Dennis Tuuri

# Cleaned Sermon Transcript

Well, it is indeed a blessed Lord’s day again, is it not, dearly beloved? So wonderful to see children baptized, brought into the context of the church, the body of Christ. Wonderful to hear how God works over the last number of years. The people that were up here, the two families that were baptized and Pastor Shaw—what a delightful day. We just sang one song that spoke first of the resurrection and the second and concluding verse spoke of the reign of Jesus Christ.

Now, so that kind of is the bookends for what we’re doing now. We’re between resurrection Sunday and Ascension Day and then Pentecost following that. And then we recited responsively Psalm 23 and sang it. And really what I want to talk about today is the pastoral work of the Lord Jesus Christ in that period of time between his resurrection and his ascension. So we’re going to talk about post-resurrection appearances of Jesus in a very short form survey sort of way.

We’ll begin by reading a text from Mark 16:14-20. Please stand for the reading of God’s word. And I might just mention that the order of worship today has a couple of pictures, and you will hear about these accounts. The top one at the Sea of Tiberias, Sea of Galilee up in Galilee sometime after the resurrection and the bottom one is the evening appearance to Jesus or eight days actually—the second Sunday with Thomas.

So we’ll talk about those. But we’ll read first Mark 16:14-20:

“Later he appeared to the 11 as they sat at the table and he rebuked their unbelief and hardness of heart because they did not believe those who had seen him after he had risen. And he said to them, ‘Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He who believes and is baptized will be saved, but he who does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will follow those who believe in my name. They will cast out demons. They will speak with new tongues. They will take up serpents. And if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them. They will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.’ So then, after the Lord had spoken to them, he was received up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God. And they went out and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word through the accompanying signs.”

Amen. Let’s pray.

Lord God, we thank you for your word. We thank you for this marvelous message that we see in this text and the other post-resurrection appearances by our savior. May we today be aware that he visits us as well. And what we read in these texts certainly informs us in terms of what he does with us today and how he is the great shepherd who pastors us as he pastored these original disciples and apostles.

Bless us Lord God as we look at a survey of these appearances. In Jesus’s name we ask it. Amen.

Please be seated. On the outlines today, there’s some notes that I’ll be following. The second page, if you want to look at that for just a moment, is a chart of the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus. And I didn’t want to have you assume that I was the one who came up with it. I found this online from a fellow that I have no idea who he is.

And these appearances are what we’ll be going through today, although in a little different order than what we have here. Let me just mention that I think what we have are seven specific events and we can’t be quite sure of that as we’ll get to in a couple of minutes. But on Resurrection Sunday, he appears first, I believe, to Mary Magdalene and then secondly to a number of women and then he appears in the middle of the day on the road to Emmaus to two disciples and we don’t know if it was a husband and wife, two men, whatever it might be.

And then the fourth appearance on the Lord’s—the original day of Resurrection, the original Lord’s Day. John 20 records this in the context of meeting with the 11, but actually they can be referred to as the 12 as we’ll see in a couple of minutes. That was a kind of common designation even though Judas was not there. And actually there were 10 of them because Thomas wasn’t there as we know. If you look at the chart, so we have Mary Magdalene, the other women, Simon Peter—we know when that happened. The two on the road, that’s the same day. That’s the Lord’s Day. And then the 11 or the 10, whatever you want to call it. And I’ve got citations there for Mark, Luke, and John. I think—and I cannot be sure of this, but I think that these all record the same appearance. So what we just read in Mark, I think, is that evening appearance that’s recorded in the Gospel of John and also a version of it in Luke.

So I think we’ve got three perspectives on the same meeting. It is possible, as this chart describes, that this was a later event in Jerusalem, but I think there were four that first day. And then a week later, of course, Jesus appears to the 11, now Thomas being with them and demonstrates—as the picture in our order of worship today shows—his physicality to Thomas. And so Thomas believes.

And so that would be appearance number five that’s recorded for us. And then sometime later, you remember the message that the women give to the disciples is he’s going to meet you in Galilee. Well, he first meets them in Jerusalem the very evening of Resurrection Sunday. But then sometime fairly quickly after that, the disciples travel to Galilee. And while they’re there, I think before the account of the Great Commission in Matthew 28, Jesus appears to the seven.

