The First Christian Guide – Encounters With Jesus 2024/25

Resources

Sermon Episode Link: https://sermons.hornsbyanglican.org.au/episodes/the-first-christian-encounters

Encounters With Jesus Book:

Copies are in the church or you can find it at one of these links:

Koorong: https://go.hornsbya.xyz/ewj-koorong

Amazon: https://go.hornsbya.xyz/ewj-amazon

Transcription

Please do open up, it’s to page 963.

And we’ve been going through Encounters with Jesus.

This is someone who encounters Jesus, the risen Christ for the very first time, the first person, John 20.

On the first day of the week, there’s a chapter 20 down the bottom there.

On the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early while it was still dark.

She saw the stone had been removed from the tomb.

So she went running to Simon Peter and to the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said to them, they’ve taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they’ve put him.

At that, Peter and the other disciple went out, heading for the tomb.

The two were running together, but the other disciple out ran Peter and got to the tomb first.

Stooping down, he saw the linen cloths lying there, but he did not go in.

Then following him, Simon Peter also came.

He entered the tomb and saw the linen cloths lying there.

The wrapping that had been on his head was not lying with linen cloths, but was followed up in a separate place by itself.

The other disciple who had reached the tomb first then also went in, saw and believed, for they did not yet understand the scripture that he must rise from the dead.

Then the disciples returned to the place where they were staying.

But Mary stood outside the tomb crying.

As she was crying, she stooped to look into the tomb.

She saw two angels in white sitting where Jesus’ body had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet.

They said to her, woman, why are you crying?

Because they’ve taken away my Lord, she told them, and I don’t know where they’ve put him.

Having said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know it was Jesus.

Woman, Jesus said to her, why are you crying?

Who is it that you are seeking?

Supposing he was the gardener, she replied, Sir, if you’ve carried him away, tell me where you’ve put him, and I will take him away.

Jesus said to her, Mary.

Turning around, she said to him in Aramaic, Rabboni, which means teacher.

Don’t cling to me, Jesus told her, since I have not yet ascended to the Father, but go to my brothers and tell them that I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.

Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, I’ve seen the Lord.

And she told them what he had said to her.

Well, we’re looking at various characters who have met Jesus, Encounters with Jesus.

And today, we see in John 10, we’re focusing on Mary, who encounters Jesus, Mary Magdalene.

But imagine this, this story, this encounter is essentially the first person who, who encounters the risen Jesus.

So in a way, she is literally at that moment, whether that’s written, she’s the only person in the world who has responded to Jesus, the first Christian.

Isn’t that astonishing?

And through our series Encounters with Jesus, we’ve been looking at various questions and answers to life.

Previously, we’ve seen, we’ve looked at, you know, where do we go for meaning?

What is wrong with the world?

Who is here to fix it?

All of these questions.

And this morning, in this story, this encounter of this woman, the first Christian, there’s the question or the question and answer that we’re kind of looking at is, how do we respond?

How are we to respond to God?

How do we respond to God?

Because in this story, we see, there’s a theme, one word theme of a response to God.

And it’s a simple word, it’s this, it’s faith.

Faith, which means trust.

And so this morning, we’re going to talk about faith.

Three things about faith.

How it’s impossible, how it’s rational, and how it’s personal.

So, faith is impossible, faith is rational, faith is personal.

Have a look, what do I mean?

Firstly, faith is impossible.

What do I mean?

I mean, in our flawed state, who we are in our spiritual sensibility, we actually cannot know God.

It’s impossible for us to know God without some outside help.

We can’t actually know God.

Why do I say this?

It’s actually in the story.

Have a look, Mary encounters Jesus at the tomb.

And as I said, at the end of the story, it’s The First Christian, but look where it starts.

Look at verse one.

In the story, we see about faith.

Have a look, on the first day of the week, Mary came to the tomb.

It’s still dark.

She saw the stone had been removed from the tomb.

In verse one, so at the tomb, the stone is rolled away.

And what is her conclusion?

What is Mary’s conclusion about the stone being rolled away, the empty tomb?

