Beholding Jesus

Meditation 9

The Risen Lord

John 20

            Empty Tomb

            Oh how glorious!  Our Lord is risen!  The grave did not /could not hold our King!

So Mary, on her way to the tomb fairly early sees the stone has been rolled away.  I wonder what was going on in her mind.  She ran to Simon Peter and said they have stolen Jesus’ body and does not know where they took him.  All of them ran to the tomb to see for themselves.

            The thoughts they all must have had with His linen cloths lying there folded where Jesus once lay.  Why would someone take His body and leave all the cloths?  Confusion arose in the disciples I am sure. 

            In verse 9 the disciples did not know the scriptures that He would rise again.  They all I am sure were unaware of what to do so they fled to their homes.  This makes me really want to know the scriptures so when Jesus returns again I will be able to know what the Word says and be able to recognize the Lord!

            It looks like to me Mary Magdalene stayed behind and weeped at the tomb when suddenly she saw two angles.  The scripture gives only one prescription and says they were in white.  One was sitting at the head where Jesus was laid and one at His feet.  They spoke to her.  Oh what that sounded like?  Angelic voices asking you, “Why do you weep?”

            Through her tears and probably scared emotions said, they took my Lord and I do not know where they took Him.  As she was saying this she turned around and there He stood but she did not know who it was.  How did you not know who it was?  How different was Jesus in His resurrected body?  I wonder how big of a difference this had to have been to have the closest people to Him did not recognize Him so He had to prove Himself to them.

            I love Jesus.  I wonder if He is almost saying this in a joking manner with a huge smile on His face knowing her heart.  “Woman why are you weeping?  Who are you seeking?” Ha!  She thought He was a gardener.  What was Jesus wearing to make her think; oh that man is a gardener.  So she was like if you took him, tell me where and I will go get him.

            Jesus spoke!  “Mary!” She immediately knew who that man was now.  Just by the sound of His voice made her realize, oh my, that is Jesus, my teacher.  Oh Lord that we would be this sensitive to Your voice like Mary was.  Oh the sound of our Saviors voice.  How glorious His voice is.  How she probably wanted to embrace Him but could not because He had not yet ascended to the Father.  I wonder why that is?  I love in verse 17 how Jesus is already revealing the adoptive spirit and the Father’s heart for us.  He says, to My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God.

            So in verse 19, I believe John mentions the locked doors because Jesus showed up and did not have to use the door to get into the room.  He said peace be with you so the disciples must have been frightened.  He had to show them the scars so they would believe.  In verse 21 and 22 Jesus is revealing the intercessors heart that He has.  He said as the Father sent Me, I also send you.  He then breathed on them and said receive the Holy Spirit.  Apparently this was not a full manifestation of the Holy Spirit because that came at Pentecost in Acts.  Oh my to have had the breath of the resurrected Christ breathes on me!  Oh wow how awesome that would have felt like.  I wonder how glorious His breath smelled?

            Later Thomas got to touch Him!  Doubting Thomas had to see for Himself and believe.  Oh how blessed we are!  In verse 29 Jesus blesses us for the ones who have not seen yet but believe.  Through our belief, we have life in Him!

Luke 24:36-49

            Jesus has to prove Himself to His disciples.  He appeared to them and they were so frightened.  So Jesus was proving Himself to not be a spirit and ate.  Jesus then begins to say, don’t you remember me telling you these things have to be done through what was given through the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms.

            In verse 45 it says, He opened their understanding that they might truly know the scriptures so the instructions on what the disciples were called to do and the sweet promises of the Holy Ghost.

In John chapter 20, it starts out with Mary Magdalene finding the stone removed from Jesus’ tomb and it describes her as being “the one Jesus loved”. Mary Magdalene was a prostitute and she had an intense past, but she turned her life around and is now a pure and spotless bride in the eyes of Christ. Jesus set her free from so much. When He sets us free, we are free. Whom the Son sets free is free indeed. (John 8:36) No matter how rough our past is, no matter how many times we messed up, there is life after death. When we get saved, we go from death to life. We are alive in Christ and the strongholds of the enemy cannot stand. We walk in righteousness. We walk in holiness. We speak the truth. We dance with freedom. He is alive, now we are alive. (Eph 2:5)

