When it Feels Like God Didn’t Come Through (John 20:11-18) | 04.05.26
Sermon Manuscript
Happy Easter! Some of you remember this, but the week before Easter 2020, the world had shut down and we were beginning our three weeks of COVID here in Orlando. It was a really weird place to be as a relatively new pastor. No Easter services, no Good Friday service, no contact with the church. So, I decided to do a Facebook Live each morning of the week leading up to Easter to talk about what happened on each day of Holy Week. .
Now, what some of you might not know about me. I have had a lifelong struggle with public speaking. I’m not exaggerating this at all. The first life stream we did during COVID, I told Robert that I might freak out and I gave him a secret signal to shut it down. And I did in fact have to give that signal. I think we said “Technical difficulties” because I technically freaked out.
So, during each Facebook live, I would be on the verge of hyperventilating because I was so nervous. Then, on Good Friday, it was particularly bad and I was up at 6am praying something like, “God, this is miserable. I don’t want to do these updates. I feel like I’m going to throw up. Would You just use it in some way?”
Well, I didn’t have any idea what a filter was at this time, but somehow I had turned all my filters on and I was giving this really serious devotion as a Jedi helmet popped on my head. And then a top hat. Then a clown face. And at one point I said how everything went dark and my screen went dark and some arms popped up holding a flashlight in my face. There was never a point during that devotion that I did not have a filter on my screen, but I didn’t know it because I was looking at the camera on the back of my phone. I didn’t think to just turn the camera around to the front so I could see my screen.
Well, I realized what had happened right after I finished because Matt Kenyon called and explained it to me. At that moment, I felt like I had asked God to enter into my anxiety and He just made me look like a fool. [Pause] But do you know what? That video went viral. I had people all over the world posting it. Comedians and even one producer of The Bachelor reposted it.
And I will go to my grave believing an SNL skit that came out the next month about this exact filter mistake using exact phrases and filters happened because someone at SNL saw my post. I have friends who think that is crazy, but they will find out in heaven.
And then it hit me. This is how God works. He works through things that don’t look right. He works through things that don’t feel powerful. He works through things that don’t seem like they should work. I never imagined at 6am that morning as I prayed and certainly not at 7:30am after realizing what had happened how many people would be hearing the gospel through it.
And some of you are here today and you are 7:30am Good Friday Jim. You’ve prayed, the anxiety hasn’t left, you did what you thought you were supposed to do, and it feels like God not only hasn’t answered, but that He has made you look foolish. Maybe… 7:30am Good Friday Jim feels so much easier than what you are going through right now. This is where John 20 begins. John 20 answers the question, “What does the resurrection mean for those who feel like God didn’t come through?”
Listen, God will let everyone of us down IF we limit Him to merely coming through the way we want and expect Him to. But, if we are willing to open our minds and hearts to Him having a bigger plan and longer play, I believe we will see Him do things in us and through us that we never imagined possible. So, this Easter morning, I want to talk about the times it feels like God didn’t come through and what the resurrection tells us is actually true from John 20.
- When it feels like God didn’t come through, we often misread what He’s doing Verses 1-2, 11-13
In verses 1-10, Mary Magdalene went to Jesus’ tomb early while it was still dark and she saw that the stone had been removed. She ran to the disciples and told them that Jesus’ body had been taken. The disciples ran to the tomb, but John ran fastest and got their first. A detail John ever so humbly included. They arrived and saw the linen cloths, but no body. Then the disciples returned to their homes, now even more discouraged than they woke up that morning.
Mary stayed at the tomb, though, weeping. She saw two angels sitting where Jesus’ body was and they asked her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” And she said, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” They have taken the Lord. Mary’s conclusion is clear. This is over. Not only is Jesus dead, but now His body is gone and we can’t even prepare it for a proper burial. God didn’t come through. You can feel her real loss and profound confusion. She has all the evidence, but her conclusion is wrong because her perspective is earthly and not divine.