This is where they’re out fishing and the 153 fish and all that stuff. That’s at the Sea of Tiberias in Galilee, the Sea of Galilee. And that’s a separate appearance. So that would be number six. And then the seventh and final appearance that’s recorded, I think, is Matthew 28 on a mountain in Galilee. And this is where the Great Commission is given. And so I think these are the seven appearances.

And then there’s an eighth on the day of Christ’s Ascension—not Pentecost, but Christ’s Ascension. Jesus talks to them then. So we can say there are eight appearances and we’re going to be going through those today.

Now, why are we going to do it? Well, I think that we can look at these as kind of—so the title of the sermon is “What Was Jesus Doing With That Glorified Body?” So he’s got this resurrection glorified body that’s the same sort of body we’re going to have. We looked over these appearances a couple of weeks ago on Resurrection Sunday, just in terms of referencing his body and what it was like and what he could do. And I think it’s important to kind of talk about, to meditate on what Jesus was doing for 40 days. The scriptures tell us that there is this 40-day period that Jesus is with the disciples and apostles.

Now, we read these accounts and we sort of get the idea that he kind of tweaked in and tweaked out, right? Boom, he’d appear and then boom, he’d be vanished and he was vanished again until the next appearance is recorded. Well, that of course doesn’t make sense if we understand that he has this body. This is his glorified body. This is his resurrected body. The body doesn’t go away. He’s not a phantom appearing out of the midst. He has a real body, more glorified. Remember Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5, we don’t seek to have less clothing. We want more glorious clothing. And Jesus had more glorious clothing in terms of humanity. And so he has this body. It’s got to be somewhere, right? And so where was he?

Well, you know, the scriptures tell us that during these 40 days, he was teaching them. And that’s what we want to kind of talk about. While Jesus here in these resurrection appearances they’re recorded for us, we shouldn’t think that these are the only times he meets with them because Paul says specifically that he appeared to Cephas. Where is it recorded? It’s not. It says that he appeared to James, his brother, Jesus’s brother. And so where is that recorded? It isn’t. So don’t think it’s just like the gospel accounts themselves. We’re given particular things, but you know, he lived 33 years and three years of ministry and we don’t have anywhere near a comprehensive recording. So in his post-resurrection appearances, we have selected events given to us through the providence of God.

And those events can inform us, I think, in terms of what he was doing generally during that same period of time. So that’s what we want to talk about today. The introduction on your outline today, I’ve got 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 as a reference. If you turn there for just a minute—and remember we kind of—so as you’re turning, I can talk and you can listen. Turn to 1 Corinthians 15. And this is where we began on Resurrection Sunday talking about the resurrection of Jesus and its implications for us, life after death, the eternal state and then what that means in terms of our world and the importance of working in the context of the world.

And so we’ve been at 1 Corinthians 15 first in a general sense on Resurrection Sunday and the next sermon was on the concluding verse. And in a way this is again a follow-up to that. In verse three, we read that Paul says he delivered to you first of all which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures and that he was buried and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures.

Okay. So, and that’s 1 Corinthians 15 is an exposition of this resurrection of Jesus and its implications for us in the world. And he goes on then to cite these post-resurrection appearances. And he was seen by Cephas, that’s Peter, then by the 12. So apparently—now we don’t know, but it seems like Paul is giving us a chronological order. Seems that way. And that’s not always the case in the scriptures. When you see lists, they’re not necessarily chronological, but it seems like he’s doing that here: first by Peter and then by the 12. If that’s true and he was seen by the 12 Sunday evening and sometime before that during the Lord’s Day he appeared to Cephas—and that’s where we’ll place it—but we don’t know for sure.

After that he was seen by over 500 brethren at once, of whom the greater part remained to the present. So where was that? I think that was probably at the Sea of Galilee, the mountain in the region of Galilee. That was the first day. He appears to groups unexpectedly, but later when they go to Galilee that’s an appointed time. They go there to meet with him and so we can assume that there were more people there than just a small group. This is probably an advertised event okay. And it says actually—we’ll get to it in a few minutes—but in Matthew 28 it says that they met together and worshiped him but some doubted.

Well, you know the 12 aren’t doubting anymore. They’ve been—Jesus has demonstrated to them his physicality, his resurrection, all that stuff. So anyway, we don’t know for sure, but there’s an account here of 500 people and that’s probably in Galilee and he says that the greater part remained to the present, but some have fallen asleep. And that becomes, you know, exposed later in the text—this intermediate state is what they’re in now.