All this week, I have been struggling with things that I used to struggle with. Things that I thought I had dealt with a long time ago and even some things that I did not know I struggled with have come up this week. The enemy is at work in my life (and a lot of IHOPU students) and I have believed lies that I am not worthy, that I am not beautiful, but all we need to do is fight and declare life over ourselves. All we have to do is put on the whole armor of God and sometimes we just need to yell at Satan. (Eph. 6:13) God has been doing a deep cleaning in my heart this whole semester; especially this week. He has been going deep in my heart and He has healed so many wounds that I did not even know I had. It is a very painful process and it has been hard, but God is faithful to complete the good work that He has started. I feel so free right now and there is no flaw in me. (Song of Solomon 4:7)

At times, it is hard to accept the truth and it is easier to believe the lies that consume us. The lies will tell us that we are not worthy, that we are ugly, there is no one out there who will love us for who we are, and that we are going to be alone our whole lives. We get so overwhelmed by these lies that they actually become a part of us. So when we hear the truth, we cannot accept it. This is one of the reasons why Christ died on the cross for us. So that we do not have to live with the lies that tell us that we are worthless when we are not. When we get bombarded with lies, all we have to do is lay it at the cross. We have to lay it at the feet of Jesus. Christ took on all of our sins, all of our condemnation, all of our sadness, and all of our sickness and He bore it all on the cross. When Christ was raised from the dead, it was like He represented a new day; a new start. He took on the most gruesome death, but He was raised from death into life. When we have Christ in us, we are a new creation and we have the truth living in us. The lies may last for a night, but anything that Satan tries to attack us with cannot stand because of the life, the truth, and the light that is living within us.

John 20, Luke 24:36-49

            It’s pretty obvious what the disciples are thinking through out this part of the story as they act on their actions. But I really wonder about all the emotions and thoughts Mary Magdalene was having. Again there is so much we don’t know about her, which doesn’t help anything. The disciples seemed to have been “good Jews” who knew the scriptures and observed the traditions…what do we know about Mary other than Jesus set her free? She may have known the scriptures better than the disciples if she had been taught them as a child (yes unlikely but possible none the less). She may have not known them or even understood them…

            But she did love. O did she ever love. Mary sees Jesus’ body is gone and runs to tell the only men in her life in hopes they’ll do something about it. After they come to see for themselves (because they don’t believe her) and then leave, she’s beside herself. “All running to them did was get them to run back here so they could see for themselves and then leave me. What comfort are they to me now? They didn’t even believe what I told them.” She doesn’t run to the scriptures, to her “fellow” disciples, or even to the other women. She tarries where she last knew her Savior to be, and weeps. All she wants to do is find His body and pay proper respect (anointing) and mourn the death of the Man that loved her when no one else did.

            It’s here in this complete abandonment and raw emotion that He chooses to meet her, to encounter her. I wonder why she didn’t think it strange that two men were in the tomb sitting down and asking her why she was crying. They weren’t there two seconds ago. She was there alone and then all of the sudden, there were two angels. Did they not shine brightly? Was she actually so overcome with grief that she didn’t notice that they weren’t regular men? When they asked her why she was crying, why didn’t she ask THEM where Jesus was? Maybe it all happened so quickly (seeing the men, them asking her, AND then seeing Jesus) that there wasn’t really time to process all of it. She was mourning the death of her Friend. His body (in her mind at least) had been stolen. I can’t imagine the whirlwind of emotion she was feeling. She was so overcome by grief; she didn’t even recognize the voice of her Friend when He spoke to her. I just think this conversation was so tender. I really think it stirred something within Jesus’ heart to see her to broken before Him. And yet, He still asks who she is looking for. Why? He knew exactly what was going on. I think He wanted to hear her heart’s cry. I just think it’s so beautiful. He didn’t choose to reveal Himself to the disciples who were either running around chasing a dead body or ghost, or hiding in fear of being crucified themselves. He waited for the quiet…until she was all alone. He waited until she had nothing left to cling to. Her efforts to tell the disciples had come back effortless. Where could she possibly find her friend? What had happened was probably outside any understanding she had of scripture or even what He taught her while on the Earth. She had to watch the only Man that truly loved her be tortured and killed. Now His body was missing. There. There in that place of complete abandonment and at her wit’s end, He encounters her and ministers to her heart. He calls her by name and tells her to go and tell the others what she has seen and encountered.

