Good evening, brothers. It is good to be with you again, and it is our prayer that we will behold our Lord Jesus as we come to look in the Word of God.
There is one principle of Bible study that is indispensable—absolutely indispensable. We cannot take it for granted. Our natural hearts usually take for granted that which is most indispensable, and that is very desperate when it comes to this Book. That indispensable principle is total reliance upon God’s Holy Spirit.
Only God can reveal God, and He delights to do it. He longs to do it.
Before we go to prayer, I want to share a little verse to get our hearts in the right direction. I think you are all familiar with the wonderful chapter, Ezekiel 36, because that is new covenant from start to finish. It is all the grace of God. Everything in there is unconditional. It is all, “I will, I will, I will, I will.”
“I have sworn. I am for you. I will turn to you. I will multiply. I will cause you to be victorious. I will vindicate My holiness. I will gather you. I will sprinkle clean water upon you. I will give you a new heart. I will put a new spirit within you. I will put My Spirit within you. I will cause you to keep My statutes. I will cause you to walk in My ways. I will save you.”
“I, the Lord, have spoken. I will do it—not for your sakes do I do this, but for My sake,” all the way through.
When you come to the end of all that new covenant, all that grace, we read this verse: Ezekiel 36:37.
Thus saith the Lord God: For this, moreover, will I be inquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them.
So He gives all the things He wants to do, and the last thing He says is, “I will let them ask Me to do that for them.” Even though it is all My grace, He says, “Ask Me. If you want it, I am willing to do it if you will ask Me.”
So let us trust the Lord and ask Him to do what He longs to do.
Father, we thank You so much this evening for Your precious Word and for the measure of the revelation of Christ that You have privileged us to see so far. We pray, Lord, this weekend that once again it would be Your pleasure to unveil Yourself.
We thank You for Your heart, Your new covenant heart, and all that You long to do for us. We would ask now, this weekend, that You would fulfill that covenant for us. Minister unto our hearts, we pray. Unveil the Lord Jesus in a transforming way to our hearts.
We do long to see Him, and we ask that by Your grace You would give us eyes to do just that. We commit our meditations unto You in the matchless name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
As I look around, I think I have seen most of you before, and I think pretty much there might be a couple that are new. So let me say two things by way of introduction.
Number one, you will see my Bible here and you will probably think, “How come he never opens that thing?” Well, I have all the verses written down here in large print so that I can see the verses. I have opened it, and so that much for that.
Then you probably saw me come up with a big stack of paper. Do not get too frightened. There is not much written on every page. It is just so I can see it, and it is for your protection, so I do not go wandering.
I remember I was ministering one time, and we were in a little cabin. Dana was ministering, and some trucker with a big semi got lost. While we were singing and praising the Lord, this big old semi came pulling up to this cabin up in the woods. Dana looked out the window and said, “Ed, your notes have arrived.”
He is desperate.
Anyway, let me share with you what is on my heart this weekend, and I pray that I have sensed the heart of the Lord in this. The portion of Scripture that I would like us to look at is actually very, very large. We are only going to have time to touch on a small portion of a large portion.
If you think of it as a couple of acres of land, I would like to show you that acreage. Then I would like to go to one little corner and dig a little garden in that little corner. You need to see the whole field in order to see the little corner that we are going to dig.
But I think by digging this little corner, you will have an earnest of the whole field.
The large portion of Scripture from which I am going to take the text covers forty-one days. Some think forty-two or forty-three. I will not argue for that. I am referring to the days between Easter and the ascension of our Lord Jesus. I am talking about those forty days.
Listen, please, to Acts 1 as I read the first three verses.
The first account I composed, Theophilus, about all that Jesus began to do and teach,
until the day when He was received up,
after He had by the Holy Spirit given orders to the apostles whom He had chosen.
To these He also presented Himself alive after His suffering,
by many convincing proofs,
appearing to them over a period of forty days
and speaking of the things concerning the kingdom of God.
Those are the forty days. But we are going to look at forty plus one—or two or three. Where does the plus come in? First Corinthians 15, please. I will begin reading at verse 3.
For I delivered unto you first of all that which also I received:
that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures;
and that He was buried;
and that He hath been raised on the third day according to the scriptures;
and that He appeared to Cephas;
then to the twelve;
then He appeared to above five hundred brethren at once,
of whom the greater part remain until now, but some are fallen asleep;
then He appeared to James;
then to all the apostles;
and last of all, as unto one born out of due time, He appeared to me also.