After that, he was seen by James, that’s his brother, and that’s not recorded in the scripture. Then by all the apostles. That’s kind of hard to tell what that means. I wasn’t sure and I was glad to see I saw an email yesterday. Somebody asked James B. Jordan what that means—”all the apostles”—and he didn’t know. So I don’t feel so bad not knowing myself exactly what it meant.

But you know the apostles can be seen as specific. But thank you more. Right. Sorry if it’s uncomfortable to hear me this way. It’s worse for you than it is for me. Can’t sing the high parts but other than that it’s fine.

So the apostles—apostles can be specific in terms of the 12 apostles or it can be general—sent ones. And so the last one is various people that have been sent out as apostles. And then last of all he was seen by me also. And of course that’s post-Pentecost, right? He appeared to Paul several years later as one born out of due time.

So we have these records of the appearances of Jesus Christ. And so why doesn’t Paul list, for instance, Mary Magdalene and the two and the group of women that he appeared to? And why does he make a point about the 500, some of them are alive to this day? Seems like what he’s doing is giving evidence that could be accepted in a traditional way of accepting evidence at the time and at this period of time. As lots of periods of time in history, women’s testimony was not legal evidence. So there wasn’t a reliance upon the testimony of women. It’s not that Paul didn’t believe it and not that he thought women’s testimony was less, but he’s trying to buttress the belief of those he’s writing to in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Now they already believe it, right? They become Christians, but Paul is using evidentiary support here for the resurrection—a resurrection that’s already assumed and believed by those he’s addressing. And we could take time—we’re not going to, but in the 18 and up Sunday school class, we’re talking about presuppositionalism. And, you know, presuppositionalism says God has spoken to us in his word and in creation; everybody knows that God is. And so we don’t try to prove to people on the basis of their neutrality. We don’t put God in the dock and have them use evidences to try God. So that’s an improper use of evidences.

But here, we have a proper use of evidences. Paul’s list is a list citing people who were alive who could testify to what happened and it didn’t include the women I think for that very reason. And so it’s very proper. You know, sometimes we think that presuppositionalism or the way we proclaim the faith doesn’t have a lot to do with evidences. That’s not true. Evidences are good and proper. All evidences confirm the word of God and it’s not bad to tell one another—you know, when we start to doubt—well, look at the things around you or look at what God has done or look at this or that or the other thing and point to evidences to buttress belief.

And I think that’s what Paul’s doing here and that’s why we have the particular kind of list that we do. He is employing a proper use of evidences pastorally to the people that he’s writing to. He’s writing as a pastor to these Corinthians. He’s trying to buttress their belief. And so he does that.

And so Paul makes reference to these post-resurrection appearances and I think they’re very important. Now in the book of Acts, Luke also talks about the appearances of Jesus on the day of Pentecost. And so let me just read from—actually turn there. Turn to Acts chapter 1.

“The former account I made, talking about his gospel of Theophilus—one that’s loved by God—of all that Jesus began both to do and teach until the day in which he was taken up, after he through the Holy Spirit had given commandments to the apostles whom he had chosen, to whom he also presented himself alive after his suffering by many infallible proofs. So once more, he’s buttressing their support of their belief like he did with Thomas. He knows how to pastor people.”

And part of what he’s doing for those 40 days and the appearances that we’ll look at today is giving them proofs that he’s raised up. It was unusual, right? We talked about this before. A general resurrection was looked for, but not a twofold, two-part resurrection—first part being Messiah, Jesus, and then eventually the general resurrection.

So he does the same thing. Luke says that Jesus gave them infallible proofs being seen by them during 40 days, speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God. Now, this is, you know, you can kind of blow by these verses, but just think about this for a little bit and try to remember that this tweaking in, tweaking out thing is not what was going on. We have certain things recorded, but here we’re told very explicitly that Jesus made use of the full 40 days.

And what was he doing during those 40 days? It says that he was, through the Holy Spirit, giving commandments to the apostles. Now, maybe that specifically in terms of Pentecost. But then he gives the general thing—what Jesus was doing after he was resurrected. He’s giving them infallible proofs, being seen by them during 40 days. And what was he doing during these 40 days? Speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God.

