The Vine and the Branches, John 15:1-11

Not long ago I was listening to a Christian radio broadcast as I was driving.  I won’t say the name of the pastor, but doctrinally he is considered sound and he seems to be relatively popular.  And at the end of the sermon, the announcer came on and gave a commercial for the opportunity to go on a luxury cruise with the pastor to some exotic destination which I think was in the Caribbean.  I found myself feeling a little jealous, I guess.  I had just spent a few hours talking with my wife about her twin sister that was dying of cancer, and making arrangements for us to fly down there on the spur of the moment to try to comfort her before she passed away.  In talking to someone who has that prognosis, it’s difficult to try to convince them that God still loved them.  That God would use this for good in some way.  And I felt that I had fallen short of offering comfort as I would have liked to.  I found myself wanting to question God’s goodness and justice, and wondering how God could love someone and let them die prematurely of some disease and not heal them.  And against that background, the incongruity of the commercial juxtaposed with the reality of  her sister’s ordeal seemed almost ludicrous.

There is nothing wrong with going on a luxury cruise with a renowned Bible teacher I guess.  But somehow I have a hard time reconciling drinks by the pool, and dancing on the Lido Deck after the evening Bible teaching seminar as being the epitome of living the Christian life.  That sort of thing sounds great and is certainly appealing on some level, but I find it at odds with the reality of my own and very many other’s experience as a Christian.  And I find it at odds with the teachings of Christ and the apostles as well.  We are told in Romans 8:17 that our glorification with Christ is directly tied with whether or not we partake in the sufferings of Christ. It says we are “heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him.”  

So at the risk of sounding all “gloom and doom” or offending someone, I urge you to consider the context of the passage of scripture today, because Jesus is preparing His disciples for the rigors and trials and tribulations that are a real and present companion to the Christian experience which was true not only for the disciples, but for the modern church as well. So as we begin this chapter, let’s remember the context; it is evening, and the disciples are walking from the Upper Room where they had just observed the Passover, and where Judas had deserted them after Jesus had prophesied that someone  would betray Him.  Jesus has just told them that He is going to die, that He is going back to the Father, and that He is leaving them.  He’s told them that He is going to send the Holy Spirit from heaven to comfort them, but they aren’t sure exactly what that means.  Now darkness has fallen, and they leave the room and wind their way through the streets of Jerusalem and around the temple walls, down into the ravine where the Kidron brook is flowing dark red from the blood of thousands of lamb sacrifices offered in the temple, and they make their way up towards the Mount of Olives.  

The disciples are undoubtedly disillusioned,  saddened, and probably more than a little depressed as they climb the hillside expecting to spend yet another cold night out under the stars as was their custom.  And as they walk, Jesus is still talking to them.  He is still teaching them, right up to the last moment.  In spite of all the stress and concern that Jesus must have been feeling as He anticipated the torture that was in front of Him, yet His primary concern is for His followers.  He has just said to them, “Let not your hearts be troubled, you believe in God, believe also in Me.”  “Peace I leave unto you, my peace I give unto you, not as the world gives.  Let not your hearts be troubled or afraid.” Then He said, “Let’s go, Let’s get out of here.”  And they began their journey to the Mount of Olives, blissfully unaware of what trials were ahead of them, yet Jesus knew it full well.  

As they are walking in the dark up the hillside, perhaps they passed through a vineyard that someone had planted.  And as was His custom, Jesus picked up on the metaphor at hand to teach them an important final lesson.  He speaks of a vine, and it’s branches, and the fruit that one would expect from a vineyard.  It was a metaphor that they were very much familiar with.  Vineyards were everywhere in Israel.  And Jesus had spoken of vineyards many times in His preaching, using them often as settings for parables.  But they certainly also knew of them first hand.  They were quite common in Israel.  

In fact, they were a common metaphor for Israel in the Old Testament scriptures as well.  For instance, Psalm 80 says in vs.8, “You have  brought a vine out of Egypt and planted it in this land.” And Isaiah expounds upon that picture in the 5th chapter, vs.7, “For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel and the men of Judah His delightful plant. Thus He looked for justice, but behold, bloodshed; for righteousness, but behold, a cry of distress.”  Isaiah painted a picture of a nation that had abandoned righteousness, and justice, and had spent it’s affection on drinking and carousing and taking advantage of others so that they might live luxuriously.  And he prophesied that God would take vengeance upon them, vs.24, “Therefore, as a tongue of fire consumes stubble and dry grass collapses into the flame, so their root will become like rot and their blossom blow away as dust; for they have rejected the law of the LORD of hosts and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.”

