Message 04-08-07

 

Series:            Lectionary [Lent]

Scripture:            John 20:1-18

 

Title:                                                    I Believe

 

Ever since I became a student of theology, when I was still a teenager, just finishing high school, just getting into college, just starting to talk about the big ideas of life, one of the discussions I got into included this piece of the Bible. When I read it for one of my classes I got into a conversation with my professor about this moment when the disciple who got to the tomb first, came in, finally. It says he saw and believed.

 

Just this past Monday I was in the discussion again. The question is, what did he believe? The claim my teachers made is that John, whom many people believe was the disciple whom Jesus loved, mentioned here, that he believed at that moment that Jesus rose from the dead. But the next sentence tells us that “they as yet didn’t understand from Scripture that he was to rise from the dead”, so I argued back when I was a teenager and just this past Monday, that John believed that the body was gone and that’s all.

 

Mary Magdalene came to the disciples and told them the body was missing. John and Peter ran to the tomb. John looked in, but Peter barged in and then John followed. John looked at the place where the body was supposed to be and it was gone and so he believed what Mary had reported. The body was gone. I believe that’s what John believed because of the context of the whole passage. He hears the report, he goes and sees for himself and he goes home in sadness, because this horrible thing has happened and they [including John] didn’t understand that Jesus would rise from the dead.

 

I think that’s what the plain reading says and that’s what I believe.

 

You see I think it’s also significant that John heard what Mary said, checked it out himself and then believed it because he saw it with his own two eyes and, in my imagination, he picked up the cloth and felt it with his own two hands. I think that’s significant because in just a matter of a few sentences within an hour or so Mary was back in John’s face giving him another report, one that must have been so much harder to believe. Mary came saying that she had seen Jesus alive.

 

I understand why people want to think John believed early, because the statement is so clear. He saw and believed. But the statement doesn’t fit in the whole paragraph or the group of ideas that are presented right there, the ideas that this sentence is in the midst of. If it was at the end, then I might think another way or be open to another thought, but when it seems this clear, I tend to believe it the way it’s said.

You see I think it’s important to believe in things that are the way they are. For some people “The Bible says it and I believe it and that’s good enough for me.” For me… that’s not good enough. It’s not just that the Bible says it… I want to know how the Bible says it. I want what else the Bible says about it. I want to know where it’s said and what else is said right around it. Before I say I believe it I want to know it as close as I can get it.

 

I think that’s significant because I find that’s what John did. He went to see for himself. He wanted to see things in context. Police can tell you how important it is to see evidence in context. I think that was important to John because one of the things he does over and over in this book is use the words “witness” and “testimony”. I think this was important to John.

 

I think it was important to John to check out the reliability of what a woman told him because at that time women, in their culture, could not be a legal witness. Women weren’t legitimate for whatever reasons. So, John went to see it for himself. . . and he believed . . . for himself.

 

I think that’s all significant because of what happens next. Mary, this woman, this illegitimate witness came and said that she saw Jesus alive again, alive and talking. We should take note of a few things here. First, this is the same illegitimate witness as before. John and the other disciples don’t go running off again to see for themselves. Do you know what John should have written at that point? He should have said that he saw Jesus himself first. He should have said that Peter saw Jesus himself first. If he had said this the Christian message of the Resurrection would have been easier to believe for people of his time. Any man could have been a legitimate witness. But John didn’t change the story.

 

The story is that a woman’s voice brought the news of the Resurrection first. That’s just wrong. Everyone in that culture would have inherently understood that’s just wrong. A woman can’t be a witness. Any decent storyteller would make sure to make it a man.

 

You see this is why I think it was important that John legitimated Mary’s ability to be a witness. He showed us that she could be trusted. She saw the body was gone. He went and looked for himself and, sure enough, the body was gone.

 

Now she brings bigger news, cataclysmic news . . . the person they knew, the man they loved was alive again. In just a little bit John will tell you in his Gospel that he wrote these things . . . “these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” John will write in his first letter at the back of your Bible, “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life.”