See, we sort of—this is the beginning of the book of Acts and this book will say this is what the church did. And as the church, going about, does her work, what we have are the acts of the apostles—the acts of the church ultimately, and the acts of Jesus Christ through his church. And so we see recorded there and in the epistles this great blossoming of these wonderful guys who speak great sermons and who are doing wonderful things and they’re really together.

And sometimes we look at that and we think, what happened between you know, when Jesus is with him, they seem sort of not knowing a whole lot. And we’ll see in today’s text if we ever get to them that he was—he rebuked them at times, right? for their foolishness, that they didn’t understand anything. Well, you know, part of that of course is empowerment of the Holy Spirit. Part of that is, you know, God will prepare us when it’s necessary.

But I think we do a disservice to this period of time between Resurrection and Ascension—Resurrection and Ascension, 40 days. I think we do a disservice if we don’t think about what was happening there. And the result on the apostles—Jesus was training ministers. Jesus was preparing the church for her mission to be the work of Lord Jesus Christ’s message to the world. He was preparing them to carry out the Great Commission.

So he taught them for 40 days and by a summary fashion, it says he taught them things pertaining to the kingdom of God. And so the kingdom of God is the instruction that Jesus is giving to the apostles and the disciples and to the women and he’s preparing them for ministry. I think that’s really significant for lots of reasons. It kind of gets rid of this idea that well, they just sort of all of a sudden were smart and the Spirit empowered him.

No, you know, I was walking around outside yesterday—beautiful day—and I wanted to spend at least an hour outside as I was doing various things and I saw all these flowers, you know, these beautiful tulips, flowers everywhere in my backyard and I’m thinking, “Wow, this is great. These things just kind of come up and bloom. Beautiful. What a beautiful time of year.” And of course, they don’t just come up. My dear wife for years has been planting things and nurturing them and waiting and, you know, doing work to make sure they get water and she’s been doing all kinds of things to let them come up and make them beautiful. The beauty is the result of a lot of labor.

And I think the same thing’s true about the New Testament church. When we see all this great stuff going on in the book of Acts and the wonderful teaching and the existence of the church and the epistles, it sort of seems like oh, it just sort of happened, and we have a view of spirituality that the Spirit just moves and things grow. No, I mean that’s true at times—the Spirit’s hand is not short—but I think what’s going on is this is the result of 40 days of intensive seminar, conference—I mean it’s a little strange way to put it—but training. He had a body. What was he doing with that body? He was teaching his disciples things pertaining to the kingdom of God. And they then were to go ahead and manifest that kingdom in their kingdom work.

Now, that’s important. It means that these post-resurrection appearances, if we’re called—and we are—to be just like the book of Acts, we’re called to, you know, bear Christ’s name, to teach in his name, to do things in terms of his kingdom. We’re called to build in the sense of make manifest his kingdom. And these post-resurrection appearances should be kind of important to us. We’re given eight accounts and from them we can glean ministry training truths because that’s what I think Acts tells us Jesus was doing.

So you know, the acts of the apostles, the acts of Jesus Christ—his post-resurrection work of Jesus is summarized as he was speaking of things pertaining to the kingdom of God. And I’ve got some references there. I’m not going to go over them, but this kingdom of God—the references I give you are a number of gospel citations where this is what the gospel was. For instance, in Matthew 24, Jesus told the disciples, “This gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations and then the end will come.”

So after what Christ began with his resurrection and ascension until the end of time—the second coming, rather—what’s to happen is the gospel of the kingdom is to be preached. And the other references I’ve given you here are repeated references to the gospel being the gospel of the kingdom. So when we read in 1 Corinthians 15 that the gospel is this death and resurrection of Jesus and deliverance from our sins, you know that’s what he’s stressing for his particular purposes. But understand that what we have is that which fits in the context of the gospel of the kingdom.

So that’s the basic message. That’s our call—is to preach, to enact kingdom work here by the proclamation of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. He was preparing a people for conquest, right? And so you know, Moses—we’ll talk about this on as we move into Pentecost season—but clearly there’s a relationship between Pentecost and the giving of the law at Sinai. When Moses comes down from the mountain, 3,000 people are killed because they’ve been sinning. On the day of Pentecost, 3,000 people are saved through the proclamation of the word.