The apostle Paul mentions the post-resurrection appearances of our Lord Jesus that took place during the forty days—from His resurrection to His ascension. Then he says, “Last of all, He appeared to me also.” Evidently, he is referring to the Damascus Road experience.
If that is so, the accepted Bible chronology places that at about 37 AD—in other words, about seven years later. He lists those who saw Him during the forty days: James saw Him, Peter saw Him, Mary saw Him, Thomas saw Him, five hundred people saw Him. He lists them, and he puts himself in the list even though it was seven years later.
He said, “Last of all, He appeared to me as well.” That is where I get the extra day—the forty days plus this day. Some say this revelation took two or three days. He was blind for three days, and that is where they get maybe forty-two or forty-three days. You can take that however you want it.
I want to look at that period of time. Let me show you how large that field really is. During that forty-one days, our Lord Jesus appeared twelve times: six times to individuals and six times to groups.
It is true that about several of those appearances, we do not have much information. For example, we know He appeared privately to Peter. That is all we know. Maybe there is instruction in that. When a person has denied the Lord and is being restored, maybe it is none of our business what took place. Maybe that is just between them and the Lord. I am sort of glad there is not much information given there.
He appeared to His brother James. That is all we know. We do not know much about that appearance either. He appeared to five hundred at once. There are some ideas about when that happened, but nobody is sure.
Some people think He appeared to five hundred different people who were not all in one group, but all over the place, and He appeared at one time as a foretaste: “Every eye shall see Him.” I do not know. I do not know.
We know He appeared twelve times. Some of these appearances are given in great detail. Clearly, in a weekend like this, we cannot look at twelve different appearances.
Before I focus on that small corner I want to dig, I want to share with you three suggestions. Why did He appear at all? Why did He not just go up to heaven, send the Holy Spirit, and get on with the program? How come He had to appear twelve different times? What is that all about?
Let me make three suggestions. I will mention the first two and leave them. I will mention the third, and that is where we will be this weekend. That is our little garden, that third suggestion.
The first one we have already read. It is in Acts 1:3.
To these He also presented Himself alive after His suffering
by many convincing proofs,
appearing to them over a period of forty days.
The King James says, “Many infallible proofs.” Kenneth Wuest says, “Many indubitable proofs.” The New English Translation says, “Many ample proofs.”
One reason He kept appearing was to prove He was not dead—infallibly. By many infallible, many convincing, many ample, many indubitable proofs, He showed that He is not dead. He is alive.
It is true that He only appeared to the elect. Acts 10:40-41:
Him God raised up the third day, and gave Him to be made manifest,
not to all the people,
but unto witnesses that were chosen before of God,
even to us, who ate and drank with Him after He rose from the dead.
I speak as a fool, but if it had been me, I would not have appeared only to believers. I think I would have knocked at the governor’s door and said, “Hi, Pilate. You remember Me?” Or I would have gone to Herod’s palace: “Hey, I came to return your robe.”
I would have gone to the praetorian guard and said, “Remember when you put a blindfold around Me, spun Me around, threw Me from guard to guard, beat My face, and said, ‘If You can see through that blindfold, tell us who hit You’? I did see through that blindfold.”
I would have come to the proud Pharisee. I would have gone to the priest’s house, to the council of the Sanhedrin. I would have shown up at Annas’s door, or Caiaphas’s door, or something like that.
But our Lord Jesus is wiser than I am, and He appeared to His children. He appeared because He wanted to prove that He was alive.
Many of His disciples needed infallible proof that He was alive. They took it hard. They were broken.
The women could not stop weeping. Mark 15:47 says they were watching when Jesus was taken down from the cross. According to Matthew 27:61, when the great stone was rolled in front of the grave, the women sat down there and wept until the sun went down. They were broken.
Peter tried for six months to keep Jesus from going to the cross. That is when Jesus had to rebuke him and say, “Get behind Me, Satan.”
Remember the Emmaus disciples in Luke 24. When Jesus showed up, they were talking and discussing, and Jesus Himself approached and began traveling with them. But their eyes were prevented from recognizing Him.
And He said unto them, What communications are these that ye have one with another, as ye walk?
And they stood still, looking sad.
Why did they look sad? Because they were sad. They were sad because He was dead.
But we hoped that it was He who should redeem Israel.
Our hopes are gone. He is dead. We were hoping, but He is dead. We have proof. We saw His body. It was mangled. We saw them take Him down. We watched as Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus anointed His body. We saw Him put in the grave. He is dead. It is over. We were wrong. He is not Messiah.
