The Appearance

well good Morning Listen for many of you that come on a regular basis let me introduce myself to you because you may not recognize me I usually don't wear a button-up collared shirt and a jacket So my name is Keith Smith I'm the pastor here at South Sub Church But whether you come all the time or this is your first time we are so excited that you are here with us You know Easter is a double special day for me It's the most special day because that's the day we celebrate the the resurrection of our savior But Easter marks my anniversary If you're coming to South Sub Church this is my second year anniversary and I am thankful Yeah that's not for me That is for you I am thankful that I get to call you my family I am thankful that I get to call you my friends I am thankful that I get to call you the ones that I need when I'm broke and have no money I'm just thankful for all of you in so so many ways So we're glad you're here today You know being Easter I was reading a story this past week about a husband and wife and two kids They were going to church and probably like many of you you're rushing to get here right You had these good intentions of getting up on time but they were running late So they were rushing to get to the church and the man reached down to get his phone to do a quick text to let his rest of his family members know they were on their way to church And as he looked down he looked back up and the Easter Bunny was hopping across the road but he did not have time to swerve He did not have time to slam on the brakes And on their way to church on Easter Sunday they ran over the Easter Bunny You can imagine Yeah you can imagine the car The kids are screaming "Oh my gosh." So the man quickly pulled over and he ran back to the Easter Bunny And the Easter Bunny is laying there lifeless like not a breath coming out of its soul not a movement out of its limbs The Easter Bunny is I hope all the kids have gone downstairs already The Easter Bunny's dead And he freaks out He's going "Oh my goodness I just killed the Easter Bunny." And so as he looked up another car pulled over and a lady ran over and said "What happened What happened?" He's just just freaking out He's going "I I I I I just I ran over the Easter Bunny." She goes "Don't panic." And she ran back to her trunk of her car and she pulled out an air a airsoler spray can and she came back and she said "Just step back sir." And he stepped back from the Easter Bunny And she got over that Easter Bunny with that aerosol spray can and just sprayed all over that Easter Bunny and just sprayed all over it And then she took a step back and all of a sudden that Easter Bunny began to shake its limbs The Easter Bunny sat up The Easter Bunny stood up waved at him did about 10 feet worth of hops waved again hopped another 20 yards waved again hopped another 50 yards and waved again and just took off And the man looked at the woman and said "What in the world What what what just happened there?" And she said "Oh." and she held up that aerosol spray can and said "I just got some hairspray." And she says "If you read on the can the hairspray says restores life to dead hair and adds permanent