As the disciples walked past the temple, they may have noticed on the gates of the temple was carved a large gold covered vine, symbolic of Israel.  Israel had been the chosen vine of God, illustrated by the temple, the religious system which God had planted in Israel to give life to the Jews.  But everything that the sacrifices and temple and ceremonies had portrayed, was actually a picture of Jesus.  All the religious life that had been centered in Judaism, actually found it’s source in Him.  The true vine was Jesus.  The religious system centered in the temple was just a picture of Christ.

So Jesus says, “I am the true vine and My Father is the vinedresser.” Jesus is the life, He was the source of life in creation, nothing was made without Him it says in chapter 1 of John.  He was the source of life for Israel, of which the temple and sacrifices merely pointed to. He was the Lamb that was sacrificed for the sins of the world.  He was the rock in the wilderness from which came the living water.  He was the manna from heaven. He was the light that was over the Tabernacle.   And in the same way He is the source of life for the church. He is the Word of God. He is the Way, the truth and the life and no one comes to the Father except through Him.  The disciples make up the first church who will represent Christ even as the temple and Israel was to have represented the Lord.

"My Father," Jesus declares, "is the vinedresser." This is the Father's work - he is the "vinedresser," the gardener who takes care of the vineyard. In Verse 5, Jesus clearly identifies that believers, the church, are the branches of the vine: "I am the vine, you are the branches." Furthermore, he indicates there are two kinds of branches - fruitless branches and fruitful branches. Thus right at the beginning of this teaching there is a clear indication that there are two kinds of believers. The difference between them is whether they produce fruit or not.

The first work of the Father in this great vineyard is: "Every branch in Me that bears no fruit'' (every fruitless believer) "he takes away.”  I believe that this statement is actually made about believers, not unbelievers.  In vs.6, Jesus speaks of branches that do not abide and are thrown away and burned.  They are the unbelievers.  But notice Jesus says in vs.2, “In Me.”  He is talking about branches that are His, they are in Him.  He is talking about a believer.  But He is not saying that if they do not bear fruit God will condemn them to be burned with the unbelieving branches in vs.6.  The Greek word translated “takes away” is airo, which actually means to raise up, or lift up from the ground.  It’s not producing fruit because it isn’t getting enough sunlight, it’s lying on the ground.  So there is a work of the vinedresser to lift up unfruitful believers by exposing them to the light.  Fruitfulness is the result of maturity and training and discipline.  So there is a need for that with unfruitful believers and God knows those who are His, those who are in Christ, and He will lift them up to make them productive.  He will raise them up to get them up out of the earth, out of the world so to speak, so that they might be exposed to the light of truth, which will train them in righteousness, producing productivity.   So lifting up is speaking of training, discipline which leads to greater fruitfulness.  As  Heb. 12:11says, “All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.”

The second work of God towards believers is to cleanse the fruit bearing branches.  Jesus said in vs.2, “every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit.”  The word here, "prunes," really should be “cleanses."  Because vs.3 uses the same word translated as prunes and has it as cleans. “You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.” Now they are both referring to the same thing, so it’s just a matter of semantics.  But for consistency they should be the same. 

But perhaps the reason why the word "prunes" is chosen is because it’s speaking not of being "cut off" but "cut back." This is also what vinedressers do. They not only go through a vineyard and cut off shoots, but they cut back others so that they will bear more fruit.  They are cleaning up the branches by cutting them back.  

I have these knock out rose bushes by my house that I transferred years ago from a development that I used to work at.  And in the development, every so often the landscapers would prune those rose bushes back so much that I thought it was ridiculous.  I thought it looked terrible when all these thriving rose bushes were cut so far back.  I didn’t understand why it was necessary.  So I left our bushes alone.  I let them grow bigger and bigger. Today I have the biggest knockout rose bushes that I’ve ever seen.  But the thing is, they don’t produce many roses nowadays.  They have bare areas where nothing grows and sometimes hardly any roses bloom at all.  