That is one of the reasons He kept showing up and kept appearing. He is not dead. What joy they discovered when He showed up.
Remember how Jacob’s heart revived when he learned that his son was not dead, but alive—exalted to be lord and the bread of life for the whole world. Do you remember the joy in his heart? Well, that is what happened.
For forty days, the news began to spread: “He is not dead. He is not dead. He is alive. He is not dead.”
There is a second reason, I think, He kept appearing. It is expressed in Matthew 28:18-20, especially verse 20.
And Jesus came to them and spake unto them, saying,
All authority hath been given unto Me in heaven and on earth.
Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations,
baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit:
teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I commanded you:
and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.
Those forty days were sort of a transition period—a transition between a visible, physical Savior and Someone who was going to be with them in an invisible way. They had to get used to that.
“Lo, I am with you always,” even though you cannot see Me, even though you cannot touch Me. I am with you.
Literally, it is, “I am with you all the days.” In other words, there will never be a day in your life, never be a day in my life, when He is not with us.
They had another problem after they learned He was alive. He is not dead. He is alive. He sits down with them. He breaks bread. They see Him. He is alive.
Then He is gone.
He is not dead, but He is gone. They are walking down the street together, and He is there. All of a sudden, He is not there. They are in a room and all the doors are closed, and He shows up. He is there. Then He is not there. He is gone.
For forty days, He is here; He is not here. He is here; He is not here. He is here.
It came to a climax on the fortieth day. You remember the record in Acts 1.
They therefore, when they were come together, asked Him, saying, Lord, dost Thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?
And He said unto them, It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father hath set within His own authority.
But ye shall receive power, when the Holy Spirit is come upon you:
and ye shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea and Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.
Now note this, brothers:
And when He had said these things, as they were looking, He was taken up;
and a cloud received Him out of their sight.
And while they were looking stedfastly into heaven as He went,
behold, two men stood by them in white apparel.
Put yourself in their shoes. He is not dead. He is not dead. He is alive. He is gone. He is here. He is not here. He is gone.
Then, one day, He is gone, and a cloud comes and takes Him out of sight.
Do not think they were not waiting for Him to show up again. They were. That is what He had been doing for forty days. He is here. He is not here. He is here. He is not here.
I do not know what those ten days were like. I know the Bible says they were told to gather in Jerusalem, and they did. They were in the upper room, and we have a record of that. We have no record of their conversation.
I think it went something like this: “Anybody see Him? Did He show up? Peter, did you see Him?”
“Oh, last time I saw Him, a cloud took Him out of sight.”
“How about you, Andrew? Did you see Him? Thomas?”
He is gone.
He is dead. He is not dead. He is alive. He is gone. Day one, day two, day three, week one. I think they concluded, “He is gone for good.” I think that is what they were thinking.
But you know the record: the wonderful day of Pentecost, the promise of our Lord Jesus to send the Lord in the person of the Holy Spirit. In that moment, they entered into a discovery.
He is neither dead nor gone, but He is alive. And He is alive in me.
What a day. What a discovery they made that day. He is neither dead nor gone, but He is alive and He is alive in me. He is neither dead nor gone, but He is alive and He is alive in you. He is neither dead nor gone, but He is alive and He is alive in us.
Glorious, glorious gospel.
Although He is sitting at the Father’s right hand, He is not far away. In fact, closer He could not be. He is in your heart. He is in your life. He is in my life.
That new relationship—God in me, God in you—that He is neither dead nor gone, but very much alive and very much present, and is now indwelling us by His Spirit, that was new to them.
We just sort of slap on all that we have heard and all that we know. For them, that was brand new. They were used to sitting at His feet, looking at Him, and hearing Him teach. They were used to having Him break bread. They were used to putting Him in the boat and letting Him go down to sleep in the boat.
They were used to sitting on the grassy field and being fed by fish and loaves. They were used to walking in the grain fields with Him on the Sabbath day. They were used to that.
But that One—the same One—that walked with them is now living inside of me. That is new.
They had to be prepared for that. So I am suggesting the third reason: Why did He keep appearing and disappearing during those forty days?
One reason was to show that He is not dead. One reason was to show that He is not gone. One was to prepare them for the new relationship.
They had to be prepared for a brand-new relationship. How do I relate? How can I have union with, and how can I enjoy, this One who is neither dead nor gone, but now alive in me?
