I Have Seen the Lord

Text: John 20:1-18

Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

          I’m guessing that you might not know the name Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin. But, during his day he was one of the most powerful men on earth. He was Russian, as you probably assumed based on his name. And he was a Communist leader who took part in the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. He was also an editor of the Soviet newspaper Pravda (which by the way means truth), and was a full member of the Politburo. His works on economics and political science are still read today. There’s a story told about a journey he took from Moscow to Kiev in 1930 to address a huge assembly on the subject of atheism. As he addressed the crowd he held nothing back as he took on Christianity head on. He hurled every insult, argument and proof that he could come up with against Christianity.

After an hour of this, he looked out at what assumed would be a people whose faith, if they had any to begin with, was shattered. And he said, “Are there any questions?” A deafening silence filled the auditorium until one man approached the platform and took a place behind a lectern standing next to the communist leader. He surveyed the crowd first to the left then to the right. Finally, he shouted the ancient greeting known well in the Russian Orthodox Church: “CHRIST IS RISEN!” With one voice, the crowd arose, and the response came crashing like the sound of thunder: “HE IS RISEN INDEED!”

I say to you this morning: CHRIST IS RISEN! (HE IS RISEN INDEED!, ALLELUIA!). I’m convinced! I have faith that Christ was dead, and he was buried. That I believe. But I’m also convince, and I believe to be true, that He rose from the dead and will come again in glory. And not just because it’s Easter Sunday morning, but because it’s the reality of faith to believe in that which to all human reason seems impossible. Through faith, it’s easy to believe and to confess. The truth is implanted in our hearts. It flows from our tongues. And it’s lived through our lives.

And yet, without faith, it would be impossible to believe, confess, or live. Those without this saving faith might say, “how do you know that the resurrection is real? How do you know that it really happened?” Wouldn’t you love to have been Mary Magdalene on that first Easter morning? Not the Mary who “came to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb.” That Mary would have had experienced the greatest fear and sadness a person could feel. And not the Mary who “stood weeping outside the tomb, and as she wept stooped to look into the tomb.” That Mary was seeking someone who wasn’t there. At least not as she thought she would find Him. And not even the Mary whose grief led her to say to the angels, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid Him.” I think who we’d like to be is the woman who turned around and saw a man she supposed to be the gardener, who with a tender voice comforted her with the words, “Woman, why are you weeping?” The woman who heard her Lord speak her name in love and who then recognized her Lord and Savior. This is the Mary that I think we would all love to have been. Who then “went and announced to the disciples,

“I HAVE SEEN THE LORD.”

          If we had been this Mary, or any of the other hundreds of witnesses to the physical resurrection of Jesus, how easy it would have been to believe, confess, and live in that resurrection reality. Unfortunately, we weren’t there on that first Easter morning. So how is it that we can believe in the resurrection? How is it that we can proclaim with confidence that our Savior lives?

I don’t know about you, but there are days when I’m more like the pre-dawn Mary than I am like the post-Jesus encounter Mary. Wondering how it could be true. Wondering where the Lord is, and why it feels like He’s left me all alone. These are natural emotions. Ones that even those with the strongest of faiths face on a regular basis. That separation from our Savior is a natural reflection of the distance that we put between ourselves and Him as a result of our sin. For those who have faith, and who nurture that faith through Word and Sacrament, these times can be few and far between, but we’ll still have them.

But Mary isn’t the only one whose reaction on Easter morning reflects our own throughout life. Peter came to the tomb that morning and saw the scene with a particular set of eyes. The word used for Peter’s sight as he gazed into the empty tomb is a seeing in the sense of a spectator looking on, perplexed but not yet able to grasp the meaning and significance. For many people today, seeing is not always believing. Truth which is presented is often rejected because we’re not ready, or able to believe that what’s in front of us is real. Especially when it comes to our faith. Our eyes are clouded by sin and unable to see the glorious truth, even when it’s right there in front of us. Many are here today, come to worship on Easter, where we hear and sing the Good News that “Jesus Christ is risen today.” But unfortunately, some will leave without taking this message to heart. Without truly believing it. Too often we remain skeptical, even when the evidence is in front of us.

