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 1 of 3
 SERMON
Come! See! Go! Tell! We are warmly invited to a personal faith that goes out to the world to testify what has happened to us.
This morning you have heard the Easter story as it comes to us from the Gospel of Matthew, and I want to walk our way through it this morning as a background for what I want to share with you. Matthew is very careful in setting the stage, in telling us the precise time of that which occurs. "Now after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the sepulcher." We're told that this occurred after the Sabbath. The Jewish Sabbath began at sundown on Friday evening and concluded at sundown Saturday evening. But the second time hint that we have here is "as the day began to dawn." We know that this did not happen Saturday night. Rather, it happened in the early hours of the morning. We read that Mary Magdalene and the other Mary, here left unidentified, went to see the sepulcher. But now if we read the other Gospels we find out that there were not just two women but there were a number of women who made this trip in the early morning to see the sepulcher. The other Mary is specifically identified as Mary, the mother of James and the wife of Clopas. And many scholars think that this Mary was a sister of the Virgin Mary. Now you may be very surprised to find out that you might have two daughters in the same family with the same name, but that was not at all unusual in those days because they also used a second name to identify themselves. Anyway, we know about Mary Magdalene and Mary, the mother of James. Luke's Gospel also tells us about a woman by the name of Joanna, and then says "and other women" went to the sepulcher in the early morning. We're told in the other Gospels that they went bearing spices, because Jesus had been buried so hastily he was not properly anointed. The women wanted to accomplish this task before the Sabbath began. And so it was that they went to the sepulcher in the early hours. "And, behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat upon it." Again, if you read the other accounts, you discover that the ladies on the way to the tomb talked among themselves. "How are we going to move the stone that covers the entrance to the tomb?" So apparently when they arrived, that had already been accomplished. They saw that the stone had been rolled away. "And the angel of the Lord sat upon the stone. His appearance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow. And for fear of him, the guards trembled and became like dead men. But the angel said to the women, 'Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here. He is risen as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead. And, behold, he is going before you to Galilee. There you will see him. Lo, I have told you.'" It was the message of the angel that came to the women gathered before the tomb that spoke a word of peace and comfort. "Don't be afraid. Fear not. Come and see the place where Jesus lay. Then go and tell his disciples that Jesus has been raised from the dead." In those verses—5, 6, and 7—I find four great imperatives of Easter, imperatives which I want to lay before you, to recall to your mind that of which we speak today, but also to challenge you. And those four great imperatives are the great verbs that we read in those three verses. The first is come. The second is see. The third is go. And the fourth is tell.We are told to "Come" and participate in Jesus' costly life. First the angel said, "Come." The word come is a wonderfully welcoming word. It's a word that dispels fear as though one might be afraid to approach. The word come is an invitation: "You are welcome here." And this was the word that was spoken first by the angel. "Come." It seems to me that these four words actually encompass for us the whole of the Christian life and experience, because our Christian experience begins with response to the word come. Those of you who are gathered here today, practically all of you at some point in your life for the very first time heard the invitation extended to you, "Come. Come." And you might have had reason, even as these women, to fear. You might have said, "I'm not worthy to stand before a holy God." And you would be correct. You might have said, "I'm not good enough to come." And that would be right. But somehow that invitation that you have heard in a thousand ways has spoken peace to your heart and an absence of fear, and faith enabled you to act on that invitation and you came. That's the way it is with the Christian life. I'm thinking of a passage in which Jesus speaks a word of invitation: "Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." What a wonderful invitation. "Come to me," Jesus said. Once again, Jesus was not a person who pushed people away. He was a person who called everyone to himself. Notice the people assembled. All who are heavy laden, all who feel weighted down with the cares and the problems of life, you are the ones that I'm calling to myself. Jesus on another occasion said he did not come to call the well but those who were needy in the sight of God. Jesus never frightened people away. He called them to himself in a most natural way. Children came to him. And when they were rebuffed by the apostles, Jesus said, "Forbid them not. Let the children come to me, for they are welcome, and of such is the kingdom of heaven." You see, this gracious invitation of Jesus is indeed the word come. Come. Come. He also assured us that all who come to the Father will in no wise be cast away. Think of that for a moment. Let that word speak peace to your heart, and assurance. All who come to the Father, he says, the Father will in no wise turn away. I think of this so often especially as I work with people and seek to help them commit their lives to Jesus Christ. I find I have to assure them that they would be welcome. They're not sure of that. For many, God has been a fearful judge or someone from whom they have fled away. Perhaps they are like the prodigal son and they feel ashamed to come, or they feel weighted down with unworthiness. And I am able to say, no, all who come are most welcomed before him, and he turns no one away. But when we think of coming to Jesus or coming to the Lord God we have to consider the fact that Jesus' own words are very particular. Jesus did not seek to win disciples without laying before them the implications of discipleship. I read from the 16th chapter of Matthew, and this is what Jesus says. "If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." You see, Jesus might have been told, had you and I been there, that that's not exactly the way to win friends and influence people. If you want to win adherents, you do not go out and tell them, "The first thing I want you to know is that you need to deny yourself." People don't like that. But, you see, Jesus didn't seek to get converts and disciples by false advertising. He said, "No, if any man is going to come and follow, this is what it's going to cost. You must deny yourself. You must take up your cross." And in Luke's Gospel the word every day is added. And follow me. So often people in talking about the cross or crosses in life equate them with problems, as though a disagreeable mother-in-law might be your cross or some physical infirmity from which you suffer. Listen, people: That is a common fortune of the whole of the human race. That is not the cross. When Jesus talked about the cross, he was talking about an instrument of death and annihilation. Jesus was saying, in effect, to us, "I want you to deny yourself; in fact, to die to yourself. Die to your plans, your objectives, your purposes. Die to yourself. Then come follow me."
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