In reflecting on our ongoing discussion about the power of God, a theme that you hopefully have seen emerging in recent weeks is the fact that nearly every breakthrough and miracle that we will experience in our Christian walk will require a faithful request or else some sort of bold initiation on our part. I have said it before: “God will use you to work your own miracles.” Scripture confirms this. Two weeks ago, we learned about the woman who was healed because she waded through a crowd just to touch the hem of Jesus’ robe (Mark 5:24-34). The two blind men in Matthew’s Gospel similarly had to call out to Jesus before having their sight returned to them (Matthew 20: 29-34).

This week’s story is a little different. It’s a little shocking, really. It starts off ordinarily enough—if one could ever really refer to Christ’s miracles as “ordinary”—beginning on the heels of yet another ‘self-initiated’ miracle, where a Roman officer has just offered a bold analysis of authority, thereby impressing Jesus and healing his slave (Luke 7:1-10). After this episode, Jesus travels the ten miles from Capernaum to Nain. It is here where this week’s story begins.

Jesus, as you can probably imagine, has garnered quite the following by this point in his ministry. He’s healed leapers (Luke 17:11-19); he’s cast out demons (Matthew 8:28-34); he’s fed the 5,000 (Matthew 14:13-21) and restored the sight to the blind through some rather unusual means (John 9: 1-34). What’s more, he’s probably earned the reputation as a particularly cheeky prophet at that. By now he’s worked a month’s worth of Sabbath days (thereby incensing the local Pharisaical devotees), and even managed to get kicked out of his hometown of Nazareth. Indeed, controversy tends to spiral in his wake. That is all to say that this young rabbi was likely to have a crowd of disciples, onlookers, enthusiasts and scrutinizers surrounding him wherever he went.

So on the road to Nain this entourage, all abuzz with the witnessing of miracles and ten miles of teaching, meets up with a crowd with an altogether different timbre. The crowd whom Jesus encounters in Nain is a funeral procession accompanying a widow who has just lost her only son. This is a rare and terrible blow for any single mother, but even more so for a woman in this time and culture, who would’ve lost not only her last blood relative but her financial safety net as well. She, in effect, has lost everything. At the front of this procession would likely have been a band of her peers wailing along with her in an act of demonstrative sisterhood.

These two crowds eventually meet—one craving life and the other mourning death. The emotional contrast could not be starker nor Jesus’ reaction more surprising. Upon witnessing this woman and intuiting her sad circumstances, he is moved to intervene. His intervention, however, is surprising in several ways. First, it is interesting to note that this woman, unlike the other stories mentioned above, does not ask for his intercession. Her dire worldview has probably become such that she is tired of the faithful and all their optimism. She’s stopped asking for miracles long ago. Her prayers, she tells herself, have not and will not be answered. She’s done. Jesus, though, spots her and calls to her, “Do not cry!” Authoritative. Curiously, Luke reports that his reaction was one of excessive compassion, though most of us are prone to intuit one’s yelling at a widow as an especially insensitive act. The thing to catch here is that Jesus is refusing to agree with her situation, and is instead provoking her to think otherwise. Tough love, some might call it.

But Jesus isn’t finished. He never is. He goes a step beyond speaking and moves to action. As Luke reports, he walks into this crowd, the death crowd, and tells the boy to “get up.” Equally authoritative. And out of an equal compassion. The boy, as you have read, does exactly that. Another miracle has been worked and witnessed.

As an aside, it is crucial to recognize that becoming a Christian is not a one-way ticket to The Good Life. Even after that altar call your day to day existence will more than likely remain a challenging endeavor and your obstacles will still be there where you left them. So let’s be frank, the Christian walk is not paved in bricks of gold. What Kingdom living does offer you is not only a Savior and Redeemer, but what’s more, a community of people who will speak into your world encouragement and, when necessary, conviction. They will become your brothers, sisters, friends, and mentors. It is the crowd round you, and not a plastic smile, that will help to keep your feet moving when life becomes nearly unlivable, and in this circle you will find hope. And Jesus will of course be there as well, teaching and affirming you every step of the way.

What Jesus has effectively done in this story (and beyond) is shaken death by its collar. Perhaps you require a similar ‘shaking.’ Perhaps you have responded to the wailing of the death crowd and decided long ago to tuck tail and walk in their ways—out of fear, or despondency, or faithlessness. Jesus is perhaps calling to you those same tough, provocative words: Stop crying and get up! And perhaps the local church will be the last thing, maybe the only thing, that can help get you back on your feet.

John 20:1-18 (NIV): “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. 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!” 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) Then the disciples went back to their homes, but Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot. 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.” At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus. “Woman,” he said, “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.” Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (Which means Teacher). Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ “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.”

Let’s take a trip into the tomb for a minute. The tomb is place where you die with Christ. When you die with Christ, your eyes are opened to the spiritual atmosphere around you. There are things going on around our lives that we have no idea about. As Mary Magdalene ran into the tomb to make sure that Jesus was gone, her eyes were opened to the things inside of the tomb that the disciples had overlooked.