Still there are others who will let the Good News go in one ear and out the other. Allowing it to reign in mind and heart for a moment, but ultimately failing to “hear the word of God and obey it”

But on that first Easter Sunday morning there was one other actor who saw the empty tomb and immediately knew what it meant and believed. John saw the puzzling details through the eyes of faith. Probably there was only one other time he had seen anything similar—when Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead, and they had unwrapped him. And John was led to the conclusion that Jesus had risen, as he said! John was, and is, a faithful eyewitness to the resurrection of Jesus. His witness is confirmed by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit which caused him to write the Gospel account we heard this morning.

Comparing the faith of one eyewitness to the resurrection to another is probably not the most helpful exercise. Except that it’s an excellent reminder that we’ve all come to faith, and been nurtured in that faith, in very real and personal ways. Some received that faith as an infant, gifted in the waters of baptism, strengthened by the witness of faithful parents and grandparents, and seemingly have never wavered from it. Others heard the Word at a later point in life and the Holy Spirit nurtured the seed that was planted, and God caused it to grow. Still others seek to be convinced by logical proofs that faith is foolish, and in the process have hearts and minds that are instead convinced that there’s no other logical conclusion than that the Lord is real and loves them with a love that knows no bounds.

Consider the case of Lee Strobel. Maybe you’ve heard of the author who wrote the book The Case for Christ. As a long time atheist with a background in journalism, Strobel set out to conduct extensive research into Christ with the help of religious and historical experts. His original intention for the project was to discredit the truth of Christ’s resurrection and to dissuade his recently converted wife from living a life of Christianity. What happened was exactly the opposite of his original intention. He would say later on that “for nearly two years, I explored the minutia of the historical data on whether Easter was myth or reality. I didn’t merely accept the New Testament at face value; I was determined only to consider facts that were well-supported historically. As my investigation unfolded, my atheism began to buckle.” In the end, Strobel, a man armed with logic, education, and skepticism, was finally convinced by the overwhelming evidence laid out in front of him and he completely embraced the truth not because he was afraid of death or needed a psychological crutch but because of the facts. 

God works faith in people in many and various ways. Sometimes it’s logic. Other times it’s the passionate witness of another believer. And other times we just can’t pinpoint exactly how the Holy Spirit is working in someone’s life. But one thing is absolutely certain. And that is that “Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the Word of Christ.” A faith not nurtured by God’s Word and strengthened through His sacraments is a faith that most certainly will stumble, and perhaps even fail. Which is why God has given us His church. Where the Word is faithfully preached, and the sacraments rightly administered.

God wants us to remember and believe all His promises in the Scripture for our life and salvation. And He wants us to live with the assurance that the risen Christ has gone to prepare a place for us where we will one day see him “face to face.” John’s entire gospel is written for the purpose “that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”

We’re richly blessed when we see and believe. And although we haven’t yet seen our risen Lord “face to face,” we have seen him with the eyes of faith, and by believing in him we have the assurance of eternal life. We each may have come by that faith in different ways, just as Mary, Peter, and John came to the conclusion of the truth differently on that first Easter morning. But having been given this gift of faith, we nourish it by feasting on God’s Word and receiving the fruits of His sacrifice in the Lord’s Supper. God assists us with the assurance of our faith as He gives us His Word and Sacrament. And through them, the Holy Spirit continues to enable us to see with the eyes of faith things which are “unseen and eternal.”

So, while it would have been amazing to be there with Mary, and Peter, and John, we too can proclaim, “I have seen the Lord.” Through the faith that gives us eyes to see the truth of His resurrection. And faith that will allow us too to stand up to skeptics, deniers, and naysayers, and boldly proclaim, CHRIST IS RISEN! (HE IS RISEN INDEED!, ALLELUIA!). Amen.

The peace of God which surpasses all understanding guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.