So we’re in really much better times now. And they’re connected up for us. And so Pentecost is related back to the giving of the law. And you’ll remember that Moses was up there 40 days on the mountain. God was instructing him. Now, we have these Ten Commandments, but that’s not all that was going on up there. Moses was being instructed. He was being, you know, trained for 40 days to accomplish conquest.

Now, it took 38 years for the conquest to happen, but Moses had the training, you see. And in the same way, Moses is like these disciples in these 40 days of the post-resurrection appearances. They’re being trained by God in his word, ten commandments, application—what is the kingdom about, how is it organized, how should we build, what does it all mean? How does the new creation play into this stuff? How does the Jew-Gentile thing going to work? You see, there’s lots of instruction going on here relative to the kingdom, and that’s preparing them for conquest.

Okay. Now, let’s just talk about a couple of these original appearances. Then from that perspective, how do you prepare the ministers of the gospel to conquer the world? How do we prepare ourselves? How would Jesus prepare us to do the world-changing work that the apostles were called to do and be in great measure accomplished in the book of Acts and in the next 40 years?

Well it’s interesting. He began with, first of all—so this is Roman numeral 4—and it’s the first appearance. It’s to Mary Magdalene in Mark 16:9. And we read this: “Now when he rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene out of whom he had cast seven demons.”

So that gives us the chronology. First appearance: Mary Magdalene. And very interestingly—I mean, he’s given us the name Mary Magdalene. He doesn’t need to tell us that seven demons were cast out of her. We know who she is already, right? But he tells us that. The same appearance is recorded in the Gospel of John’s. In this gospel, you remember the story—it’s quite well remembered. She’s weeping. She’s looking for Jesus. He appears to her. She thinks he’s the gardener. He speaks her name. She comes to an awareness of who he is. And so that’s the account in John’s gospel, the same thing. Mary is now approached and it’s interesting that they—the angels, that is—say to her, “Why are you weeping?” In John 20 she says, “Because they have taken away my lord and I do not know where they have laid him.”

“Now, when she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there and did not know that it was Jesus. Now, this doesn’t mean he had a weird form. It’s early in the morning. It’s kind of probably a little darkish. She doesn’t see well. Well, she’s been crying. We have no reason. It may be that he had a different form and was unrecognized. Well, we have no reason to believe that here. There’s no evidence.

But anyway, so he appears. She doesn’t know who he is. Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?’ And so, the very first appearance, it’s interesting to me, begins with questions. He’s trying to bring Mary to a sense of what’s going on in her heart.

And pastoral ministry—whether it’s pastoring a church, whether it’s you pastoring in the context of your business that you run, whether it’s mom and dad pastoring kids, mom and dad pastoring each other—you know, pastoral ministry, working people in terms of the kingdom of Christ involves getting them to think through where they’re at. And that’s what Jesus does. The first technique recorded for us, if you want to look at it that way, in the pastoral training—40 days of which will happen and then result in overturning the world for Jesus Christ, putting it to rights, as is recorded in the book of Acts—begins with questions. That’s interesting to me.

She, supposing to be the gardener, said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” And Jesus says to her, “Mary.”

He speaks her name. He addresses her individually. Jesus’s first appearance is to a particular individual person. It’s not corporate. Now, most of the appearances will be corporate. We’ll see that. But, you know, unity and diversity in training ministries are personal. And they’re personal that drive people to kind of recognize what’s going on. Why are they despairing? What do they really want? And for the Christian, what we want is Christ and more of him.

And what he then responds to her. He speaks her name. He cares for her individually. He addresses her by name. You see, that’s important for the training, for kingdom work. He speaks her name, “Mary.” But of course, he doesn’t just leave it at that. He goes on to talk to her about what he wants her to do.

And for some reason, my notes aren’t here. Why? Oh, okay, here it is. So she turns and said to him, “Raboni,” which is to say, “Teacher.” The proper response of the disciple to the master is to acknowledge his master over her. Jesus said to her, “Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to my Father, but go to my brethren and say to them, I am ascending to my Father and your Father and to my God and your God.”

Jesus drives home her reason for her problems. He addresses her personally and reveals himself in that way. He then gives her a mission to accomplish. Okay. Now, this is the woman out of whom had been cast seven demons. So, what does he do in the very first appearance? He teaches us that preparation for kingdom work involves forgiveness—forgiveness, mercy, the extension of mercy.