            The other thing that has always stuck out to me is the commission Jesus gives. Both of these accounts acknowledge that Jesus did signs and wonders while with them after His resurrection, but that they aren’t recorded. That’s probably because the writers of the Gospels knew that wasn’t what important to Jesus. What was important (as all scripture is inspired by the Holy Spirit) was what they wrote…He commissioned them to go and tell the nations of what they had seen and knew to be true. That’s what was on Jesus’ heart in His last few moments with His friends. That’s what, given only a short time left to be with them, He chose to say. Go and feed my sheep. I know there are prophets, preachers, teachers, etc. and that not everyone is an evangelist. But what excuse, reading this, do we possibly have for not sharing the gospel to the world? What argument do we really have for not proclaiming and shouting the good news from the mountain tops? Jesus died on the cross for us, bared our sin, overcame death, and His last commandment was to go and tell everyone. And we wonder what our purpose is in life. We wonder what it is God wants us to do. Good grief. Jesus don’t ever let me forget Your last words. Give me YOUR heart for the lost. Give me words to speak.

Meditation 9 – The Risen Lord

John 20

The past three days had been almost unbearable for her when she went up to the tomb of her teacher and friend. Jesus was dead and His body had not even been properly prepared. All Mary Magdalene wanted to do was to go to the tomb and morn for her dead friend. Imagine her anguish when she reached the tomb and saw that the stone had been rolled away. She must have been suddenly filled with grief and anger that her Master’s tomb had been disturbed. The only thing she could think of doing was running to Peter and John to tell them all that what she had seen.

When Peter and John heard that someone had stolen Jesus’ body they sprinted to the tomb as fast as they possibly could. But John reached it first, I believe this was because of the passion that he had for His master, that or he just worked out more. When John got to the tomb, however, he could not bring himself to go in because he was so distraught. As soon as Peter caught up with John he went right into the tomb to see if it was true that Jesus’ body had been stolen. What these two disciples saw must have surprised and confused them. They saw strips of linen lying where Jesus should have been. If thieves had broken into the tomb to steal a body that had been there three days, would they not have kept the body wrapped as much as they could? They also would have probably wrapped it in a little something extra as well, just to play it safe. Another thing that must have perplexed Peter and John was the strips of linen lying around, like someone had ripped them off, and the clothe cover Jesus’ head neatly folded. None of this could have made sense to them. Never the less both disciples walked away believing that Jesus’ body had been stolen, because neither of them realized that Jesus had to rise from the dead.

After the Peter and John had left, Mary Magdalene stayed by the tomb crying. When she finely got up the courage to look into the tomb, imagine her surprise when there were two men sitting where Jesus had lain. She had been there while the two disciples had searched to tomb, and she knew that no one else had gone into the tomb. Where did these men come from? Then these mysterious men asked why she was crying. As soon as she told them she looked behind her and lo another man had snuck up behind her. Assuming that this man was the gardener Mary urgently asked him where he had taken the body. As soon as the man said her name, however, Mary realized her mistake and saw that it was her Master Jesus. Oh, the joy that must have overflowed out of her, a perfect mix of tears, snot, crying, laughing and a generally amazing feeling.

Think how fast Mary must have run to the disciples after her risen Master had told her to. It must have taken a good ten to fifteen minuets before any of the disciples could understand that she was telling them that she had seen the risen Jesus. There is no way that the disciples did not think that Mary had been out in the sun too long, or that the grief of Jesus’ death had finely gotten to her. Praise God that no matter how many times the disciples told her that she was crazy Mary’s joy did not diminish.

So here we have the disciples all gathered in a room with the doors and windows locked for fear that the Jewish people were going to crucify them too. The room was filled with a stench of body odor because of the lack of air circulation, when all of a sudden there is an extra person standing in their midst. There must have been a gasp followed by a long awkward silence that eventually dribbled into a low murmur. Jesus must have enjoyed this immensely, especially the long awkward silence, before He spoke the words “Peace be with You”. When He showed the disciples His scares they finely believed and greatly rejoiced that their Master had been raised from the dead.

