The resurrection lifted Mary out of despair, Peter out of guilt, and the disciples out of fear. It can do the same for us living today.

Little Philip, born with Down’s syndrome, attended a third-grade Sunday school class with several eight-year-old boys and girls. Typical of that age, the children did not readily accept Philip with his differences. But because of a creative teacher, they began to care about Philip and accept him as part of the group, though not fully.

The Sunday after Easter the teacher brought in some L'eggs® pantyhose containers, the kind that look like large eggs. Each child received one, then the children were told to go outside on that lovely spring day, find some symbol for new life, and put it in the egg-like container. Back in the classroom, they would share their new-life symbols, opening the containers one by one in surprise fashion. After running around the church property in wild confusion, the students returned to the classroom and placed their containers on the table.

Surrounded by the children, the teacher began to open them one by one. After each one, whether a flower, butterfly, or leaf, the class would "ooh" and "ahh." Then one was opened that was empty. The children exclaimed, "That’s stupid. That’s not fair. Somebody didn’t do their assignment."

Philip, the Down's boy, spoke up, "That’s mine."

"Philip, you don’t ever do things right!" one of the students lashed. "There’s nothing there!"

I did so do it," Philip insisted. "I did do it. It’s empty. The tomb was empty!"

Silence followed. From then on Philip became a full-fledged member of the class. He died not long afterward from an infection most normal children would have shrugged off. At the funeral this class of eight-year-olds marched up to the front not with flowers, but with their Sunday school teacher, each to lay on it an empty pantyhose egg.(1)

Philip knew, in his short life, what many of you, and I, know: That the greatest symbol of hope and new life is the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Please turn in your Bibles to Matthew 28:1-9. We’re going to read one of the several passages that describe the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ was raised bodily from the dead – a truth so powerful that people are still lifted by it 2000 years after it happened!

Today, millions of people have been lifted up by the resurrection. It has been that way since that Sunday dawn when the angel first announced it to the women who came to the tomb.

This morning, I want to share how the resurrection of Jesus changed the lives of several people mentioned in Scripture on that first resurrection Sunday. It changed their lives in that it resolved difficulties that they could not eliminate themselves.

We’ll note first that:

I’m speaking, of course, of Mary Magdalene. Mary was the very first person to discover that Jesus had risen. We’ve seen her discovery described by Matthew in our text. Let’s also look at it in John 20:11-16:

Apparently, Mary was a real "basket case" when Jesus found her – a woman hopelessly bound by evil. What is written of her in the New Testament is that He had cast seven demons out of her life.(2) She is called "Mary Magdalene" by all four gospel writers – "Mary" being her name and "Magdalene" indicating her city of residence. She was from Magdala, which, according to the Jewish Talmud, was a city with a widespread reputation of prostitution.(3) Since Luke first mentions Mary immediately following his account of the sinful woman who washed Jesus’ feet with her hair in the home of Simon the Pharisee, it is likely that Mary and this woman were one and the same.

Mary's life was lifted up by Jesus even before the resurrection. Because of the momentous change He had brought to her life, she became one of His most devoted disciples. She witnessed most of the events surrounding the crucifixion. She was present at the mock trial of Jesus; she heard Pontius Pilate pronounce the death sentence; and she saw Jesus beaten and humiliated by the crowd. She was one of the women who stood near the Savior during the crucifixion to try to comfort Him. She stayed with Him even after the twelve had fled the scene.

But then He died. Here we see her, eyes red, face swollen from three days of crying.

"Why are you weeping?" asked the angels at the tomb. "Because they have taken the body of my Lord." She was dedicated to Him even in death! Then someone else asked the same question: "Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?" She thought it was the gardener at first. "Sir, if you have carried Him away, tell me where you have laid Him, and I will take Him away."

Jesus' body was probably much too heavy for her to carry by herself - but she was willing, nonetheless. "Just let me know where he is and I’ll go get him." She could think of nothing else than to return his body to its resting place.

