The Love of God: Mary Magdalene (John 20) – Part 2

I’ll tell you something funny, brothers. Please get the eyes of God. Get those eyes. Do you really believe that there was nothing out there but Jesus Christ and His bride? Do you believe that? I want you to know it’s the absolute truth.

You tell me, how many people saw Jesus Christ after He rose from the dead? How many? Five hundred. Why not thousands? Why not hundreds of thousands? Did He not walk around? Why did they not see him? Because they weren’t there. Do you understand that the only people who saw Him were those who existed? Only those whom He saw existed, and the only people who existed were those who had, with all their heart, believed!

There were five hundred of them, and they saw him. I tell you, he is a narrow-minded God. He said the rest were gone, and they were gone. He said sin was gone, and it was gone. He said the enemy was bridled; He was bridled, nullified. He said sin was gone, and it was gone. He could not see anything but one thing. What could He see? His bride.

Are you impressed? Who could see him? Those who believed in him. His wife could see him. Did He love her? Yes. Passionately? Yes. I think the evidence would say He loved her.

The story gets exciting. He stood. There was a rock in front of the tomb. He’s inside. What does the Lord want more than anything else in the world right now? His wife. What do you think He did when He got to that stone? He kicked it out of the way. Don’t think He kicked that out of the way, brother. He didn’t kick it out of the way. He didn’t bother to wait that long. He walked right through it. That was the God part of him. Just like the God part came up out of the grave, but the napkin came off of humanity. He went right through it, and after He went through it, in the earliest cracks of dawn, two angels came and pushed it open as an exhibit to the world.

I want to ask you, who got there first? Who got there first? Mary. What did she see? A stone rolled away. She saw an empty tomb. What did it mean to her? Out of her deep love for the Lord, she had not seen what had just happened; her heart was broken. The one whom she had loved was moved; heartless men had moved his body.

She took off for Simon Peter and John and said, “Oh, please come to the tomb. They’ve taken away his body, and I don’t know where. That “I don’t know” means that that little girl had taken absolute responsibility for Jesus Christ, and she was going for someone to help her find the body. She had elected herself custodian of a dead God.

They came to the tomb. One looked in, one ran in. They both came out; they didn’t know what to think. What did they do? They went home. What did Mary Magdalene do? She went to the last place she knew Jesus Christ had been, and that’s where she stayed, and she started weeping. Boy, that girl could cry. She looked up, and there were two men dressed in garments like she had never seen garments before.

But she’s simple. She wasn’t a theological expert. She didn’t know what that meant. She looked up, and there they stood, and they said, “Woman, why are you weeping?”

Listen to her words again. “They have taken away the body of my Lord, and I don’t know where they laid it.” That’s all she said. That was enough for her. That was everything that needed to be said. “I don’t know where…” I can’t describe the meaning of those words to you. That little girl was saying, “You see, please don’t blame me for not taking care of Him. The only reason I’m not caring for Him, if I should, is I don’t know where they put Him. She was so clear in her mind where she ought to be at that moment, but she didn’t know where He was. Where was Jesus Christ? I don’t know. May the Lord forgive me… I think he was out looking for His wife.

But the Lord could never miss an opportunity to bring out a truth. You remember when His mother looked straight at Him and said: “They’re out of wine.” He knew that they had run out of something to drink, but He took it on the highest level, and he said, ” Woman, don’t talk to me that way. My time’s not yet.”

What was He saying? He heard her on the highest level, and that was the level that, yes, Israel and all the world had run out of spiritual wine. And that He was the new wine. He said, “Woman, don’t talk to me that way. My hour to be the new wine has not yet come.”