wave." Here's what I figure If if you don't start Easter Sunday with a really bad joke then you got to really strive to make it better right So I just went as bottom as I could to get that joke in there But you know what Today is about so many celebrations there It is about the Easter bunny It is about the Easter eggs It is about the chocolate candy It is about new clothes And if we're not careful we can get so focused on those types of celebrations that we miss the real meaning of Easter which is celebrating the resurrection of our Lord Savior Savior Jesus Christ Now that's not a new problem That's not something that we're experiencing in 2025 and in past years No one worried about that You can go all the way back to the Bible and they almost missed the real reason of this special day And today I want to take you to a passage It's found in John chapter 20 Um if you have your hand out you'll have the scripture there We'll put it up on the screen here But I want to take you to a specific scripture where there is an individual by the name of Mary who almost missed the real reason of the celebration She almost missed Jesus himself as he stood before her after his resurrection And so John 20:1 here's what it says Early on Sunday morning so this is a Sunday morning like the Sunday morning we have right now Jesus was crucified on the Friday They had laid him in the tomb Everybody was sad His disciples had scattered The women around him His mother including they were crying because Jesus was dead And it says this "Early on Sunday morning while it was still dark Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and found that the stone had been rolled away from the entrance So on this dreadful and remember dreadful because Jesus hadn't resurrected yet as far as she knew on this dreadful day Mary Magdalene just to give you a little bit of background about her she was one of Jesus's followers In fact as you read the four gospel accounts of Jesus she was mentioned in his life story more than even any of the other disciples The best we can tell that she probably attached herself to his ministry to following him early on in his ministries And and and when she did that and here's how it came about that she was the Bible tells us she was demonpossessed when Jesus encountered her In fact the Bible lets us know that she had seven demons living inside of her So here was a hopeless helpless woman when Jesus encountered her early on in the Gospels But through his encounter with her the Bible lets us know that he cast the demons out of her He gave a woman who was hopeless and helpless he gave her kind of a new leash on life A woman who had no identity because of all the demonic things inside of her of all the horrible tragic things that she was dealing with A woman who had no identity When Jesus came and presented himself to her cast those demons out He gave her the identity as a follower of Jesus Christ And so when Jesus was crucified on that Friday many of his followers were upset Many were disheartened But Mary for the foremost was truly just wiped out because this is the man that had given her hope This is the man that she had given her life to follow This is the man who had restored her very life not just physical life but emotional life and personal life and spiritual life He had restored it to her And so on this day when she went to the tomb and she saw that the ro the tomb the the rock had been rolled away she was just a little bit mortified for a moment And the Bible goes on to say this that when she saw that stone rolled away there in verse chap verse um verse two she ran and she found Simon Peter and the other disciple who we now know as John who she found Simon Peter and the other disciple the one whom Jesus loved And she said to them "They have taken the Lord's body out of the tomb and we don't know where they put him." Like when she saw this rock had been rolled away she wasn't even beginning to think that he had resurrected She thought somebody had come and stolen his body So the first thing she did she ran back to two of his kind of personal friends as key disciples and he said "Peter John they've taken his body." And if you keep reading that passage what happens Peter and John takes off running to the tomb because they want to see for themselves They can't believe what she just said And when they got there they saw the ro the stone had been rolled away But seeing the stone rolled away just didn't satisfy their curiosity And the Bible lets us know they poked their head into the tomb to see what was going on hoping maybe his body is still there And there are two angels And the two angels were standing beside the place where they had laid his body And Jesus's grave clothes were on that stone where they had laid his body once he was crucified And it was at that moment as you read this account that they say to themselves "We now believe that Jesus had been saying over the last weeks and even months of his life that he's going to come back in three days that he's going to be resurrected." They couldn't understand all of that But when they saw the angels they saw the the the stone with the grave closed there They didn't see Jesus The Bible says they believed and they went back to tell all the other disciples Now undoubtedly when Peter and John ran to the tomb to check this out Mary followed with them again to see And by the time they were leaving she was just arriving but she hadn't yet believed She hadn't seen what they had seen She hadn't experienced what they had experienced And so the Bible goes on to say there in verse 11 that Mary was standing outside the tomb crying And as she wept she stood and she looked in and she saw two white robed angels one sitting at the head and the other at the foot of the place where the body of Jesus had been lying "Dear woman why are you crying?" the angels asked her And she responded "Because they've taken away my Lord," she replied "I don't know where they put him." Again she's thinking somebody had stolen the body She's thinking some human had come and moved that rock She's thinking some human some grave robber had taken the body of Jesus And she turned to leave and she saw someone standing there It was Jesus But she didn't recognize him Dear woman why are you crying Jesus asked her Who are you looking for And she thought he was the gardener when she was talking to Jesus Sir she said if you have taken him away tell me where you've put him and I will go and I will get him And then these words were said "Mary Mary," Jesus said She turned to him and she cried out "Ramboni," which is Hebrew for teacher So it was at that moment that she was in there looking wondering where they had taken the body of Jesus And she meets Jesus himself But here's what I want us to see She almost missed him The savior the resurrected Messiah the one who had given her life back to her is standing right in front of her and she's thinking he's the gardener And so the question I asked myself and the question I pose to us today as we look at this passage what was it going on inside of her that had her almost miss seeing Jesus And I think there's a few reasons now though scripture doesn't tell us these but as I begin to study the passage and begin to even put myself in her place and put yourself in her place I think there's a couple of practical reasons maybe why she almost missed Jesus And and you may ask the question well Keith since it doesn't say in the scripture why do you suppose again we don't know for sure but why do you suppose these may be reasons Because I think they may be the same very reasons that you and I often miss Jesus when he's standing right in front of us So if you're taking notes and you like to fill in the blank here's the first one here Here's the first supposed reason that Mary might have missed Jesus She was consumed with her own personal circumstances I mean let's think through her circumstances Her best type friend the one who had given her life the one she had committed herself to one who had loved her like no one else had ever loved her before had died She was consumed with emotions She was consumed with the grief Many of you have been there at some point in your life Maybe a parent passed away Maybe a child passed away A good friend passed away And there's no way that you can put words into the grief of your soul when that happens And there's oftentimes when someone you love dies like that and you just you you can't even see what's in front of you because the grief is so so deep And so Mary was just consumed with her personal circumstances of Jesus at being died She was so caught up in her pain that she couldn't see the person Last spring friend of mine invited me to go hiking And so we took off hiking Before we took off he said "Now Keith be aware this is springtime So this is when all the little snakes are coming out And just be aware as we walk down the trail." He goes "I'll go first and that way I can be on the lookout for him but just just be aware." So we make it about a mile into our hike and he stops and he goes "There's one right there." And we're on this three-foot trail Not a lot of ways to walk around it And there was about a a really big snake on the trail Okay Like I don't know how big but it was really really big snake on the trail Just a small rattlesnake And his head was pointing like he was going off the trail but for some reason he decided to just stop on the trail And so as I looked at this three-foot trail there was about a foot you could go behind him and he was taking up the other two foot of the trail And so my friend this this expert hiker that I was going with he said "Just just step around it." And he stepped around that snake and kept going He got about 50 yards up the trail and he turned around and I'm still there He's going "Come on just go around it." Everything in me knew in my mind I needed to go around that st snake but I was frozen in my body I could not see that he was in a much safer place ahead of me going on than I was standing two or three feet from that snake I was literally frozen could not make my legs move and go around it Now I don't know if you've ever been in a situation like that Maybe not a snake but maybe you had some circumstances or maybe you have some circ circumstances in front of you that you are so frozen in the circumstances that you can't see a better pathway in front of you past those circumstances That's exactly where Mary was That's exactly where many of us find ourselves often times It may not be the death of somebody It could just be emotionally that you're just dealing with depression anxiety maybe just the stress of life but yet the circumstances that bring that stress that bring that depression that bring this brings that anxiety has you so frozen where you are and just overwhelmed in the circumstances that you can't see the clear path in front of you that will move you beyond those circumstances Maybe it's not emotionally maybe it's financially You ever been so broke you can't see the next day in front of you Like all you can see is what's not in the bank account and rather than doing something to maybe alleviate some of this financial struggles you're just frozen We've all been there at some point We've felt that financially to be that broke and the bills just keep piling up and piling up piling up and it's overwhelming Or maybe it's relationships Maybe you're in a relationship that there's so much constant fighting and unresolved conflict that the circumstances have you so just overwhelmed you can't see a clear path through it Maybe you've gone through a divorce this past year or a breakup But we could go down the line of more and more different things But the circumstances of life often bring us to the point that we are frozen and we can't see Jesus in the middle of it because all we see is the all we see are the are the