Now, we know that if he would have appeared to the best of the disciples first—John would have been okay—but here, remember these are eight specific incidences out of a whole bunch of things that happened and God thought it important for us to recognize the beginning of the training for Mary is a recognition of his love for her in spite of her sin. The one who’s been forgiven much loves much and then is used much by the savior. He sends her on mission.

The purpose of pastoring people is to move them toward mission, right? To work specific work in ministry. If all we do is sort of pastor them generally, that’s not good enough. Jesus has specific tasks that are going to be accomplished. And he begins that accomplishing of the evangelization of the whole world by telling a woman, a harlot, a woman, to go and do this thing—go on mission.

Now, who does she go to see? She goes to see the disciples, the big guys, the board of elders, pastor guys, ones who are really important. And what does she tell them? The message she has to tell them is that he is going to my God and your God, my Father and your Father. She passes on a message of connection, community, and embracing from Jesus.

So, you know, maybe you’ve thought about all this stuff before. I haven’t. And the connection then to the preparation for ministry has to do with Mary and how we’re prepared. Jesus, you come together as the church today. And the church is, you know, a harlot group that have been rescued from their harlotries in and of ourselves. In Adam’s fall we sinned all. We engaged in idolatry, harlotry. Seven demons had to be cast out of us to bring us here through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And so Jesus prepares you for ministry today. But can I ask you why are you here? Are you here just to, you know, put in your time? Are you here to impress somebody else? Are you here out of duty? Or are you here because you want to see Jesus Christ and hear from him and get prepared from him and hear good news? And then he tells you—he calls each of you by name. He calls the church here together, but he tells you Mary, he tells you Matt, Karen, Don, Bonnie.

His attention is focused on you individually as well. We can see Mary as a representation of the church, but she’s surely also a representation of the saved sinner. And Jesus says that he prepares you for ministry this week by getting you to think through why you’re here and then addressing your felt need—the greatest need you have, which is to know that Jesus loves you, cares for you individually and personally. And then Jesus goes on to tell you that he’s got something he wants you to do.

Now, in Mary’s case, it’s different. There’s missions throughout these post-resurrection appearances. Mission is all over the place. Practically every—I think every appearance ends with basically a mission, something you’re supposed to do. And it’s interesting to me that with the women, it’s to speak to the disciples and then most of the appearances are to the disciples and their job is to go into all the world as we read in Mark, to be conquering and to know that Jesus Christ is going up to the right hand of the Father, that he has all authority and we’re supposed to conquer the world.

So Jesus gives mission and Jesus sends away from church with a sense of mission. But there’s something specific for Mary and maybe the Lord Jesus Christ is speaking something specific in terms of what you know you’re called to do this week. He sends her on mission.

Now, that’s Mary, but the other people referenced in this—I think it’s significant as well. Another preparation for ministry: He is not only working with Mary, he’s working with the disciples. Did you ever think of that? Their first training for ministry is not the direct appearance of Jesus Christ. It’s somebody else coming to them. And it’s not just somebody else. Well, gee, we’re the 12. We’re the big guys here, you know. It’s not just somebody else. It’s a woman. And it’s not just a woman. It’s a woman that they knew had been a horrible sinner, needed to have demons cast out of her.

And I guess I’m suggesting that this is significant. We will see later in later sermons on these post-resurrection appearances when he appears on the road to Emmaus and talks to those two disciples. He says, “You guys are stupid. Oh, foolish ones, slow of hearing.” When he appears in Mark’s gospel to the 12 this evening of this day we’re looking at, with beginning with Mary, he rebukes them. So, you know, Jesus—part of his—and he doesn’t do this with Mary really—part of his way of training men specifically, I think we can infer, is he first knocks you down. He first brings a little humility to you. He tells you that, you know, I appeared to Mary first.

And so the beginning of the process for kingdom work for men, I think, is a humility. And so this incident with Mary shows us individually with her, but it also shows us the beginning of the work with the disciples as well. I think it’s significant for us because you know, as squared away as we try to be and as biblical as we try to be, some of this same stuff applies to us.

God will use women in the life of this church. Jesus will use women in your lives, men, and he will use women in significant ways to accomplish his work. And here he starts with it. The preeminence is given to Mary, a woman. So I think that’s very significant for the development of kingdom work—that Jesus Christ comes in that first appearance and he brings her to a realization of what she’s doing. He assures her of his love for her by speaking her name and of her forgiveness. He prepares her for ministry and that ministry has as its end result also the preparation of the men, the disciples, through first of all beginning to humble them and bring them to a sense of their proper relationship in the kingdom.

So Jesus Christ begins to prepare his people in that way.

The second appearance is also to women. So we’ll look at that briefly. Matthew 28:9:

“As they went to tell his disciples, well, who are these they? Well, it’s—we read in other gospel accounts that this is a group of women who had also come to the tomb in the morning. And so again, a second appearance: the first appearance and then the second appearance are women, individually and collectively. And when they went to tell the disciples, behold, Jesus met them.”

Now, why were they going to tell the disciples? Well, they were going there because the angel at the tomb told them that they were supposed to go and tell the disciples. So they were already running off on mission. They were obeying without seeing, right? They hadn’t seen the resurrected Christ, but they were obeying the message from heaven anyway. And Jesus will make that point in the second appearance to the 12 a week after the first appearance when he’ll tell Thomas the same thing: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.”

So these women—there’s a movement of these women to personal sight first and then mission. And now they’re accomplishing mission and then he does personal appearance.

“And as they went then to tell the disciples, behold Jesus met them, saying, ‘Rejoice!’ So they came and held him by the feet and worshiped him. And then Jesus said to them, ‘Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brethren to go to Galilee and there they will see me.’”

So, you know, here it’s a two-fold message. And this is the message of every Lord’s Day. Rejoice. He is risen. He is risen indeed. Great joy. The world has changed. Your salvation has been definitively accomplished. The world has been made new and right. Jesus has been raised up from the dead. And in that glorified body of his, he’s telling people, “Rejoice! Rejoice!”

That is the central message and the secondary message is don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid because our tendency is to fear. Now they were fearing the physical appearance of him perhaps. We don’t know what. But the great shepherd comes to us today, assures us of our forgiveness of sins, tells us to rejoice in the great world that he’s created and tells us not to be fearful but to accomplish the mission and task that he’s called us on today.

And then he tells us—in the context of men specifically, he tells us not once but twice—that he starts with women. He starts with women. Well, we’ll look at more post-resurrection appearances in the weeks to come, but I think I’ll stop there and just let you think about that.

Look at this chart in the next couple of weeks during this season as you’re preparing for Ascension. Think of the appearances of Christ to the various disciples that he had, how they did so much great work for him. And then look at it in terms of your training, how you’re being trained by Jesus, and how you train those under your direct discipleship for greater effectiveness in kingdom work.

And I think there’s a lot to glean in these eight appearances that Jesus does.

One last thing: the last appearance, he gives them a command. The last command—the first command, you know, is mission, but the last command the day of his Ascension, rather, is he tells them to wait. He tells them to wait and his last act is to bless them as we say in King’s Academy. He blesses them as he goes up, as he ascends to the Father.

So the Lord Jesus Christ trains us and one of the most important commands he gives us in that training is to wait for his timing, the empowerment of the Holy Spirit. And then he blesses us as we go about doing that work for him.

Let’s pray.

Lord God, we thank you for this day. We thank you for the message of the resurrection. We thank you for renewed understanding of 40 days of ministry by our savior encapsulated in these eight appearances. Bless us, Lord God, as we think through them and as we think about how to train each other in the context of the church, the family, the workplace, and how we are trained as well by Jesus Christ. Make us effective. We want to do mission for you, Lord God, in our homes, in our businesses, in this church. And very importantly in this community. Geography was central to the missions that the Lord Jesus Christ sent these people on—to be his disciples to proclaim the gospel of the kingdom as they went.

Help us, Lord God, to learn how to better proclaim that gospel and make it manifest here in Oregon City and in the places we live as well. Prepare us, Lord God, for mission. Thank you for reminding us today to be humble before you, to not get upset when you use other people in our lives to instruct us—people that we don’t think are the proper ones to instruct us. Help us, Lord God, to be open to each other, to receive the instruction, the commissioning from others that you send through them. Help us, Lord God, not to be prideful. Help us to be joyful. Help us not to be fearful. And help us to be obedient.

In Jesus’s name we ask it. Amen. Amen.