So it is with vines and fruit.  God sometimes cuts back a fruitful vine to the point that you might think that they are cut too far back.  They look like He might practically them.  But God knows that the trials and tribulations that we experience which we think are killing us are only designed to make us more productive.  As the hymn “How Firm A Foundation”  we just sang says, “The flame shall not hurt thee, I only design, thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine.” 

Pruning, or cleansing is a drastic process. Jesus is clearly teaching here that this is what the Father will do in our lives to make us bear more fruit. He will drastically cut back our lives in a cleansing process. In a vineyard, pruning also removes dirt, cobwebs, dried leaves, and fungus that chokes out growth. And according to the Lord in vs.3, in the life of the believer, this is done by the "word which I have spoken unto you.”

God will use circumstances and trials in a Christian’s life to bring us to the point where the word of God can cleanse us.  Hebrews 4:12 says, “For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”  

So the word of God is the knife that does the pruning.  Affliction exposes those areas that need pruning.  Charles Spurgeon spoke of affliction as the dresser, someone that dresses out game.  He said, “Affliction is the dresser that removes our soft garments and lays bare the diseased flesh, so that the knife may get at it.”  Affliction makes us ready for the knife, to prepare us for the Word of God.  So Spurgeon continues,  “It is the Word that prunes the Christian.  It is the truth that purges him.  The Scripture made living and powerful by the Holy Spirit eventually and effectively cleanses the Christian.”

    

Has the word of God ever corrected you in some painful way? I know in my life I went through a time of severe trial, of severe affliction, and I turned to the scriptures to try to understand what was happening.  To know what God was doing, or if in fact it was Him that was doing it.  And why was He doing it.  And ultimately, the word worked in me to prune away deadness, to cleanse me from corruption, chipping away to change me and make me look more like Christ.  To conform me to the image of Jesus by taking away things that were hindering me in my Christian life. It was painful, but it was necessary if I was going to be fruitful. And it isn’t done once, but often in the life of a Christian. Just as the branches of the vine must be pruned year after year, again and again.

Many of you have had some experience of this. Sorrow, disappointment, loss, or some experience of life left you shocked and hurt, feeling cast off and rejected. Yet here we are encouraged to remind ourselves that this is the work of a loving Father who does it so that we may "bear more fruit.”  

But that raises a very important question. "What exactly is this fruit that God is expecting from us?" The reason our Lord does not identify it directly is because it was already clearly identified in the Old Testament. There, in the passages on the "vine," especially in Isaiah 5, the prophet says that God came to the nation Israel, the vineyard of the Lord of Hosts, "looking for fruit," which he identifies as "justice and righteousness." But what he found was oppression and misery - mistreatment of others without, and hurt and misery within. He calls these "sour grapes" - not fruit of justice and righteousness that he had every right to expect,  but twisted, self centered, sour fruit.

Paul speaks of the fruit of self centeredness and fleshly living and contrasts that with the fruit that God desires in Galatians 5:19. “Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.”

it is clear that the fruit which Jesus is referring to here is Christlikeness - his character reproduced in us.  He is refining us, changing us, transforming us through trials and through the Word into representatives of Christ.  2 Cor.3:18 says, ”We all with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another.”  It”s a process. Sometimes it’s a painful process.  It does not happen by magic, all at once. We are being changed from one degree of glory to another, "for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit." The image of Christ is the "fruit" that God is looking for.

I used to think that fruit was people that I had led to Christ.  That was the emphasis that my church gave to fruit when I was growing up. Another misconception is that fruit is how much a church grows or how many people attend.  But that’s not accurate either.   Bearing fruit is bearing the image of Christ in all that I do and say.  Fruit is not more people, but people more like Christ. And doing that is made possible as you abide in Christ.  Look at vs.4 and 5.  “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.”  

That makes sense doesn’t it?  If we are going to look like Christ, then we must have Christ in us, and we have to be in Christ.  Now how does that work?  Well, first of all, we must have the Spirit of Christ abiding in us.  This is a supernatural transaction that comes as a result of our salvation.  We repent of our sins, we are made holy by faith in Christ, and we are given new life by being born again in the Spirit.  The Spirit of God takes up residence in us.  

