The need to renew our faith

THE NEED TO RENEW OUR FAITH

Jn. 20:1-9

I never cease to be fascinated by John’s account of the Resurrection of our Lord.  To read it is to come away with the inescapable impression that it was written by an eyewitness.  There is no laboured attempt at proof, just one man’s version of what happened.  The details are so graphic that it could only be told by someone who was there.

First, John remembers that Mary Magdalene came to him and Peter early on Sunday morning, just before dawn.  She had been to the tomb.  Obviously, she could not sleep.  Sorrow can induce one of the worst forms of insomnia.  When you’re grieving in the middle of the night, it seems the day will never come; and you are not at all certain that you even want it to.  So Mary got up before daylight and went to the grave.  Not that that would do any good; that was just where she wanted to be.  But on arrival at the grave she made a terrifying discovery.  The tomb was open.  The stone had been rolled away.  Though Mary was frightened she got close enough to see, even in the darkness, that the body of Jesus was gone.  Her immediate thought was that the body had been stolen.  Someone, for some indescribably sick reason, has stolen the body of Jesus.  At this point she hurried to tell the sad news to Peter and John.

Next, John remembers how he and Peter started out to run to the tomb.  For a time they ran side by side; then John began to forge ahead.  He was younger and probably in better condition and so got there first.  He stood there in the half darkness, bent down, looked into the tomb and tried to figure out what happened.  Then Peter arrived, and in typical fashion went straight into the tomb, and John followed him.  There is no suggestion that they had a lantern; so by this time, there must have been enough light for them to see.  Mary was right; the tomb was empty.  Nothing was there but the grave clothes.  That empty tomb and those grave clothes did something transforming to John.  In one place, was the winding sheet, and in another was the cloth that had been about His head, neatly folded and laid aside.  None of this gave the appearance of people in a hurry.  If grave robbers had carried away the body of Jesus, why would they take the time to remove the sheet that enfolded Him? Why would they neatly fold the head cloth and lay it in another place?  There was only one answer; Jesus had risen through the clothes.  The robbery theory somehow didn’t hold water.

At this point, John, speaking about himself said, “He saw and believed.”  This was the recorded profession of someone’s belief that Jesus had risen from the dead.  Some people find it easier to believe than others.  John was one of those people.  He had not yet seen the risen Lord nor talked with anyone who had.  He did not even understand the scriptures that prophesied His rising.  All he had was an empty tomb and some abandoned grave clothes.  Yet, “He saw and believed.”

Wrapped up in that four-word sentence is a world of meaning.  It speaks of more than a conviction concerning the resurrection.  John, obviously, is saying that standing there in that empty tomb, he arrived at the conclusion that Jesus had risen from the dead. But that is not the total story.  For John to believe in Jesus was nothing new.  At one point in his life, he had believed in Him so strongly that he forsook everything, his family, a secure job in order to follow Him.  Then as the weeks and months went by, he had come to believe in Him more and more.  The way that Jesus lived seemed right.  The things that He taught made sense.  The kind of Man that He was seemed the most real thing in all the world.  John’s total conviction about God, about life, and about himself had come to revolve around Jesus.  In Him was the rhyme, the reason, the reality of everything.  Jesus was more than just a friend.  He was Truth in the midst of confusion.  He was Light in the vast sea of darkness.  He was the Eternal Life of God surrounded by human mortality.  Then came that fatal day on Calvary, John’s faith was dealt a mortal blow.  When Jesus died, everything John believed in was shaken to the core.

Then standing there in that empty tomb, “He saw and believed.”  John is telling us that his faith in Jesus was validated and renewed.  All of the things that he hoped for and believed in came rushing back.  Life turned right side up again.  He had not been misled after all.

That is precisely what you and I need this Easter morning – not simply to believe in the objective truth of the Resurrection, but to have our faith in Jesus and the things for which He stands renewed.  This world has a way of playing havoc with the principles in which we try to believe.  As one of our Christmas carols puts it, “Hate is strong, and mocks the song of peace on earth, good will toward men.”  How can one keep on believing in Christ in the kind of rat race that modern life represents?  Everything that He stands for gets shoved aside, trampled on, crucified almost every day that we live.

Let’s face it – most of the time we are afraid to trust Him, lest we make fools of ourselves in the process.  He talked about loving our enemies, turning the other cheek, going the second mile.  Where is the place for those kinds of things in this kind of world? The only thing that applies here is the law of the jungle, the survival of the fittest.  Try to turn the other cheek in a business deal and see how far it gets you.  This is a dog-eat-dog kind of world; and those who do not face that fact either get run over or left behind.

Let’s be honest:  isn’t that how we really think most of the time?  This world did to Christ the very worst it could.  It rejected His Truth and nailed Him to a cross, but on the third day He overcame it all, even death.  John saw and believed.  That is what you and I need this Easter Sunday – a renewal of our faith.

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