A Whole New Life
John 20:1-18[1]
When we think of the promise that through Jesus we have
eternal life, I think most of us picture some kind of heavenly existence in the
next life. And I would be willing to bet that our images of that next life are
as varied as each person in this room. My favorite image of that life is a
cabin in the mountains, where I’m surrounded by all the people I’ve loved, as
well as all the dogs I’ve loved, and we get to enjoy the beauty of that place
forever. Of course, a part of that dream is that I finally get the chance to
learn how to play the guitar the way I’ve always wanted to. And likely there’s
a bicycle or two around!
Our hopes for that life are important. But I think an even
more important promise of our faith, especially in John’s Gospel, is that we
have a whole new quality of life right here and right now. I mentioned recently
that I’ve wrestled with what that looks like for 40 years. Mainly because in my
opinion there are people out there making promises in God’s name about what we
can expect from “new life” right here and right now that God never made! Having
“eternal life” or a “whole new life” here and now doesn’t mean that all of a
sudden our lives are all sunshine and rainbows. At least not in my experience!
I think our Gospel lesson for today helps us with that
question, although it’s going to take some doing to get us there. Our lesson
for today tells us a very different Easter story from the one we’re used to.
We’re used to the story that the women who went to the tomb to take care of
Jesus’ body properly were met by an angel (or angels) who announced to them
immediately that Jesus had risen from the dead. But as a matter of fact, there
is no such announcement in our Gospel lesson. In fact, there’s no such
announcement in John’s Gospel at all! Instead of hearing that Jesus had risen
from the dead, everyone in John’s Gospel experiences the living Christ. In
John’s Gospel, the good news of Easter is not “He is risen!” but rather “I have
seen the Lord!” (Jn 20:18).
That’s because in this Gospel, it was no angel who revealed
the miracle of Jesus’ resurrection, but Jesus himself. Although Mary Magdalene
was the first to see that the stone had been rolled away, it was Peter and the
“disciple whom Jesus loved” who first entered the tomb. After the two disciples
left wondering about what had happened, Mary returned to mourn. At this point
Jesus himself appeared to her, but she didn’t recognize him. The scene is
tender and touching. Jesus asks, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you
looking for?” (Jn 20:15). At first, like some of the others who met the risen Jesus,
Mary didn’t recognize him. In fact, she thought that maybe he was the one who
tended the garden in which the tomb was located. She also thought that maybe
this gardener had taken Jesus’ body. But she had no idea that she was speaking
to Jesus himself.
Until Jesus simply called her name. All he had to do to cut
through the fog of her grief and confusion was to speak her name: “Mary!” And
she immediately recognized him. It reminds me of something Jesus said earlier
in John’s Gospel: “I am the good shepherd. I know my own, and my own know me”
(Jn 10:14) and “My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me” (Jn
10:27). All Mary had to do to recognize Jesus was to hear him calling her name.
And when she returned to the others, she simply told them, “I have seen the
Lord!”
What Jesus said to Mary may leave us scratching our heads:
“I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God” (Jn
20:17). We may wonder why it was so important for him to “ascend to the Father.”
In John’s Gospel the ascension fills out the picture of what Jesus did for us
to give us a “whole new life.” We may think of that simply in terms of his dying
on the cross. Or we may think in terms of his dying and rising again. But
that’s not the full picture, not in John’s Gospel. What Jesus does to offer us
a whole new life begins with the fact that he is the one who was God and
was with God from “the beginning,” but he came to be God with us
in human flesh. And in John’s Gospel, that means he can give us the life that only God
gives (Jn 5:26). That’s where it starts.
But beyond that, Jesus said he would be “lifted up” so that
everyone who believes may “have life” in him (Jn 3:14-15). A part of that means
being lifted up on the cross. I think he did that to give us an example of what
love looks like as our inspiration for life. But more than that, Jesus had to
be lifted up to new life by rising on that Easter morning to break the fear of
death that held us in its relentless grip. And in our lesson for today, we
learn that Jesus also had to be lifted up to the right hand of God the Father.
In John’s Gospel, what Jesus does to give us a “whole new life” is a complete
picture: he becomes one of us, he offers his life for us, he rises from the
dead, and he returns to the right hand of God.
We might be able to get the rest of it, but I’m not sure we
understand why it was so important for Jesus to “ascend to the Father.” But I
think what Jesus said to Mary meant that he must return to the Father so that
his Father could be their Father, and his God could be their God. I think what that
means is that he had to complete the work of ascending to the Father so that
they could share the same relationship with the Father as he did. In John’s
Gospel, one of the most important aspects of the “whole new life” that Jesus
gives us is that we are embraced in the relationship of love that the Father
has shared with the Son and the Spirit for all eternity. That was the goal of
all that Jesus did to give us a whole new life. Living in a relationship of
love with God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit is what “eternal
life” here and now looks like in John’s Gospel.
That might sound like something that’s beyond our grasp,
and I would agree with you in part. But I would ask you to think about the
difference it makes in your life to know that you’re loved by someone. Now take
that and put yourself in the picture as being embraced eternally by the love
that Father, Son, and Spirit always share. I don’t know about you, but for me,
that love means everything. It means that even when we may feel alone in this
world, we're never really alone. It means that even when we may feel rejected in
this life, we always have a home in the love of God where we know that we're accepted. I believe that kind of love makes a whole new life possible for every
one of us here and now, and every day.
[1] ©
2023 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 4/9/2023 for Hickman
Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.
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