But we can have the Spirit of God in us and yet not be filled with the Spirit, nor do the works of the Spirit.  It takes more than just a spark to make a car’s engine run. It also takes gas.  So though we have the Spirit in us, we must also be attuned to the Spirit through the word.  It’s not enough to say we have the Spirit in us, we can just lay back and cruise through the Christian life and if God wants something done He will do it all by Himself.  We need to depend upon God, but we also need discipline.  That’s the spark and the gasoline.  

Some Christians emphasize dependence on God. But they don’t like the idea of discipline. They never read the Bible. They don’t go to church unless it’s a holiday or some special occasion.  They aren’t concerned about training in holiness.  They expect God to speak directly to them, and put them into automatic pilot. They float around expecting God to do all the directing, open all the doors, and they seldom bother with denying themselves. That kind of dependence without discipline results in empty spirituality, a fake piety that sounds good, but is in fact worthless.  It’s what James referred to as “faith without works.”  It’s dead.  It’s like dead branches that produce no fruit.   Abiding in Christ is a very practical thing.  It’s abiding in the word.  It’s abiding in His body, that is the church.  It’s abiding in His commands, which produces holiness and Christlikeness. That’s the peaceable fruit of righteousness according to Hebrews 12:11.

But not everyone who says that they are in Christ actually are.  Jesus said twice in Matthew 7, “By their fruits you shall know them.”  So He says in Vs.6, ”If a man does not abide in me, he is cast forth as a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire and burned." If you are not Christ’s, then God will remove the fruitless branch and cast it into the fire.  He is speaking obviously of the judgment against the ungodly.  

That again is the  work of the Father - removing the fruitless branches. Those like Judas who gather with the people of God for awhile and appear to be believers - they show a certain degree of life. Leaves may be present, they hang around with all the fruit bearers,  but there is no fruit in themselves. Ultimately these people eventually leave the vine. They do not stay with the body. As the Lord makes clear, it is a process: There is first the "withering" of the life they apparently had for awhile. Then the branches are "gathered," then "thrown into the fire," and ultimately "burned." This is a reference to Matthew 25:41, when Jesus speaks of the end of the age, when the angels will come and gather out of the Kingdom of God all that are not His, and throw them into eternal fire, and they are burned. These are those that are not truly saved.

Like Judas, they may have looked the part.  They were part of the church.  They may have even performed miracles like healing and casting out devils.  But they are not saved.  Jesus speaks of these folks in Matthew 7:21, saying, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.’”

Listen, this is a fact about church growth that doesn’t get any traction today in the relevant, seeker friendly church.  God is not interested in numbers.  He isn’t interested in large crowds of people that give lip service, but who are not truly being transformed into the image of Christ.  He cuts away those that are not abiding in Him.  He doesn’t want pew fillers.  He wants disciples who are being made in the image of Christ.  Don’t be discouraged when people leave the church.  God adds, and God takes away.  The church is the Lord’s and He will build the church. And God in HIs wisdom knows which branches to cut away so that the church will bear fruit.

Finally, let’s look really quickly at four evidences of fruit in the last five verses.  Vs.7, "If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you will, and it shall be done for you."

The first evidence of a fruitful life is the impact of answered prayer. You become effective at praying. I’ve said it before, when James says the effective prayer of a righteous man accomplishes much, the emphasis should be on righteous. God hears the prayer of the righteous.  So when you are abiding in Him, and His words are abiding in you, then you will receive what you ask for.  

We must never forget that prayer and promise are linked together. Prayer is not a way of getting God to do what you want him to do, rather it is asking him to do what he has already promised to do. We pray according to God’s promises. So if you want to make your prayers effective begin to read and study the promises of God. When you do, you will pray according to the mind and will of God. And, as Jesus says, whatever you ask will be done. That’s the first fruit.  Abiding in Christ produces effective prayer.

The second fruit is in vs.8, ”By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be my disciples." Your righteous life will be a testimony to the transformative power of God.  There is no greater witness for God than that of a transformed, sold out life.  And that is how you glorify God.  Again, not by lip service, but by proving to be a disciple.  Abiding in Christ produces righteous living, which proves you are His disciple to a watching world.

