Easter Sunday A
April 16, 2017
John 20
Alleluia! Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed! Alleluia! Grace to you and peace from God
our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
No one can
show raw emotion quite like a toddler who wants her blankie.
So I learned
this week while I was walking with my 19-month-old daughter, Grace, to daycare.
We walk the quarter mile together each day, and Grace gets to explore a little,
check out all the sticks and the tree roots and the grass. Grace has also
learned that enjoying the outdoors also means a tumble now and then… which is
what happened on Wednesday. Usually when she falls, she cries a little, I wipe
off her knees, give her a kiss, and we’re on our way. Not this time. This
particular fall, Grace decided she could only be consoled by her blankie, which
she calls “lady.” As I picked up my crying daughter, her cries turned to
screams and pleading, as she reached toward our house, now half a block away,
crying, “Lady!!” Tears mixed with snot streamed down her dear little face, and
gut-wrenching sobs echoed through the neighborhood, as she plopped down on the
sidewalk, unwilling to go one step further. No amount of soothing talk, or
promises that there were blankets and baby dolls galore just around the corner
at daycare, would calm her down. She wanted her “lady.” She whimpered as I
carried her the rest of the way, mumbling “lady” the whole time.
After I
dropped her off, leaving her safely in the lap of one of the caretakers with a
couple of her favorite daycare blankies, I couldn’t help but think of Mary
Magdalene at the tomb on that Easter morning. I think over the years of hearing
this story, we have tamed her response somewhat. When it says she “stood
weeping outside the tomb,” I have imagined her quietly sobbing, a sniff here
and there. (Don’t we adults usually try to tame and filter our emotion?) But
after watching the raw emotion of my toddler, who desperately wanted comfort
from something she could not have, I started to wonder if Mary’s weeping was
more raw than I have previously imagined.
For Mary,
you see, the empty tomb was not good news. Already, three days before, she had
witnessed her dear friend and teacher killed. She had stood by watching this
horrible thing occur. Saturday had been a dark day for her – a day with no
Jesus. Jesus – who had already saved her in many ways, who had brought her out
of the pain of her former life, who had loved her when no one else thought
anything but the worst of her. And now, he was gone. All that could possibly
touch and perhaps ease the grief in her heart was to go to the tomb that
morning while it was still dark – darkness that would echo the darkness of her
grief – and spend some time with her lord, dead though he may be. But upon
arriving, the worst possible has happened: as if losing him on Friday was not
enough, now it seemed someone had stolen his body. It was loss upon loss, grief
upon grief.
No, Mary’s
first response to that empty tomb was not rejoicing, nor was it fear or
amazement. It was not belief. Mary’s response to the empty tomb on that dark
morning was weeping – the sort of weeping that kept her from noticing that the
grave clothes had turned into angels, and that the “gardener” was actually her
dear friend. Raw, unfiltered emotion, gut-wrenching sobs, snot mixed with tears
streaming down her dear face.
To me, this
image is helpful, even on this Easter morning when we are supposed to be happy
and joyful. Because I suspect that not all of us are happy and joyful this
morning. You could be struggling with any number of personal problems – poor
health, conflict in your family, lack of direction or focus in life, grief over
the loss of a friend, family member, or life situation. Or you could be
distressed over the state of the world, with its relentless bombings,
shootings, attacks, and heartbreak. The bad news brings fear and sadness to our
hearts – sometimes, even on Easter, we find we resonate more with Mary’s tears
and grief than with the Alelluias that ring out in abundance on this day.
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| Mary in the Garden with Jesus http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=54843 |
And yet, as Mary
sits in that cold, dark, empty tomb, weeping her unfiltered grief… Jesus comes
to her. He does not judge her for feeling genuine emotion. He does not say,
“There, there, stop crying.” He does not say, “It’s okay.” He does not say,
“Hey, there’s no need to cry – look, I’m alive!” No, he comes and sits with her
in her grief, asking her, “Why are you crying?” He sees that she is distressed,
and he joins her there, reaching out with compassion, with empathy, to his
friend in need.
And, he calls her by name: “Mary.”
And in that moment, weeping Mary realizes that she is truly known, truly seen,
that this man whom she thought was the gardener but now is revealed to her as
Jesus Christ himself loves her and cares for her deeply. “Mary.” He knows her. He has come into her darkest,
saddest place, and seen her truest heart, and he calls her by name. “Mary.”
The resurrection is good news, to be
sure. But to those who still find themselves in that dark place, before the
dawn, in a cold, lonely, empty tomb, this moment of compassion may be even
better. That God would not only care about us in that place, but come to be
with us in it! That God would reach out to our wounded hearts, recognize our
pain, and call us by name, showing that we are truly seen, and truly known –
that, in itself, is a way toward resurrection and new life!
This is the place where John starts
the story of the resurrection – for how can we see and believe the hope of the
resurrection, if we have not first felt the hopelessness of death? How can you appreciate Easter without Good Friday? Why do we
need the resurrection if we are already living in wholeness and light? The
resurrection is good news to those who seek to be known, loved, and healed. The
resurrection is the final chapter of the story that began, as we heard on
Christmas, with, “A light shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not
overcome it.”
No, I take that back. It is not the
final chapter. Mary takes that Christ-light that shown into her darkness, into
her grief and sadness, and she goes, with her eyes still red and swollen from
her weeping, to tell the others, “I have seen the Lord!” It is the first Easter
sermon, and the beginning of the next chapter of Christ’s life with us. “I have
seen the Lord!” she says. When I was in my darkest place, the Lord came to me.
I have seen him!
And in her simple sermon, she invites
us to preach the same – to look around whatever dark, empty tomb we find
ourselves in, to notice how the grave clothes have turned to angels, to see how
the gardener, the tiller of new life, reaches out to us with a knowing, loving
hand, to hear the sound of his voice calling our name… and, to bring that story
to the world. “I have seen the Lord!” becomes our own Easter sermon. By
Christ’s love, by Christ’s compassion, we turn to the world, shining his light
into the darkness of tombs, of weeping, of loss, and bringing into them the
hope of new life.
Let us pray… Resurrected Christ, when we find ourselves in the dark, empty tombs of
our lives, you come to us there, recognize our pain, reach out with compassion,
and call us by name. By the light you bring, grant us the courage to proclaim,
“I have seen the Lord” to all who need the promise of your life spoken into
their own darkness. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
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