Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Every day we are confronted with the two major questions of life: "Who am I?" and "Why am I here?" Only Jesus can give you the identity and purpose you're searching for.
Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Every day we are confronted with the two major questions of life: "Who am I?" and "Why am I here?" Only Jesus can give you the identity and purpose you're searching for.
Her world had been rocked. Everything she thought she knew, was dead, buried, gone. Imagine watching your best friend, your mentor, dying before your eyes, and you couldn’t do a thing to help him. All she could do was watch, shock turning her numb. Without him, she had no idea what she would do. She had no idea who she was anymore. She recalled her days as a little girl, kicking up sand as she watched the fishermen haul in the nets. How everything had changed when her darkest night came. Evil voices telling her who she was, that she was worse than nothing, deserving of nothing but the most painful guilt and shame, voices calling her unlovable. That all changed when He came. He silenced those voices, picked her up by the hand, and the way he said her name gave her a new identity and reason to live: “Mary.” But now everything had changed. All Friday night, she couldn’t sleep. She kept replaying in her mind again and again, the sight of her Savior being taken down from the cross. She’d never be able to say goodbye. Mary Magdalene felt nameless. Who was she without Jesus? What would be her purpose to live?
Do you know the pain of namelessness like Mary? Someone or something is taken away from you, and you feel like you’ve lost who you are? The job you love is terminated. The person who was the first to truly be at your side is slowly stolen by cancer. The people you thought would be there for you are nowhere to be found. You wonder, “Who am I?” “Why am I here?” Death invades every relationship, situation, and your and my very identity. You long for the clarity of closure, but sometimes life won’t grant even that smallest of relief.
After tossing and turning all night, Mary gathers her friends and they head out to the tomb. She wanted closure. She wanted to give one last gift of love to Jesus for all he had done for her. As the sun begins to peek through the Jerusalem skyline, their hearts go dark. The stone is rolled away, laying on the ground. The tomb is empty. Jesus is gone. Mary starts tearing up, this angry sadness, anger to the point of tears. Not only had Jesus’ enemies taken his life, but now they had taken away his body. She wouldn’t have closure. She would be a nameless griever.
Is that where you’re at right now? Trying to process the latest injustice and difficulty you’ve had to go through, and you have people and your own heart telling you, “It’s time to move on,” but you just can’t let it go. You can’t let that person go. You can’t release that hurt. You can’t move past it because you feel like if you try, you’ll lose who you are. You’ll become nameless, identity-less.
Mary needed to process this with her closest friends. So she runs to Peter and John, disciples who had been with Jesus like her. They both run out to the tomb. They cautiously look inside and find something they had never seen before. The head wrapping is tightly folded up. The grave cloths have no rips or tears. Then, it hits! Jesus is alive! They believe! They run back to their homes to share what they had seen with their family. John shares this news with a different Mary, Jesus’ mom, who certainly had more to ponder in her heart. But they leave Mary Magdalene alone at the tomb. They run right past her. They had found their identity, their reason to live. But Mary is left behind. I’m sure you know the feeling. You scroll your social media feed. You look around the bar. You see the joy of others, further revealing the hole in your soul.
Mary starts crying, so emotionally torn up that not even the sight of an angel changes her sorrow. I can’t even imagine the level of sadness she had that not even two angels in white robes appearing out of nowhere before his eyes could change how she felt. They look at her and ask, “Woman, why are you crying?” This is Easter! Jesus is alive! The greatest day this world has ever known! A day these angels had been waiting for! But there was no joy in it for Mary. He’s gone. Then, another man walks up to her. Mary is crouched over on the ground, turned away from the tomb when she tries to look past her tears, but her vision is blurry and misty. He asks the same question, “Woman, why are you crying?” She wipes away her tears enough to see that he is a man, and she experiences a brief flicker of hope. Thinking he’s the cemetery gardener, she asks him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.” But she can tell as her question hangs in the air without a response, she won’t receive her wish. As the silence lingers, her hope gone, death all around her, the “Gardener” says one word, one name. Everything changes.
