John 20 Easter 2005
Leaving the Grave Clothes Behind
(Walter Wangerin’s story “The Ragman” was read as a children’s story. It is found in “Ragman and Other Cries of Faith ISBN 0-06-069253-7)
Why does Jesus leave the grave clothes behind? The answer is simple – you don’t need to wear grave clothes when you are alive!
Jesus leaves the grave clothed in the clothes of the living!
Through the Holy Spirit we are united with Christ in his death and his Resurrection
Verse 31
Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
You might remember that when Adam and Eve sinned in the garden, God told them that they would die that very day. And they did die – it was a spiritual death, in that their intimate connection with God was broken – when they sinned, their relationship with God died. Because we are all children of Adam and Eve, we inherit that death.
As Bob Dylan sings,
“I was blinded by the devil,
Born already ruined,
Stone-cold dead
As I stepped out of the womb.”
We live in that spiritual death by doing wrong things ourselves.
Colossians 2:13-15 (NLT)
You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ. He forgave all our sins. He canceled the record that contained the charges against us. He took it and destroyed it by nailing it to Christ’s cross.
When we believe in Jesus Christ and receive the Holy Spirit, the Spirit unites us with Jesus in his death and resurrection, and we walk out of the tomb with Jesus to new life!
Because he lives, we live too!
Jesus leaves the grave clothes behind and we must also.
Just as Jesus leaves the grave in the clothes of the living, we must also take off the grave clothes and put on the clothes of the living
Leaving behind sin
Ephesians 4:22-24
22You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; 23to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.
He goes on from there to describe what it means to put off your old self, and to put on your new self. 4:25-5:10
We need to take these things and leave them in the tomb. When you think of the grave clothes – they are disgusting, - you don’t want to wear something that someone died in! In the same way, once Jesus has taken the grave clothes from us, why would we ever want to go back to them? They are things of death, and we want the things of life!
There are times when we start to believe that the things that lead to death actually lead to life, by that is a lie that the devil wants us to believe to get us back into the tomb.
Jesus says
“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”- John 10:10
Take off the grave clothes and leave them in the tomb.
Leaving behind pride
I remember seeing this old War time movie about these British and American women who were caught in China when the Japanese invaded. They were promised they could leave, but they were marched from port to port to get a ship that would take them home. They were promised at each port that there would be a ship at the next one. As you could imagine the women looked worse and worse as the march went on. Their shoes fell of their feet and their clothes turned to rags. At one point, one of the young women is invited into a Chinese home where she is able to wash up, and the woman of the home gave here a brand new sarong dress. She came out of the home looking radiant, but not very British. One old matron of the group looked her up and down and said “My dear, we must keep up appearances.”
The camera pans back to show this frumpy woman dressed in dirty British rags with no shoes looking a complete mess.
She held on to her rags because she thought they gave her an air of respectability. The rags she wore did the exact opposite to what she intended.
It was like when the caterpillar saw a butterfly flying by and remarked to his friend “you’ll never get me up in one of those!”
There things in our life that we might think give us respectability, or are bonus points with God, when they are just rags that Jesus wants to take from us and dress us beautifully.
Paul writes about his own life in this way:
Philippians 3:4-11
If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless.
But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ–the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.
We get dressed by Jesus by admitting to him that the things that we know that we have done wrong are death clothes, by admitting that even some of the things that we have done to be right are just pretty death clothes. We confess our sins to him and leave them behind in the tomb and invite him to dress us with his righteousness that he buys us at the cross.
Help With Your Grave Clothes
In John 11 we have a story of another resurrection. Jesus’ friend Lazarus has died, when Jesus gets to the house he is already buried, having been dead four days. There are mourners in the house, and Lazarus’ sisters, Mary and Martha are distraught with Grief. Jesus goes to the grave and asks the people to open it up. They protest because of the smell, but they do it anyway. Jesus calls in “Lazarus come out!” and he does! Jesus tells the people there to “take off his grave clothes and let him go” John 11:44
It seems that Jesus removed his own grave clothes, but Lazarus need help – his friends had to take them off for him.
There are times when we need help taking off the old death clothes. You may recognize areas of your life where you have struggled with the things from your old life. You may have a nagging sin that you just can’t seem to rid yourself of. You may respond to people in ways that break relationships instead of build them, you may feel the stabbing pains of past events and lash out when someone says or does something in complete innocence.
We find these things trip us up and keep us from living the life that Jesus has promised.
Hebrews 12:1-2
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith,
It is almost as if there are some death clothes that have fused with our very being, and we need spiritual surgery to help get them off. We often call this spiritual surgery “Inner Healing” and we all need it.
There are people who will help you go back to the time when you first pulled those death clothes on and, through prayer, help break the power that they have over your life.
Donna and George have a great deal of experience in this area, Christine, Pam & myself have some training in it.
So I want you to get out your cell phone right now and call The Church – 416-767-1401 or George – 416-234-1850 and leave a message “I’m wearing grave clothes and I need help getting them off, can we meet?”
Your new Easter Clothes
When you were a kid, did your parents get you some new clothes at Easter? – so does Jesus, he gets you new clothes at your Easter, your resurrection.
We don’t really want to concentrate on the old death clothes – they’re disgusting, and the sooner we move on from them the better!
It’s the new clothes that we want to concentrate on
Galatians 3:26-27
You are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.
Colossians 3:12-14
12Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. 13Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. 14And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.
The New Easter clothes are Jesus – his righteousness, and his character – if you want to get to know your new clothes, get to know Jesus, shape your life to him, and these clothes will fit you well. – let the gospel be your life fashion magazine!
Your Easter clothes are the clothes of life!
I want to invite you today to leave your death clothes in the tomb, to come out to the ragman, the Christ, and say, “dress me.”