Now remember, Mary and others of Jesus’ disciples had followed Jesus for years and all through his life.

Jesus had said that he would be raised again, that he was going to die.

He told them, this is what my mission is.

I’m going to die and be raised again.

And he didn’t say it as kind of an aside.

Hey, by the way, just let me tell you, this is, he told them three times at pivotal moments in the Gospels.

Jesus told his disciples, yes, my mission, I’ve been teaching people about God.

Yes, that’s important.

Yes, I’ve been showing signs of God’s kingdom, I’m a miracle worker.

But my main mission, teacher, liberator, no, my main mission is I’ve come and I will die and I’ll be raised again.

This is his whole purpose.

It’s what he has come for.

And in fact, this claim, Jesus claimed that he would be die and raise again was so well known that you know that the enemies of Jesus had a guard stationed at the tomb.

This is in Matthew 27, if you want to look a bit later.

But there’s a guard, a Roman guard, a couple of guards stationed at the tomb.

So Mary, tomb empty, stone rolled away, knowing Jesus is going to be raised.

And she concludes what?

Have a look at verse 2.

They’ve taken the Lord out of the tomb.

She goes back to the supper and says, they’ve taken the Lord out of the tomb.

We don’t know where they’ve put him.

She doesn’t get what’s going on here.

And look at the rest of the story, just in case you’re not sure.

Look at what the disciples do.

Simon Peter, the other disciple comes to the tomb, verse 5.

They didn’t enter the tomb, but they end up wondering about the linen strips and what’s going on.

And look at verse 10.

The disciples returned to the place where they were staying.

So Peter, Mary, the disciples, they’re all wondering, hmm, what could happen?

I wonder what had happened.

He’s gone, there’s linen strips here.

They’re nicely placed, there’s an empty tomb.

The stone’s been rolled away.

There’s no guard.

What wonder what could have happened?

Could it be?

No.

Could it be?

No.

Thomas, the skeptic, the famous skeptic, you’ll know he says, unless I see nails in Jesus’ hands and put my hands up, I’m not gonna believe.

All throughout the gospels, all throughout the story, what is common, every encounter with the risen Jesus.

This is not just in John, it’s in Luke, it’s in Matthew.

We don’t have time to go through all of it, but it’s there again and again, the resurrected Jesus.

People need to be convinced again and again and again.

This narrative is showing us faith is impossible.

That is in our own flawed state, our own spiritual sensibility.

This is why, look at verse 9, this is why it says here, look, they did not yet understand the scriptures that He must be raised from dead.

They needed their eyes to be opened.

And this is why faith is impossible.

All of us need someone to drop the veil, to suddenly see.

Now, what does this mean for us practically if faith is impossible?

Just a couple of things.

Practically, if faith is impossible, it means, well, firstly, if you’re the kind of person who’s a bit of a sceptic and you think, I’m a bit interested in Christianity, but I like to think, I like to make up my mind.

I’m going to kind of go through a bit of the evidence.

I’m going to kind of understand, you know, what’s going on.

And then I might come to faith.

You actually, you actually won’t get there.

You actually won’t get it.

Because it’s not just about you.

You actually need to have your eyes open to the truth.

Listen, listen to this.

Thomas Nagel, he’s an American philosopher.

He’s a secular atheist.

This is what he says about God.

I want atheism to be true.

I am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers.

It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God and naturally hope I’m right in my belief.

I hope there is no God.

I don’t want there to be God.

I don’t want a universe to be like that.

My guess is this cosmic authority problem is not a rare condition.

You know what he’s saying?

He’s saying, I actually want there to be no God.

I hope, not just I hope I want there to be no God, but he has an inkling there might be a God.

And what if there is a God?

And that’s a bit of a problem.

In other words, he’s saying there’s no objective way that we look at the data and the evidence and we say, yes, there’s a God, no, there’s not a God.

We’re not being objective.

You see, he’s saying we have all of these reasons why it’s important and we hope that there isn’t a God.

Because some people say about Christians and about God, some of it’s wish fulfilment.