circumstances When our hearts overwhelmed by suffering it's easy to let our emotions overshadow the truth of the resurrection Let me say that one more time When our hearts are overwhelmed by suffering by the anxiety by the bills piling up by the relational conflict when our when when our emotions are just overwhelmed by the circumstances of our life it's easy to let our emotions overshadow the truth of the resurrection And maybe for Mary that's why she didn't see Jesus He's standing right there in front of her She's thinking he's the gardener but she doesn't recognize him because her circumstances blurred her very insight her very sight to see the Savior in front of her Let me give you a second reason Why didn't Mary see Why didn't Mary recognize that Jesus was right there If you're taking notes you can write this this one

down She was looking for her own version of Jesus

When she got to the tomb she's looking for what she thought Jesus was supposed to look like She was looking for what Jesus she wanted him to look like And what did she want him to look like She wanted to look like a dead person laying on this concrete rock wrapped in burial clothes She had gone to the tomb to inbalm a corpse not talk to a Christ She had gone there expecting to see a dead Jesus not a resurrected Jesus And so she went there with her own idea her own version of what Jesus should look like So here is her problem Her faith was being shaped by her own expectations and not God's revelation Let me say that again her shape of who Jesus was was being shaped or her idea her faith was being shaped by her own personal expectations of who or what Jesus should have been and not God's revelation of who Jesus was at that moment in her life Can I be honest We do this all the time We we we pray to a God We pray to Jesus but it's one that we're like "Okay I'm praying to you God I'm looking to you Jesus But this is the type of Jesus that I'm looking for I'm looking for a Jesus that never lets my loved ones die I'm looking for a Jesus who never lets bad things happen to good people I'm looking for a Jesus who makes all my dreams come