Then He spoke again to her: "Mary!"

Was it the inflection of His speech? The calmness of his voice on this chaotic morning? Or perhaps the smile on his face?

She recognized Him instantly: "Rabboni!"

That word is used only twice in the New Testament, here and in Mark 10:51 when it was spoken of Jesus by blind Bartimaeus. It has as its root the word "rab" which means "teacher." You are probably familiar with it in the common word "rabbi" which also means "a teacher." The word "Rabboni" is more specific than that. It means "the teacher."

Many see Jesus today as "a teacher," that is, one teacher among many ancient sages and wise men, all with something good to say. Mary’s word put Jesus above every teacher – such that He is the only real teacher.

Do you suppose the English language could possibly capture her joy at that moment when she first recognized Him? I doubt it. She had Him back alive!

Three things I’d like us to think about as we consider this account of Mary and the effect of the resurrection on her:

1. Though it might have been physically impossible for her, she was willing to carry His lifeless body in dedication to Him, thinking He was still dead. Are we willing to carry His Name, knowing He is alive?
2. Many people today will go so far as to recognize Jesus as a teacher – perhaps even a very wise one. Do we go beyond that and accept him as "Rabboni," "the teacher" whose teaching is above and beyond that of any other?
3. The Resurrection lifted Mary out of here despair. It can do the same for you.

"Go, tell his disciples and Peter…"Why didn’t the angel say, "Go, tell his disciples and John…," or "…and James" or "…and Matthew"? Why Peter?

The last time you see Peter before this in the gospel accounts he is crying his heart out in remorse because he had done the ultimate act of betrayal. At the time when Jesus needed him most, he had denied Him, not once, but three times, saying he didn’t even know Him!

For three days Peter had mourned not only Jesus’ death but also his own miserable unfaithfulness.

"Go tell the disciples He is risen, and oh, Mary, be sure to tell Peter!"

John 20:2-7 says:

2 And so she ran and came to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and said to them, "They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid Him." 3 Peter therefore went forth, and the other disciple, and they were going to the tomb. 4 And the two were running together; and the other disciple ran ahead faster than Peter, and came to the tomb first; 5 and stooping and looking in, he saw the linen wrappings lying there; but he did not go in. 6 Simon Peter therefore also came, following him, and entered the tomb; and he beheld the linen wrappings lying there, 7 and the face-cloth, which had been on His head, not lying with the linen wrappings, but rolled up in a place by itself.

It was more than a need for exercise that brought Peter running, along with John, to the tomb in such a hurry. Though in this passage it wasn't fully realized yet, if Jesus were really alive, it would change dramatically the agony of his bitterest failure.

And just so we know for sure that it was the desire of the risen Christ to remove Peter’s guilt, later, in John 21, we see Jesus making another specific effort to assure Peter. Three times Jesus asked him, "Do you love me?" Three times he commands Peter to tend his sheep. In other words, despite Peter’s three-time failure Jesus put him back into service.

Do you feel like a failure because of some foolish thing you have done? Do you have regrets over some foolish blunder that just won’t go away? Have you let God down to the extent that you just know He could never care for you? If you associate yourself only with Peter’s failure, then you’ve missed the point of the resurrection.

The resurrection brought a smile back to Peter’s face and a sparkle back to his eye. It lifted and banished his worst guilt. It can do the same for you when you understand the resurrection and realize what it means.

Still looking at those lifted by the resurrection, we see next that it took away:

Why were the disciples, at the end a long day of reports from people claiming to have seen Jesus alive, holed up in a room behind locked doors? John doesn’t whitewash the truth. He says, "…for fear of the Jews."

Only three days earlier they had watched the Romans, at the behest of the Jews, brutally crucify their Master. Since then their biggest fear was that the Jews, with an enraged desire to rid themselves of all traces of the movement Jesus had started, would provoke the Romans’ to hunt them down and do the same to them.

