Participants: Deyvy Rodriguez & Jon Paulien
Series Code: JBOTB
Program Code: JBOTB00026B
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00:01 Welcome back.
00:02 So we just finished reading the first part of Chapter 20 00:06 and we have read here that the tomb is empty. 00:10 So, Dr. Paulien, what else? 00:13 Well, I'd just mention that 00:15 Peter is definitely bolder in action 00:19 as you see you know, he runs right into the tomb 00:22 but John is deeper in thought. 00:24 And the interesting piece 00:26 I want people to notice in these nine verses 00:30 is that neither John nor Peter 00:32 believed on the basis of scripture 00:36 that Jesus would be raised from the dead. 00:38 They were not expecting the resurrection. 00:42 And that's another piece to this whole thing. 00:44 The resurrection is surprise to them. 00:47 Later on Christian saw 00:50 evidence of the resurrection in the Old Testament 00:52 but at this point they had not come to that conclusion. 00:56 However, looking at the empty tomb 01:00 John nevertheless draws to conclusion 01:03 that Jesus is risen 01:04 as it says here in, where is it verse 9. 01:09 It says that 01:15 "He saw and believed" 01:18 but they had not drawn that conclusion from the scripture. 01:21 So when John sees the empty tomb, he believes. 01:25 So he is the first to believe in Jesus 01:29 and he is the only one to believe without seeing. 01:33 Mary doesn't believe until she sees Jesus. 01:37 The 10 don't believe until Jesus comes in the room. 01:40 Thomas doesn't believe until he gets to touch Jesus 01:45 and contact Him and so on. 01:48 So John, the beloved disciple 01:51 is the only one in this gospel who sees-- 01:56 I mean, excuse me, he believes without seeing. 02:00 And in that reality, John becomes 02:03 the ideal of the second generation. 02:06 He shows them, 02:07 you don't need to have the physical presence of Jesus 02:11 to believe that He is truly here, 02:14 that He has been raised, that He can do for you 02:17 everything that Jesus is capable of doing. 02:20 So we see then John as the representative of-- 02:27 the representative character 02:28 for the second generation for the true believers. 02:31 Why don't we move on because in the second scene, 02:35 Mary comes to the tomb or stays nearby 02:39 and she sees some angels 02:42 and then after she sees the angels 02:45 something else happens? 02:46 Why don't we start with verse 13 02:49 and read it through verse 15. 02:52 "Then they said to her, 'Woman, why are you weeping?' 02:55 She said to them, 02:57 'Because they have taken my Lord away, 03:00 and I do not know where they have laid Him.'" 03:02 Clearly she doesn't believe 03:03 in this resurrection, right? Right. 03:04 She thinks he's still a body somewhere 03:07 and that this gardener knows where He is. 03:10 Right. Okay. Well, let's continue here. 03:14 "Now when she had said this, 03:15 she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, 03:18 and did not know that it was Jesus. 03:21 Jesus said to her, 'Woman, why are you weeping? 03:24 Whom are you seeking?' 03:26 She, supposing Him to be the gardener, 03:28 said to Him, 'Sir, if You have carried Him away, 03:32 tell me where You have laid Him, 03:33 and I will take Him away." 03:36 You notice, she is in the physical presence of Jesus. 03:40 He is right there, she can see Him, she can hear Him. 03:44 You and I've never had that experience 03:46 and yet it doesn't bring her to faith. 03:49 Again, it's making this point 03:51 that John hammers home all through the gospel 03:54 that to have the literal physical presence 03:58 of Jesus is no advantage. 03:59 If anything through the Holy Spirit, 04:02 the word gives us advantages that they did not have. 04:05 They seemed slower to believe and slower to grasp. 04:08 Now why didn't Mary recognize Jesus? 04:12 Well, in this story her eyes are so blinded with tears 04:16 that she just--Did she not see physically Jesus? 04:19 Maybe there was a voice just behind her and she was just-- 04:22 she thought it was a gardener or what-- 04:26 She was definitely in great distress, you know. 04:29 She was in anguish and I-- 04:32 you know, literally I don't know why 04:35 but John includes that little detail simply 04:38 because she is a representative of that first generation 04:41 that needed the physical presence of Jesus to believe. 04:45 Peter needed it, the rest of the disciples needed it, 04:48 Thomas needed it. 04:49 That's the whole point in this section. Right. 04:51 And verse 16 says that, "Jesus said to her, 'Mary!' 04:56 She turned and said to Him, 'Rabboni!' 04:58 which is to say, Teacher." 04:59 So it seems that when Jesus said, Mary-- The voice. 05:03 Then obviously she doesn't know the gardener 05:06 or let just assume that she doesn't 05:08 so then when hears that Mary from the voice of Jesus 05:13 then that was something that caught her attention. 05:15 It's possible, she wasn't even looking at His face. 05:17 She just sees a figure approaching 05:19 and you know, bow down on the ground or something. 05:22 She just says, "Are you, you know, 05:24 do you know where he is?" 05:26 Verse 17. 05:28 "Jesus said to her, 'Do not cling to Me, 05:31 for I have not yet ascended to My Father, 05:33 but go to My brethren and say to them, 05:36 I am ascending to My Father and your Father, 05:38 and to My God and your God.'" All right. 05:41 So, you know, we can think of the big picture here, 05:44 why doesn't Jesus want here to hang on to Him 05:47 but for John I think the picture is very clear. 05:49 He is saying to the readers of this gospel, 05:52 "Don't hang on to the tokens of a physical presence of Jesus. 05:56 Don't hang on to relics, solid things, 06:00 you know, mini idols, whatever it is." 06:03 The real thing is the word and the spirit. 06:06 And it's through the word and the spirit 06:08 that Jesus becomes real and that's the things you want. 06:11 Not to hang on to some image. 06:15 It's interesting, one other pieces of this is 06:18 He says, "Go instead to--" What does He call to disciples? 