true See we're just like Mary The reason we may sometimes miss Jesus is because we've so shaped him in the image we want him to be in that we don't allow him to be the image that he desires to be in our lives So he's in front of us But because we're looking for something else we just don't see him When we create Jesus and put him in this little box when we put him in that box we miss the fullness of who God really is Like if if if the God we worship can be put in my box that's a little bitty God Now over the years of my life that box has grown and I see God more and I see who he is And so my box has grown But if I ever get to the point that I can fit my God into my box then he is no longer the big God that I've grown up knowing who he really is And so maybe you're here today like Mary and and maybe at times you miss who Jesus is because you're looking for your own version of Jesus and not the version who he wants to be in your

life Mary made Jesus a gardener But Jesus was standing there wanting to be your savior That's not to belittle gardeners That's just to raise up who and what a savior actually is Let me give you the third reason The third reason that maybe maybe she missed him That maybe she was just simply searching in the wrong place That she was focused on what was around her rather than who was in front of her You see Mary was going to the tomb that morning to carry out a burial tradition She did not know that the day before when he was buried that someone else had already wrapped him in these clothes and had put these spices these barrel spices on him So she was going to carry out a tradition and she was hoping to get there and get inside and put anoint him with these oils with these inbalming spices that would be just a tradition And if she would have done that like many of us when we follow through with a tradition it gives us some personal peace doesn't it Like there's just something about traditions whether they're Easter traditions or Christmas traditions or or family traditions there's something about traditions that just life is going on the way it's supposed to And so on this particular day she went there with the hope of that she could inbalm him that she could put these spices on him and fulfill this burial tradition that wouldn't bring him back to life but that would give her just a little bit of peace through this tradition Now traditions aren't bad are they I actually like putting on a button-up shirt and a jacket once a year for Easter I don't like ironing the shirt but I like putting on the shirt once a year I like I like some of the things that we have around Christmas We had amazing um Monday Thursday service Thursday night and Friday we had our Good Friday service They were amazing times I look forward to those But you know what the problem with traditions are Whether they're secular traditions or whether they are religious traditions you know what the problem with traditions are They're temporary You have to do them again Like we need Easter to come around next year so we can have the peace of a Good Friday service so we can have the peace of a resurrected celebration service on Easter morning Traditions need to happen and come back around They've just got to be repeated And and here's the problem with Easter that sometimes that our holiday of Easter as followers of Jesus as churchgoers as a Christian nation our traditions of Easter are so focused on the traditions that we miss the Jesus who the traditions are about Mary she went there and she's looking for Jesus but the wrong Jesus She went there to carry out a tradition of religion And she almost missed the relationship of Jesus And Jesus was standing right there and he's going "I just want to be with you Mary I'm stepping forth I left for a little while but I'm back." and she almost missed him because her eyes was on the tradition of the burial something that would give her a temporary peace There's a story of a of a Sunday school teacher was Easter morning and the Sunday school teacher wanted to make sure all the little kids really understood not the traditions of Easter but the real meaning of Easter And so she asked the kids they were gathered in a circle and she said "So what's the what's what's Easter really about?" And one little boy raised saying "Oh I love Easter teacher I love Easter It's about the big chocolate Easter bunny that will be in my basket every Easter morning I love Easter And she was a little like "Oh that's not really it." So she called in another child The little girl raised her hand She goes "I love Easter." Because every Easter my mom buys me a brand new dress At this point the teacher had been teaching these kids all year long It's like kind of becoming disheartened like "Oh this is not what we're here for This is not what it's about." Another boy raised his hand and she was about ready to shut it down because she couldn't handle any more wrong answers But this one little boy's like "No I know I know I know." And she goes "Okay what's Easter really about?" She goes "Oh oh oh Easter's about when Jesus walked out of the tomb." And she got real excited until he said "And he saw a shadow and he knew they were going to have six more weeks of winter once he saw a shadow."