Some people say, you know, we just hope that there is a God so there’s eternal life and it’s all projection, wish fulfilment, that kind of thing.

But you see, there are enormous amounts of emotional and psychological reasons to not believe in God.

Because if he’s there and he’s the holy God and the good God, he might have some claim on my life.

And so what if faith is impossible and one of the practicalities of that is, if you’re considering God and you are a skeptic and you’re at that level and you’re kind of thinking, sure, well, maybe God’s there.

Maybe it means what it means is if faith is impossible, you can’t get it yourself.

It means you have to begin to at least at least doubt your doubts.

You know, you’ve got to at least recognise you can’t be objective.

Maybe you had a religious parent that you disliked or there’s some Christians that you know, or some experience with church and you didn’t like it.

It wasn’t very nice, wasn’t very good.

Unfortunately, that can happen.

Big, just be honest with God.

You have to know that Christianity is not a philosophical thing.

It’s a relationship you enter in with the living God.

And you can start with a prayer, God, I don’t know if you’re there, but I recognise I have the least prejudices.

I recognise I have all of this stuff in the way.

Maybe show me who you are.

The other implication, practicality of faith is impossible.

We can’t know God through ourselves.

Because there are plenty of us who have doubts.

We wonder, I’m interesting Christian, my motives aren’t right.

I want to love God more.

The great news is, the faith doesn’t come from you.

The great news is, you know, in the Emmaus Road, the disciples remember are talking to Jesus on the Emmaus Road, all through for hours and hours.

And then at the end, it says, they didn’t know who it was.

And then at the end of the passage, it says they needed their eyes to be opened.

The very fact that we feel we need to know God more, God knows us, He is near to us.

Faith is impossible, but to balance it out, the second point, to make sure, because there’s a counterpoint here, because faith, at some level, faith is rational.

Faith is rational.

Because we’ve spent a bit of time talking about faith as this supernatural thing.

And most people think of faith, they think, well, there’s faith over here, it’s in this bucket, and then there’s rationality over here.

And they’re two separate things.

And you might even say something like, you just have to have faith.

You just have to believe.

People tend to think that about Christianity and religious stuff.

But you see, in the stories, as we’re going through, rationality is required.

There’s actually faith.

They don’t just come to believe.

Notice, we’ve already seen, that Mary has all these alternatives.

They’ve taken the body.

Where have they taken him?

Peter and the other disciples just go back to their home.

They’re not even interested.

In Luke 23, we haven’t got time to go through it, but Luke 23, Jesus comes to the disciples, and they come up with all these alternative theories.

They go, it was a ghost.

And then Jesus begins eating with them.

Maybe it’s something else.

Time and time and time again, people have all of these issues, and they can’t get to God.

Have a look at verse 11.

Let’s go back to Mary.

Mary, she in contrast, those disciples that went back home, look at verse 11.

She stays outside the tomb crying, and she steps inside to look inside the tomb, and there are two angels, and they ask, why are you crying?

Now, what does she come up with?

Again, they’ve taken away my Lord.

I don’t know where they’ve put him.

Now, look at what happens.

Verse 14, Jesus is there with us.

She’s standing there with Jesus, and he says, why are you crying?

And what does she think?

She goes, this is the gardener.

Oh, if you’ve taken the body away, can you please tell me where the body is?

Verse 15, later on in John 21, you can have a quick scoot look there.

John 21, they’re fishing and daybreak comes.

It’s actually daybreak.

Someone’s on the shore and it’s Jesus speaking to his disciples.

And you notice in verse four, they didn’t realize who it was.

They can’t see who it is.

Time and time and time again, people meet the resurrected Jesus over 40 days.

Jesus says in Acts, they have to be told again and again and shown again and again and again and again.

The reality of Jesus.

Because none of them ever stop.

In all the gospel accounts, none of them ever stop and say, oh wait, that’s right.

Jesus is going to be raised again.

They all need rationality.

They need to be convinced again and again and again.

They need to understand what has happened in this world.

They need to see that the world has changed.

Their whole world view is being shattered.

