Resurrection Questions - Pt 3

But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb, and as she wept she stooped to look into the tomb. And she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one at the feet. They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” Having said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?” (John 20:11-15 ESV). There is a second important question that the risen Lord asks Mary, “Whom are you seeking?” He asks it even before she has a chance to answer the first question, because the answer to why she is weeping is found in the answer of whom she is seeking. Clearly, Mary was seeking a dead Lord. Her devotion to Jesus is wonderful; however, what good would it have done for Mary to have simply attended to the body of a dead Jesus by adding a few more spices for permanent interment? A dead religion that dresses up the corpse of a dead prophet does no good! Only a living Savior who has triumphed over the grave offers hope for our sorrows. If we will seek the crucified, risen, and ascended Savior, He turns our sorrows into hope. We should seek the crucified Savior. Mary knew that, of course. But she had forgotten that Messiah’s death was prophesied in the Scripture hundreds of years before He came. Jesus Himself said that He came to this world to lay down His life for His sheep (cf. John 10:11-18). If you do not know Jesus Christ, crucified for your sins, you do not know Him at all. God will forgive your sins because of what Jesus did on the cross. We should seek the risen Savior. Just as the Scriptures predicted that Jesus would die, so they predicted His resurrection. The resurrection is the key point in the work of Jesus that seals the promises of God to redeem and reclaim us as his children. It changes more than our destination; it changes our designation. We are now children of the King! We should seek the ascended Savior. We now have a Savior who is present at the right hand of the Father making known all of our needs. He has become our great high priest who endured all and paid the ultimate price for our deliverance. He is not merely a great teacher or religious leader; Jesus is our risen Savior seated in the heavens awaiting our time to be brought home! In our deepest sorrows, it is a great comfort that we have access to the Father through our risen Lord Jesus Christ! During World War II, a secret message got through to some American prisoners in a German concentration camp that the war was over. But it would be three days before that word got to their German captors. During those three days, nothing changed in terms of their hardships in the prison. But their attitude changed from despair to hope. They knew that they would be released because the Allies had won the war. Whatever your sorrows or trials today, you can have hope because Jesus won the victory over death. He has risen and He asks you the same questions that He asked Mary: “Why are you weeping?” “Whom are you seeking?” If through your tears, you will seek the risen Savior, He will turn your sorrows into hope.