The traditions Again nothing's wrong with traditions Okay Don't think I'm up here going "Your traditions are bad." I love many of the secular traditions I miss when my kids were young and then we would gather after we eat Easter lunch and we'd get the confetti filled eggs and we'd crack them on their heads I miss that tradition and having my kids around I I miss going to the dollar store at 10:00 at night on the Friday before Easter or Saturday before Easter because you haven't got the candy yet and you got to buy all the candy I miss all those traditions They're good I love this the the spiritual traditions we have They are good reminders But when we place traditions ahead of Jesus we've missed it In fact in fact traditions are good when they supplement our faith but traditions can be bad when they replace our faith And Mary went more to replace Let the burial cloth let the anointing let the bombing take care of my grief instead of the resurrected savior that would take care of her grief Here's the last one Maybe maybe she missed Jesus She just didn't believe in the resurrection of Jesus Like the Bible says that Peter and John they believe they went back but she's arrived for the second time She came the first time saw the stone rolled away she came the second time and there's nothing that we can read from scripture that's letting us believe that she's looking for a resurrected savior In fact he's standing right in front of her and she still doesn't recognize Jesus So maybe maybe she missed Jesus because she just didn't believe in the resurrection Now can I be honest as the pastor standing up here Be really really transparent and honest The resurrection is a hard thing to believe I mean let's just be real here right now I'm not putting my faith away and I'm not saying I don't believe in it But if you walk up to somebody who has no background in faith no background in God no understanding of Jesus going "Hey Jesus rose again Happy you know he is risen He's risen indeed." They're going "Are you talking about the rose in the oven that's risen?" I don't know what you're talking about the the the the resurrection can be a hard thing to grasp And and the fact that we recognize this hard thing to grasp is not a it's not a it's not an indictment on our faith There are times when I pray I'm going God today my faith is not there I know you're going to be there and I'm going to have to ride your coattails God but you have to bring me in But today I'm just not believing I'm not having the faith that I do on other days And in fact here's what we need to understand that this idea of a resurrection It's for many people creates a little bit of

skepticism Mary went back and I would say one of the ways we could describe Mary was not a little bit of skepticism but a whole lot of skepticism Remember the weeks and months prior to this Jesus had had forecasted he had foreshadowed his resurrection and he had told her she was one of his closest followers If anybody should have got it she should have got it But Mary had some skepticism about her I mean think about this She's not the only one Peter and John did not believe her when she went and said "The tomb's empty." They should have said at that point "Oh yeah Didn't you didn't you hear Jesus He said he's going to be resurrected Hallelujah We've been waiting on this They had to go back When they saw the rock had been rolled away they had to poke their head inside and an angel had to let them know he's no longer there Keep reading in chapter 20 There's going to be a moment that one of the other disciples Thomas he sees Jesus straight up until Jesus goes "Hey G Thomas I'm Jesus." And he goes "I am not going to believe until I put my hands in the nail scarred hands and where the spirit went in your side So even some of the strongest followers the faithful followers they had skepticism It didn't mean they didn't have faith It just meant they had a little bit of doubt You see today some come to celebrate the resurrection while others come to question it If you're here today and you're going Keith I'm not going to raise my hand because I'm in church and I might get struck dead but I'm kind of in that questioning piece the questioning side the questioning group Can I just tell you this That's

okay As your pastor that's not where I want you to land But I don't want to look at you going you're kidding me Then why are you even here today If like if you don't have faith in the resurrection you should have stayed home and got lunch ready That way by the time the rest of us Christians got home we'd be ready waiting for us You know why I would never condemn that way Because Jesus didn't When Mary did not see and rec or she didn't recognize Jesus he didn't look at her going "Come on Mary Like really Where's all the demons that used to be in you?" "Oh yeah that was me Mary And now you don't recognize me No he looked at her with great great compassion In fact here's what we need to understand Faith in Jesus isn't about having every answer It's about responding when you hear his voice Faith in Jesus is not having all the answers It's about responding when you hear his voice Couple of weeks ago we were in a sermon and we took looked at when Jesus raised Lazarus And there's this moment that Jesus looked at Martha Lazarus's sister who was as skeptical as they came and he simply said "Ma Martha do you believe?" He didn't say "Do you have all the answers?" He He didn't say "Um c can you pass the 100 question test I'm about to give you?" He just said "Do you

