A friend recently ordered us seafood takeout from a specific place that he liked because it doesn’t use imitation crab in its dishes like other places often do. He wanted the real thing. If you’re visiting a friend for a few days and he tries to pass off turkey bacon as the real thing at breakfast well, that might just be enough to rethink who your friends are. You might be able to fool an amateur with a generic brand of clothing, but someone who knows their stuff can tell if it’s not a designer label. Even with AI on the rise, AI-generated images often still have glitches that reveal them to be fake. While their are some pretty good attempts at imitating the real thing, for the most part we still have the ability and means to be able to distinguish between what is real and what is fake.
Nowhere does that matter more than on Easter Sunday. On Easter, Christians of every nation, tribe, and language gather together to celebrate the most significant event in human history: the resurrection of Jesus. If this event is not real, if it is in fact made up or a complete fake, well then, what Paul wrote in First Corinthians 15 is soberingly true: our faith is useless and we are still stuck in the damning reality of our sin. If the Resurrection of Jesus Christ isn’t REAL, then neither is forgiveness, grace, or eternal life. Instead, we’d be destined to find out just how real hell is. Without those realities, the only thing that would be REAL would be our hopelessness.
This would be a great place to reference the number of convincing proofs that strongly support the reality of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. But I’m going to skip right over that in this post (besides, you can always just google it). Why? For one, because John’s account recorded for us simply doesn’t read like the stuff of made-up fairy tales. It’s an unblemished look at flawed participants who not only could have painted themselves in a much more favorable light if this was all fake, but also would not likely have included so many unnecessary details.
But there’s another reason I’m not going to spend more time making a case to prove how plausible the Resurrection really is. Because the Resurrection isn’t the real issue for most skeptics. No, the resurrection is actually not so implausible… if one acknowledges there actually is a God.
After all, if there is a divine being, an entity who created and oversees and governs all things, then Jesus being raised from the dead wouldn’t be much of a stretch at all for God to pull off, would it? No, the real issue isn’t the resurrection, but whether or not there is a God behind it. So rather than spending time trying to prove the Resurrection, we simply proclaim it. We testify to it, and we let God show us the difference in made in people’s lives that first Easter and still today.
The question I want to focus on is the one asked of Mary to help her uncover the real significance of what has happened. The angels asked it first. “They asked her, ‘Woman, why are you crying?’” (v.13). Now angels aren’t omniscient, but one would not have needed the sleuthing skills of a Sherlock Holmes to figure out why Mary might have been crying. The answer was really quite obvious. Nevertheless, Mary provided the reason. “‘They have taken my Lord away,’” she said, ‘and I don’t know where they have put him’” (v.13). Mary was saddened by the obvious lack of Jesus’ body in the place where she had seen him laid. He wasn’t where he was supposed to be so that she could carry out her last act of humble service for her Savior.
Immediately on the heels of her answer, Mary turns and is asked right away again by a man she takes to be the keeper of the garden, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?” (v.15). Had he not been within earshot to hear the response she had literally just given? Was it really necessary to repeat the exact same question?
It was. But not for the angels’ sake, because they might have somehow missed her answer. And not for Jesus’ sake, who doesn’t ask questions for his own sake, but for the sake of others. No, the question was asked – and repeated – for Mary’s sake. It was really asked to set the stage for the revelation of the greatest miracle that has ever taken place in the history of the world: the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead!
Mary was not really in much of an emotional state of mind to consider the significance of the question that had been asked twice of her. From her vantage point, she saw nothing unnatural at all about the tears she was shedding. She had wanted to honor her Jesus by properly caring for his beaten and bloodied body. It was a simple thing, but it was something she longed to do. So when there was no crucified corpse in the tomb, her heart sank. In the end, she didn’t care about why the body of her Jesus was not there or who was behind it – she just wanted to know where it was, so she pleaded for the man she thought was the gardener to point her in the right direction.
But we can consider how remarkable the question really was, for we know why there was no body in the tomb. Christ had risen! Death could not detain him! Hell could not hold him!
