A Sage or Savior?

by Tom Simmons

When I preached on Easter I pointed to Mary Madgalene's story in John's Gospel. I asked peope, Do you believe her? Some are skeptical of this claim…and with good reason. Dead people stay dead, right? We know this. It’s medically impossible for someone dead three days to “come back to life”. It just doesn’t happen…so there must be a rational explanation.

“Obviously”, people say, “someone is telling tales to make a sage into a Savior, to make Jesus, who was a great religious leader, or prophet, or guru into something much more.” Do you suspect they’re making this up? Stay with me because on close examination of this story it’s obvious they aren’t.

If they were inventing this, would they say, “Jesus is risen from the dead….as a gardener”?! No. If they were weaving a myth to elevate their guy Jesus from sage into Savior they’d make him look much more impressive, wouldn’t they? They’d include angelic trumpets and timpani, with great shining heavenly lights and Handle’s Messiah in the background. That’s how people would stage-manage such an event if it were up to them. But it’s not. Instead Jesus gets mistaken for a gardener.

Why is that? Because Jesus, alive from the dead, is the last thing these people expected to see. EVERYONE knows dead people STAY DEAD. Mary does. Look at her thought process. The tomb is empty… so the only rational explanation is that grave robbers have stolen his body. Jesus is standing right in front of her… yet she’s can’t assimilate that fact. The only rational explanation is “Wow, that gardener sure looks like Jesus!”

And the fact that it’s Mary telling the story is another mark of authenticity. Here she is bearing authoritative witness, and yet, in that society she has ZERO credibility. Not only is she a woman, but she also has a history of mental illness and demonic possession. She’s crazy! She’s not credible. If John were inventing this story he wouldn’t imagine including her in it.

The only conclusion is John’s not making this stuff up, but scrupulously telling the story AS IT HAPPENED, in all its embarrasing details and implausibility. In fact, the utter implausibility of the resurrection is the very POINT of it! OF COURSE it’s impossible! People don’t rise from the dead… and yet… here’s Jesus. Deal with it. Mary is saying, “The tomb is empty and I have seen the Lord!” What do you do with that?

Your Choice. Do you believe it, or not? Do you believe Mary’s testimony that she saw Jesus of Nazareth risen from the grave, or not? If you do, that changes things.

First, it means Jesus isn’t merely a sage, the founder of another world religion like the other prophets and sages and religious leaders in history. They are all showing a path to the divine, delivering a law for life, teaching a technique for spirituality. And in our contemporary religious paradigm, all religions are good and you pick what works for you, crafting your own spirituality.

But when you listen to what Mary is saying Jesus is clearly much more than a Sage. Every sage and prophet and religious leader died…but none of them walked out of the grave. Every sage and prophet and religious leader said, “This is the way. Here’s the truth. Here’s how to live,” but Jesus had the audacity to say, “I AM the way, the truth and the life” and he rose again from the dead to PROVE it.

How should we respond to that? If it’s true then fall on your knees and worship Jesus. If it’s not true then treat him with utter disdain, because no sage would claim what Jesus claimed. If it’s not true then he’s a liar of megalomaniacal proportions. You have to choose.

Second, it means you can’t remain as you are. When Jesus walked out of the grave something was altered, decisively. A new relationship has sprung to life. Up to that point Jesus spoke of God as “My Father”. He spoke of his followers as ‘servants’ or ‘disciples’ or ‘friends’.

But now all that has changed. Jesus tells Mary, “Go and say to my brothers, I am going up to my father and your father, to my God and your God.’ The disciples are welcomed into a new world: a world where they can know God the way Jesus knows God, where they can relate in love to God like children to their Father.

That’s the Good News, friends. Jesus brings the Distant God near… as near and secure, as generous and affectionate as a loving Father. Does God seem distant to you? Sure you believe in God. You like God. But WHO is God and WHERE is he? Does God seem abstract and distant and frankly irrelevant to your life on a day-to-day basis?

When you see Jesus through Mary’s eyes, you see the only God who has ever come down – all the way down – to be with us. The founders of all the other religions said, “I have come to show you the way to God”. But Jesus said, “I did not come to show you how to find God. I AM THE GOD come to find you.”

The only acceptable response is to fall on your knees and worship him as Lord and say “command me, my life is yours”. Or if you decide he’s wrong, you should utterly reject him as a liar or a lunatic.

But the one thing you can’t do is have a mild response to Jesus Christ, to appreciate him as a Sage and be kind of inspired by his teaching and his spiritual symbolism. Jesus won’t let you do that. If you are tepid about Jesus, you’re not thinking. You’re not listening. You’re missing what’s right in front of you, mistaking the Savior for the gardener. You have to make a choice.

I remember when I chose. I became a follower of Jesus at age 19 after being a scornful skeptic all through my teen years. CS Lewis described to a tee what I have experienced since: “good report with God, acceptance by God, response, acknowledgement and welcome into the heart of things. The door on which we have been knocking all our lives opens at last.” Choose to follow Jesus, and, like the tomb on Easter morning, it will open for you too.