believe?" And so Mary maybe like you has some skepticism Don't let your questions make you run from Jesus Allow your questions to take a step towards Jesus Do you believe So those are four four reasons why Mary might have missed who Jesus was Again scripture doesn't say these are the four reasons but as we put our own selves in Mary's place it may be the very reason some of us miss Jesus sometimes

But she didn't miss him I mean we don't read the story going "Oh maybe she'll get a second chance." No she didn't need a second chance because she finally recognized Jesus And you know when she recognized Jesus When he called her by name he looked at her and he said that one word "Mary."

There was something about when she heard her friend when she heard Jesus when she heard the resurrected Jesus call her by name Mary she recognized him It was at that moment that her grief turned to joy It was that moment that her confusion turned to clarity and it was in that one word Mary that her hopeless hopelessness of life turned to a purpose in life Let me read it to you again She turned to leave and she saw someone standing there and it was Jesus but she didn't recognize him Dear woman why are you crying Jesus asked her who are you looking for And she thought he was the gardener Sir she said if you've taken him away please tell me where you've put him and I will go and I will get him Mary Mary Jesus said She turned to him and she cried out the bony which is Hebrew for teacher If you're taking notes the last blank there just simply says "Mary recognized Jesus when he called her by name." You might have been like me Woke up this morning and looked at my text and I had some Easter text greetings He has risen And I got one from somebody I'm going "Oh my goodness I haven't talked to him in a long time." And I read it and it had a nice little Easter message and just said "Happy Easter." And I looked at it more and I realized I think that text was a text that was sent to all 5,000 million people in their contact list Like it was nice to get it but when I recognized it was a generic text that was sent to probably everybody on their contacts contact list it just kind of because I thought they sent it to me We hadn't talked in several months I thought they thought about me this morning So I got all excited because they thought about me and then I realized no just a group text You ever been there before Like if you send me one today God bless you I love you Okay I'm not dogging those But it just kind of lowered a little bit But have you ever gotten a text from someone that was specifically to you Couple of weeks ago I had a text got a received a text from someone that says "Hey Keith I woke up this morning God laid you on my heart and I'm praying for you How can I pray for you?" You know what happened inside of me Not only was I encouraged because somebody was praying for me it made me lean towards the person who sent that Why Because they called me by name And I think at that moment that Jesus called her by name her eyes were opened Her heart was made alive again because it wasn't just some generic thing that Jesus was saying to everybody He was calling her by name Let me read one last verse to you It's in John 20:31 You see we're reading this in the Gospel of John That's where today's account comes from And so the whole book of John has been the apostle the disciple John writing things out At the very end of him writing out his gospel so we would have it today 2,000 years later he writes this These are written meaning the things that we just read the things that we just talked about everything else in the Gospel of John these are written down so that you will believe Jesus is the Messiah the son of God and in the act of believing you will have real and eternal life in the personally way he revealed it These are written so that you will believe You know there's a better way that we could probably read that verse rather than that pronoun you put your name That these are written so that Keith will believe These are written so that Sarah would believe These are written so that Gabriel would rel would believe that today on a day that millions and millions of people around the world are celebrating Easter let's not make it a corporate event before we know it's a personal event that just like Jesus called Mary by name today he calls calls you by name He calls me by

name Would you bow your

head The resurrected savior Would you sit there just imagine that tomb and in your overwhelming circumstances in your doubt that you sometimes have in your traditions that you allow sometimes replace the real relationship with Jesus and all the things in your life that you're poking your head inside that tomb and all of a sudden out walks a person that you think is the gardener but he calls you by

name Listen for your name

Today all that Jesus requires of us is to believe Maybe the best prayer that each of us could pray today is Jesus I believe I don't get all of it I don't understand all of it but I believe that you are the resurrected son of God So Father we we come before you We

believe you are the resurrected You are the

resurrection We believe