“MY LORD”
J. G. Wain
I feel, dear brethren, that the Spirit of God would emphasize this personal pronoun, this word “my”, in the way Mary of Magdala speaks of the Lord Jesus in verse 13 of this chapter, ‘They have taken away my Lord’.
One result of the glad tidings is that those who have a link with Jesus would have that link strengthened. I feel the need in the days in which we are living for our personal links with the Lord Jesus to be strengthened and developed. We cannot live in generalities, we need to be specific, and to develop in our own personal links with the Lord.
There are many who say that the gospel needs bringing up to date, needs to be adapted to the modern world in which we live. This is a means the enemy uses to endeavour to render the gospel ineffective. You have to recognize that things in the world have changed in our short years and have advanced too in respect of what men have achieved. How many advances there have been, for example, in science, in electronics, and communications. We are very thankful for the improvement there has been in medicine, with results for the betterment of our physical condition, the improvement of the treatment of illness, and so on. Such developments in science have been tremendous. Developments in travel, too, have been terrific; we can go from here to America in the same time that it took our grandparents to go from here to Amsterdam. Tremendous development has occurred in the last twenty years or so. But basically man is no different; he needs a Saviour just as much as he ever did. All these developments, I believe, tend to make man more independent of God, more, self-sufficient, more self-important. But these changes, dramatic as some of them are, are very superficial; they are changes in circumstances; but basically man remains the same, a sinner. Basically he has to do with God, who never changes. We are thankful that He never changes. He says, ‘I am the Same’ (Deuteronomy 32: 39, see footnote), and God’s standards have not changed.
We may not know quite how God views some things that man is doing in His universe, man’s exploration of space, and so on, but God Himself never changes, and His requirements are the same today as when Jesus died. He is a holy God. He cannot countenance the presence of sin. The standards that God requires are still the same, despite all the development in civilization, and all that man has achieved. God still says, “The soul that sinneth, it shall die” (Ezekiel 18: 20) and, as I say, man has not changed; we are still sinners; we are still accountable to God; we still need a Saviour, and God has provided that Saviour at tremendous cost. God is not just presenting terms in the glad tidings. He is not just presenting the terms on which He will bring men into blessing, but He is presenting a Saviour, a personal Saviour, and that Saviour is to be our Saviour.
We sang, ‘Blest Substitute from God’ (Hymn 13); that is what He was. Jesus came here not to improve the world—although Christianity itself did improve the conditions that existed in the world—but His object in coming here was to die. If His object was to improve the world He would have gone on healing, bringing blessing and relief to man; He could have gone on for years and years with His disciples doing that, but He was only three-and-a-half years engaged in that wondrous service of grace and compassion, bringing out the very feelings of God, that God might be known. He came to die as a Substitute, and He took my place on the cross, the place that I deserved, and He has become my Saviour. We can all say that, in this room, thank God; we can all say, ‘He is my Saviour’.
Not only has He died for us, but He lives for us, to protect us, to preserve us, and to keep us, in relation to the greatest things that God has in mind for His people; to bring us into His own thoughts and purposes of blessing. What a Shepherd He is! David could say, Jehovah is my Shepherd (Psalm 23: 1), in the singular. We can all say that. I do not think any of us would be here if we had not proved His help and His service effectively as a Shepherd, as our own Shepherd, preserving us, and keeping us.
Now in the scripture we read Mary speaks of Him as ‘ my Lord’. She says earlier, ‘They have taken away the Lord’ (John 20: 2); that is right too. He is that; He is the Lord, and the whole universe will yet recognize His rights as the Lord. God has raised Him from the dead and has made Him both Lord and Christ. Jesus gave His life; He was the Substitute; we shall never fathom what that really meant. We sang in our hymn, ‘His agonies untold are o’er’ (Hymn 13). He had no need Himself to be there. He was absolutely holy, apart from sin in any form, the only One in the universe who could accomplish that tremendous work of redemption. He satisfied the righteous claims of the blessed God, and He took our place. ‘The darkness’, we sang, ‘sought His woes to hide’. What woes they were; that work is beyond our penetration. It was done in darkness, bringing out the inscrutable character of that work. For three hours the earth was covered in darkness, it says, and what was wrought in those three hours is something that will abide for eternity.
That work in all its wonder remains, in all its efficacy, its power to heal; that work has been done and completed. Jesus said, “It is finished”, John 19: 30. Nothing could be added to it; it is absolutely perfect, and complete. His precious blood flowed from His side. The value of that blood of Jesus only God knows, for it is for God. God says, “When I see the blood, I will pass over you”, Exodus 12: 13. He knows the value of that precious blood. We, through God’s mercy, have been brought to appreciate it, and more so through our life histories than when we were initially converted; our valuation of the precious blood of Christ has increased, thank God. On that we rest. That precious shed blood of Jesus is sufficient to meet every need of everyone who trusts in Him. It speaks of the work of atonement, that tremendous sacrifice, the surrender of such a life. It involves that He was our Substitute; He took my place.