I am suggesting that each of these appearances laid down a great principle of preparation. He had to get them ready for that.
Brothers, what I would like to do this weekend—here is our little garden—is look at several records. That is a big chunk of Scripture, and we cannot look at all of it. So I have selected several records, and we will look at the principle: How does this prepare me to have union with the indwelling Christ?
I am going to be speaking this weekend on what I will call the exchanged life.
When they learned that He is neither dead nor gone, but very much alive and alive in them, they learned that there was a new life—an exchange of life.
We so often think about the Christian life as a change. It is not a change. It is an exchange.
That is what they needed to be prepared to learn. We are going to be talking all weekend about the exchanged life.
We are going to look at several stories, and each one takes us closer and closer. He does not spell it all out in the first story. He just introduces it. Then He gives a transition to the next story, lays out another principle, and by the time we are done, it is all laid out.
I want to look at Mary Magdalene, because she is first. I think that is important. She is first.
At the end, we are going to look at, “Last of all, He appeared to me,” because he is last. I want to show you how our Lord’s appearance to Mary Magdalene laid out the great principle: How can I be prepared to relate to the One who has come, His life in exchange for mine?
Then I am going to group a few of them together. I want to look at Thomas, the Emmaus Road, and the upper room—not everything, just the big principle.
But I am most anxious, brothers, to get to this: “Last of all, He appeared to me.”
We are going to do two lessons on the Damascus Road—not the Emmaus Road, the Damascus Road. One lesson will explain the exchanged life, and one will illustrate it.
Because he is last, that is final preparation. The last thing anybody needs to know in order to relate to an indwelling Christ is spelled out in that experience. That is why it is last.
It is not last literally, because He appeared to John after that and so on. That was not last. But he said, “Last of all.” It is last because it is final. He is going to prepare us and prepare us and prepare us, and the final preparation is this: Nobody can relate to the indwelling Christ without this preparation.
May God help you. You know where we are and you know where we are heading. This is what we would like to look at this weekend. Pray for me as we look at it, and pray that our hearts will really enter into this preparation.
I am going to start with Mary Magdalene. John 20, please.
Now on the first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, while it was yet dark, unto the tomb,
and seeth the stone taken away from the tomb.
She runneth therefore, and cometh to Simon Peter,
and to the other disciple, whom Jesus loved,
and saith unto them, They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb,
and we know not where they have laid Him.
I am going to jump over the foot race between John and Peter and jump down to verse 10.
So the disciples went away again unto their own homes.
But Mary was standing without at the tomb weeping:
so, as she wept, she stooped and looked into the tomb;
and she beholdeth two angels in white sitting,
one at the head, and one at the feet,
where the body of Jesus had lain.
And they say unto her, Woman, why weepest thou?
She saith unto them, Because they have taken away my Lord,
and I know not where they have laid Him.
And when she had thus said, she turned herself back,
and beholdeth Jesus standing,
and knew not that it was Jesus.
Jesus saith unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? Whom seekest thou?
She, supposing Him to be the gardener, saith unto Him, Sir,
if thou hast borne Him hence, tell me where thou hast laid Him,
and I will take Him away.
Jesus saith unto her, Mary.
She turneth herself, and saith unto Him in Hebrew, Rabboni;
which is to say, Teacher.
Jesus saith to her, Touch Me not;
for I am not yet ascended unto the Father:
but go unto My brethren, and say to them,
I ascend unto My Father and your Father,
and My God and your God.
Mary Magdalene cometh and telleth the disciples, I have seen the Lord;
and that He had said these things unto her.
Before I show you the appearance of our Lord Jesus to Mary and home in on that principle of preparation, if you have the New American Standard, I do not know about the other translations, but you will notice an asterisk in John 20.
It says Mary came, and there is a little star. It says it was dark, and there is a little star. It says she saw the stone, and there is a little star. If you look in the beginning of your Bible where it explains those things, it will tell you about the Greek historical present tense.
We do not have that in English, but they had it in Greek. In other words, it is past tense: it was dark, she came. But actually, the way it is written is, “She is coming.” It is present tense, even though it happened, because God wants us to enter into this and get involved. Put on the shoes. She is coming.
You will see that asterisk in verse 2, verse 5, verse 6, verse 12, verse 13, verse 14, verse 15, verse 16, verse 17, and verse 18. He is making a point of it.
He is telling it so that you enter into that: Mary is coming, Mary is talking to Jesus, Mary is running back to the house, Mary is coming, and Mary is crying. Even though it is “Mary cried” and “Mary came,” it is present tense.