Some of you have prayed for your marriage, prayed for physical healing, tried your best to follow God, and you have come to the conclusion that God just didn’t come through. And if that is you, I’m so thankful you’re here today. Just being here could feel like a big step…and it is. And you have an ability to enter into Mary’s emotional space better than most. She expected a Messiah who would win and a story that would end very differently.
But just because it doesn’t look right doesn’t mean that it’s not right. Just because there is pain, doesn’t mean God is absent. Ben said a few weeks ago that the gap between expectation and reality is called disappointment. But, the place we often go wrong is our expectation of God. What we think is overexpecting in the short term…is actually underexpecting in the long term. We create that gap by misreading what God is doing. This is what we all do under pressure. We don’t just feel pain, we start telling ourselves a story about what that pain means. And a lot of times, we’re not just interpreting the story…we’re trying to write it. And when it doesn’t go the way we planned, we don’t just feel pain, we start to question God.
- When it feels like God didn’t come through, He may be closer than you think 14-16
At that very moment, Mary turns around and sees Jesus standing there. But, she doesn’t know it’s Jesus. She’s looking at Him. She’s talking to Him. But she doesn’t recognize Him. She thinks He’s the gardener. Now, there is something really interesting about that. Because this is all happening in a garden. And the Bible begins in a garden. Where everything went wrong. Where sin entered and death began. And now here we are…in another garden…where everything is starting to be made right.
She thinks he’s the gardener, and in a way, she’s closer than she realizes. Because Jesus has come to do what Adam could not, and what we could not. To restore what was broken and bring life where there is death. But she still doesn’t recognize Him. Because when our expectations are set in a certain way, we can be looking right at Jesus…and still miss Him. [Pause] Her expectations shaped not only her emotions, but what she was able to see.
Think about that. She’s looking right at Jesus. Talking to Him. Hearing His voice…and she still can’t recognize Him. Not because He’s hiding, but because she has already decided what God is supposed to do. When God doesn’t meet our expectations, it doesn’t just disappoint us, it can actually blind us. In the psychology world, this is called ‘interpretation.’ It’s not just what happened to you, it’s the meaning you assign to what happened. And that meaning becomes more impactful than the event itself and starts to shape what you can and can’t see. That’s the filter. She expected a dead body to grieve, not a living Savior to encounter. So, when life showed up, she couldn’t see it.
And this is where the resurrection is so much better than we often realize. Because the resurrection isn’t just Jesus coming back to life…it’s God doing something entirely new. It’s the beginning of new creation. Which means, if that is true, then God is no longer working according to the categories we’re used to. He’s not just fixing things the way we imagined [pause], He’s making things new in ways we never imagined. And Mary is standing in the middle of that moment…looking at the risen Jesus…and she can’t see Him because her filter of expectation does not currently include resurrection life. And that’s why this matters so much for us. Because if the resurrection is real, then God may be at work in your life in ways that our filters of expectation prevent us from seeing.
And for some of you, this is your current story. You’ve said, “If God were real, He would have fixed this.” Or, “If God cared, this wouldn’t have happened.” And some of you have moved from disappointment to not looking for God altogether. It didn’t look right, so it must not be right. But what if the problem isn’t that God is absent, unable, or uncaring? What if the problem is that He didn’t live up to our short-sighted expectations?
And what is so beautiful here is that Jesus doesn’t walk away from Mary in that moment. He doesn’t say, “You should have seen Me.” He doesn’t say, “If you only had more faith, you’d recognize Me.” He doesn’t shame and move away. He moves closer to her in love. And then, everything changes with one word: Mary. [Pause] No argument. No explanation. No theological lecture. Just her name. He’s with her. He sees her. He calls her.
If you are waiting for answers, for clarity, for resolution…I hope you get that, but what we need most isn’t an explanation, it’s an encounter. Any good counselor will tell you that change actually starts before things make sense or a solution has been found. It starts when we feel seen or feel that we are not alone in our pain. Something shifts in our hearts and then our heads catch up. The same is true with Jesus. He sees us. He entered into our pain. He calls us by name. He engages our hearts first, and then the head catches up.
