John 20:1-18

Central Image

The mercy seat — the ark's cover flanked by two cherubim, the one place God and a person could meet — reappearing in the empty tomb as two angels flanking the spot where the body and the blood had been.

The Turn

We assume we have to get ourselves right before we can come into God's presence; the empty-tomb mercy seat says that being wrecked is exactly where you belong in His presence.

Outline

"I've got to be there"

Toby opened with people who looked at the sky, the crushing deep, and the moon and said "I've got to be there" even though we don't belong in any of them — "hold my beer." We built airplanes, diving bells, and rockets because something in us can't stand being shut out of where we want to be. He said that itch points to something true: we were made to belong somewhere.

Made to belong in His presence

That somewhere is the presence of God. Adam and Eve were made to walk and talk with Him in the garden — He came looking "in the cool of the day." Sin drove them out, so the one place we were made for became the place we couldn't survive, leaving a hole that aches to get back. And it didn't only break us from God; it wrecked our ability to be present with each other without shame.

The mercy seat — and its loss

So God made a way back: the tabernacle, the most holy place, the ark, and on top of it the mercy seat with a cherub on either side, where one man put blood one day a year and stood in God's presence. Not the garden, but a whole lot better than nothing. Then Israel failed the way Adam did — the ark and mercy seat were carried off and lost, and by Jesus' day the most holy place sat empty.

"Something ain't right"

"It is finished" paid for our sin, but Toby said that's good news, not all the news. In John 20 the stone's rolled away, John outruns Peter (believable at 51, he said), and the grave cloths are lying there with the face cloth folded up neat and tidy by itself. Grave robbers don't stop to fold the laundry — something ain't right. John sees and believes, even before he knows what he believes.

Mary in the garden

Then Mary's alone at the tomb, weeping. Toby said she's more than herself here: she's the woman in the garden, weeping the way Eve wept four thousand years before — thrown under the bus by Adam, judged, alone, cycling through anger and regret and despair. She carries all our shame and brokenness, and she can't even do the one last decent thing she came to do.

The tomb becomes the mercy seat

She stoops once more and sees two angels, one where the head had lain, one at the feet, the bloodied place between them — the mercy seat, two cherubim over where God and man meet, now the empty tomb itself. The shut way is torn open. She turns, takes him for the gardener — wrong, but also right, because he IS the gardener, a greater Adam who'll never betray her — and then he says "Miriam," and it's like nobody ever knew her name before.

Unwinding the sin of Eve

But Jesus has business for her: go and tell. Toby pointed out that the word for what she "announced" is common Greek that shows up nowhere else in the whole Bible — an announcement like none other. Eve listened to the serpent and told Adam; Mary listens to the Lord and tells the men. She came in despair and left having unwound the sin of Eve.

"So what?" — where you belong

When you're wrecked and thrown under the bus, Satan asks where you belong and answers: somewhere self-destructive or self-indulgent. The mercy seat of Christ answers differently — the presence of God is exactly where you belong, right then, messed up and all, not once you've gotten yourself right. In Christ you've got something greater than your tears: a heritage of honor and joy and mission.

The Landing

Go and tell his brothers and sisters — the betrayers, the ones who don't have it together — that the tomb has become the throne of mercy and His presence is where they belong. We tell it by living like people who know we belong, and by saying it out loud when we can.

1. Before Toby ever got to the tomb, he talked about people who looked up at the sky, down into the crushing deep, and out at the moon and said, "I've got to be there," even though their bodies didn't belong in any of it. What's a place you've wanted to get to badly enough that you'd have found a way?
2. Toby walked us through the mercy seat — the cover over the ark, a cherub on each side, the one spot where a man could stand in God's presence one day a year. What did he say had become of it by the time we get to John 20?
3. Mary stooped and saw two angels, one where Jesus' head had lain and one at his feet, with the empty place between them. Toby said that spot had become the real mercy seat — so what is he claiming the empty tomb now is?
4. Toby said that when you're wrecked, Satan asks "where do you belong now?" and answers it for you: somewhere self-destructive or self-indulgent. When you've been in that spot, which of those two is your pull?
5. Toby said we often believe we've got to get ourselves right before we can be in God's presence — and that we even talk that way inside church. Where have you been living like that's true about you?
6. Jesus sent Mary to "my brothers and sisters" — the ones who betrayed him, abandoned him, and left him to die. Who is someone you'd have a hard time being sent back to with good news, and what makes it hard?
7. Toby said just knowing you belong "speaks a whole lot to folks," and that we go and tell it by the way we live. Would someone who walked into First Christian still wrecked actually sense this is a place for them, or would they feel they had to get it together first?
8. Who is one person in your life right now that doesn't feel like they belong — to God or to anybody — and what will you actually do this week to get word to them that where they are right now is where the presence of God is?