When you see that, the Holy Spirit is saying in a special way, “Make this present tense and enter into this.”
Having said that, it is important to know who Mary is. I am speaking spiritually. You know that Magdalene was not her last name. We do not know her last name. It is not like Mary Smith, Mary Jones, or Mary Russell. It is not like that.
Magdala, they say, is the place where she lived. That is her hometown. It is like Jesus of Nazareth. My name would be Ed Waterbury—Waterbury, Connecticut, you see. We do not know her last name, but because everybody knows her as Mary Magdalene, that is what you will be this weekend, all right?
As far as the record goes, there are fourteen different references to Mary Magdalene in the Bible. Though there are fourteen references, there are only three stories, and a couple of them are pretty short: when she first met Jesus, when she stood at the cross, and Easter Sunday morning when Jesus met her.
Listen, please, to Luke 8:2. This is the first record.
And also certain women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities:
Mary that was called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out.
The only record we have of her is that she had seven demons in her body. He that is forgiven much loves much, and she was forgiven a lot. She had seven demons. I consider Mary Magdalene one of the largest lovers of Jesus in the Bible record. She loved the Lord Jesus.
This is a saved woman. Seven demons—she is delivered, she has been set free, she has been rescued, she has been redeemed.
Now, it is a little unfortunate that Luke 8 and Luke 7 are so close together. In Luke 7, we read about an immoral woman who fell at Jesus’ feet, poured ointment, and wiped His feet with her hair and tears. Because the chapters are so close together, some say that is the same woman—that Mary Magdalene was that immoral woman.
We do not know that. It is not clear. I am not suggesting someone with seven demons might not have low moral standards. I am quite sure that if you have seven demons, you are capable of anything. I do not know. I am just saying, let us give her the benefit of the doubt. We do not know.
We know she has been wonderfully delivered, because she had seven demons. But we are concerned with Easter morning in John 20.
She was given the highest honor that anybody on the planet ever had. Here is what I am saying: this could only happen to one person. It could not happen to two—only one. Somebody had to be first.
Somebody had to be first to see His form. Somebody had to be first to hear His voice. Somebody had to be first to get a commission from Him. Mary Magdalene was given that privilege.
I read this little rhyme. I do not know who wrote this poem:
Not she with traitor’s kiss her Master stung,
Not she denied Him with unfaithful tongue;
She, when apostles fled, could danger brave,
Last at the cross, earliest at the grave.
That is Mary Magdalene.
How does our Lord Jesus, by His appearance to Mary, lay down in Scripture the first preparation? He is neither dead nor gone. He is alive. He is alive in you, and you need to relate to Him. May God help us.
I want you clear on the fact that Mary loved Jesus very much. She is not rebellious. She is not a backslider. She needs to get a few things straightened out, but she is not a backslider. She is not a hypocrite.
If anybody wants to get it right, she wants to get it right. She loves the Lord Jesus. She has been set free by the Lord Jesus. But she is not yet prepared to have union with an indwelling Savior.
Love for the Lord Jesus and gratitude are not enough.
I think we have all been educated by the Spirit of God enough to know that it is not by works of righteousness which we have done. It is by grace. Nobody here, nobody in this room, would say, “I am going to work my way to heaven.” You know it is not by works.
But you might have been burned like I have been burned. Someone says, “It is not by works. You cannot earn God’s favor. It is out of love and gratitude.”
Let me give an illustration. Suppose God were to say to you, “If you can lift this two-thousand-pound weight over your head, you can go to heaven.” How many here think they would win heaven by that?
What if He said, “All right, you cannot earn grace. Do it just because you love Jesus. Do it out of gratitude. Do it out of a thankful heart for all He has done for you. It is the motive of your heart.”
Do you have any more ability to lift two thousand pounds because you love Jesus?
That is what people were telling me, and that is what I thought. They said, “No, do not do it by works. You cannot earn it. Do it because you love Jesus.”
You are just as powerless to do it because you love Jesus as you were when you tried to earn your way. Do it out of gratitude. Do it because of all He has done for you.
You need an exchanged life. That is what Mary needs as well.
Mary is now going to be seen moving out of love, out of gratitude, out of her own life. Oh, it is so desperate to see her.
One reason Mary means so much to me is because reading her story is like reading my diary, my biography, looking in a mirror. I have been burned so many times the way Mary was burned here.
Mary is a sincere lover of Jesus. She has been truly redeemed, but she is not ready. She needs another deliverance.
