The Great Sending, Chapter 1
John 20:1-30
The Empty Tomb
1 Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. 2 So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!”
3 So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. 4 Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5 He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. 6 Then Simon Peter came along behind him and went straight into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, 7 as well as the cloth that had been wrapped around Jesus’ head. The cloth was still lying in its place, separate from the linen. 8 Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. 9 (They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.) 10 Then the disciples went back to where they were staying.
Jesus Appears to Mary Magdalene
11 Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb 12 and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.
13 They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?”
“They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” 14 At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.
15 He asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”
Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”
16 Jesus said to her, “Mary.”
She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”).
17 Jesus said, “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.’”
18 Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them that he had said these things to her.
Jesus Appears to His Disciples
19 On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” 20 After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.
21 Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” 22 And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”
Jesus Appears to Thomas
24 Now Thomas (also known as Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!”
But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”
26 A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” 27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”
28 Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!”
29 Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
The Purpose of John’s Gospel
30 Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. 31 But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” —John 20:21
STUDY 1: The Sending Christ,
pp. 51-54
Scripture: John 20
by Reverand Dr. Dean Nadasdy
The mission of God needs a risen Christ, not a dead king who went out in a flame of glory as a martyr on a cross. The evangelist John, an eyewitness to Christ’s ministry, gives us what we need. He remembers the sprint to the tomb with Peter. Seemingly ever competitive, he remembers that he got there first. Peter goes in. John follows. They see only Jesus’ burial cloths. John writes of himself at that moment, “He saw and believed” (John 20:8).
Peter and John saw a tomb without a body and still had much to learn. In a tender encounter after they leave, though, Mary actually sees the risen Lord. He calls her by name and says He is ready to ascend to His Father. Mary tells the disciples, “I have seen the Lord” (John 20:18).
In the blazing light of the resurrection and the reality of Jesus’ immanent return to the Father, the mission of God needs something else – a sending. Those who see the risen Christ must be sent, and not just by anyone. They must be sent by Him. This is His mission. Those who see the risen Christ must not speak on their own authority, but on His. They must not depend on themselves or on one another, but on Him. So, on Easter night, the risen Christ appears behind locked doors to speak an understated common blessing to His frightened, cloistered disciples: “Peace be with you.” He shows them His crucifixion wounds. The disciples’ fear melts away in the gladness of seeing Jesus alive. (See John 20:19-23.)
With no small talk (at least none recorded) in that locked room, Jesus turns to the business of sending. “As the Father has sent me,” he says, “even so I am sending you” (John 20:21). John recalls Jesus breathing on those ten disciples. Perhaps this was a sign of the promised Holy Spirit. Perhaps it was His life-giving breath for the mission ahead. With that breath of life, though, Christ gives them what they need for their mission – the promise of the Spirit and the authority to forgive and to retain sins. Eight days later, in an act of extraordinary, individualized grace, He would come back for Thomas, who was absent on that first night. Jesus never envisioned a church kept in hiding behind locked doors, concerned for its institutional health and survival. He sends His followers into the world. To be sent by Christ is to share in the very same mission on which the Father had sent His son – the forgiveness of sins. That mission extends to the neighbor next door and to the neighbor on another continent. Only the One who went through the dying and came back alive could do this sending.
A young missionary, fresh from the seminary, was being introduced to a village of indigenous people by the missionary he would replace. The new arrival responded to his introduction by saying: “In the wisdom of God and in accordance with the proper procedures of the church, following my matriculation with a Master of Sacred Theology degree and ordination into the holy ministry, I stand before you as a humble steward of the mysteries of God, announcing the sacred kerygma of Christ.”
The chief of the village looked quizzically at the old missionary as if to ask, “What did he just say?” The wise veteran of years of service in the mission field simply smiled and said, “This young man wants you to know that Jesus sent him here to your village with some really good news.”
It matters where we come from. To be sent means we come from the One with nail prints on His hands and feet, the One forever breathing life into His church and its witness.
Questions to ponder with
yourself and others
- How “sent by Christ” do you feel? That is, how aware are you each day that Christ has sent you on His mission to proclaim the forgiveness of sins?
- What does it mean to you that the risen Christ came back for Thomas? What does this say about Jesus, about Thomas, about you?
- As a mission-hearted Christian, give your best answer to the question, “Where do you come from?”
Prayer
Send me, Lord Jesus. Bring peace to my heart. Breathe life into my witness. Help me to speak and live as one both humbled and emboldened under Your authority. Send Your church, Lord. Challenge us. Shake us up. Send us on a mission that can only be engaged because You are the One sending us. For Your name’s sake. Amen.