How wonderful it is to get that really into our souls. The scripture says, “He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities”, Isaiah 53: 5. That scripture was read to a certain ship’s captain as he was dying at sea. The light of it gripped his soul, and he said to the young man who was reading it, ‘Put your captain’s name in it’. So he read it through with the captain’s name: ‘He was wounded for Captain C’s transgressions. He was bruised for Captain C’s iniquities, and with His stripes Captain C is healed’. That is the only way into blessing, the personal appropriation of the work of Christ as my Substitute, the One who took my place.
Now Mary came into the gain of this, because she had a history with the Lord. Luke says, “Mary ... from whom seven demons had gone out” (Luke 8: 2); there had been the power of sin operating in the heart of Mary Magdalene, as there has been in our hearts. I believe Mr. Coates says that in Luke 8 she is a kind of continuation of the woman in Luke 7 who loved much because she was forgiven much. How much we ought to love Him! I think Mr. Darby said that when we see Him we shall wonder that we did not love Him more. Having been forgiven much, how much we should love!
Mary was one like that and the Lord found special delight in her. She sought Him at the sepulchre; not altogether intelligent, you may say, but so devoted in her love; she says, ‘They have taken away my Lord’. She had known Him as her Saviour; He had dealt with the power of sin in her. It is as if the Lord coming into our hearts would force out the evil; the power of evil was expelled, as it says, “from whom seven demons had gone out”; they were forced out.
I believe that is the way God works, by attracting our hearts to Christ; and the greater the place He has in our affections, the easier we find it to deal with evil that arises in our hearts.
But Mary is so attached that she says, ‘They have taken away my Lord’. I believe God would love to see development in this personal attachment to Christ as being ‘ my Lord’, the One who is to be supreme, the One who is to be considered first in everything we do, as to whether it would be pleasing to my Lord. That is, He is to have the place of dominance, the place of rule, in our lives; this will settle a great number of problems.
In the days in which we live there is a striking increase in darkness and I believe the development of this personal attachment to the Lord Jesus, in the way in which Mary was attached to Him as “my Lord”, is what we constantly need to attend to. I say that because we see the development of all sorts of heathen religions and cults. I believe it is the beginning of the apostasy, and in countries where the truth of the glad tidings has been cherished by those who have gone before, we should feel the appearing of these things that are challenging the lordship and the supremacy of Christ. Mary is an example to us; she would not go to her own home because she was so attached to the Lord. I believe there is room for greater attachment and devotedness to the Lord Jesus with us.
Then she turns round and she recognizes Him and says, “Rabboni”, meaning ‘My Teacher’. What a wonderful example she is to us of one who in affection was devoted to the Lord; ‘My Teacher’; she was ready to learn, she was quick to learn. That is another thing that is open to us. As the Lord has this place with us individually it does not detract from anything that is collective. What is collective is strengthened as we develop in our individual and personal links with the Lord Jesus.
Then in verse 17 it is wonderful that the Lord uses that personal pronoun, ‘Go to my brethren’. We have thought of David saying, ‘Jehovah is my Shepherd’, but is it not wonderful that earlier in this gospel, in chapter ten, the Lord says, ‘ My sheep’? To think that He owns us, and claims us! He has redeemed us, bought us back; He not only relieved us of our need—and an urgent need it is; the salvation of our never-dying souls—but He claimed us. He says, “My sheep hear my voice … and they follow me” (John 10: 27). It is wonderful to have the consciousness that we belong to Jesus. The development of this personal attachment will have its own blessing in the experience of the fact that He Himself is using that word about us, ‘ My sheep’. We belong to Him, and nothing can separate us from Him; there is no power that can pluck us out of His hand. Paul says that nothing shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord (see Romans 8: 39). It is wonderful that He uses that personal pronoun; He says, “Those that are mine”, John 10: 14. We can rest in that; whatever the conditions are in the increasing darkness and the apostasy, there is the consciousness that we belong to Him, and at the right time He will take us away to be with Himself. He says, ‘They are Mine’. What a wonderful experience this is!
Then here in John 20 He says, “My brethren”. Is that not wonderful? He claims those disciples who were available as His own. They were now to know Him in a new and wonderful relationship that is not limited by time, or by circumstances here, but one that stands in relation to the glorious purpose of God. He says, “Go to my brethren”. If the sense of that grips our souls it will open a whole vista to us. He wants us to be consciously associated with Him to enjoy the glorious realm of God’s purpose; He would bring us into the enjoyment of a wealthy inheritance in association with Himself. We are not going in as persons who have to find their way about, but He takes us in, in the consciousness of our known personal links with Himself.
May the Lord encourage us to develop and to strengthen these links, that we may know Him better, and serve Him better, and have a little more of that deep affection that marked Mary, that she would not be separated from her Lord. May the Lord bless the word for His name’s sake.
Preaching at Rijswijk, Netherlands
24 December 1978