrible. What that was, we don't know. But it was something terrible. And we know this. that Jesus Christ said, those who are forgiven much, love much. And that's Mary Magdalene. We see how much she loves Jesus Christ right here in this text. In fact, one man has described the the verses before us today this way. He says, if there is any story in all literature more poignant than the story of Mary Magdalene meeting with Jesus in the garden on the first Lord's Day, I do not know what it is. He goes on, he says, we will never understand the account of Christ's appearance to Mary at the tomb unless we recognize that it was love and only love that brought her here. Why is she there? Because of love. Remember, she had possessed faith, but that's gone. She had hope, but that's gone. Why? Because Christ is dead. Only love, only love is what caused her to seek the body of Christ. And it's only because of love that she is even there at the tomb. Men and women, last Wednesday, my mother went into the hospital. My sister called me at six in the morning and said, hey, they've taken mom to the hospital. And she said, I don't know what's going on. I'll call you when I know. I'll call you and let you know whether you need to come up or not. Couple hours later, she calls and she says, the doctor says there's all kinds of things going on, and amongst them is she has pneumonia. She goes, but the doctor said something strange. He says, what's her quality of life? Do you want me to not give the antibiotics? And what's the doctor saying? Doctor's saying basically, do you want us to just let her die? We can give her antibiotics that will help with the pneumonia, and she can live a little bit longer. I'll do what you guys say. So my sister calls me and says, I'm not making that decision. I'm deferring that to you. You tell me what to tell the doctor. I said, well, I'm not gonna tell a doctor to withhold antibiotics from my own mother. And she agreed. And so we agreed, we're gonna tell him, yeah, you give the antibiotics. Two hours later or so, she calls me back and she said, I think we made the wrong decision. She said, this is horrible. They're putting, trying to find a vein on her and her veins collapse or rolling or whatever. They're stabbing her. She's in pain. She's crying out for them to stop. She's in so much pain. She goes, I can't take it. I can't watch it anymore. Men and women, it's horrible to see somebody that you love in pain, isn't it? Think of Mary now. Matthew 27 tells us that she was one of a group of women who was at Jerusalem at the time of the crucifixion, who had witnessed Christ's agonies. I mean, she probably saw it all. The crowd yelling, crucify him. The judgment of Pilate. Carrying his own cross to Calvary, and remember falling down under the weight of the cross, and they had to have Simon of Cyrene help him to carry it the rest of the way. She would have heard his words, I thirst. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? The darkness, the earthquake. She would have seen it all. And as one man says, who could stomach such things? Who would be able to stomach that? My sister couldn't stomach my mother being at one of the best hospitals in the nation. It's either Stanford or El Camino, either one of them is one of the best in the nation. Having a professional nurse who's doing her best to not hurt my mother, my sister couldn't bear that. Imagine seeing what Mary saw with the crucifixion. Indeed, who could stomach such a thing? That's love, that's love that she was there. And even though Jesus was gone, Mary Magdalene still wanted to do something for him, still wanted to do something loving for him. And so she and the other women go to the tomb, and they go there to anoint his body. Not expecting it to be raised, they go there to anoint his dead body. And here's what we're told, first 10 verses of John chapter 20, says this, 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. And 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 clothes lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came following him and went into the tomb. He saw the linen clothes lying there, and the face cloth, which had been on Jesus' head, not lying with the linen clothes, 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. Then the disciples went back to their homes. Now people, we know from the other gospel accounts the order of events. You put it all together and here's the order of events. Mary goes there to the tomb early in the morning with other women. As they're on their way, they say, who's going to roll away the stone? We want to anoint his body, but they know there's a stone there. Who's going to roll away the stone? When they get there, the stone is already rolled away. And they're not sure what to do, but the disciples need to know about this. And so Mary goes to tell them. Apparently, while Mary is gone telling the disciples, the other women go in. And they see the angels that say, he is not here, he is risen, just as he said. And the women leave. And then Peter and John arrive, and they see the tomb. And apparently they ran there, leaving Mary behind. And then Mary gets there. But Peter and John had also looked in, they see that it is empty, and were told, and then they leave. They go back. They go home. which makes the next two words, as far as I'm concerned, very powerful. What are they? Verse 11, but Mary. Everybody's left, but Mary. And now John tells us what happened. Verse 11 and following, 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 there, where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one at the feet. And they said to her, woman, why are you weeping? And she said to them, they have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him. And having said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing, but did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking? And 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. Again, this has been called one of the most touching sentences in all human literature. The last part of verse 15. Sir, if you have carried him away, Tell me where you have laid him and I will take him away. Men and women, let me ask you a question. How? Tell me where you've laid him and I will take him away. How? Do you have one of those gurney things with the wheels? Do you have a cart? You're saying, just let me know where the dead body is and I will take him away. How? Is she gonna carry him? If so, how? Donald Barnhouse realized this, and