Thomas, poor Thomas, forever branded doubtful Thomas. It was not his fault that he was not with the rest of the disciples when they saw the Risen Lord. We have branded Thomas as doubting because he said that he would not believe that Jesus was alive until he had placed his hands in Jesus’ side. What we too easily forget is, the rest of the disciples did not believe either. It was not until Jesus revealed Himself to them and showed them the holes in His hands and feet that they believed. Thomas was not more doubtful than any of the other twelve disciples, and we our selves would not have believed that Jesus was raised from the dead if we did not know what we know now. It is simply unfortunate that Thomas was the one that was not with the rest. It also does not help that it was with Thomas that Jesus decided to talk about the believing and seeing.

In the end we can not understand anything of God unless He chooses to reveal it to us. The disciples did not believe that Jesus was the Son of God until He opened their minds. It is by the power of God that we can come to know Him. We are no better or worse than the disciples were, not one person would have believed that Jesus was raised from the dead if they had been there at the empty tomb.

John 20 Lk. 24:36-49

John 20:9-14

Many times we all geet confused by scripture and we get confused and discouraged. It says that the disciples believed but didn’t understand so they left; I am sure that Mary Magdelene understood the scriptures even less than the disciples did but in spite of her lacking she stayed. She embraced her weakness and didn’t retreat to stronghold of any home built in human strength, and it was that in this place that Jesus encountered her. So many times I find myself stuck in the word and pressed for time, and in my striving seekto push through from my own stronghold just to get it done. It is always best to do all things the provision and grace given by the Holy Spirit and if we would just wait and sincerly quiet ourselves with the hope of partnering with Him not just to get a job done using the Holy Spirit only when its easy or I need Him. If we wait on God even when doing so would put us in danger we will not be ashamed, He will visit us with an encounter that will wipe away our tears and bring good news to us. At this point in time any follower of Jesus who is found may be killed and also the stone was rolled away by angels and the soldiers were scared away by them so at any moment more soldiers will show up at the scene ready to fight. Anybody in their right mind would have been running as fast as they could to the closest hiding place, but Mary was so vulnerable and in her embracing weakness the Lord came to her. I love it when scripture brings revelation to another scripture like this reminds me of 2 Cor. 12:9, because when she embraced her weakness and decided to lean on God she was protected.  It was definitely not in her strength that she was hidden from the romans or had an awesome experience with Jesus. She was weeping because she didn’t know where to find Jesus and she had come to the reality that she would never find Him in her own strength, but she did not know that He would come to her in her brokeness and reveal to her that He is alive. We know have the Holy Spirit and He will always show the Father to the weak and broken. He will not allow those puffed up with pride to understand His word, and He made it so easy that anyone can live this life. He made it so that those who desire to get closer to Him will have to get over themselves and humble themselves to know the Truth. Pride is such a huge wall to the knowledge of God , acually it is more like a camel trying to fit through the eye of a needle. It’s so awesome, we have to do is to admit the truth in the arenas of our life to know Jesus; its such a good deal we get to live the truth not a lie and we get to know the eternal God.

The Resurrection John 20, Luke 24: 36:49

Talking about Jesus’ resurrection has to be one of my favorite subject to talk about from the Bible, that and probably eschatology. I know, call me strange, but it’s true. I think the reason I enjoy these two subjects so much though, is because the resurrection really seals the deal for me on the question of whether Jesus was just a good teacher or if He was God (just to clarify, this is not a point for myself because I know Jesus is God, but rather a point I love to discuss with non-believers), and eschatology because it tells of His coming back to the earth, which is the best thing ever! So, keeping that in mind, I really, really enjoyed this meditation this past week and am very excited to share with you what the Lord was revealing to me.

Mary is the character in the John 20 passage that really grips me. I can just picture the scene. Once Mary, Peter and John get back to the empty tomb, I picture Mary there tears streaming down her face. She so longed for Jesus that she now feels like the Shulamite woman in Song of Solomon when she is looking for her beloved and can not find him (chapter 5). She is lovesick to see Jesus. She longs to see Him, but can not find where He has gone. Not understanding that He had to go away, but that He would continue to show Himself to her.