There were three things inside of the tomb, in addition to the Angels sitting in reverence and praise at the head and foot of where Jesus had lain. The first of these things were the strips of linen that Jesus’ body had been clothed in. This means that as Jesus rose from the grave, he donned new garments. For those of us dying with Christ, this means that we become new people. We have the same person inside of us, but we are now clothed with the King of all Kings, with the best of the best. Our attitudes in life are radically changed, and people notice that.

The second thing that is found in the tomb is the burial cloth, the face cloth that covered Jesus’ face as his body lay in the tomb. For us, this means that we will be washed clean of our past, not forgotten, but washed clean. It is a brand new day; the freshness of God is on our lives. We have the brightest of futures to look forward to.

The third thing we find in the tomb is Mary’s humanity. She falls down on her knees and weeps, begging for her savior to be given back to her, to know where his body lay. She died to herself, wanting nothing more than her savior. As she realized who was standing before her, she wept with joy, not sorrow. As we ourselves die with Christ in the tomb, our humanities are also stripped away. As we die to ourselves, we turn around and find our lives in the hands of our savior. Joy floods into our lives, replacing the sorrow.

It is hard to believe what Jesus says sometimes, but his promises are true. Visit the tomb- so that you can die with Christ and come alive with a new life. The same spirit that rose Jesus from the dead is also alive within us. Take a hold of that, and don’t you ever let go.

There are several things about this event that are so powerful, that you have to look closely and read between the lines to find them.

The first is this: Mary Magdelene was a formerly troubled woman. Her mind had been “possessed by evil”. Once Jesus delivered her, she followed Jesus and became something of a “first responder” for his ministry. She was very close to Jesus’ mother. She was present at every significant event Jesus was involved with after their meeting – especially at the resurrection. She came to the tomb on the Sunday morning after his death with the intention to perfume and anoint Jesus’ body, only to find that it was gone. She first sees the angels and asks where her Lord is. Then she looks behind her, sees Jesus and knows him when he calls her name.

Sometimes when we hear God call our name, everything changes and the light goes on. Easter is about the saving of the world, but it is also about you and me having this kind of experience with Jesus. He says “Mary” and she knows him. Her first response is to cling to him, but he says “No, my work isn’t finished yet. I have to return to my father.” Before his spirit could ascend, it had to descend. God’s plan was to make sure that nothing could stand in the way of when Jesus called out your name, you could respond.

When Mary came to find Jesus, it was so early that it was still dark. At that point, from Friday until that morning, Jesus had been fighting the greatest enemy of mankind – death. In order to overcome death and take away its power was to defeat death. The only way he could defeat death was to confront it by dying. And the only way he could overcome it in the Spirit was to descend into hell and defeat what represents death in the spirit. The wages of sin is death. Jesus wants to stop death, so he confronts death at the source of death – where it lives, where it is born, at its epicenter and confronts it with his blood sacrifice. His blood that takes away the sin – the death – of the world.

He defeats death and is resurrected on Sunday. On his way back to his father, he has this encounter with Mary – this formally troubled, sinful woman. It is more significant when you look at Mary’s life in regards to all of the taboos she had violated in Jewish culture. It is a powerful picture that God is in love with everyone – to see Mary Magdeline as the one to first hear her name called and have a revelation of Jesus after his death.

Then Jesus does ascend, and he presents himself to his father. The Bible tells him that all of the saints of the Bible – the great cloud of witnesses, the famous patriarchs – are waiting for Jesus. David writes a prophetic Psalm about Jesus return: “Open ye gates so that the king of glory might come in. Who is this king? It is the lord mighty in battle.” Jesus had been battling mightily for all humanity – to transcend death and set us free. Jesus then comes to the father and presents himself, and the father receives the sacrifice, and he says “You are my son, and I will place my glory upon you. I will give you the scepter of righteousness. I will call you a king.” After this, Jesus comes back to Earth, presents himself to the disciples, and charges them with the Great Commission.

As powerful as the words of Scripture are that paint the picture of Easter for us, it is but a meer shadow of the reality of God and of what Easter is all about – all that the death and resurrection mean.

You meet God at the same place every time – you always come back to the same place when you stray from God, or are troubled by life. You always come back to God, and He asks you one thing: “Will you believe?” As we are moving towards our belief, he calls out our name. As we are staring at emptiness, death, trouble and pain, there is someone here calling out our name. And when we hear our name, something inside us pricks us, and we look. And we crumble when we hear our name. It is the same place every time – the same intersection for every problem. You just have to believe. You just have to make that move. And he calls you by your name and he holds you.

Praying, coming to church, worshipping, serving, being generous, being kind – these are all things we do, pathways we take, to get us to that place. The place where we trust what we can’t see, believe what we can’t understand. It all comes back to that one place. Easter is powerful because it is one of our key moments, one of the key times that move us to come back, renew and restate our belief. Jesus is always so close – even when we feel like he is far away. Mary thought that Jesus was gone, but he was right behind her. All she had to do was look around and hear him call her name. He is always standing there.