Donald Barnhouse said this years ago. He says, now she offered to carry away the full weight of the body of a man, plus the hundred pound weight of myrrh and aloes. People don't forget, as he says, the Bible tells us that the body had been anointed with 100 pounds of spices. which Nicodemus had wrapped in the linen, which enshrouded the body. That's John 19. Even if Jesus were slight of weight, I'm still quoting, Mary was offering without thinking to carry away a weight of body and linen cloth and ointments, which would go beyond the strength of many a strong man. But she did not think of this, for she loved the Lord Jesus Christ. That's all she's thinking. And though her faith and hope were dead, her love was strong. Here is one of the greatest character portrayals in all of literature, human or divine. Here is the heart of a good woman. Here is love offering to do the impossible as love always does. So what does Mary do? From verse 16 we can tell. She turns her back on Jesus and she starts to walk away. How do I know she turned her back on Jesus? Because when Jesus says, Mary, we're told she turned. So obviously she had turned away and she's walking away. She had to turn when he says, Mary. Why'd she turn and walk away? This is Christ. This is the risen Christ. Well, you know why? She thought he was the gardener. She's not interested in the gardener. Men and women, let me ask another question. What if the story ended right there? What if we read, assuming him to be the gardener, she walked away, period? You say, well, that would be tragic. She'd be walking away from the very risen Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and it would be tragic. But for many people, that's exactly how the story ends. For the majority of our population, that's how the story ends. That's how many people think of Jesus today. He's just a man, a gardener. He's of no interest to me. He has nothing to offer me. He has nothing to say to me. And they walk away. Because after all, there are many objections to what I just gave you as proof. I called this portion of scripture proof. And you might be here and you might, as many would say, you might say, well, it doesn't prove anything at all to me. The story of Mary Magdalene and the empty tomb, that doesn't change my mind one bit. Well, why not? I find it quite convincing. I find it quite compelling. Christ rose from the dead, just as he said. Well, there's three main objections, isn't there? Three main objections to this, to what I offered you as proof. First is this. The first objection people have is, hey, this is all myth. Boy, you're reading that, you're quoting that like it's true. No, this is just myth. It's all made up. You know, it's not real. But remember what C.S. Lewis said? C.S. Lewis, the Oxford, professor, and he said it basically, this is a very limited paraphrase, but basically he said this. He said, I know myth. This is my wheelhouse. This is what I deal with day in and day out, is mythology. I know myth when I see it. He said, I would ask you guys, how much myth have you read to say that this is myth? I deal with it all day long, and I can tell you this isn't myth. Now, why? Why would he say such a thing? Well, one huge reason is what you just saw. A woman, a woman is the key witness to the risen Christ. A woman goes and tells the disciples. Christ appears first to a woman. Remember, women couldn't even testify in court in that day. A woman's testimony meant nothing And so if you're making this story up, and if you're trying to convince people that Jesus Christ rose from the dead, when in fact he really didn't, then you wouldn't have him appear to a woman. You would make it up and have him appear to one of the most prominent Pharisees out there, some man that everybody looks up to. Also notice this. We don't see Christ come out of the tomb, do we? Four Gospels, you don't see him come out of the tomb. Now that's a key event. That's a crescendo moment, the resurrection of Christ. And you would think if you're making this up, you would have some powerful scene where the rock rolls away and he comes walking out and waves to everybody or whatever, but you don't see that. No, this is not myth. Second objection is this. Many people reject the gospel for this reason. They say the whole idea of a vicarious, Sacrifice is immoral. The whole idea that one man is punished for the sins of another man, that's unjust. That's just wrong. But what they fail to realize is who it is that died. It's not man. Though Jesus was a man and he had to be to die, God the Son died on the cross. And we have said it before, man has sinned and man must pay. But his sin, our sin is against a holy God and only God can pay something that big. And the solution is the God, man, Jesus Christ. As one man writes, God himself undertook to pay a cost, to offer a sacrifice so tremendous that the gravity of his condemnation of sin should be absolutely beyond question even as he forgave it. In other words, when you see Christ on the cross, when you see the humiliation that he went through, all that happened to him as he bore our sin should tell you how serious sin is. And he goes on, while at the same time the love which compelled God to pay the price would be the wonder of angels. and would call forth the worshiping gratitude of redeemed sinners. No, people, actually it is just. It is just and it is loving for this one, Jesus Christ, to die for others. But perhaps the main argument is this. The main argument against the resurrection of Christ is this. It's an objection based on philosophical grounds. Miracles are impossible. Miracles don't happen. When people die, they stay dead. But what they don't realize is miracles are not impossible. If there is a God, right? If there is a God, then miracles are not impossible. And so to say I don't believe in Christianity because miracles are impossible already presupposes that God does not exist. And so what it is is a circular argument. And what do I mean by a circular argument? It's this. I can't accept this. I can't accept your proof, Wade. Well, why? Because miracles are impossible. Well, how do you know miracles are impossible? Well, because I've never seen a miracle. What about all those people who claim to have seen a miracle? What about Mary Magdalene? What about Peter and John? What about Paul's words to the Corinthians? Remember what he says to them? He says, he appeared to Cephas, then to the 12, then he appeared to more than 500 brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive. Why would he say that? What he means is they're still alive, you can ask them. You can verify it for yourself. You can check it out. Men and women again. What about all those people that claim to have seen the resurrection? To have witnessed a miracle, what about all of them? Well, the critic would say, well, they're all wrong. Why are they wrong? Because miracles are impossible. That's the circular reasoning. And that's beginning with the presupposition and then testing everything by that presupposition that you began with. You know who recognized that? C.S. Lewis. C.S. Lewis, Oxford professor, was an atheist. And then he started to examine his own arguments. And C.S. Lewis says this. He says, unfortunately, we know the experience against miracles to be uniform only if we know that all reports of them are false. And we can know all the reports to be false only if we know already that miracles have never occurred. In fact, we are arguing in a circle. But there's one more objection, isn't there? I hear it all the time. Perhaps it's one of your objections some of you have. The objection is this. Christianity is much too narrow. It's offensive for you to say Christ is the only way. What about all those other religions? That's offensive, that is wrong for you to say Christ is the only way. Is it? Is it wrong? So on this Easter Sunday, I want you to hear once again these words from R.C. Sproul. I've read them before. I think I read them about once a year, and I think I should, but listen to what he says. He says, suppose there is a God, and let's suppose that that God is perfectly holy, perfectly pure, perfectly righteous, And suppose, out of a spirit of love, he created man and he created him special. Let's just suppose this. And this God, who created man special, created man in his own image, and gave him the priority mandate to mirror and reflect his holiness, that the ultimate purpose of man was to glorify God. Again, just suppose this. Just suppose it's true. And suppose all men, out of a base spirit of ingratitude, and out of a lust for power beyond their status as creatures, acted in total open defiance to the commandments of that God, and suppose then that God, in response to man's open rebellion and defiance, instead of electing to destroy these ungrateful creatures, decided to provide a way for them to be redeemed. And suppose the first thing he did was he sent messengers to this world to once again call these people to respond to his commandments and to announce the opportunity for forgiveness and to call attention to the central motif of God's mercy. And then those people who were in disobedience first refused to hear the voices of the messengers of God and then killed the messengers of God. Suppose that happened. And suppose God, instead of reaching a boiling point in his anger, instead of saying, well, that's it, you're all going to hell, suppose he takes another step. Suppose rather than sending a messenger, he decides to come himself in the form of a man. an incoming decides not only to repeat the message of a call to repentance and an invitation to eternal life, an invitation to experience total forgiveness, suppose in addition to that verbal announcement, this one who is God incarnate decides to pay the penalty of the sins of every person in this world himself. And suppose he takes upon himself all the guilt and pollution of all mankind and goes to hell on behalf of other people. Suppose that happened. And then God says about his son, if you will honor my son and submit to him, here's what you will have. I will totally forgive you of all your sins. All the sins you've ever committed. I will reconstruct your body upon your death so that you will be able to live forever without pain, without sorrow, without sin and a life of total blessedness forever. But I have one requirement, that you embrace my son. Now suppose God did all of that. Sproul says this, how would you respond to the person who came to God and said, you haven't done enough. Why do I have to honor this one who died for me? Why can't I just as soon honor one of his competitors? Why can't I honor Buddha, who was an atheist, who didn't believe in God, who only offers me enlightenment? Why can't you be satisfied, God, if I believe in Muhammad, who denies the deity of your son? Why can't I embrace Judaism? which is a conscious alternative to the messianic vocation of Jesus that involves a clear repudiation of your son. Why should it possibly matter to you, oh God, that I would honor this one rather than any of the others? Sproul says this, now people may not believe that there is a God. or that God is a holy God, or that man is accountable, or that man has sinned, or that they killed the prophets, or that Jesus was God incarnate. But certainly, they ought to be able to see that if it's true that Jesus Christ is God in the flesh, that that should be reason enough for people to understand why we consider him unique. We consider him to be alive. And the last time we looked, Buddha was dead. Muhammad was dead. Moses was dead. Do you realize to mention the name of Buddha in the same breath with Jesus is an affront to God? God has declared this is my son. This is my only son. But the point I press, is do you think God hasn't done enough? End of quote. Men and women, do you think God hasn't done enough? He's done it all. He's done it all to redeem us sinners. And that makes the application of this text very easy, doesn't it? Here's how you apply this to your life. Two things. First, you fall down before Christ and you confess that he indeed is Savior. that he indeed is Lord. Second, you do what Paul says to the Corinthians. He says we rely not on ourselves, but on God who raises the dead. We don't rely on ourselves, we rely on God, this God who raises the dead. Let's pray. Father in heaven, how we thank you for these precious words. Oh Lord, what an amazing thing we see. The death could not hold your son. And Lord, in this resurrection, we see that Jesus is who he claimed to be. Lord, may we indeed confess what we see here, that Jesus Christ indeed is our Savior and our Lord. Indeed, Lord, may we live for him in a way that declares that great truth. Lord, how we thank you that you did not leave us to suffer in our sins, and it would have been perfectly just to do it, but instead you sent your Son. Lord, we thank you for this. Lord, we pray your blessing upon us as we seek to follow you. We pray in Jesus Christ's name, amen.