This is what Mary was like. A woman broken over her love for the Lord. She could not even bare to go into the tomb, rather, she stayed outside of it and sat down on the ground and wept. She is even asked by the angels that appear to her why she is weeping. Imagine, she was so full of grief and lovesickness, that she was not even astounded at the angels’ presence. It was almost as if she didn’t notice that they were angels. She so longed for Jesus that she just simply answered them and was about to go on her way to search for Jesus. I think that is so beautiful. It truly shows a piece of the heart of someone who truly desires to be whole hearted. Mary was a woman of whole-heartedness. All she cared about was finding out where she could find the One she longed for. What is even more beautiful than that, is that Jesus met her right where she was.

Mary longed to see Jesus. She wanted to know that her Friend, her Messiah, the One who she spent so many months with was truly Who He said He was, at the very least she wanted to be able to do one last thing for Him by anointing Him with spices. However, Mary was in for quite the surprise. Even as she told the angels that she was weeping because they had taken her Lord and she didn’t know where they had put Him (v. 13), she turned to continue looking for Him and that’s where Jesus showed up. It is in her attempts, though they may seem futile from a human stand point, in finding Jesus, that He meets us.

At this point, Mary does not know that it is Jesus talking to her. I love how Jesus does this with her. I believe that Jesus does this because He wanted to see what she would say when she was asked a second time why she was weeping. He wanted to see I think also if she would realize who it was that was speaking to her. When she did not, Jesus was so compassionate and kind to her. He said to her, “Mary!” (v.16). I love this. Jesus called her by name with love and compassion. In that one sentence He said so much more to her than her name. I believe that it was the kind of “Mary!” that any friend or father would have said to her in order to show her that it would all be okay. That they were there for her to help her walk through whatever she faced. I also think that that “Mary!” was full of such joy and life. Saying to her, “I am here, it is okay. No one took Me away, but I came to you to show you that all will be well! I love your heart for Me; you are special to Me and that is why I chose you to show Myself to first!”

What an honor. That Mary would be the first to see the risen Lord with her own eyes. Jesus even appeared to her before He had gone to the Father. He tells her this very specifically in verse 17. He asks her not to cling to Him because He had not yet ascended to the Father. He also commissions her to go and tell the disciples that He was going up to “My Father and your Father and to My God and your God.” That to me is so incredible. That Jesus would see the tears of Mary and be so moved with compassion and love for her because she ravished His heart by seeking after Him that He would wait to go to His Father until He appeared to her to comfort and uplift her.

What a God we have! I am so moved by this! Recently my heart has been yearning and longing for Jesus. I want to see Jesus, I want Him to be so moved by my desire to seek Him out that He would come down and meet me where I am. That has been the desire of my heart in recent months and therefore, my heart resonates deeply with Mary’s. It messes me up to think that the God-Man was so ravished by one woman’s desire to seek Him out and to find Him that He could not help Himself but to reveal Himself to her right away. I love the God that we serve! He is so awesome and holy. He is marvelous and full of love and kindness. May each of our hearts be stirred and opened to a growing hunger for Jesus that only He can and will satisfy!