- When it feels like God didn’t come through, your story isn’t over, it’s being rewritten.17-18
Mary’s heart is engaged, now the information comes. Jesus says, “Go to my brothers…” But that’s not all. Jesus says, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” Jn 20:17b Do you hear that? Not just His Father, her Father. That’s what the resurrection does.
Mary came to the tomb with a job to do and a heart of grief, but she leaves with a mission to accomplish and a heart full of hope. She came to the tomb broken, confused, and disappointed, but she leaves sent, hopeful, and purposeful. She came thinking she had lost everything…and she leaves with a new relationship with God and a new purpose.
And we can’t miss the fact that her circumstances haven’t actually changed all that much. The world is still broken. The cross has still happened. It feels like the religious leaders have won. Rome is still in charge. There are still questions about the disciples. What has changed is her! She encountered the living, risen Jesus. The same disciples who ran from Him are now called His brothers. That’s not sentiment, that’s access. That’s what Jesus secured through the cross and confirmed in the resurrection.
That’s what the resurrection does. It doesn’t change your situation, it changes you in the middle of your situation. She came misreading everything and now she sees. She came unable to recognize Jesus and now she can’t stop talking about Him. She came stuck in grief and now she’s moving with purpose.
And what does she do? She goes to the disciples and tells them, “I have seen the Lord.” That’s it. Not, “I have figured everything out.” Not, “All my questions are answered and my doubts are now gone.” Simply, “I have seen the Lord.”
Some of you are really discouraged and disappointed with your circumstances. Others here today think your story with God is over. “I tried that. That part of my life is done.” But, the resurrection says God is not done with you.
Every Easter I think of Tim Keller, a pastor in NYC in his last interview before he died of cancer. He calmly and confidently said, “Listen, if the resurrection is real…and it is…then everything is going to be alright.” Not because everything is alright now, but because the resurrection means the worst thing is never the last thing. The story you’re in right now may be painful, but it’s not the whole story. It means that whatever you’re walking through right now, it doesn’t get the final word. Jesus does.
The Bible tells us that we were created in the first garden for a world where everything was right. A world with no anxiety, no sickness, no broken relationships, and no death. A world where we walked with God and knew Him. That’s the world our hearts still long for. That ache we feel when things aren’t right, it’s not weakness, it’s memory.
But the Bible also says that the world was broken. Not just out there, but in here. We turned from God. We trusted in ourselves. We created a new way independent from God and that is when sin entered the world. And with it came everything we now hate: pain, disappointment, disease, and death. Things don’t look right because they are not!
And instead of leaving us there, God stepped into that broken world in the person of Jesus. And on the cross it looked like God didn’t come through. It looked like Mary and the rest had given themselves to a false hope at best and a lie at worst. But what looked like the end was actually God dealing with sin, absorbing our guilt, taking our place, and crediting sinful people with Jesus’ own righteousness. Jesus didn’t come to meet our expectations, He came to save us in a way we never expected. By taking our sin on the cross and defeating death in the resurrection.
When Jesus walked out of that tomb, he didn’t just prove something, He started something. Something that had been prepared before the foundation of the world. The beginning of a new creation. And one day, He will finish it. A world where everything that is broken is made whole. Where everything sad is made untrue. A world where everything finally looks right. A world where we will be with Jesus for all eternity.
Jesus declared in His resurrection that sin doesn’t win, disappointment doesn’t win, and death doesn’t win. He does. And if you trust Him, not only will your story not end with what you are walking through, it will end with life more abundant than you could possibly ever imagine. And it brings resurrection life into your pain…even now.
Maybe today you don’t have everything figured out and you don’t need to have everything figured out. Maybe today all you need is to stop assuming that what you’re walking through is the final chapter. If it doesn’t look right yet, you’re not at the end yet. Because the resurrection means that God is not finished… yet.
