ONE STAYED AND TEN RAN
ONE STAYED AND TEN RAN
Resurrection Sunday, March 31, 2013
Pastor Carolyn Sissom
John 11:25: “Jesus said unto her (Mary), I am the resurrection and the life, he that believes in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.”
John was the only disciple who stayed with Jesus at his crucifixion. Judas died by his own hand and the other ten apostles ran.
In John’s Gospel he writes down what he remembers for all eternity. He remembered that Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life”. He remembered that Jesus had just raised Lazarus from the dead. He believed Jesus when he said that whosoever lives and believes in Me shall never die.
John 11: “Whosoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Believe you this?
John may not have understood how and when God was going to do it. But John knew God was going to do it.
John 12:16: “These things the disciples did not understand at first, but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things were written of Him…”
The Sadducees tried to trick Jesus to make the doctrine of the resurrection in which they disbelieved look ridiculous. Jesus pointed out that they did not know the scriptures or the power of God.
Matthew 12:31-32: “As touching the resurrection of the dead, have you not read that which was spoken to you by God saying, ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.” (Ex. 3:6)
God is eternal and everlasting and will be to those who are in covenant with him. God will ever live to be eternally rewarding. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are living in eternity. This is not spoken of as a future state, but that they are living spirits. The Spirit and the body will be reunited at the First resurrection, but until then, this scripture spoken by Jesus proves the immortality of the Spirit within those who have made Jesus their Savior. He is the resurrection and the life. This was spoken to Moses at the bush long after Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were dead and buried. Yet God says, 'I am the God of Abrham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'. Jesus said, “God is not the God of the dead, but of the living”.
John 12: 31-32: “Now is the judgment of this world, now shall the prince of this world be cast out. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men to Me. This He said, signifying what death he should die.”
Jesus said, “Now is the judgment of this world, now shall the prince of this world be cast out.”
By Jesus’ death, resurrection and ascension, we have a choice to either believe He is the Messiah, the Son of God, or to be repelled. This is the watershed. It’s the Continental Divide. You are either on one side or the other. A choice is demanded. We can do what we want with the cross. We can study it, scorn and mock it as some have even done this past week. We can reflect upon the Old Testament prophecies. Yet the one thing we can’t do is walk away neutral.” The choice is the judgment of this world whether we are in hell for all eternity or alive with Christ.
John didn’t run, John remembered. He already knew and had experienced, “The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father.) full of grace and life.”
By John’s own admission, he hadn’t quite put the pieces together. But that didn’t matter to John. He loved Jesus and stood by the cross of Jesus with Jesus’ mother, her sister, Mary, the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw His mother standing by John He said to His mother, Woman, behold your Son! Then said Jesus to John, Behold your mother.”
But what about the ten who ran?
It was Sunday, the Bible says, "the first day of the week". Mary Magdalene has already notified Peter of the empty tomb.
The message from the angel to Mary was “Be not afraid. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified; He is risen! He is not here. Behold the place where they laid Him. Go your way, tell His disciples and Peter that He goes before you into Galilee; there shall you see Him as He said to you.”
“And Peter” ---All of heaven had just seen Peter fall and betray Jesus. The message came loud and clear from the celestial Throne room through the divine courier. Be sure and tell Peter that Jesus still loves him and he is not rejected. Peter has also been chosen.
The other disciple (John) outran Peter to the tomb.
The disciples were coming back together again. Only two nights earlier they had scattered and ducked into every available hole in Jerusalem. Peter and John tell them the news, the tomb is empty, go tell the disciples…
Could they look at each other? Were they justifying their abandonment of Jesus?
“We had to run! They would have killed us all!” Just a few days before Thomas had volunteered to go with Jesus to Judea where the Jews wanted to kill him.
When Jesus made the decision to go in spite of the danger of the Jews, Thomas said to his fellow disciples,” Let us also go, that we may die with Him.”
