69. A Family Like No Other: Joining God’s Eternal Family

G'day, Dave here.

Welcome to Stories of a Faithful God for Kids.

Before we get into it, I want to do a big shout out to Marcus, who lives in Sydney, Australia.

He sent me a message saying, thank you for teaching me and Marcus.

It is an absolute pleasure.

I love it a lot.

Shout out to Marcus's mum as well, who sent me the message.

Hannah, thank you so much.

Thank.

Thanks for getting in touch.

She told me what they appreciate as a family about the show.

Guys, it is a great honour to be working with you and it's such an encouragement to hear from you.

Thank you so much.

I love hearing from anyone who's listening.

So if you're out there, if you're listening, please send in a message, say hi, tell me what you like about the show and I'd love to say g'day back.

Now, on with the show.

What's great about being in your family?

What do you love?

Every family has things that are cool for them.

Maybe they like cooking together or they enjoy movies or they're really into camping.

Maybe your family tells really good jokes or enjoys sport.

Maybe you just really enjoy that.

Everyone in your family is really different.

Even though we all have different families and we all live in different parts of the world, we're actually all in the same human family.

We all come from the family of Adam and Eve.

You could think of it as our biggest family and this biggest family, we've got some problems.

We've got the problem of sin, where all of us don't treat God the way we should.

We also have the problem of death.

Everyone in the human family dies and it's really sad.

We don't have the power to get rid of our sin.

We don't have the power to stop death.

But in today's story, we're going to hear about someone who does both for everyone who joins his family.

Get ready for our next episode of stories of a Faithful God for kids.

The sun hasn't come up yet on this cold, dark morning.

Stumbling through the dark, Mary Magdalene is making her way to the tomb where Jesus was buried.

She'd been at the cross just a couple of days before as Jesus hung dying.

Now she's going to the tomb to cry.

When she gets there, she sees something she's not expecting at all.

The large stone that was in front of the tomb's been rolled away.

She's not expecting it because she thinks Jesus is dead.

And dead people don't come back to life, right?

Well, she runs away and she finds Peter and John in verse two of John 20.

She yells out.

They've taken the Lord out of the tomb.

We don't know where they've put him.

Notice what she doesn't say.

She doesn't say the tomb is open.

Jesus must be alive.

That doesn't even cross her mind.

Instead she just assumes that someone's stolen the body.

And notice what Peter and John don't say.

They don't say it's okay.

That just means that Jesus is actually alive.

None of them are expecting Jesus to come back from the dead.

Instead, Peter and John run to the tomb.

They run hard and they run fast.

John's faster than Peter, so he gets there first.

He peers into the tomb, but he doesn't go in.

He sees strips of cloth lying where the body used to be.

The strips of cloth that had been wrapped around Jesus body after he was dead.

That's strange.

Why would a body thief waste time unwrapping the body before stealing it?

Simon Peter arrives.

John might be faster, but Peter is braver.

He goes straight into the tomb.

He sees the strips of cloth.

He also sees the cloth that's been over Jesus head.

It's neatly folded and placed separately to the rest of the cloth.

Now this is super weird.

If someone's stolen the body, they haven't just taken all the wrappings off.

They've made his bed for him.

This isn't what you'd normally expect from thieves.

Now John follows Peter into the tomb.

He looks at the cloths and the wrappings and for the first time believes.

He didn't believe that Jesus could rise from the dead before this.

None of the disciples did.

If they understood their Old Testaments well, they'd understand that Jesus must rise from the dead.

God had made that clear.

But they still don't understand how all of God's plans fit together.

For now, they go back home.

Mary though, has come back to the tomb.

She still thinks that Jesus is dead.

She's standing outside crying.

And almost as if she needs to check again that the body really is gone.

She stoops down and looks into the tomb again.

This time she sees something different.

She sees two angels dressed in white.

One sitting where Jesus head used to be and the other where Jesus feet used to be.

This isn't something you see every day.

They ask Mary a really weird question.

They ask her in verse 13.

Woman, why are you crying?

Umm, hello.

The greatest guy she's ever known's been killed and now his body's disappeared.

Of course she's crying.

She replies to them.

She says they've taken away my Lord.

I don't know where they've put him.

It makes total sense that she's crying, except they know something that she doesn't know.

Well, she stands up, turns around, and there, standing right in front of her, is Jesus.

That's right.

Living, breathing, standing Jesus.

He's beaten death.

He's had victory over the grave.

He's defeated the horrible end that humans have to face.

Except she doesn't recognise him.

That's right.

She thinks Jesus is dead.

So she doesn't look at him properly.

Instead, they're in a garden.

So she just thinks to herself, oh, this must be the gardener.

Jesus asks her the same question that the angels had in verse 15.

He asks, Woman, why are you crying?

Who are you looking for?

It's a funny sort of question, isn't it?

She's looking for him, but she doesn't realise it's him.

And so she asks him, this guy who she thinks is the gardener, did you take him away, sir?

Tell me where you put him and I will get him.

At this point, she's kind of turned her body away from him, maybe because she doesn't want him to see her tears.

And so Jesus speaks softly and gently to her.

He says, mary.

Slowly she turns around.

How does this guy know her name?

His voice seems familiar.

For the first time, she looks at him properly.

She starts to take in every detail.

She suddenly recognises the face of the man she knows so well.

This man who she thought was dead.

The man she thought she would never see again.

Her heart's pounding with joy and excitement, and she yells out with all her happiness, teacher.

Of course she wants to hold onto him really tightly and not let him go.

She thought he was gone forever, and now here he is.

The last thing she wants is for him to go away again.

He calms her down, though.

It's okay.

It's okay.

It isn't time for him to go back to his Father yet.

She can just let go of Him.

In fact, she'll need to let go of him because he has an important job for her to do, an important message for her to give.

Jesus wants her to take a message to his disciples.

Except he doesn't call them disciples, a word that means followers.

He calls them something very different, something much more amazing.

You listen carefully to Jesus words and see if you can hear what the amazing thing he's telling them is.

In verse 17, Jesus says to Mary, don't hold me.

I have not yet gone up to the Father, but go to my brothers.

And tell them, I am going back to my father and your father.

I am going back to my God and your God.

Did you hear it?

Did you hear the amazing thing?

Jesus called these men brothers.

He said he's going back to his father, God the Father.

The one who he's been God with from all of time.

The one who he has a perfect relationship with.

He's going back to his father and their father, to his God and their God.

When Jesus saves people from sin and death, when people put their trust in him, he brings them into his family.

The family of the living God.

Don't panic.

You don't have to leave your family, but you also get to join God's family.

A family where you're not trapped by sin.

A family where death is defeated.

A family where we can have life forever with God.

God doesn't just save us to be slaves or servants.

He doesn't save us to be his pets.

He saves us to be his children.

If you trust Jesus as your king, you've joined the family of God.

You get to call Jesus Father, your father.

You don't have to worry about death because Jesus has beaten death for everyone in his family.

Back in Jerusalem, though, not everyone does trust Jesus.

Not everyone believes that Jesus is alive.

Even one of his closest followers doesn't believe that he's alive.

And if they don't believe, they're in real trouble.

I wonder what'll happen.

Well, that's a story for next time.

Don't forget to shoot me a message and say hi.

Keep trusting Jesus.

Bye for now.

Thanks for listening to this episode.

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