Thirdly, vs.9-10, ”As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love." The third fruit of abiding in Christ is that you will keep HIs commandments, and thus show your love for Him.  The fruit of love is that you keep His commandments, even as Christ kept the Father’s commandments.  We are like Christ, because we are to Christ as Christ was to the Father. So abiding produces love, and love produces obedience.

Then the last evidence of fruit is in vs. 11, "These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full."  Notice, that My joy may be in you…What was his joy? In the 12th chapter of the book of Hebrews vs.2 it says of Jesus, "who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame.”  What was it that filled his heart with joy as he faced the cross, and enabled him to go through that terrible ordeal? It was the expectation that he would be the instrument of redemption for the entire world - that a host, a great harvest of people, would be changed and redeemed and restored, real life given  to them - by his work on the cross. In other words, his joy was the joy of being used of God.

That is the greatest joy anyone can know. There is the inheritance of the believer; the fruit of the Spirit - love, joy, and peace.  Those are the three themes of chapter 14 an 15.  Not as the world gives, but as God gives, as Christ illustrates, and we imitate.  And as we abide in Christ and He abides in us, we can experience true love, joy and peace because He is the source, the Vine,  and we are the branches which abide in Him.

Resurrection Faith, John 20:1-18

                  

The goal of the gospel is not just to provide us with an insurance policy from heaven.  But to provide us with a new way of living, a new life.  Jesus said, I came that you might have life, and have it more abundantly.  Before we can have the life that Christ wants for us, we must be first justified, our sins atoned for, made righteous before God, and that is only possible through faith in the cross of Christ.  But the ultimate purpose of that atonement is that we become sons of God. As Jesus said in vs.17 of our text; “I ascend to My Father and your Father, and My God and your God.’”  The purpose of our salvation is that we might have new life in Christ, as sons of God, doing the works of God.  That we might be a testimony to the world of the power of salvation. 

So in the gospel, the cross speaks to our atonement, our justification.  And the resurrection speaks of our sanctification, our new life whereby we are given power over sin and over death, which we now live by faith to the glory of God.

As we look this week at the resurrection, I don’t want to just try to recreate the drama of the events and try to merge the various gospel accounts into one dramatic story.  But what I want to do is emphasize the new life that the resurrection promises.  I would point out that on Saturday evening, all the disciples went to bed, undoubtedly remembering the horrors of Christ’s crucifixion the day before, undoubtedly despondent and without hope due to their Savior having succumbed to death, yet even in this darkest hour God was at work.  God had a plan and in the deliberate sovereignty of God this plan was inevitably coming to it’s conclusion.  As Jesus said in John 5:17 in regards to the law of the Sabbath, “My Father is working until now, and I myself am working.”  So even though Christ’s body was in the grave, even though it was the Sabbath, the plan of God was at work and succeeding.

Though in the minds of His disciples, and in the minds of His enemies, Christ was dead and buried on Saturday, little did they know that He was at that very moment in His Spirit taking captivity captive, that He had descended into the lower parts of the earth, triumphed over the very gates of Hell, and had taken the very keys of Hell and Death, “that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives.”

The power of death and hell had to be broken, so that man might be able to truly live as God designed them to live. And for that freedom that was won at so great a cost, we celebrate the resurrection on the first day of the week.  We celebrate the first day of being a new creation in Christ Jesus.

So it is with that sense of divine purpose we may view the resurrection.  John says it was early on the first day of the week, that is Sunday morning, but while it was still dark.  Jesus had said two days earlier on the night of His betrayal that the hour belonged to the power of darkness.  And that darkness still covered the earth early on Sunday morning.  Men were without hope, unaware that the Spirit of God was moving across that darkness, unaware of the great victory that had been won in the bowels of the earth as Christ took the keys of death and Hades.  And since death could not hold Him, because sin had nothing on Him, in the first hours of a still dark Sunday morning, the Light dawned, Christ rose from Hades, and His Spirit returned once again to His lifeless body within the tomb.  The wrappings of the grave clothes could not hold Him down.  The heavy stone across the tomb could not hold Him in. According to Matthew 28 the earth trembled violently in a severe earthquake and an angel of God rolled away the stone and sat upon it.

