John 20:10 Mary Magdalene at the Sepulchre We may see the following things in this passage: I. Mary's sorrow. (1) She sought for a lost Christ, and looked for Him where He was not to be found. (2) She failed to recognise Him, though so near to her. (3) She mistook the Divine work for man's. "They... [ Continue Reading ]
John 20:10 Christ Not in the Sepulchre I. The two disciples went away believing, because they found that Christ was not in the sepulchre. But Mary Magdalene came and told them that she had seen Him risen, and had heard His voice with her ears. What she told Peter and John, Peter and John are now te... [ Continue Reading ]
John 20:11 First Appearance of the Risen Lord I. It was a real body that appeared to Mary. "Touch Me not," said Jesus. Then it was _possible_to touch Him. If not, prohibition was unnecessary. Wisdom never tells us to do what cannot be done. The face that looked at her was not a grey, ghastly gleam... [ Continue Reading ]
John 20:13 There is Reason in the Tears of Mary, for I. They show her strong and tender love the most reasonable of all possible forms of love the love which she had for the perfect moral Being, our Lord Jesus Christ. II. They expressed her bitter disappointment. She had come to find Him, and He... [ Continue Reading ]
John 20:15 Christ the Gardener The mistake which Mary made in supposing Jesus to be the gardener, will suggest some profitable thoughts for Eastertide. "The time being spring," as good Bishop Andrews remarks in his sweet, quaint way, "and the place a garden, Christ's appearing as a gardener has so... [ Continue Reading ]
John 20:15 Next to the absence of all notice of our Lord's mother, few things are more remarkable in the narrative of the period after the resurrection, than the silence respecting John. I. John was born a lover of repose, of retirement. Left to himself he would never have been an adventurous or am... [ Continue Reading ]
John 20:17 Ascension the Condition of the Spiritual Contact I. The brief saying of the text is pregnant with the deepest doctrine. It teaches us how poor a thing is bodily presence, even if it were the presence of the Saviour. It teaches us how they err from wisdom as well as from reason, who woul... [ Continue Reading ]
John 20:19 The words "Peace be unto you" were the ordinary Jewish form of greeting, at least in later ages. The form marked the grave, religious character of the Hebrew race. Just as the Greek, in his natural gaiety of heart, bid his neighbour "Hail" or "Joy" just as the Roman, with his traditional... [ Continue Reading ]
John 20:19 I. Such as was the state of the disciples on that sad evening, such must often be our state, at least in many respects. We too have all of us often forsaken our Lord and Master. We too have often lost Him. We may have forsaken Him through fear of the world. We may have forsaken Him to ru... [ Continue Reading ]
John 20:19 _(with Mark 16:13; Luke 24:33)_ I. We should misinterpret the incidents of this evening meeting, we should mistake the simple, immediate and precise object which, in using them, our Lord had in view, to explain these words as if they were intended to clothe the eleven apostles, and after... [ Continue Reading ]
John 20:20 The Nature of Christian Worship Consider: I. The presence of the Lord Jesus Christ amongst His people. We attach to the Deity the idea of omnipresence. The conception is a tremendous one, but it is unquestionably a correct one. There have been individuals men of gigantic mental powers a... [ Continue Reading ]
John 20:21 The Christian Mission I. These words were addressed in the first instance to the apostles then present. But they are likewise addressed, and with no less force, to every one who finds joy in the presence of his Saviour. All such persons does Christ send to work His work upon earth. As H... [ Continue Reading ]
John 20:24 The Incredulity of St. Thomas I. It is easy and not uncommon to upbraid the incredulity of Thomas, and to entertain none but the most indefinite ideas as to the fault of which he was guilty. We ought to remember that the assertion of Christ being risen was an extraordinary and overwhelmi... [ Continue Reading ]
John 20:24 The Incredulity of Thomas. The case of Thomas is I. A most instructive instance of the exercise and expression of a true, loving, affectionate, appropriating faith. It is outgoing, self-forgetting, Christ-engrossed. No raising by Thomas of any question as to whether one who had been inc... [ Continue Reading ]
John 20:24 Thomas I. Thomas was evidently a man of reserved nature a melancholy man haunted, as we should say, by a painful sense of his own individuality. He could not look at the bright side of things. He only spoke three words in the Gospel three words if you look at them, all melancholy. In his... [ Continue Reading ]
John 20:25 I. The doubt of Thomas was the resisting of a heart to whom the good news seemed to be too good to be true. Thomas could not believe that the Lord who was dead is really alive. The others imagined they had seen Him, but might it not be that it was, after all, what they themselves had fir... [ Continue Reading ]
John 20:26 I. The meeting renewed. I think that Dr. Vaughan has somewhere suggested, that although we have no record of the circumstance, it is possible that Christ, when with the disciples on the first occasion, expressed His will that henceforth the Sabbath should be transferred from the seventh... [ Continue Reading ]
John 20:27 _(with Hebrews 4:3)_ St. Thomas Faith Triumphant in Doubt I. Two sorts of language are held respecting faith and belief; each combining in itself, as often happens, a curious mixture of truth and error. The one insists that belief is a thing wholly independent of our will, depending sim... [ Continue Reading ]
John 20:28 I. We are, I think, hardly apt to be enough aware how much of all our Christian faith and hope must rest on the reality of our Lord's resurrection. It is, in the first place, the fulfilment of all prophecy. I mean, that whereas all prophecy looks forward to the triumph of good over evil... [ Continue Reading ]
John 20:29 I. St. Thomas loved his Master, as became an apostle, and was devoted to his service; but when he saw Him crucified, his faith failed for a season with that of the rest. Being weak in faith, he suspended his judgment, and seemed resolved not to believe anything till he was told everythin... [ Continue Reading ]
John 20:30 I. We have here set forth the incompleteness of Scripture. Nations and men appear on its pages abruptly, rending the curtain of oblivion, and striding to the front of the stage for a moment; and then they disappear, swallowed up of night. It has no care to tell the stories of any of its... [ Continue Reading ]
John 20:31 The Trinity Disclosed in the Structure of St. John's Writings I. The Gospel of St. John commences with a solemn exposition of the Divinity of the Word and Son of God, considered in His immediate relation to the Deity of the Father, as commissioned to represent His unapproachable glory i... [ Continue Reading ]