But Thomas had not yet joined the nine in the upper room. We are not told the anguish of his grief and failure of his boast to be willing to die with Christ.
Did they see the sky turn black? Were they near the temple when the curtain ripped or near the cemetery when the graves opened? Those hours are left to speculation. Their guilt, fear and doubts are all unrecorded.
But we do know they came back. One by one they appeared at the same upper room. Matthew, Nathaniel, Andrew. They came out of hiding. Out of the shadows came James, Peter, and Thaddeus. Perhaps some were already on their way home, but they turned around and came back.
They had failed Jesus. “Too guilty to be counted in, but too faithful to be counted out.” They gravitated to that same upper room that contained the sweet memories of broken bread and symbolic wine. “The door is locked. Dead-bolted. Inside sits nine knee-knocking itinerants who are astraddle the fence between faith and fear”.
I guess we have all been there until courage took over our fear. “But as yet they knew not the scripture that he must rise again from the dead.” (John 20:9
Then the same day at evening being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst, and said to them, ‘Peace be to you.’”
Forgiven!! Failures forgotten!! Peace extended!!! Divine Love Perfected!!! Undeserved Grace!!!!
He showed them his hands, and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them, “Peace be to you; as My Father has sent Me, even so send I you”. He breathed on them, and said to them, ‘Receive you the Holy Ghost’. Whosoever sins you remit, they are remitted to them, and whosoever sins you retain, they are retained.”
But Thomas was not with the ten (including John) in the upper room. We may have been too hard on Thomas dubbing him with the nickname, “Doubting Thomas”.
The other disciples told Thomas the “good news”, ‘We have seen the Lord’. Thomas then uttered the now famous words, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my fingers where the nails were, I will not believe it.”
Thomas momentarily forgot that “impossible” is one of God’ favorite words. He also forgot that he had been willing to die with him. Now he will be given the grace to die for him.
After eight days the disciples were gathered in the upper room. Did they spend the eight days praying in fervency in the Holy Ghost? Thomas was now with them. He had not yet seen the Lord, but he was still waiting in the upper room, hoping, praying that the disciples’ report was true.
Then Jesus came through the wall again. He said to Thomas, “Reach here your finger, and behold My hands and reach here your hand, and thrust it into My side; and be not faithless, but believing.”
Thomas fell on his face and cried, My Lord and My God!!!
Legend tells us that Thomas hopped a freighter to India. He evangelized Southern India which is still predominantly Christian to this day. They had to kill him to get him to quit talking about Jesus.
When Jesus was telling the disciples, “In My Father’s House are many mansions…I go to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you to myself, that where I am there you may be also, Where I go you know, and the way you know.” (John 14:1-4) It was Thomas who bursts out in a “What you talking about Jesus?” “Lord we don’t know where you are going, how can we know the way?
Eleven men – one stayed with Jesus at the cross and ten ran. “You wouldn’t take them for a bunch who are about to put the kettle of history on high boil. Uneducated. Confused, Calloused hands. Heavy accents. Few social graces. Limited knowledge of the world. No money. Undefined leadership…
Ten stammering, stuttering men. Though the door was locked, Jesus stood in their midst, “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.”
And send them he did. Ports. Courtyards, Boats. Synagogues. Prisons. Palaces. They went everywhere. Their message of the Nazarene dominoed across the civilized world. They were an infectious fever. They were a moving organism. They refused to be stopped. Uneducated drifters who shook history.
“All I know is that he was dead and now he is alive.” Alive forever more! He is Risen! He is God of the living and not of the dead. Whosoever lives and believes in Jesus shall never die. Believe you this?
1 Peter 1:3: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy has begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”
John 10:28: “I give to them (my sheep) eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand.”
Pastor Carolyn Sissom
Eastgate Ministries, Inc.
Scripture from KJV ---I entered into the labors of No Wonder they Call Him The Savior by: Max Lucado 1986 Multnomah Press as indicated by the quotations.