Mary, perhaps having been shaken awake by the violent quake,  came early that Sunday  morning while it was still dark thinking she would anoint His dead body with spices.  She comes out of sorrow, without any hope, only despair.  The early darkness reflects the despondency that gripped her soul. Christ had delivered her from seven demons.  She had known the power of His life.  But yet in the early morning darkness, doubt darkened her soul. She had believed on Christ for so much more than this. Her love for Christ had devolved into a sense of despair while she thought of Him lying in the grave.

But finding the stone rolled away and the body of Christ not there caused her alarm and confusion. Her thoughts were that Jesus’s body must had been taken.  Mary’s thoughts focused on that which could be seen, verified.  So she supposed that someone must have taken His body, and she ran and told Peter and John.

Mary’s faith, or lack of it, is so much like our faith.  When the darkness pervades our lives, and our hopes are not quickly realized, we tend to look at what is visible. We tend to focus on the external circumstances and often misinterpret what is going on. We don’t see Christ working, we can’t see His power, or understand His plan.  And in the darkness of our lack of faith we run to conclusions that are contrary to the promises of God.  Christ had prophesied that He would die on the cross and after three days He would rise again, but Mary believed what she saw with her eyes.  She thought she made a rational conclusion from the circumstances which she witnessed, but she was in error.  

Often events happen in our lives in a similar fashion.  When darkness pervades our lives, God’s presence seems missing, God’s promises are forgotten, and we become confused, alarmed.  We run away from the very place where God has brought us to show us His glory.  We believe what our senses tell us, rather than have faith in that which is not seen. But Heb. 11:1 says, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”  Mary’s faith was founded on what she could see, what she could touch.  Her faith was founded on her 5 senses, on her feelings.

Peter and John’s faith was in turmoil as well.  Though John had been with Jesus at the cross, he must have been hit particularly hard by the graphic torture of the cross, having witnessed first hand the death of Christ.  He would have seen the life leave Jesus’s body as He gave up His Spirit, and the evidence of death revealed in  blood and water flowing out of His side.  Though he would have been moved as others were at the way Christ died, yet he would have known with undeniable certainty that Christ was indeed dead.  He too had forgotten that this same Jesus who gave up His Spirit, had said He had the power not only  to lay down His life, but to take it back up again.  Such promise had been forgotten in his grief which overwhelmed him.  John, who loved Jesus much,  would have been  most forlorn and disconsolate at His death.

Peter on the other hand was also undoubtedly crushed, not only because of the death of His Lord, but because of his own failure in Jesus’s final hours.  His grief over the death of Christ was made even more bitter knowing that he had deserted Him and even disowned the Lord in the hour of His greatest suffering.  So the news from Mary at such an early hour must have startled them both.  Here was something that they could do, some action that they could take.  To what purpose, I think neither gave much thought, but at the report of Mary they began to run towards the tomb.

One cannot help but wonder why John makes a point of who won the  footrace that occurred between him and Peter.  Many commentators have speculated about his purpose in recording it.  But John outruns Peter to the tomb, then peeking in, he stays outside, while Peter comes huffing and puffing behind but then barges straight inside.  

But perhaps John is not so concerned with the physical outcome of the race as we might think.  Maybe John is revealing the character or nature of the individuals.  Even perhaps the character of their faith. Peter’s faith is passionate, impulsive, bold. John’s faith is eager to believe, but not quite as courageous, following the lead of Peter.

However, perhaps more can be discerned regarding the true nature of each person’s faith by examining John’s use of the word which is interpreted “saw.”  John uses three Greek words in this passage for “saw.”  When Mary looked at the tomb and saw the stone rolled away, he said she looked, using the Greek word “blepo,” which means to clearly see a material or physical object.  Mary was focused on the physical.  And what she saw in the physical determined her faith.

John as well, when he first comes to the tomb is said to see the linen wrappings, and John uses the same word, “blepo.”  At that point, the physical is evident to him as well, but he doesn’t yet go in.  He doesn’t act on what he sees.

Peter however, barges straight inside the tomb and he sees the linen grave clothes and also the head scarf rolled up by itself.  And John uses a different word for Peter seeing.  He uses “theoreo” which means to contemplate, to observe, scrutinize.  Peter senses that there is more than meets the eye, but he is puzzled and he isn’t able to come to a conclusion at this point. Maybe the eyes of his faith are clouded by his conscience.