Knowing that, when we consider the question asked of Mary, it leads us to realize how backwards everything really was that first Easter morning. The only crying at Jesus’ empty tomb that would have made any sense would have been tears shed in sheer joy!
Tears of grief or sorrow would only have been appropriate if the body was still in the tomb, wrapped in the linens and covered in the cloth. But John goes out of his way to spell out that detail for us – there was no body – just the coverings. Therefore, there was no reason to cry! Had Jesus still been dead, had Mary and the other women and Peter and John all arrived at the tomb that Sunday morning to see what they expected to see – the dead body of Jesus – then there would have been reason to cry! A dead Jesus would have been reason to cry uncontrollably because it would have meant no Easter. No Resurrection. No victory over death. No forgiveness. No salvation. That would have been cause for tears!
Because we’d still be in our sin. We’d have reason every day of our lives to absolutely dread death and be terrified of when it might strike us at any moment. Because we’d know deep down inside that we’d finally have to answer for our past and we’d be left to what rightfully awaited us: hell. Condemnation. The punishment our daily sins deserve.
But since Jesus wasn’t in the tomb, we see the question asked of Mary in a different light! He lives – really! He’s risen – really! It really happened! So then… why was she crying???
It’s a good question for us to ask ourselves. Why are you crying? Maybe the tears are literal, physical tears that run down your cheeks. Maybe it is just a sad, heavy heart – one that you might hide well from others, but still carry with you wherever you go. What is the cause of it? What is pressing down, weighing on you heavily?
It is so easy for us to downplay this Easter stuff in favor of “real” issues we have to deal with. Sure, we’ll do the Easter Sunday thing. We’ll sing a familiar Easter hymn or two, probably followed by a brunch. The family photo of everyone all dressed up has been taken. The kids will have snatched up their eggs filled with candy. Perhaps we have Sunday afternoon or evening plans with family or friends. Yes, it will all be a nice little escape from the daily grind of life.
But then it’s right back to real problems on Monday morning, if not sooner. Another Easter will have come and gone, but the real problems still remain. The money going out exceeds the money coming in but those bills and debts don’t care. That means I still have to show up at a job I hate, working with people I don’t care for. The roof still leaks. The car is still having trouble. I can’t figure out what is behind my child’s recent behavior. Being single is wearing thing. Depression and anxiety are real. There’s the health issue I’m putting off because if I go to the doctor I know it’s going to be something that I just can’t handle right now. I’m still crawling through so many firsts without a loved one in my life. So many “real” issues!
But that’s the point of asking the question. If Jesus really rose, then why are you crying? Let’s not so quickly default to the “yeah, but’s…” as we breeze past Easter. Enough with the “real” problems that we don’t see how Easter could ever fix.
Jesus REALLY rose and it REALLY matters more than anything else on your mind right now. Yes, it may feel like the boulder-size problems plaguing you right now are slowly crushing you – and Jesus doesn’t diminish those problems! In fact, it’s just the opposite! The One who denied eternal death its claim on him by REALLY rising from the dead is the same One to assure you he’s here to handle the other stuff! If Jesus Christ can unloose hell’s grip and deny its rightly-deserved demand on our souls for our track record of more sins than we could ever possibly count, then Jesus Christ REALLY can deliver us from anything and everything else we’ll ever face!
Do you hear Jesus asking you what he asked Mary? “Why are you crying? Why are you worried about ______?” No, he’s not diminishing your REAL problems at all; rather, he’s amplifying the significance of what we celebrate at Easter! With his “Why are you crying,” Jesus was stacking up all of our worldly concerns right next to the reality of his Resurrection and showing us how small they suddenly appear!
Yes, those things are REAL problems, but the Resurrection is also REAL. If death and hell could not prevail against Jesus, is he so weak to rise from the dead only to turn around and succumb to your much smaller problems? Of course not! He’s risen – really! He lives – really! And his promise to you who have been freed from the damnation of your sin is that he can – and will – also handle the smaller things.
He’s risen – really! Why are you crying? May the only tears we shed be tears of joy over how small and insignificant our worries begin to appear when stacked up against the enormity of Jesus’ resurrection!
Christ is risen! He is risen indeed, Alleluia!