Seeing and Believing

John 20: 1-18

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb.

So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them,“They have taken the Lord out of the tomb,

and we do not know where they have laid him.”

Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first,

also went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. Then the disciples returned to their homes.

But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other 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.”

When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there,

but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.”

Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples,

“I have seen the Lord”; and she told them that he had said these things to her.

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There were no witnesses to the resurrection. Literally – not one. All we have are the stories people passed on from the stories people told about going to the tomb, seeking the body of the crucified Jesus, and not finding what they expected.

The stories varied, as eyewitness accounts often do. We can’t read them all and take them literally, because they don’t all fit together. They conflict with one another. But each of the stories, whether they are told in the gospels according to Matthew, Mark, Luke or John, tell us about Christ’s followers, men and women, who all expected to see one thing on that Easter morning and instead, saw something entirely different. And that seeing, in one way or another, led them to believe on that Easter morning that resurrection happened – that Jesus was alive.

We heard the Easter story this morning as it is captured in the gospel according to John. Here we have Mary Magdalene, getting up before dawn, if in fact she had slept at all, given the sorrowful events of the past few days. It was dark, and it was probably hard for her to see her way into the garden where she had seen Jesus being laid in a tomb by Joseph of Arimathea.

We aren’t told in this gospel story exactly why she was going to the tomb. In some of the other gospels they identify specifically the names of a group of women, including Mary Magdalene, and what they were bringing with them, in order to anoint and prepare his body. But in John’s story, Mary seems to be going by herself, and apparently she is carrying nothing with her. She just needs to be there.

And when she gets there, what she sees is that the stone has been removed from the tomb. She doesn’t look any further, or wait to contemplate what she has seen.

She takes off running.

She runs to find Simon Peter, and another unnamed disciple, probably John, and she says to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.”So the two disciples head off toward the tomb, also running.

Apparently they outrun Mary, and the unnamed disciple gets there, and bends down to look inside. And he sees linen wrappings lying there. He doesn’t go any further. By that time Simon Peter has arrived, and he goes into the tomb.

We are told he, too, sees the linen wrappings lying there, and something more – he sees the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, rolled up separately and set down.

Then the first disciple went in as well, and the story tells us that “he saw and believed.”

At that point, for whatever reason, this story version tells us that the two disciples turn around, and go back to their homes, and they leave Mary standing there, weeping.

When she bends over to look into the tomb, she sees something there that neither disciple had seen – two angels. They are sitting in the tomb. One is at the head, and one is at the foot.

It sounds like they were bookending the place where Jesus’ body was laid. The angels speak to her. “Woman, why are you weeping?” Her response to them tells us that she still believes Jesus is dead, and someone has taken away his body.

And just when she has said this, she turns around, and sees someone standing there in the early morning light. We have no way of knowing how dark it still was then, but what we do know from the storyteller is that this was Jesus standing there, and she does not know it.

Jesus says the same words as the angels: “Woman, why are you weeping?” and then continues by asking her whom she is looking for. Perhaps he is trying to shift her focus from seeking a dead body to seeking someone alive.

She doesn’t see him as Jesus. In her mind, Jesus is dead, and anyone who is alive in this garden at this moment must be able to tell her something about what has happened to his body. She says to this man, whom she assumes must be the gardener – who else would be in this garden at this early hour of the morning? – “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.”

How politely she speaks to someone she thinks might have robbed this grave.

And it’s not until she hears Jesus call her by name – “Mary” – that she sees with new eyes, with eyes of faith, that Jesus is there, right in front of her. Jesus is alive!

Jesus tells her to go tell the disciples what she has seen, and that he is ascending to “his Father and her Father, his God and her God”. And Mary goes off running again, I’m sure,

and when she finds the disciples she tells them, “I have seen the Lord”.

There are times in Scripture when our English translations just can’t do justice to the details and nuances of the words that were originally written down in Greek. And that is the case throughout the gospel of John, and especially in this passage, when the word that we have translated as “saw” – or to see or to look – is found. There are four different Greek words in this short passage that are all translated into “see” in English, but they have different meanings that are important to the story.

The Greek word “blepei” means to “just see” – it refers to visual sight, but with no indication of comprehension about what is being seen.  When Mary first saw the open tomb, and when the first disciple saw the linen wrappings, this for them was a “blepei” sighting – seeing without understanding.

But when Simon Peter went into the tomb, he “observed” the linen wrappings. The Greek word used here was “thay –o - rei” – to look with concentration, to behold, to focus in on. And yes, you can hear the foundation of the word theory or theorem in there. But still, there is no spiritual insight indicated through this word.

It’s used two other times in this passage: Mary observed the two angels; and Mary initially observed Jesus as the gardener. So Peter and Mary, in each of these sentences, observed, focused in and concentrated, but with no spiritual insights.

The other two Greek words that are translated into the English word “saw” were both words that meant seeing and understanding – that sort of understanding that leads to real faith.

The words are “eiden” and “horan”. When I was researching this, I sent a message to our own Jodie Horan, a member of this congregation, to tell him that his name, “Horan”, in Greek, meant “seeing with the eyes of faith after the resurrection”. How cool is that?

So when the “other disciple” (not Simon Peter, but the other one) went into the tomb, and “saw and believed” – that was horan sight – the kind of seeing that leads to faith. And when Mary ran off to find the disciples, when she said to them – “I have seen the Lord!” – well, that was horan sight as well.

So seeing with horan  sight - the eyes of faith – after the resurrection… what does it take for us to see like that? To see and believe? We do not have the physical evidence that these eyewitnesses had. But from this story, it appears that it took more than physical evidence for them to understand in their hearts, and believe.

Mary needed to hear Jesus call her by name.

The travelers who encountered Jesus on the road to Emmaus spent the whole day with him, but only recognized him when he sat down with them for dinner, took bread, and blessed and broke it – then their eyes were opened and they recognized him. Horan sight. The eyes of faith, after the resurrection. Seeing with new eyes.

In the risen Christ, God has given us a gift that can never be fully understood, completely unwrapped. Through the resurrection, God has released us to new life, to more fully live. This new life can only be seen with new eyes, with eyes of faith, and when we focus in, when we believe, we begin to understand that seeing Christ in the world and in our lives has nothing to do with what we see right in front of us.

Recognizing Christ with eyes of faith, resurrection eyes, means that we can look at something or someone and see God’s working in it all, in us all.

It’s like seeing a springtime bud and understanding there is a flower within. It’s like looking at a cocoon and knowing a butterfly will emerge. We can look at an acorn and imagine a tree.

And we can look at a sad or lonely or broken person and imagine healing and transformation. And then we can see ourselves as the agents of that healing and transformation, through the love that God has poured out for us – love that we can generously give to one another.

As our next hymn will remind us, God looks at us with eyes of love, and sees the gifts and potential and abundant blessings in us all, and knows what can happen when we share them with one another. The risen Christ shows us that endings are also beginnings, that death is not the last word, that resurrection is the victory, the promise fulfilled, the gift of God that’s meant for all of us.

Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!