From what does a sincere lover of Jesus need to be delivered so that they can be prepared to relate to Him?
I believe the answer is in John 20:16-17.
Jesus saith unto her, Mary.
She turneth herself, and saith unto Him in Hebrew, Rabboni;
which is to say, Teacher.
Jesus saith to her, Touch Me not;
for I am not yet ascended unto the Father:
but go unto My brethren, and say to them,
I ascend unto My Father and your Father,
and My God and your God.
“Do not touch Me.” The NIV says, “Do not hold on to Me.” I think in that passage we have the principle for which we are looking.
It is almost not fair, because in Matthew 28:9 we read about the women. After Mary separated from them, they went on their way and saw Jesus. The Bible says they fell down at His feet and embraced His legs, embraced His feet. He did not say to the women, “Do not touch Me.” But to Mary, He said, “Do not touch Me.”
Then in Luke 24:39, when He appeared in the upper room, He said:
See My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself:
handle Me, and see.
And in John 20:27, He said to Thomas:
Reach hither thy finger, and see My hands;
and reach hither thy hand, and put it into My side.
To Thomas He said, “Touch Me.” But to Mary He says, “Do not touch Me.”
I reject much of what I have read about that. The idea of two ascensions, I do not think I can make that my own. Some say He ascended, came down, and went back up again. I cannot accept what the commentator Paulus says either. He said Christ was still suffering from His crucifixion: “Do not lay a finger on Me, for My wounds still smart.” No, we will not go there.
One commentator said Jesus was alone with Mary, and that did not look good. That would be a bad testimony. “Do not touch Me,” because it is a bad testimony. That is not what it is about.
Some would suggest that Mary had immoral feelings or suggestions toward the Lord Jesus. That is not what it is about either.
The Greek word is very powerful here. According to the lexicon, it means to fasten oneself, to hang on, to grip. Christopher Wordsworth, the Greek scholar, said the Greek word not only forbids clinging as an act; it forbids clinging as a habit.
Mary had been clinging to Jesus as a habit in the flesh. Jesus was saying, “I am now ascending to My Father. There is going to be a new relationship. You cannot cling to Me in the flesh anymore. There is going to be a new relationship. It is not in the flesh; it is in the Spirit.”
It is sort of like what Paul said in 2 Corinthians 5:16:
Wherefore we henceforth know no man after the flesh:
even though we have known Christ after the flesh,
yet now we know Him so no more.
Jesus was correcting this lover of Jesus to prepare her for that new relationship that she was going to have.
I think it would be helpful to describe Mary’s present experience so that we can see what she is being delivered from. As we look at her story, we will see a graphic illustration of someone clinging to Christ in the flesh.
For the sake of analysis, I will break it down into principles. I would like to show three things it means to cling to Jesus in the flesh.
Number one, illustrated by Mary: the focus was on her love for Him. The focus was on her serving Him. The sadness was that she could do that without His life, because to her He was dead.
In her thinking, He is dead. So she could serve Him without His life. She begins to try to do exactly that.
Another way to say it is this: Mary, at that point, had come to the cross, but had not gotten beyond the cross. You see that illustrated in Mary’s life. She did not get beyond the cross. That is all she knew.
Because that is all she knew, that is all she expected. She expected to see Him exactly the way she had already seen Him. The last time she saw Him, He was dead, and that was her full expectation.
Luke 23 says Mary was watching when they took Him from the cross. She followed when they anointed His body and put one hundred pounds of ointment on Him. She saw that. She knew the crucified Lord. On that Sunday morning, that is exactly who she was looking for.
Let me word it another way: Jesus was dead to Mary. Jesus was dead to Mary.
If you are going to serve someone who is dead to you, you are going to have to use your own life, because you cannot use His. He is dead to you.
She is now serving out of her own life and experience. She is attempting to because she loves Jesus and is thankful because He delivered her from seven demons. She is very much in love with the Lord. She has been redeemed. She has been saved. She wants to serve Him.
On the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene came early to the tomb while it was still dark. She saw the stone already taken away from the tomb. She ran and came to Simon Peter and the other disciple whom Jesus loved and said, “They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid Him.”
Mary was not alone. The other women were there too, but John homes in on Mary. It is clear she was expecting to find a dead Savior. In John 20:13, she tells the angels the same thing. In verse 15, she tells the Lord Jesus the same thing. She does not know it is Him, but she tells Him the same thing.
