Open Your Eyes and See! | Sunday, April 4, 2021

Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene went to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. Then she ran and came to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple, whom Jesus loved, and said to them, "They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid Him." Peter therefore went out, and the other disciple, and were going to the tomb. So they both ran together, and the other disciple outran Peter and came to the tomb first. And he, stooping down and looking in, saw the linen cloths lying there; yet he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb; and he saw the linen cloths lying there, and the handkerchief that had been around His head, not lying with the linen cloths, but folded together in a place by itself. Then the other disciple, who came to the tomb first, went in also; and he saw and believed. For as yet they did not know the Scripture, that He must rise again from the dead.

On the first Easter morning, three people looked at the same empty tomb—but how they saw it made all the difference.

The Most Important Event in History

Easter is a holiday we are all familiar with, even those who don't routinely attend church. They know something about it beyond bunnies and eggs and candy. So I want to look at a passage you may be familiar with—a passage from the Gospel of John set on Easter Sunday morning.

This is one of my favorite passages associated with Easter. If you grew up going to church, then just about every spring you've heard messages about the sun rising on the Sunday following the cross and crucifixion of Good Friday, revealing an empty tomb. Mary Magdalene and a small group of Jesus's female followers went early to deal properly with His lifeless remains. But when they got there, it was not as they had expected. The Roman soldiers were not there. The stone that sealed the tomb had been rolled away. Instead of a sealed tomb guarded by soldiers, they found an empty tomb attended by angels.

The story of the resurrection is the most important story of all human history. It has been said that the resurrection of Christ is the pivotal event of all human history. If the story of Easter Sunday is true—and I believe that it is—then it is not at all a stretch to say it is the pivotal event in all of human history. Today, we and 2.3 billion Christians throughout the world celebrate together the most important event of all, because, among other reasons, it signals that this life is not all there is. There is much more to life than we can perceive with our senses.

Three Witnesses, Three Ways of Seeing

On that point of seeing and perceiving, I want to consider how three individuals interacted with the events of the first Easter morning: Mary Magdalene, Simon Peter, and the disciple whom Jesus loved. You've got to love the humility of John, the author of this gospel—he was so humble he doesn't write his own name, but simply calls himself the disciple whom Jesus loved, who was no doubt younger and, as we'll see, faster than Peter, and maybe even better looking. Who knows.

These three were among the first to come in contact with the facts of the resurrection. Everything you and I know about the resurrection has much to do with what they saw on that first day of the week.

I want to key in on that word saw in verse 1. If you look carefully through verses 1 through 9, you'll see that the word saw appears four times. What they saw transformed not only them but the entire world. But what fascinates me is not only what they saw, but how they saw. Have you ever noticed that none of us see exactly the same way?

This occurred to me again this last week as my family was driving home and the full moon was rising. One of my kids said, "It looks like I see a cat in the moon." Another said, "No, no, I see a dragon in the moon." What we see may be the same, but how we see it isn't.

When What You See Is Not What You See

You may remember January 2019, when a massive gathering of Saints was decimated by a herd of Rams. The New Orleans Saints were playing the Los Angeles Rams in the NFL semifinals, tied 20 to 20 with less than two minutes left. Quarterback Drew Brees rolled back on third down at the Rams' 13-yard line and threw to number 11, Tommylee Lewis—but Lewis was slammed well before the pass arrived in a very clear pass interference violation. It was clear to everybody who saw it, even people rooting for the Rams. But seven important individuals in black and white referee uniforms didn't see it that way, or at least didn't call it. It has been called one of the worst plays in NFL history. What they saw was the same; how they saw it was different.

Every one of us has been in a situation where what and how we see something differs from others. Maybe you've heard someone say, "That's not how I see it." How can we see the same thing and yet not see the same thing? It's not always what you see, but how you see it. In this story, three individuals looked at the very same data and saw the very same things—but how they saw them was a little bit different.

Four Times "Saw," Three Different Words

Many of you know your New Testament was originally written in Greek. The English translations we have are really good and trustworthy, but there are certain circumstances where the original Greek is helpful, and this is one of them. The English word saw appears four times in these nine verses—but the Greek words translated saw are different. They help us recognize that sometimes how we see is more important than what we see.

The other gospel accounts give us more details. On the first day of the week, early in the morning, it wasn't only Mary Magdalene who went. Mark tells us she was accompanied by Mary the mother of James and a woman named Salome. They bought spices to properly anoint Jesus's body, because when He was crucified on Good Friday and taken down from the cross by Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, sundown was coming and it was the preparation for the Passover and the Sabbath. They had to bury Him very quickly, so He wasn't properly anointed.

So these women go to the tomb expecting to find it as it was left on Good Friday, wondering, "How on earth are we going to roll away the stone?" But Mark 16:4 says, "When they looked up, they saw that the stone had been rolled away, for it was very large." That's when Mary Magdalene ran to Simon Peter and John and said, "They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid Him."

Mary: A Casual Glance

Mary saw the large stone taken away. She was one of the first to see what many would ultimately see, and what she saw compelled her to run. But her conclusion was, "They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb." That's the only thing she could fathom. Her observation led her to conclude that someone had opened the tomb and stolen the crucified body of Jesus.

That's seemingly a logical conclusion. The observable evidence would suggest it. She had seen Him on the cross, seen His dead body put into the tomb, seen the tomb closed. And dead men don't open tombs and leave them. So she concluded somebody had taken the body. Hers was a brief and inattentive consideration of the empty tomb, and everything she put together was logical: He didn't open it, He didn't rise—somebody else took the body.

