To Seek and To Hold

John 18:4-14; 20:1-18

Rocks Baptist Church, Pamplin, VA

Easter, 16 April 2006

We gather here for a reason. More to the point, we gather for many reasons. Ostensibly, we gather to worship. That is at least the official reason for our gathering together. We also gather because of habit, tradition, necessity, obligation, to avoid having our absence questioned, and other less spiritual reasons. All around the world, people are gathering today to worship and celebrate the resurrection. Even so, many claim to worship Jesus without ever submitting their lives to Jesus’ lordship. Many use Jesus as a poster-boy for some personal crusade—an icon to promote an agenda of their own design. They would force Jesus into the image they have created for him, rather than accepting him as he is. If we have conflicting reasons for gathering, might we be unclear on how we respond to the resurrected Lord?

In the Garden of Gethsemane, on the night of Jesus’ betrayal, Jesus asked the band of soldiers a rather obvious question. “Whom do you seek?” The answer was glaringly apparent. Why did it even need to be asked? The armed band already had the information they needed. Jesus already knew why they had come. What was the point of asking the obvious? Then he asked it again. If there was little sense in asking it the first time, why ask it again?

Jesus’ question was more than it seemed. At first glance, the question protected the disciples, granting escape by avoiding their arrest. Jesus’ words focused attention on himself, clarifying the purpose of the band come to take him prisoner. At first glance, this seems sufficient reason for the question. Jesus protected the disciples from arrest, torture, and death. Perhaps there was still more.

When the soldiers responded they sought Jesus of Nazareth, his answer was “I AM.” These words were sure to catch them off guard. It was an answer to their question, but it was more. The words here emphasize that Jesus was more than they sought. He was Jesus of Nazareth, but he was more than the man from Nazareth. Jesus does not say, “I am he,” nor “I am this Jesus,” nor even, “I am the one you seek.” His answer is simply, “I AM.”

Such words identify Jesus with the very name of Yahweh, God of Israel. Having clarified who they sought and who they found, the question left hanging was what they would do with the One they had found. What would they do with God, now that God was in their hands and submissive to their designs.

We know the story. We know how Jesus allowed himself to be led away, falsely accused, beaten, abused, scourged, and finally nailed to a cross. Dead at last, his body was surrendered for temporary burial in a new tomb near to Golgotha. There was not time for a proper burial, for the Sabbath was quickly approaching.

The disciples spent an anguished and depressing Sabbath without their master and Lord. It would appear that all they had longed for had been destroyed with Jesus’ death on the cross. Their lives had been spared, but their hope in Jesus had died on the cross with Him. They had so far escaped the fury of the Jewish religious leaders, but for what? They seemingly had no more reason to live.

The gospel of God’s reign seemed empty without their Messiah. “Love one another” had gotten Jesus killed and taken from them. How could a dead Messiah inaugurate God’s reign on the earth? The crowds who hailed Jesus with cries of “Hosanna” had been replaced by crowds demanding crucifixion. What did it matter that it was a different crowd? Jesus was just as dead, as was their hope for Messiah to restore the world to God’s reign of love and grace.

“Woman, why are you crying?” It would seem a strange question to ask at a grave site. Mary’s answer met a repeated question. “Woman, why are you crying? Whom do you seek?” Again the first question would seem completely unnecessary. She did not answer the question directly. Rather, Mary declared the intent of her quest. She had come to prepare Jesus’ body for proper burial. She expected there would be a need to remove Jesus’ body to an alternate location. She was trying to get on with the tasks at hand and work through her grief.

The last time Jesus had asked this question, he had been grasped and carted off by an armed band. Mary speaks of taking Jesus and carting him away. She did not have in mind the violence of arrest, and yet her words and intent are inadequate to the reality of Jesus’ resurrection. Like the guards in Gethsemane, she had not grasped the fullness of Jesus’ identity. Her plans for Jesus were too confining. They would not allow Jesus to fulfill his full identity and mission.

Jesus responds with grace. Mary was still concerned with a body. She believed Jesus dead and removed from her life. She was attempting to formalize and finalize the burial arrangements. She was not expecting Jesus to be alive. As the band in the Garden of Gethsemane, this woman in the garden near Golgotha had wrong expectations about Jesus.

Jesus calls her by name. He gently suggests that clutching him to cart away is as inappropriate as trying to retain his physical presence on earth. His is a greater purpose and mission than Mary had in mind. As the guards plans for Jesus did not account for his identity and mission, neither did Mary’s. His purpose now was to ascend to heaven, not to remain physically present on earth. Mary needed to allow Jesus to fulfill his mission and purpose, not to retain him for her own purposes.

As before, Jesus clarified his identity, this time his mission as well. He allowed the armed band to cart him off, because their task coincided with his plan and purpose at that moment. He disallowed Mary to cling to him when his mission called him elsewhere.

Mary came to the garden, seeking a corpse. She found a risen Lord. She called Jesus teacher on first recognizing him. Jesus was not satisfied with simply being a human teacher alive once again. He was not back simply to continue life as before. He was ready to move into a new relationship with the disciples. He had a mission to accomplish and a task for Mary as well.

On returning to the disciples with resurrection news, Mary’s words have new meaning. “I have seen the Lord,” is what she reports. Not the teacher raised from the dead, but the Lord in a fullness she had not known before. She was finally grasping Jesus full identity and allowing him to be truly Lord.

What about those of us gathered here today? Whom do we seek? Why do we seek him? What will we do with the resurrected Jesus Christ? More importantly, what will we allow him to do with us? Will we hold Jesus on his terms, or try holding him hostage to our designs?

—©Copyright 2006 Christopher B. Harbin

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