Jesus appears, and she does not know who He is. Commentators try to explain that. They say He appeared in a different form. Is that why she did not know? Somebody else says she was crying, her eyes were filled with tears, and she did not recognize Him because she was looking through blurry eyes.
Someone says it was still dark. It was early morning, and she did not know who He was. Someone says He appeared by the wall in the shadows.
I will tell you why she did not know who He was. I know why.
Because He was standing there.
She did not expect Him to be standing. He is dead. That is why she did not know who He was. She was expecting a dead Savior.
If He had appeared lying on the ground, then she would have believed it. I think she would have been thrilled if she saw a body lying in the bushes. That would have made her happy, because that is what she was looking for.
Brothers in Christ, I do not know if you can enter into this, but I have stood where Mary stood that day: in the presence of a living Savior that I did not know was alive, because Christ was dead to me. I loved Him, and I tried to serve Him out of my own life and experience.
I was all wrapped up in His finished work. You could ask me about Christ crucified, and I would have told you, “I know what He did. I know how He died. It is a finished work. When I die, I am not going to hell; I am going to heaven. I am going to be with the Lord.”
I think we have all been there, attempting to cling to Christ in the flesh by focusing our love toward Him—happy to serve a dead Savior.
The second characteristic of clinging to Christ in the flesh is not only having a creedal grip, a theological grip: “I know He is dead. I know the cross. I know what He did for me.”
She is now trying to explain everything apart from His life. “I do not need His life to explain what is going on.”
So she begins to rationalize and figure everything out. I do not know what the angels looked like when they appeared to her. According to John 20:11-13, they were pretty bright and shining when they appeared to the other women, and the women were frightened. When they appeared to the soldiers, the soldiers fell down as dead. It must have been a very dramatic thing.
But when Mary sees the angels, it is like talking to a mailman. She just does not see. It is not dramatic. I do not know if they changed their form for her or what, but she just cannot get past the cross. She does not recognize His voice, and she is explaining everything.
Because she does not need His life to explain things, she gets it all wrong. For example, the stone was rolled away. Is that good news or bad news?
The stone is rolled away. “Yes, that is good news.”
Not to Mary. To Mary, that is bad news. “They have come. They have stolen Him. They have taken Him away.”
The stone rolled away threw her into absolute confusion. She absolutely missed the point. She is not getting anything spiritual here. That should be good news. But the only way it would be good news is if the life of Christ explained it.
You need His life to explain the stone rolled away. If you do not have His life, you are going to miss it. It is going to be bad news. The only explanation that could have brought peace to her would have been His life.
Brothers, let me try to apply that and then move on. If your Christian life can be explained in terms of you, if you do not need His life to explain what is going on in your life, if you can see the mark of the tools—this happened because of this program, this happened because of these spiritual disciplines, this happened because I did this or went here or these resources were given—if you can explain it, you have not understood the indwelling life of Christ.
When He does it, the only explanation for your life is His life. It takes God to explain a Christian’s life.
If your neighbor looks at your life and says, “Well, they like friends, and I like friends—only they like religious friends. They like songs, and I like songs—only they like religious songs. They like to gather, and I like to gather—only they like to gather with religious people. They like to eat, and I like to eat—only they like to eat with Christian people.”
If they see your Christian life as just a religious hobby, if they cannot say, “The only way I can explain that life is God,” then you have not entered into this.
That is what Mary needed. Right now, she is not understanding. She is trying to serve a dead Christ. She is trying to live out of her own resources. She is trying to explain everything. Everything is rational, and she does not need God to explain it.
She can explain it by some philosophical influence, by her own strength, by a favorable environment, or whatever. May God help us to get beyond this.
Let me give one final illustration, and we will wrap it up. This is actually the chief evidence of clinging to Christ in the flesh.
Clinging to Christ in the flesh is not only not needing His life to serve Him and not needing His life to explain things. She did not need His life for the power, the strength, to serve Him.
When I look at Mary’s life, she is trying so hard out of love and gratitude. Everything she did, according to the record, ended up in the trash heap.
If you talk about somebody spinning her tires, this dear, dear saint who loved Jesus—I have to admire her. I have to admire her on the level of earth.
In John 20:1, she got up early while it was still dark. Some Christians have a hard time doing just that much—getting up early for Jesus. That is what she did. She got up early for Jesus.
Mark 16 says they brought spices to anoint the body of Christ. I do not know how much sleep Mary got that night. I do not know what was involved in getting spices ready. I do not know how much sleep she got that weekend, maybe even longer than that.