Can you blame them for their fear? Would it have been any different with you and me? It’s easy for us, sitting here in comfort and safety to be critical and imagine differently – but would it have been? Crucifixion is a terrifying way to die.

So why didn’t they accept the reports of the resurrection that had been bouncing around all day since Mary brought the first news in the early hours of the morning?(4) By now they had the testimony of at least three men and a half dozen women. It is often Thomas who gets the blame for doubting, but Mark tells us in Mark 16:14 that none of His disciples believed those who had seen Him after the resurrection.(5)

Why didn’t they believe? Isn’t it because the claim of a dead man coming back to life whom you have seen die with your own eyes is a difficult thing to accept? In the normal course of events it is more likely to be a lie than the truth – and who wants to die for a lie?

Yet in the wake of Jesus’ appearance to them, showing them His pierced hands and feet and side, they believed to such an extent that they would go out and lay their lives on the line for Him. They preached the resurrection in the face of opposition until every one last one of them, except John, had given his life.(6)

John tells us in John 20:20 that "the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord." The resurrection took away their fear gave them a real reason to rejoice.

The central truth of the Christian faith, my friends, is the resurrection. If these accounts are not true – if Jesus stayed in His tomb rather than coming back from the dead - if all these people were somehow mistaken - then we are a pitiful lot indeed. As Paul put it so well in 1 Corinthians 15:17-19, "…if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied."

Then he finishes his thought in verse 20: "But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep."

I have known people who keep themselves literally locked away from living because of their fear of death. They dread it. They have seen others die and they just know they will be next if they aren’t careful. They live in fear of cancer, or heart attack or stroke. Every time they get a sniffle or an ache or a pain, they brace themselves because this may be the big one. Their fear of dying robs them of the joy of living. I don’t believe God intends for Christians to live that way.

The resurrection lifted Mary out of despair, Peter out of failure, and the disciples out of fear. It can do the same for people living today.

Shohoi¢ ya Yoko¢ wai spent 28 years of his life in prison. It was not a prison of bars and locks and wardens, but a self-imposed prison of fear. He was a Japanese soldier on the island of Guam during World War 2. When the American forces landed there, he fled into the jungle and hid in a cave for 28 years because he was afraid of being captured by the Americans.

He learned that the war was over by reading one of the thousands of pamphlets dropped into the jungle. But he was afraid. He just couldn't bring himself to believe it. So for 28 years he lived in the cave, coming out only at night to look for roaches and rats and frogs and mangoes on which he survived.

Finally some natives found him and convinced him that it would be all right for him to come out of his jungle prison. By now he was an old man, but he was free at last.

We have seen in the Bible today how the resurrection freed Mary from despair, Peter from guilt, the disciples from fear. It can do all of these things yet today, for you and me and anyone who will accept it. If you have not already done so, why not join the millions who, even today, believe and confess the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ? Become a Christian. It's the best decision you'll ever make.

If you will obey the gospel, that is, confess your faith in Jesus as the Christ, turn away from your sins, and receive forgiveness from Him through baptism, He will set you feet on a road that runs above the great troubles of this life and leads to life that never ends.

Footnotes: Please use your back button to return to your place.

1. Source Unknown
2. Mark 16:9; Luke 8:2
3. Nelson’s Bible Dictionary
4. THE FOURFOLD GOSPEL, J.W. McGarvey and Philip Y. Pendleton, http://www.mun.ca/rels/restmov/texts/jwmcgarvey/ffg/FFG138.HTM
5. The only reason Thomas gets tagged with doubt is because he wasn’t present at this particular appearance of Jesus and expressed his doubt later. See John 20:24-25.
6. Tradition says that all of the apostles except John were martyred.
7. 1 Corinthians 15:54-55.
8. 1 Corinthians 15:58.

Dave Redick is Minister of the Hwy 20 Church of Christ in Sweet Home, Oregon and Editor of The Preacher's Study. He may be reached at pstudysupport@comcast.net.

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All Scripture quotations and references are from the New American Standard Version unless otherwise stated.

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