But after Peter has gone inside, perhaps having said something to John, John goes in to the tomb.  He sees the same things that Peter has seen.  But now John uses another word to describe how he sees.  It’s not “theoreo,” as Peter was contemplating, but it is “horaō”, to know, to perceive, to discern. He sees the same things that Peter saw, and the same things that Mary had seen, but while they went away unbelieving, the text says that John believed.  He believed in that moment that Jesus had risen from the dead.  He believed in faith.

What difference does their conclusions mean though?  Should we make so much out of their responses?  I would suggest that it makes a difference to Christ.  That Sunday evening Jesus comes to the disciples and Thomas isn’t there with the others.  And because Thomas didn’t personally see Jesus with his own eyes, he will not believe the testimony of the other disciples.  So 8 days later, Jesus shows up again and specifically appears to Thomas and invites him to put his fingers in the holes in His hands, and the wound in HIs side.  And of course, at that point Thomas believes and says “My Lord and My God.”  A great confession, no doubt, but one that in Christ’s opinion was lacking in faith.  And so Jesus says in vs.29, “Because you have seen Me, have you believed? Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed.” And in that statement Christ reveals the nature of faith needed for future generations who will believe not on the basis of physical evidence, but on the basis of faithful testimony.

Mary, John and Peter all had a similar initial experience at the empty tomb.  They all saw the same things, but only John believes with the faith that God desires.  John reveals the basis for that kind of faith in vs.9, which says, “For as yet they did not understand the Scripture, that He must rise again from the dead.”  The point being that our faith is founded upon the Scriptures.  This is the faith that God desires.  And this is the faith which we are tasked with today.  We don’t have the physical presence of God to bolster our faith.  I would suggest that it is a failure of faith to seek after material manifestations of God.  A desire to “experience God” in some kind of tangible way, while understandable from a human point of view, is not in accordance with the plan of God. 

As we are told in  2Tim. 3:16, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.”  The Scriptures are the complete revelation of God, and it is able to thoroughly, completely equip you for every good work.  The Word of God is more than adequate for our faith.  Our new life is lived by faith in the Scripture, not by sight. 2Cor. 5:7, “for we walk by faith, not by sight.”

Now though Mary has not risen to that degree of faith, Jesus will reveal Himself to her to increase her faith.  But we should not be too emboldened by His special appearance, nor deprecating towards Mary who needs it.  Because Mary did not have the completed Scriptures as we have.  None of the New Testament had been written at that point.  And so Christ, the living Word, provides for her what the written Word provides for us.

So in vs.11, we see Mary, back once again at the tomb, probably after John and Peter have already left, and she is weeping.  She is still mourning Christ’s death, weeping over the loss of His body.  And when she looked again in the tomb this time she sees two angels in white sitting.  This “seeing” is the same as Peter’s “theoreo”, scrutinizing, observing the two angels in white.  It’s doubtful that she recognizes them as angels, perhaps just seeing two men in white apparel and doesn’t know what they are doing there.  She is trying to understand, but not clearly discerning what is going on.  

And they said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “Because they have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid Him.” At that point, she becomes aware of Jesus behind her, but she thinks He is the gardener.  That’s a pretty good indication she didn’t recognize the men as angels. She hasn’t discerned anything abnormal.

There is a verse in Hebrews 13:2 about angels which says, “Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.”  And the point I make in explaining it, is the phrase, “unawares.”  The verse teaches that most of the time when we might encounter angels, we’re unaware that they are angels.  So many people running around today claiming visitations from angels.  But if you count up the number of times recorded in the Scriptures you will find only a few accounts of them in over 6000 years.  So I would be very skeptical of those claiming angelic visitations every other day. 

So Mary didn’t recognize the angels, nor did she even recognize Jesus.  “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.’”  It’s interesting that after the resurrection, Jesus is seen on numerous occasions (one commentator counted 17 times) and yet  in every case He is not recognized initially.  That should be a warning for those who suppose that they have seen some sort of apparition of Jesus.  Unless He reveals Himself, we would not recognize Him in the flesh. Even those who had known Jesus in the flesh did not recognize Him after His resurrection unless He showed them His wounds, or in some other way manifested His identity to them.