But I know she worked hard because she loved Jesus. She was getting things ready. She was going to anoint the body. She was never going to use that service. I do not care how much time she put into it, she was never going to use it. He did not need the spices.
She was doing a service that was never going to be applied to the Lord Jesus.
Then John 20:2 says she ran to Peter’s house. According to the record, it was basically something like this: all the women come on top of the hill, look down, and say, “Oh, the stone is rolled away.”
Mary says, “Oh, they have taken Him away.” She takes off, and the others go down. That is when they met the angel, and that is when they left. But Mary said, “I have got to run. I have got to run.”
Now she runs to Peter’s house. She is up all night. She is working all night. She gets up there in the morning, and now she is running. She runs all the way to Peter’s house.
“They did what?”
Peter and John take off, and Mary is behind them. She is running and running and running. She is crying. She sat, and she is weeping. She is crying. She is tired. She is exhausted.
Why? Because she loves Jesus. She is serving Him with all of her might, and she is getting drained because she is doing it out of her own life. She is trying to serve the Lord whom she loves and who set her free.
Jesus said, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?” She supposed Him to be the gardener, and she said, “Sir, if You have taken Him away…”
Now she is accusing Jesus of hiding Jesus from her. Before she said, “It is them. They did it, whoever they are.” It is always them. They did it. But now Jesus is blamed because she cannot find Jesus.
Did you hear what she said? Dear Mary, you got up so early. You worked so hard. You got so tired. You have run your little legs off. You have spun your tires. You have got a service in your hand that you are never going to apply. It is all because you love the Lord Jesus.
Now listen to you, Mary: “Show me where you have laid Him, and I will take Him away.”
Yeah, right.
I do not know how much Mary weighed. I get the idea that she did a lot of running, so she was probably in pretty good shape. I do not know how much she weighed. I do not know how much Jesus weighed. I guess He was average weight.
I know this: when they wrapped Him and anointed Him, there were one hundred extra pounds of spices. Two hundred and fifty pounds? Three hundred pounds?
Mary says, “Show me where you laid Him. I will take Him away.” Can you picture that? Can you picture Jesus being lugged away by Mary, the lover of the Lord Jesus?
She is so tired. She is so weary. She is so weak. She has been up all night, working her head off, working with others, getting up early, running her dear little legs off, coming back, crying her eyes out.
And now she wants to burden herself with Christ.
Instead of Christ carrying her, she wants to carry Him.
Do not think it cannot happen. Christians are doing that all the time. For seven years in my life, I was lugging around a dead Christ—carrying Him to school, carrying Him to work, carrying Him to church, carrying Him to the prisons, carrying Him to the nursing home.
I had no clue it was His life that He wanted to come in, and that out of His life I could serve Him. I had no clue that His life would become the explanation of my life. I had no clue that His life would be the energy, the strength, and the source of my service to Him.
All right, we end here. Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned around, and she said, “Teacher.” She got taught something in that moment.
Mary—it is you. What a name is for: that is you. This is about you.
In a moment, she had the flash: He is neither dead nor gone, but He is alive.
The last words we hear of Mary in the Scriptures are, “I have seen the Lord.” “I have seen the Lord.” With that, she walks off the pages of the Bible.
Principle number one: if we are going to be prepared to have union with an indwelling Christ, someday, some way, somehow, we have got to come to the place where it is only about seeing the Lord.
It is not about ministry. It is not about service. It is not about anything else. We come to that place.
That is preparation number one. He appeared twelve times. That does not get it; that is just the start. I have got to see what He showed Thomas. I have got to see what He showed on the road to Emmaus. I have got to see what happened in that upper room. I have got to see, “Last of all, He appeared.” What is that all about? How am I prepared?
Number one: you cannot cling to Jesus in the flesh. You need His life. When God prepares His people to have that union, it starts here. They have come to the place where they say, “Teacher, I just want to know the Lord. That is it.”
That is the beginning. You are getting close. Then we are going to move into that revelation.
Brothers, may God help us this weekend. You have probably heard it all your lives. If you are not settled in it, may God teach you this weekend: What is this exchanged life, and how can it be real in my life?
Because I promise you this: He is neither dead nor gone, but He is alive. He is alive in you.
Father, thank You for Your precious Word. Thank You for this dear sister and her testimony, and how You set her free in a moment from her life by showing her Your life.
Do that for us, we pray. Prepare us to have this intimate union with the indwelling Savior. We ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Thank you.