Some of you watching may also have casually considered the story of the empty tomb and concluded the same thing as Mary—that some living people opened and stole the dead body of Jesus. That makes sense to a lot of people. But at the very least, the empty tomb requires a response. Mary went, and she told Peter and John.

Peter: The Investigation

Peter went out to investigate the evidence himself. He wanted to see these things for himself, which is a good and proper response. The testimony of the empty tomb demands further investigation. Peter heard from Mary that the tomb was open and empty, and he said, "I've got to look into these things myself."

You cannot be casual in your response to the story of the empty tomb, though many people are. The testimony requires more than an apathetic, indifferent response. So both John and Peter ran to the tomb—and of course John humbly tells us that he outran Peter.

John got there first, stooped down, looked in, and saw the linen cloths lying there, yet he did not go in. He saw more than Mary—the tomb was not only open but empty, and the grave clothes were there empty as well. But he didn't go in.

Then Simon Peter showed up. I love Peter in this whole situation, because I see myself in him. Peter could never be accused of being reserved or delicate. He's that proverbial bull in a china shop. John carefully looks inside, but Peter blows right past him into the tomb. He saw the linen cloths lying there, and the handkerchief that had been around Jesus's head not lying with them, but folded together in a place by itself—a very curious thing.

The Shift in the Greek

At this point there's a shift in the language that's totally invisible in English. When Mary saw the stone taken away, and when John stooped down and saw the linen cloths, the Greek word is bleppo, which means simply to clearly see a material object, to consider it with your eyes. They just see that the tomb is open and the grave clothes are empty.

But when Peter went into the tomb and saw the linen cloths and the folded handkerchief, it's a different word: theoreo. You may hear a hint of the English word theorize. Peter saw all the same things John did, but he's trying to put it all together, to understand and process what he is seeing. The investigation of the empty tomb compels deeper consideration.

You can have questions about the empty tomb—a lot of people do. You can even have doubts, because it would be abnormal for a man who died on a cross to no longer be there. People have theories: the body was stolen; or the so-called swoon theory, that Jesus wasn't really dead and revived, freed Himself from the grave clothes, rolled the stone away, and ran off by Himself after being beaten and crucified. You can have questions, doubts, theories, and objections. Even in the first century, when Paul preached the resurrection, there were people who said, "I don't believe in that sort of thing." But you cannot just passively move on from the testimony of the resurrection. Peter wasn't about to. He's trying to put all the puzzle pieces together.

John: He Saw and Believed

Then the other disciple, who came to the tomb first, went in also, and he saw and believed. For as yet they did not know the Scripture that He must rise again from the dead.

This fourth use of saw is the Greek word eido, which means to perceive, to discover, to pay attention, to know and to understand. It's the idea of gathering all the data, putting it together, and grasping the significance of what is going on. John saw the significance—he saw and believed.

The understanding of the empty tomb begs for a decision. For John, the decision was to trust and to believe. In this very gospel, John says his purpose for writing about the words and works of Jesus—the teaching, the "I am" statements, the miracles like healing the lame man at the pool of Bethesda and turning water into wine at Cana of Galilee—is that "you may believe that He is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name."

So John saw the empty tomb, and everything came together. He had seen Jesus crucified just a few days before on Good Friday, and now he believes. The evidence of all he had seen, along with the message he had heard and the miracles he had witnessed, supported his trust.

You Must Render a Verdict

You believe or don't believe, but you have to decide. There is no in between. There's no passivity, no dispassionate, apathetic indifference to the evidence of the empty tomb or the testimony of the eyewitnesses. Evidence and testimony—that's what we have. You're like a juror looking at the evidence and the testimony.

In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul says: "Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you... that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures." Not only did the Scriptures say He would die and rise, and not only did they record that He did—but Paul adds, "He was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve. After that He was seen by over five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain to the present"—they were still alive when Paul wrote this—"After that He was seen by James, then by all the apostles. Then last of all He was seen by me also."

The evidence and the testimony—what's your verdict? I suggest the most logical decision is trust and faith in the risen Christ, faith that God raised Him from the dead. That's the decision the testimony of the empty tomb brings you and me to. You'll have to decide what you're going to do with it, but you can't not do something with it.

We have three individuals who looked at the same evidence. Some people just casually look—bleppo. Some think more deeply and theorize—theoreo. And then there are those who come to an understanding—eido—that leads to a decision to put your trust in Jesus. On this Easter Sunday, 2000 years after these events, I hope you will not just casually glance with apathetic indifference, nor merely theorize, but that you will look into it and comprehend the evidence and the testimony of more than 500 witnesses whose lives were radically transformed by the fact that Jesus died on the cross, was buried in a tomb, and three days later rose from the dead, ascended into heaven, and one day will return.

Closing Prayer

Father God, we thank You for this celebration and for this great opportunity we have annually—not just to rejoice in the good work You did on the cross 2000 years ago, but to share this good news with others. Every single one of us interacts daily with people—friends, neighbors, coworkers, family members—who don't yet have hope in You for a future resurrection. If these things are true, as we believe they are, then this life is not all there is, and there is a future resurrection unto life to be with You for eternity.

God, I pray that You would compel us who know and believe these things to share them with others. And I pray that You would draw people to You, that as they think on these things, look into them, and come to an understanding of what the evidence and testimony prove, they would put their trust in You—the Christ, the Son of the living God. Draw people to faith in You on this Easter Sunday. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.