How then does Mary come to recognize Him? When He calls her by her name. This is a direct correlation to what Jesus said in  John 10:2, “But he who enters by the door is a shepherd of the sheep. To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he puts forth all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice.”  

In Christ’s letter to  the church of Pergamum in Revelation 2, Jesus says, “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, to him I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, and a new name written on the stone which no one knows but he who receives it.”  The hidden manna refers to the word of God, and those who believe it receive a new name from God.

Some commentators say that Jesus uses the Aramaic version of Mary, which is, Miriam, to address her, and she responds in Aramaic, “Rabboni,” which means Teacher.  She recognizes Him when He calls her by her name.   Rom 8:30 says, “and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.”  No one comes to Me, Jesus said, unless the Father draws him.  The election of God is specific. He calls us by name.

But though the calling of God is specific and effectual, there is still the problem of Mary’s ineffective faith.  It is the faith of feeling, of physical presence.  There is almost an obsession with Mary over the physical presence of Christ’s body.  Even when He was dead, she is focused on the body of Christ.  She wants to anoint the body.  She is alarmed when there is no body in the tomb.  She is confused, concerned.  

So now when she recognizes she is in the presence of Christ, she immediately grabs hold of Him, as if to say I will never let go of His physical presence.  And in our humanness, that is understandable.  Who among us does not crave the physical closeness, physical presence of the Lord?  How many have not thought, “Oh, if God would just reveal Himself to me, every thing would be ok. I could take what I am going through. I could deal with things, if I could just see the Lord in some manifestation of His presence.”  

But Christ rebukes Mary for that, calling it clinging.  He says, “Stop clinging to Me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to My brethren and say to them, ‘I ascend to My Father and your Father, and My God and your God.’”  Jesus indicates the faith that is required in this new life will be a faith in Him who will not be visible, but invisible. Not a faith founded on a clinging, experiential, physical presence of God, but a faith founded on the inviolable promises of the Word of God.

Now much debate is given to this statement by Christ.  First of all, the obvious meaning is that at that point He had just risen from three days in  the grave, even from the depths of Hades, and He had not ascended to the Father. But it also means that the purpose of God was not that He would remain here in bodily form, but would ascend into heaven to stand as Mediator between God and man, our Great High Priest.  He could not do that from earth, but His place was in heaven, far above all rule and authority on Earth.

But it also means that He would not be a physical presence here on Earth that we can see and hold onto, but rather our faith in what is not seen would be required in a life of faith.  The just shall live by faith.  And that which is seen is not faith, but that which is unseen.  This will be the acceptable pattern of faith in this new resurrection life, that we might believe the testimony of faithful men, even the apostles, who would record their testimony in the gospels and epistles and that having believed the scriptures, we might receive the knowledge of God which leads to the full measure of salvation; not only justification, but a life of sanctification, culminating in our future glorification when we will be made completely like Christ at His second coming.

So the testimony of faith is illustrated by Mary Magdalene, who comes afterwards to the disciples and says, “I have seen the Lord.”  This is the basis for our faith.  The testimony of faithful witnesses, who were willing to die for that testimony.  And their testimony was accompanied by the signs of the apostles, with all miracles and signs and wonders, so that we might believe their word.  So that by the testimony of the Scriptures, the nations of the world might come to know the knowledge of God that leads to salvation, that we might go into all the world and make disciples, teaching them to believe and observe all that Christ taught, as evidenced by the Word of God.

The resurrection teaches us that when we die to this world, we can be born again to a new life in Christ.  That new life begins at our justification, where we are declared righteous by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, and it continues in a life of sanctification, where we live righteously by the power of the Spirit of Christ,  whereby we become conformed to the image of Christ, and become His ambassadors of the Kingdom of God to the world.  But that new life is not automatic, it’s not like being put into autopilot mode.  It is, however, a life that is possible,  when we walk in the Spirit.  When the just shall live by faith.  And our faith is founded on the Scriptures, by which we may know God, and know the will of God. 

 Don’t look for the physical to confirm your faith, look for the scriptures to inform your faith. The Bible says that faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.  That living, powerful source of faith is described in  Hebrews 4:12, “For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” Let us hold fast the Word of God, that our faith may be founded on the true and faithful promises of God.  

2Cor. 5:14-15 For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died;  and He died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf.