Early Sunday Morning

On a rainy day, Jesus my Savior, waiting the coming day, Jesus my Lord. Up on the rainy road, with the mighty triumph of His cross, Behold the victor, born the God of love, He is here, O Jesus Christ! Up on the rainy road, with the mighty triumph of His cross, Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary of Magdala went to the tomb, and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, They've taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we don't know where they have put Him.

So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there, but did not go in.

Then Simon Peter, who was behind him, arrived and went into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, as well as the burial cloth that had been around Jesus' head. The cloth was folded up by itself, separate from the linen.

Finally, the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.

So we praise His name. It was early in the morning When they came to where He lay And the sun had scarcely risen On that far-off Easter day He is taken, He is taken Was their anguished cry He is risen, He is risen Was the angel's reply Hearts were beating, hopes were rising As they ran to tell the men Could it be the Lord was living? Would they see Him once again? He is risen, He is risen So the angels say He is risen, He is risen Come and see where He lay Only Mary stayed to linger Weeping for her Saviour dear Heeding not the angel voices He is risen, He is not here O to find Him, O to find Him Was her piteous cry Heed ye Mary, heed ye Mary Was her Lord's reply You who seek a living Master One to comfort, one to save One to give you hope and gladness Think upon that empty grave Come Lord Jesus, come Lord Jesus See your heart's glad cry I will live in you forever Is His sure reply The 20th chapter of John's Gospel Following that solo I want to preach on early Sunday morning Early Sunday morning Have you ever thought it's extraordinary That the best news that ever broke Into this world Came from a cemetery The most unlikely spot From which anything might evolve That would bring life and hope And yet the Easter gospel tells us Most definitely That the good news Came from a graveyard And what's more It was the first day of the week When God created His handiwork took six days And at the end of that period of creation God made special the last day A memorial of His handiwork When Jesus died on the cross He's raised again Appropriately On the first day of the week The calendar demands That something even of greater importance Than the initial act of creation That of recreation Requires a day To honor it So that it can be celebrated Not once a year But every Sunday The first day of every week A.W. Pink a great writer from Half a century or so ago Who lived in Hove for some time said this We can't make too much of the death of Christ But we can make too little of the resurrection Calvary does not exhaust the gospel Calvary does not exhaust the gospel I serve a risen Savior Now it's the practice of the Apostle John As those of you who study your Bibles regularly A habit that I try to reinforce That you ought to be engaging in from the pulpit Those of you who study this gospel Will know that he specializes in personalities And indeed you could conduct your study Of John's gospel by going from one person To another person He brings into the narrative That which the first three writers Have in some instances omitted And he's more concerned about character Than what he is about chronology So you will discover him For example in the earlier chapters Centering his attention upon a woman By the well And a conversation which ensues Prior to that you'll discover The Lord Jesus addressing a man By the name of Nicodemus John is concerned with characters There's a beggar who's been blind from birth And he comes into the pathway of the Lord Jesus And John devotes several verses Many verses to telling us What transpired between the Savior and the man John is concerned about characters And no more is this illustrated No better is it illustrated Than in this twentieth chapter When early in the morning Our attention is directed upon three people First of all there's Mary And then there's Peter And then there's John And what I want to do is to look into these people And learn certain things about them And apply lessons from them to us today They're all involved you see In some way In the Easter story So let's go to Mary The spotlight of attention fastens on her And we think about Mary The blindness of love The blindness of love I would say unblushingly That there's no one that I admire Or have greater affection for In the terms of women in the Bible Than Mary There is no biblical character that I have preached more on Than that of Mary She's such a wonderful lady She loved the Lord Jesus much And she had been forgiven a great deal He had put to rights what was wrong in her body, in her mind She has an extraordinary deep affection Which endears her so much to the Lord Jesus That it surpassed the grave And so we find her Coming into the garden tomb And she comes as soon as she can She came as soon as she could To continue her vigil of love And to show her care for the Lord Jesus Mary had what one commentator Beautifully describes as a bewildered love She was last at the grave She was last rather at the cross And she's first at the grave She experienced something of what our Lord went through As she emotionally empathizes with him in his death And then early in the morning She's there Before the sun has risen Before there's sufficient light Would you? Would you have done that? You see there were thousands of extra people in Jerusalem It was Passover time Every nook and cranny Even in the open air Was used to shelter people As they took refuge, as they slept Would you as an individual have risked The early hours of the morning To have come of all places to a cemetery? To show that your love for the Lord Jesus still continued? She came as soon as she could What's more? She came to do what she could She would wash the body of our Lord Jesus with her tears As the Lord Jesus had been washed with tears On a previous occasion In his public ministry She would bring to the Saviour her own ointment What she endeavors to do is so illogical It's the illogicality of the female mind Which sometimes allows sentiment to be the director And very often the female mind and the female personality Is far superior to the analytical, cold, rational judgment That menfolk claim to make Mary, it's unnecessary The body's already been anointed And Mary, it's dangerous Early in the morning So many strangers around But you see, this woman, she has the blindness of love Which compels her to blot out those features That might perhaps have dissuaded her from getting up And being first at the tomb So she comes to cry And she comes to anoint our Lord Jesus Christ's body Mary who follows Christ To the last part of his humiliation Will be present early in the morning As soon as she could to do what she could And she'll discover the reward That she who was last in his humiliation Shall be first to witness his exaltation She came as soon as she could She came to do what she could And she came and misunderstood Now don't in any way confuse what I'm trying to say In my own love for Mary I appreciate that there were blemishes in her character Blemishes in her understanding She comes early in the morning And she sees that the stone has been rolled away from the grave And this is where she misunderstands They have taken the Lord out of the tomb That was the foundation of her complaint How often we as Christians mix up our complaints With what should really be the foundation of our hope and our joy She complains about the very thing that ought to have gladdened her And one day it will gladden her But at the moment she misunderstands Mary, poor love Don't you see? No, she can't see She can't see it all It's early in the morning And her emotions are stretched Her mind is tired Her body is tired And my friend, sometimes when you're dull in your thinking Sometimes when you're going through a foggy area in your pilgrimage You don't understand either Not always the purposes of God You continue to love perchance I hope so But it's the blindness of love Which excludes certain factors Which as a result Does not enable you to take in the whole of the purposes of the Lord Here is Mary She comes early in the morning as soon as she could Do you? Do you come early? Into the presence of the Lord Just in case by chance He got there earlier And you weren't present So he moved away Feeling that the appointment that he had made with you Was not one that you were going to keep There's a lot to be said Even on the spiritual level For seeking Christ early in the morning Do you do what you can? Alright, so you're not eloquent You're not a preacher Not that eloquence and preaching actually are necessarily interwoven God can use the person who has a stammering tongue Sometimes much more effectively than the naturally gifted orator But what he asks from you this Easter morning Is to do what you can in his service A woman once did that, you remember And Jesus said, this shall be a memorial unto her And it's a memorial unto Mary The first to see the exalted Lord The first to proclaim the gospel of the resurrection The first ultimately to come through from her sex To a full appreciation of why he died And what subsequently happened to her Have you got the picture? Mary, she steals on the scene Into the garden And as you're looking You're looking at someone With a blindness of love Let's move to Peter With a brokenness of heart The communion of saints includes the communication of sorrows, doesn't it? When I'm distressed and despondent When sorrow grips my soul There's only one breed of person that can help me It's the people who love the Lord It's the people who listen It's the people who'll give a hug and empathize with my predicament However small it might seem in their estimation The communication of sorrows, it's part of the communion of the saints And here is Mary, this lovely creature, don't you see her? She comes away from the garden There are other women present Actually you can deduce that in the very plural pronoun that she uses We don't know where they've laid him But our concentration is just on Mary And she leads the others, the other women folk And she goes to seek the solace And to take into her confidence Those who can be of help And amongst them, surprisingly enough For those who are new to the story But refreshingly enough for those of us who know it She comes to Peter, verse 3 So Peter and the other disciple, they started at the tomb Let's go to verse 2 So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple The one Jesus loved And told them just what she had experienced Peter, the brokenness of heart He's still a leader He may have denied the Lord But he's not departed from the disciples Thank God Peter figures in the resurrection narrative You see, it helps someone like me Because whatever you might think of me Sometimes my faith is low And sometimes it's hard just to hang in And sometimes when I think of the time when I let him down I feel he must bring back my ordination vow And say it's no longer valid But Peter is still hanging in Mary, with the blindness of love Comes to seek Peter who has the brokenness of heart He's still a leader Do you ever ask yourself What happened to Peter after he denied Jesus? You see, there was one other disciple Wasn't the present in the high priest's palace Have you thought that through? Oh yes, he too was not True all the way through to the Lord When the Saviour was arrested in the garden But he does come along with Peter I refer to John And it seems as though John takes Peter back to his own home And there he ministers to Peter During those nightmare hours He helps to bind the wounds of the brokenhearted Forever blessed, says one commentator Forever blessed be the memory of John If for nothing else he took Peter in During his night of sorrow Mary comes Mary with the blindness of her eyes The blindness of her love Comes to Peter with the brokenness of heart And discovers him still as a leader Not only still a leader But still a learner Peter and John who have given him hospitality They eagerly listen to what Mary has to say But they're perplexed They don't really understand it And perhaps she hasn't really investigated the scene sufficiently Obviously they cross-questioned her You saw the stone But did you actually go in? And Mary hadn't engaged in a full-scale investigation, had she? So Peter the leader Will still be Peter the learner And we're seeing something of the old Peter return As he hot-footed sets off towards the sepulcher With John I don't imagine it was a long run And I reckon that Peter moved with all the alacrity With all the speed that he had But he's an older man and John beats him to it But during those moments What thoughts must have gone through Peter's mind Through John's mind Have you ever contemplated that? It's sometimes good to go for a walk with no one else And let the thoughts of Christ And who he is And what he's done Just absorb your mind Peter thinks And in the thinking he's outrun by John Spiritually I'd like to say That when you compromise on your faith When you offend your conscience It does hold you back You do drag on somewhat I'm not suggesting that this is the only factor involved In John getting there first I reckon that he was very much the younger man than Peter And in one sense that is the only reason That we need to look for But there is a spiritual value In contemplating the fact That we drag behind when we compromise our conscience And Peter had done that, hadn't he? Denied the Lord And yet the Lord didn't deny him Denied his master But didn't depart from his friends And when Mary seeks The help of the saints She comes to Peter She comes to John And discovers Peter still as a leader And as a learner John, as I say, outruns Peter And when Peter comes to the tomb He sees no signs of it having been ransacked There's no indication of a hasty departure As though someone stole in And hurriedly took the body away Everything is decent and in order in the tomb Neatly laid grave clothes The napkin round the head Again, neatly folded What's it all about? Peter, with a brokenness of heart Is going to come to an understanding soon As Mary, with a blindness of love, shall But let's move the spotlight Because there's one more who comes into view And he's already crowded in on the scene a little I refer to John John, with a faithfulness of spirit John, who signs himself time and time again In the gospel that he writes By using that expression The disciple whom Jesus loved He did love John, didn't he? He's our Lord from the cross The darkness is lifted But the pain and the agony is still there And quivering in front of him is Mary, his mother And Jesus loves Mary So he attracts the attention of John By a look in his eyes And he says, John, behold your mother Mother, behold your son And from that moment John and Mary are inextricably bound In a vow of love that they take At the foot of the cross of Jesus And John leads Mary back to his own home Isn't it interesting then, my friend That when Peter was in his hours of great need John takes him back to his home Where Mary, the mother of Jesus, also is John, the man with a faithfulness of spirit Mary Magdalene, he comes to him Two things about him First of all, he's unnecessarily cautious As I say, he's the first at the tomb But he doesn't actually go in He's not like Peter, you see Isn't it wonderful that we're not all the same I wonder what would happen to the fellowship at the tabernacle If everyone was like me Thank goodness that on the alder we've got different personalities Just to keep me in check from time to time John is much more cautious than Peter He steps down And he looks in But he proceeds no further He bent over, verse 5 And looked in at the strips of linen lying there But did not go in Unnecessarily cautious And yet, he's a uniquely perceptive You see, now Peter comes along You need Peter to balance John, don't you You need John to balance Peter That's the wonderful thing about serving the Lord He allows each one of us to have individual gifts That balance out the other John has beaten Peter to the tomb But when Peter arrives He outpaces John In the whole field of daring John glances at the tomb But not Peter When Peter comes, verse 6 we read Peter who was behind him arrived and went into the tomb He saw Now you can't get this in English You can only get it in the Greek He scrutinized It's a very different word It's a much more precise term Than that which we find employed by John To describe his activity John gives a glance But glancing at things is not within the psyche The personality of Peter You see, he's the man, you recall Who gets over the boat And starts to walk towards the Lord Jesus He's the impetuous man He's the investigator And it's the old Peter, or something of it That we're finding back in play In the resurrection garden Peter Who goes in and sees And as a result of Peter's daring John takes his example And follows it Then Simon Peter who was behind him Arrived and went into the tomb He saw the strips of linen lying there As well as the burial cloth that had been around Jesus' head The cloth was folded up by itself Separate from the linen Finally, the other disciple John, who had reached the tomb first Also went inside He's been encouraged by the daring And the boldness of Peter And now John will again outflank Peter As he comes to a realization Before Peter did As to what had happened He saw And believed You see, John is no fool John too has powers of deduction and analysis Those grave clothes They are just as they would be Had they been wrapped round a corpse But there is no body within the clothes Similarly with the napkin Don't read the gospel account As though somebody came into your kitchen And tidied around As my kitchen will need tidying around Within two weeks before my wife gets back home It wasn't like that at all The napkin The bandages Are just as they were But there is no corpse present Now John works it through You see, if someone had stolen the body They couldn't really have taken the clothes off And left them as neat and tidy as they are He's already told us how much ointment was used In embalming the body of our Lord Jesus Do you know what that ointment would have done? It would have turned those bandages As they were fixed to the body Into almost glue It would have been impossible For anyone to have taken the bandages away And removed the body And if anyone had come to steal the body The body with the bandages, the napkin Would likewise have gone But that's not the scene They're there Neat, tidy, decent, in order As you would expect from the loving care Of Joseph of Arimathea And his friend who embalmed the body So John looks And with greater spiritual perception than Peter He believes He comes to a realization As to what has happened On that first Sunday Early in the morning So you see John brings three people to our attention And in one sense they represent ourselves There's Mary With a blindness of love Came as soon as she could To do what she could But she came and misunderstood Then there's Peter with a brokenness of heart He's still a leader And he's still a learner And then there's John with a faithfulness of spirit Unnecessarily cautious And yet uniquely perceptive Can I, in my final comment, say this How could these three have been helped At a much earlier stage In evaluating the events of that first morning And come to think of it How could you be helped? Well you see the problem with Mary And with Peter And with John And with you Is the problem of amnesia A bad memory Now the extraordinary thing is That Caiaphas and Annas Didn't have the same problem They come to Pilate Luke will tell you in his gospel And they say Pilate, we remembered that this man said Before he was crucified That after that had occurred He would be raised from the dead Therefore set a seal on the tomb And put guards alongside Caiaphas and Annas They remembered But lovely Mary Faithful John Broken hearted Peter They'd forgotten You see you can hear a cartload of sermons And never really listen to the preacher Time and time again Jesus spoke of his death But never did he predict it Without adding the corollary Without adding on the fact that Having been crucified He would be raised from the dead Oh fools And slow of heart Not to believe all that the prophets had spoken Oh foolish Mary Foolish Peter Foolish John The very angels Add the corrective if you read the rest of the narratives He has risen as he said Don't you recall? The angels ask the people who come to the garden tomb Don't you recall what he said? And if you'd recalled Then Mary some of your Tears of grief Would have been evaded And turned more quickly into tears of joy And Peter your Wretched denial And the relief that you felt ultimately When the Lord Jesus came alongside you in Galilee You could have had that relief earlier But John At least you began to have a perception Before the others As to what had happened My friend Relatively early still this Sunday morning How do you relate to these events? You see The problem is this And I say this is not sentimental with a bleeding heart Some of you are here Because it's Easter Sunday We'll look for you next week You'll not be here Or in any other church You see for countless thousands of people In the United Kingdom who were thronged into Anglican churches And none Easter Sunday is a sort of fetish The equivalent to a good luck charm I speak tenderly but I have to speak truthfully As God is my judge and to whom one day I will give an account You see For you There's never been a full realization As to what happened that early Sunday Easter morning Because you've never really remembered And responded to the fact That the Christ who died on the cross And was raised from the dead Died and was raised for your salvation And apart from him And apart from this You have And our world has No hope Did you hear me? God in heaven bear witness I told this congregation That without believing in your son His death and his mighty resurrection These people have no hope Now great God Ring into the hearts Of all the Mary's And all the Peter's And all the John's In this congregation A realization of the truth That I've tried to spell out An early Easter morning Let them see Believe Repent And go on And on Next week Next month Next year In full and perfect service to you Until the day comes When you call them To be immediately In your presence Let's pray Let's pray