You know the place where Mary was. It’s something the forces of death, devil, and sin have long used to try to defeat us. They try to drag us down by thinking they can tell us who we are. They load us with more so much guilt and shame telling us that we will never find our identity from Jesus, or the Bible. They lie over and again telling us we have to find our identity within ourselves, or from other people, or our bank accounts, or our followers, or our emotions. They know if they can convince us that we’re nameless, nothing but a wanderer in a world quickly fading away, that we see life as nothing but a cycle of death. Their lying logic says, “Death is the end of all of us. Nothing really matters in life. There is no point for your life. Death is the great equalizer. Why live if death will take everything from you anyway? Death is the end. Death is all this life is about.” But all it takes to break such temptation and trial is one word. One name. Your name spoken by the God who is life, your Jesus who put death to death, who made sure you know that the grave has no hold on you anymore!
Jesus looks at his hurting friend, back turned and crying, and says, “Mary,” or “Miriam” in Aramaic. Mary hears her name in that voice, and everything comes flooding back. She turns around. She sees his grin. “Rabboni!” Her friend was back! In a moment, the meaning of her tears change. She experiences the purest of joys. All because he called her by name. Jesus was alive! Death couldn’t hold him! Death wouldn’t take him from her! Death was dead, and in her arms was the God who had made her his own. She would never be nameless again. Neither will you!
Your name is written on the nail-marked hands of Jesus. The very hands that were once stretched out wide, now have you written on the nail marks that remain. Jesus kept those holes so you can see and know with total certainty who you are. You are not nameless. You are known by God himself personally, fully, completely. Jesus thinks of you each time he looks at his hands. You aren’t nameless. You’re everything to Jesus. When you look in the mirror and you hear thoughts like “loser,” “ugly,” “failure,” “sinner,” remember none of those are who you are. Jesus through Bible says to you, “Winner,” “beautiful, “champion,” “free” all through his victory!
Mary had thought she had no reason to live anymore, that death held all the power in her life, but Jesus has proven death’s reign of terror is done! Fear is gone! You don’t have to fear that you’ll never be enough, that you’re not good enough, that you’ll never discover who you are. You don’t have to stay awake at night, wondering what tomorrow will bring. You don’t have to keep living with that guilt. You don’t have to shame yourself anymore. Jesus has called you by name! Life isn’t nihilistic! It’s Christo-centric! You aren’t nameless. You’re fearless, because Jesus has shown you what your life is all about. You live because He lives. You love because He loves. You stand victorious because He does. Death isn’t your end. Jesus is your never-ending beginning.
Such a thought makes us want to never let Jesus go. That’s exactly where Mary was! She was holding onto Jesus like my grandma used to hang to me: I called it the “Nama Vicegrip Maneuver.” But I totally get where Mary’s at! Honestly, I wish you all could stand up here and see the sightline I have. I would love to stay in this packed church with you, celebrating Jesus’ victory all day every day. I look out at each of you, and I realize how beyond blessed I am to know you. I don’t want this to end. One day it won’t! But until that day comes when God’s entire family is home, Jesus has a purpose for your life, and your purpose is much the same as Mary’s. He says to you and me just like he said to her, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ It wasn’t that Jesus was rejecting her hug, it was that he wanted her to experience the greatest joy ever felt. He wanted her to experience her identity as a child of God. He wants the same for you. Through Jesus, you see what identity and meaning are all about. It’s all about Jesus and you don’t want to let that clarity and warmth go. You hear the Word of God and you realize you have a name, there’s a reason you’re here. I think it’s so amazing how Jesus calls his disciples “brothers” and not “disciples” anymore. Because they are a part of his resurrection family. They would rise from the dead just like him. You will rise like Jesus too. Death is not the end for Jesus’ family. It’s the beginning. Our bodies will be raised like his! But until that day, he has a purpose for you.
Just like with Mary, Jesus wants you to tell the ones you love most and the people you like least that Jesus is with our Father in heaven. Why is that such incredible news? It’s so incredible because of what Jesus is doing right now as we’re celebrating the greatest day ever today, remember what he said before he went to the cross, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.” You aren’t nameless. You are written in the book of life, your name is above your room in heaven. Jesus is going to bring you there one day, give you the grand tour, and show you a home where death doesn’t belong or exist. Death will never invade your memory again, because Jesus is there.
Someday, you’ll have your one-on-one with Jesus. Can you picture it? When you’ll feel like Job, your eyes will see him, yours and not another. Can you hear it? When he smiles at you and calls you by your name? You aren’t nameless. You belong to Jesus, and because you do, you know who you are and why you’re here. Your reason to live? It’s all Jesus, and death can’t do a thing to change that. Amen.