I can’t even imagine the swirling of emotions of the disciples after Jesus was crucified, they had to have been wrecks, he was their hope and best friend. He had the words of life and they didn’t grasp the fact that he’d have to be crucified so for all they understood, their hopes were crushed when he died. I wonder what they thought about, like where do we go from here, is there anything to live for? Mary had a idea to go an visit the tomb, I don’t know what prompted her to want to go and be with Jesus’ dead body unless she too had a desire to get closure, or that she may have had the understanding he’d rise. But the fact she was so distraught when Jesus’ body was gone, makes me think she was a ball of emotions and just wanted to see him. She got up before dawn to go to the tomb and see Jesus, she says we and in the other accounts she’s accompanied by other women, they seemed like the most dedicated of the disciples to be honest. None of the men were on their way to the tomb. I wonder if the women were more under the understanding that Jesus’ life was not finished at the cross. I wonder what the look on Peter and John’s face was when Mary said Jesus body wasn’t there. So much must have flooded back to their mind, all that Jesus said he’d rise from the dead in 3 days, the promises of his kingdom, they all applied once the hope of his resurrection was birthed into their minds. It’s so funny that John outran Peter, I understand he was younger, but it seems as though there was a deeper longing to see his best friend that lit the fire under John. But he didnt go in, he looked in and saw that Jesus was gone but he was apprehensive to go into the tomb. I’m sure a million thoughts ran through his mind. I love John’s personality, he was so quick to get there but his immaturity shows through as he wouldn’t go into the tomb, but when Peter got there, they went in, this really touches my heart the brotherhood and realness of these guys. John could go in and not be so afraid because he was accompanied by his close friend. For two men looking at the grave clothes of their Messiah and best friend, I can’t imagine there not being a tear shed or a deep moment shared among them. But the scriptures says they still didn’t think about Jesus raising from the dead which is so hard to believe because Jesus said it several times, I cant imagine them having no clue what was going on as they arrived to an empty tomb. Where did they think his body went? I don’t see any way there was some story floating around that the disciples stole the body, they were totally confused and in mourning. They would have let the whole thing go if Jesus hadn’t really rose from the dead. There would be no point in trying to keep a lie alive, they wanted the Messiah to come but they were real men that really put their hope in that Man, if they realized he wasn’t the Messiah, they would have let the idea go and go back to regular life and just been sad, but they encountered the real living Jesus. They touched him after he rose from the dead. They touched him and ate with him, that is what fueled their witness. Its so interesting that once again, Mary seems like the most dedicated of the disciples, she didn’t leave once she realized Jesus’ body was gone, she stayed, she wept, she mourned. Then the Lord responded to her broken heart, he came to her and showed himself to her. Paul later talks about who Jesus appeared to and doesn’t even mention Mary, I believe Jesus saw a tender heart and wanted to respond to the heart that was earnestly seeking him. The men seem to have a different attitude about the whole thing, but Jesus saw Mary’s tender heart and responded accordingly. Then he kindly showed up to Thomas so he was not left out. I wonder why he wasn’t at the house when they were all meeting together. But Jesus didn’t leave any of them out and so appeared to him so to not have lost any. I learn so much from each disciples’ response. I have gone through each of their responses at one time or another. I would like to think I would be Mary more, but I often am doubting Thomas or apprehensive John, but the more the Holy Spirit grows my heart in faith, the more Peter boldness and tender Maryness I have. I love it that Jesus allows us to see into their lives so much, its hard to bridge the large gap between the Son of Man’s life on earth and my own, but when he gives us examples of normal humans, this helps give hope to where my heart can go. When Jesus breaths on them, I am sort of confused because I thought he had them wait in Jerusalem for the Holy Spirit, but another thought is that as we believe in Jesus we receive the Holy Spirit as a seal of our salvation. Then when he says wait in the city for the Holy Spirit, it seems like that was a more powerful impartation, like a baptism of fire that John said Jesus would do. Many people believe in Jesus and they have the Holy Spirit in them but have not been baptized in the Holy Spirit that imparts power. The fact that he said anyone you forgive will be forgiven speaks of the foundation of the Body of Christ, that we can confess our sins to each other, pray and be healed. Like Jesus was saying I am giving you the power on earth to do that which could only be done with priests before me, but because of my blood and you believing my blood, you now possess power to forgive sins. Then the Holy Spirit came to them later in the way they would be given power to be witnesses to the world. The Lord spoke to the disciples and shared that Moses and the Prophets spoke of him and that he had to fulfill all that they said about him. This gives inclination that there is more, that it didn’t end at the cross. He says they are to preach repentance and forgiveness of sins to the nations, that doesn’t sound like the final send out, that sounds like “here is the next step in the plan”. He reveals their next move, it’s about them being a partner with Jesus to what he’s doing on the earth. He gave them power through the Holy Spirit to preach but there seems like there’s much more as he shared this with them. Like the resurrection was the pep talk for the Disciples to get the info on what to do. The power of his resurrection is an invitation to what is to come to those who stay with Jesus and seek him in his plans. The resurrection is also a picture of what the kingdom will look like, like the way he said I’m not a ghost, he says he has flesh and bones and that gives insight into what the kingdom will be like, its material, there is actually bodies in the kingdom, the realization that it is a real kingdom and not just metaphorical. Then as time went on, there was more and more revelation to the disciples about the kingdom, John, Peter, and Paul all talk a lot about the resurrection and they are totally convinced of the legitimacy of the resurrection, but I really doubt they would speak with such conviction if Jesus didn’t visit them himself as alive from the dead. Jesus knows how weak our faith is and meets us there, he doesn’t expect us to just keep guessing through this life of faith, that’s why he gives us tokens of supernatural now so that we are fed along by substance.