And why I say this is because it’s tempting for us as 21st century Western people to think, well, you know, those Christians, they’re primitive people.

Jesus would have turned up and he appeared and straight away they believed.

They’re superstitious people.

They easily believe this kind of thing.

The problem is they’re just as incredulous as us.

They are, they’re not experiencing easy belief here.

They just straight away, they need multiple sightings.

They need eyewitness accounts.

They need Jesus to appear again and again and again and again.

My point is that there’s a rationality behind this faith.

There are independent eyewitness accounts of what happened to Jesus.

Have you noticed that in the Gospels, John, this first witness is a woman?

Now, today it’s different, but women can’t testify in court, in a Roman court.

This is a Roman court or a Jewish court at that particular time.

Do you think, why is this in here?

Unless it actually happened.

And there’s actually, this is really what happened.

And the eyewitnesses are writing down, Mary’s writing down, this is what happened to me.

You see, there’s this rationality behind it.

You can look at all of the Gospel accounts and look at all the eyewitness accounts and see that there is a strengthening of faith and a boosting of faith.

Years ago, I had some time in my hands for various reasons, and I got to read a book called Jesus and the Eyewitnesses.

And it was an incredible boost to faith because it went through all of the eyewitness accounts and showed them all, Matthew, Mark, Luke, Luke and John, and showed how they all line up and how all the different names in the Gospels are all connected to different people that were alive when they were written.

And it showed through all of this archaeology and dating that all of these different people were alive at different times.

And so these were eyewitness accounts that you could read and if you happened to get to Mary, you could go, Oh, I know Mary, she lives in, and you could go and check with her.

And it’s why in the Gospels, you have different people in different accounts, seeing Jesus at different times.

And it was a great boost to faith to read that book, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, strengthen your faith as a Christian by questioning, looking through the evidence of the Gospels, understanding God and what He has done.

Faith is impossible, as in you can’t get there on your own.

But it’s more so it’s more than rationality, but it’s not less than that.

Mature faith includes intellectually loving God with all your heart, mind, soul, spirit.

Faith is impossible.

Faith is rational.

But lastly, faith is personal.

Faith is personal.

That is, God comes to us by his grace.

And when God gets a hold of you, there’s no turning back and there’s no nothing that I can say that will stop you.

There’s nothing that other people can say that will stop you.

It comes personally.

There are many times in the Bible when God confronts his people and he uses questions to Jonah.

He says, do you have the right to be angry to Adam in the garden?

He says, where are you and how do you know your shame?

Look at what Jesus’ good counsellors ask questions, right?

They don’t tell people how to do stuff.

They ask questions to help people recognise truth.

And look at what Jesus says to Mary.

He says, why are you crying?

Verse 14, sorry, verse 15, but look at what he says after that.

Who are you looking for?

What are you looking for in life?

What will fill you up?

And all through John’s Gospel, we didn’t go into this, but at the start of John’s Gospel, if you remember, this question comes up again and again.

Who are you looking for?

Some people come following Jesus later on.

Jesus turns around to them and says, what are you looking for?

Who are you looking for?

Remember the woman in the well, which we saw a few weeks ago.

What Jesus is asking her about her spiritual fulfilment.

Where does she get thirst in life?

What is it that’s gonna fill her?

Jesus asks this question to Mary, who are you seeking?

What do you think will give you fulfilment?

What is it in life that you think, if I can just get that, then I’ll be happy?

Carson asks, Don Carson says about this question that Jesus asks.

He says this, it’s an invitation to Mary to widen her horizons and recognise grand as her devotion to Jesus was, her estimate was far too small.

Who are you looking for?

Mary is still looking for a dead Jesus.

You’re still looking for someone who is just too small?

Look at what actually breaks open Mary’s heart here, because Mary isn’t there yet.

He’s asked the question, who are you looking for?

Why are you crying?

Mary’s seen the stone, the tomb clothes, but what actually breaks her open?

You see, in John 10, Jesus says, His sheep is the good shepherd.

Jesus’ sheep will follow Him.