06:24 Go instead, verse 17. 06:26 "To My brothers." "To My brothers." 06:28 You know, He starts with servants 06:32 and then He moves to friends 06:35 and now He moves to brothers. 06:37 So it's like the terms get more endearing. 06:40 It's more intimate. 06:41 He calls His disciples, brothers. 06:44 And I guess that indicates to us 06:46 that there are stages of relationship 06:49 that we can grow closer and closer. 06:51 And the idea is a relationship of friends, brothers 06:55 not the relationship of servants. 06:57 Do many people serve Jesus as slaves? 07:00 Yes, many people do. 07:02 You know, miserably going through, 07:03 following the rules, trying somehow to please Him 07:07 and the reality is He was pleased already 07:10 and we can rejoice to be friends with Him 07:13 and being friends with Him will do more 07:15 for obedience than anything else could. 07:19 Why don't we go on to the next incident, verses 19-23. 07:23 "Then, the same day at evening, 07:26 being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut 07:29 where the disciples were assembled, 07:30 for fear of the Jews, 07:32 Jesus came and stood in the midst, 07:34 and said to them, "Peace be with you." 07:37 When He had said this, 07:38 He showed them His hands and His side. 07:42 Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. 07:45 So Jesus said to them again, "Peace to you! 07:48 As the Father has sent Me, I also send you." All right. 07:53 So the disciples are fearful and perplexed 07:58 even though Jesus is beginning to appear among them. 08:01 Even the physical presence of Jesus 08:04 wasn't enough to save them from perplexity. 08:07 So the story once again 08:09 is part of John's hammering home the thing. 08:11 Look, those who met Him at that time, that's good, 08:16 we are glad that they came to faith, 08:18 we are glad that they came to peace. 08:20 I mean, He has to say twice, "Peace be to you." 08:23 Even after they know it's Him, 08:25 He still has to say, "Peace be to you." 08:28 It's John making the point 08:30 that first generation came to faith 08:33 through the literal Jesus 08:34 but there's something even better than that. 08:37 And then you come to Thomas 08:39 and we won't take time to read that story 08:41 but because we have gone through it before 08:43 but Thomas of course is the ultimate example 08:46 of those who have to see, 08:48 who have to touch in order to believe 08:51 and if that were truly mandatory, 08:54 there would be no hope for any of us I think. 08:57 So I am glad that this gospel is written. 09:01 I am glad that this option 09:03 of believing without seeing is available to us 09:07 because if it were not 09:08 we would be in great trouble. Right. 09:11 And unfortunately there are people 09:12 who don't want to follow Christ 09:15 because they are like Thomas 09:17 you know, where they don't believe 09:19 in the resurrection, they don't-- 09:20 they have this belief 09:21 that they must see before they believe. 09:24 And as you said, you know, 09:26 thankful that we can believe 09:29 even though we've never seen Jesus. 09:32 Well, in the couple minutes we have left, 09:33 I want to emphasize four things 09:36 that I think come through in this chapter pretty clearly. 09:39 First of all, the slowness of the disciples to believe. 09:43 It's a point we've been making all along 09:46 but they really, their advantage was no advantage. 09:50 The physical presence of Jesus was no advantage. 09:53 They were slow to come to it. 09:56 The second generation is often faster 09:59 to accept everything that Jesus is than the first. 10:02 So John is really bringing it home. 10:05 You are at no disadvantage, 10:06 His word is as good as His presence. 10:11 So the second generation is not inferior at all, 10:14 if anything their faith exceeds the faith 10:16 of the original disciples and that should be encouraging. 10:19 You know, we sometime feel like we are at some disadvantage. 10:22 Not necessary at all. 10:25 Another thing I see in this chapter, 10:28 Jesus doesn't reject people who have doubts. 10:31 In fact He even plays with Thomas just a little bit. 10:33 "Oh, Thomas, hey, haven't seen you in a while. 10:37 Hey, guess what. 10:38 Look what I got here for you, stick your finger in there, 10:41 you know and oh, let me show you something else." 10:44 I mean it's like, He is not condemning him. 10:46 He is not giving a hard time. 10:49 Thomas was genuine in his doubts and Jesus accepts him. 10:54 So the beautiful thing is He doesn't reject people 10:57 who have doubts but he goes as far as He can 11:01 to take their doubts away as much as possible. 11:04 And that's encouragement to me. 11:06 You know whenever I feel like 11:07 I don't deserve to be with Jesus or whatever. 11:11 For me that's also a lesson for dealing with secular people. 11:15 People take time to believe these things. 11:18 Don't expect you know, 11:19 you're going to preach a sermon and a secular person. 11:21 "Well, that settles it. I am going to go follow Jesus." 11:24 No, it takes time. 11:26 These disciples had walked with Him 11:27 for three and half years and it still took a long time, 11:31 with the physical Jesus presence. 11:33 So give secular people time and give them a chance. 11:37 And finally, I think we see in this chapter 11:40 the fulfillment of the farewell discourser 11:43 where Jesus promises, I will go away 11:46 but soon I will return to you 11:48 and your sorrow will be turned to joy. 11:51 So in this chapter we see the fulfillment of the things 11:54 that Jesus promised in the upper room. 11:58 So as we close, I think we can rejoice 12:02 at the kind of Jesus we see portrayer here. 12:05 Well, Dr. Paulien, I think we all had moments of doubt 12:07 and I have doubted God several times 12:09 and I also have to ask for forgiveness. 12:11 Well friends, till next time I pray that 12:13 you too can trust in the Lord with all of your heart. |
Revised 2014-12-17