Texts: Isaiah 25:6-9 and John 20:1-18
What a GLORIOUS morning! After such a long, cold winter, we’re finally seeing signs of spring!But even better than that, it’s Easter! Hallelujah!! Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed!
Look around you; look at the color! Look at our beautiful Easter garden! Look at the smiles on everyone’s faces. It’s Easter! There is new life! Hope abounds!
If you were here Thursday night, you may be thinking about the amazing contrast between the darkness, the shadows, the starkness of black and red, the somberness of our Maundy Thursday/Tenebrae service and the riotous abundance of color that we see here this morning! From death to life in 3 short days!
I LOVE Easter, don’t you?! I think I can safely say that I like Easter even better than Christmas. After all, Easter is what Christians are all about. We are defined by what happened on that first Easter morning—we ARE Easter People!
But Jesus’ friends didn’t wake up that day and say “what a glorious morning.” They had nothing to be happy about. Their Sabbath had just ended and there was nothing to look forward to. No more traveling with Jesus. No more listening to his wonderful stories that they didn’t always understand. No more sharing meals and laughter and having theological discussions. No more dreams of making life better, no more miraculous healings. No more compassionate, caring, challenging friend to make their days exciting, interesting, even amazing.
On that particular Sabbath—the day after Jesus was crucified—his friends were caught between death and life. They didn’t know that, of course, and only felt grief and despair. But Holy Saturday was the Sabbath day that hung heavily, like a huge black cloud, between Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection. The people of Jesus’ day had rules and requirements for the Sabbath. Work must stop and Jesus’ body couldn’t be attended to until the Sabbath was over. So it had been quickly placed in a tomb belonging to Joseph of Arimathea on Friday afternoon because sunset was coming and the Sabbath began at dusk.
For Jesus’ friends, it was a dark day of sadness and grief. They did not know that it was a day of waiting, a day that was pregnant with possibility. But on that first Easter morning they would learn that death is not the final answer—for Jesus or for any of us—and that is fabulously good news!
But this morning I want to focus on Mary Magdalene. In other gospels there were more women accompanying her, but John’s story is about her—a special woman—Mary of Magdela.
Imagine waking up and wondering how life can go on when the person who brought so much light and life into your world has been crucified.
I can only guess that Mary must have dragged herself out early that morning, making her way slowly to the garden where the tomb was. Not wanting to remember that awful vision of her beloved friend being tortured on a cruel cross. What next? What do we do now? Those thoughts must have run through her mind as she slowly trudged along.
Distracted by grief, I’m sure she barely noticed anything around her. Until…..
How can this be?! That was a heavy boulder! Who could possibly have rolled it away, especially this early in the morning? With a ghastly sinking feeling, she looks in and sees that the tomb is empty. How can things have gotten any worse?
Her first reaction is to run away and tell the men. And Peter and John dash back to see for themselves. The tomb is still empty. Mary stands there weeping. As if it wasn’t bad enough, now they’ve gone and taken his body who knows where.
She stands in the beautiful garden, overcome with grief, not seeing a thing…..
And then… a voice says, “Mary!” Oh! This must be the gardener. If only he will tell her what they’ve done with the Lord’s body….
“Mary!”
Suddenly the grief-induced fog that has clouded her brain is penetrated by the voice. She knows that voice. She’d know it anywhere!
“Teacher!” she cries out. “How can it be you? I did not recognize you!”
Imagine her shock and amazement at the realization that this really is Jesus who is standing there speaking to her! How CAN this be?! Automatically, she reaches out to hug him because she is filled with relief, joy and absolute astonishment.
But he stops her, “No, don’t hold on to me. I haven’t ascended. But do this for me; go tell the guys I am ascending to my father and your father, my God and your God.”
“I have seen the Lord!” Mary’s shock and astonishment turn to action, faithful response and joyful witness. There will be no lingering together in the beautiful garden because there is joy to be shared and work to be done.
Jesus has led the way and shown us the path. Because of Easter we are given a new hope and born into a new life. Joy comes in the morning; joy dawned again on Easter day!
Why didn’t Mary recognize Jesus until she heard his voice? I think Paul explains it in his first letter to the Corinthians[1] when he says that death is necessary in order for new life to be possible. In this life we are “perishable.” The way we are now, we can’t last forever. We are mortals. But in Jesus’ death and resurrection we receive the promise of a wonderful change. In the new life that follows earthly death, we will all be changed and, Paul says, we will become imperishable! In that new form we will experience new life—whole and complete.
Through Christ’s victory of life over death, God has gathered us to God’s self, reaching out with loving arms to welcome us into God’s embrace.
Easter is about life. Mary Magdalene discovered that Jesus wasn’t a corpse in a tomb, but a living experience! For a thousand years after the first Easter none of the early Christians focused on the crucifixion. In fact, there were no images of a dead Jesus anywhere to be found until the 10th century! In the first thousand years, “[the] death of Jesus, it seemed, was not a key to meaning, not an image of devotion, not a ritual symbol of faith for the Christians who worshipped among the churches’ glittering mosaics. The Christ they saw was the incarnate, risen Christ, the child of baptism, the healer of the sick, the teacher of his friends, and the one who defeated death and transfigured the world with the Spirit of life.”[2]
So Mary Magdalene says, “I have seen the Lord!” and that is what Easter is about—life! From the empty cross, God speaks to us about life. God has spoken to us through the life of Jesus. God calls us to follow in love and faithfulness. And God promises to be with us and remain with us always.
The good news of Easter is that Death has lost its sting and has been swallowed up in victory! God is able to take something horrendously horrifying like “Good Friday” and turn it into Easter. God is able to turn death into new life. God is able to keep surprising us with the goodness of life in the midst of destruction and despair. God surprises us with little Easters throughout our lives because God loves all God’s people, and because God IS Easter.
Death is not the end because Mary has seen the Lord. And in the following days, many more of Jesus’ friends experienced his living presence. That is the joy and the gift of Easter.
Life wins! Love wins! God wins!! Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed! Happy Easter! Hallelujah! AMEN!
Endnotes:
1. 1 Corinthians 15:50-58, NRSV.
2. Saving Paradise: How Christianity Traded Love of This World for Crucifixion and Empire, by Rita Nakashima Brock and Rebecca Ann Parker. Beacon Press, Boston, 2008, Prologue p. xi.
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