Why will they follow Him?

Because they know My voice.

And I had pointed out to me for someone in the congregation the other week about how Jesus had one word when he got to the tomb.

Do you remember with the man in the tomb and the word was Lazarus?

And look at what he says to Mary.

What does he say in verse 16?

Mary, can you imagine, can you imagine her joy at just hearing, hearing him say her name?

Because faith is always personal, real faith, like as in not individual, but for you.

Do you understand that?

That if you believe that God, that Jesus died to forgive people in general, and that’s great, but you’ll never, you’ll never understand what you really deserve and the lengths to which God has done for you.

She was looking for a dead Jesus, she was thinking about theology or looking for that kind of thing, but then Jesus turns to her and says, it’s for you, Mary, for you.

And consider that this person, Mary, this is Mary Magdalene, consider who she is.

Is this an accident?

She’s the first Christian by faith, by grace.

She is a woman, not a man.

She is a reformed mental patient.

She’s not a pillar of the community.

This is who she is.

She was part of the support team.

She’s not part of the main 12.

Is it any clearer about God and grace that he’s saying to this one, first, this is the first person, the first one he called, he’s saying Mary.

Because if you think, if you think you’re not that bad, if you think, well, you know, Jesus died for me to forgive my sins.

It’s kind of a general thing.

You, you’ll never get how much, how much he’s loved you.

You see, it’s the, as far down as he goes, as far up is God’s love and what Jesus has done.

If you think you’re not that bad, you’ll think Jesus, you’ll think of Jesus then generally as a teacher.

And maybe if you’re on the right wing, you’re kind of conservative, you’ll think, I need a teacher, someone who tells me morals, and I need to understand how to live.

And if, if Jesus gives me all these teachings and that’s great, or you’ll think of Jesus as a liberator, someone who came to help poor people and to socially change things and to do miracles and things like that, that’s on the left side.

But you won’t see, you’ll see Jesus as a liberator, you’ll see him as a teacher, you won’t see him as a saviour.

A shepherd who calls your name, who knows about those individual things like he knows Mary.

And he says, come, he says, come, come and, come and rest with me.

My burden is light.

A real Christian is someone who knows, believes, is not just head believe, but trusts truly, personally, that Jesus has died for them, his substitution for you and me, and that he is the resurrected king.

The gospel is, yeah, we are that bad, but Jesus is that glad to have died for us.

And then you think, what about your service of Jesus and Mary’s service of Jesus?

How do we get motivated to serve him?

Look at what it says in verse 17.

We’ll finish here.

Don’t cling to me.

Jesus told her, I’ve not yet ascended to the father, but go to my brothers, tell them I’m ascending to my father and your father, my God and your God.

Jesus is saying to Mary, my God and your God, where the other is saying, my father is your father.

You now, I’m going to have to go, I’m going to send the Spirit and it will convict you and it will comfort you of God’s love.

It will remind you of what you’ve done, of what I’ve done for you.

Now, if you think, what does that do for Mary to be someone who lives in service of God, to know that she is loved by God and the grace of God and what he has done for her?

That will set her on a course for the rest of her life, to be someone who loves people because of what Jesus has done, who shares grace because of what Jesus has done.

Just lastly, as we finish, notice in the gospels, and you’ll notice in John, that there are no two people come to the same way in God.

Notice Mary, she’s emotional, she’s kind of, but then there’s Thomas later on.

All of these people have different ways, but they all come to know God and to recognise that God is the one who gives them faith.

Faith is impossible, it’s rational, and it’s personal.

Let’s pray.

Father, we thank you for the Lord Jesus.

We thank you for these accounts of these people.

Centuries ago, handed down to us, accounts of people who saw him, who heard him.

And as John says at the end of his Gospel, blessed are those who do not see and who do not hear, but have faith and who trust.

We ask be your blessing upon us to see more of your grace, to live this week in light of your great love, to recognise if faith is impossible, if it’s grace only, then no one is too far gone.

Everyone can come to know you.

And help us be your stewards this week of your grace, in Jesus name.

Amen.