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Preached - Easter Sunday...April 8, 2007
Readings: Isaiah 65:17-25; Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24; Acts 10:34-43; John 20:1-18
What is Easter? What does it mean to us today?
When we think of Easter we normally think of new life—a theme that ought to coincide with the changing of the seasons. Often Easter weekend coincides with warmer temperatures, budding trees, and of course the start of a new baseball season! There’s an excitement in the air this time of year, at least there should be. But what do we have this year? What was my view as I sat in my office to prepare my sermon? Snowflakes, salt trucks, and snow blowers. Yup, Ally and I even had to go out and buy a snow shovel this week. We’d hoped to get by without one until next year…but nope, no such luck. What a disappointment.
It’s funny how things like the weather can affect our moods. A sunny day can lift the spirits while a dark cloudy day can turn even a normally cheerful person to more sombre disposition.
The Easter gospel story today begins with those Jesus left behind in the darkness. John is clear to make known that it was ‘still dark’ when Mary Magdalene made her way to the tomb of Jesus. Like any good author, John uses setting to help reveal the state of the characters within the story. Jesus’ friends and followers are in mourning—they have lost their teacher, their leader, their beloved friend. Like all who mourn, they were undoubtedly trying to attach meaning to their loss. ‘Why did this happen?’ ‘What did God take him from us?’ Only their questions would have added intensity as they were not just losing a loved one, they were losing their Lord. They had come to believe that Jesus was the Christ, the Messiah…The One who would bring salvation to God’s people.
All their hopes dashed, hearts broken, they now lived under the shadow of unbelief. Jesus’ grave stood as a representation of their disappointments, and the place where their greatest fears are realized.
It should not surprise us then to see how Mary, Peter, and John respond at first to the empty tomb. First, Mary sees the stone removed and runs to the two of them and announces, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid them.” Notice how Mary says, “we do not know”—she is voicing the disbelief and the doubt of the entire group. We are meant to believe that Mary had no idea that Jesus had been raised—his body must have been taken away.
Mary is not alone in her unbelief however: John and Peter are also in the darkness of unbelief. But these two disciples run toward the tomb (rather than run away from it as Mary had) to the place where God’s action had taken place. We can almost sense the beginnings of a new faith within them—the urgency with which they ran to the tomb hints at the faintest glimmer of hope.
John arrives first, but waits for Peter who immediately enters the tomb. Inside Peter sees the linens that had been used to wrap Jesus` body. I wonder what was going on inside his head at that moment…Perhaps he was thinking of the most remarkable miracle he’d ever seen Jesus perform—the raising of Lazarus from the dead. Yes, this empty tomb did remind him of that day, but when Lazarus was raised he had still been covered in his linens. But in this case not only was the tomb empty, but even the trappings of death is empty. The burial clothing neatly piled shows us that some One was at work…
John, or the Other Disciple as he’s named in the story, then enters, sees what Peter sees, and believed. The story carefully paints John as moving from a state of unbelief, to partial belief (running to the tomb), to full resurrected faith.
Now we do not find Mary with the two disciples at the tomb, evidently she had yet to come to faith in Christ’s resurrection. But the story continues with her standing at the outside of the tomb, weeping and alone. Apparently she had yet to go in, and was still in the darkness of unbelief and under the power of despair. But now Mary takes a partial step of faith and looks into the tomb, but instead of finding the burial wrappings she finds two angels—the most obvious examples of God at work in the story thus far. She still believes in a mysterious `they` who have taken Jesus` body, in spite of what she` s seen and in spite of the disciples` faith. I think maybe Mary was like many of us, we need to see things for ourselves. We don’t want to rely on someone else’s thoughts or beliefs—we want to figure things out for ourselves. Well, Jesus knew and loved Mary, so he graced her with a face to face encounter. She doesn’t recognize him at first and even suggests that he is the one who took Jesus away!
I imagine Jesus must have chuckled at that one—the extremity of Mary’s unbelief was almost comical! But patiently Jesus speaks to Mary in a way meant only for her—he calls her by name, ``Mariam``. Mary turns, fears fading away, hope blossoming, faith growing, and calls Jesus her master, a name she has used in the past when speaking to Jesus. ``Mary Magdalene has arrived at a partial faith, a belief in the Jesus who best responded to her present hopes and needs.`` (SP, 526) Jesus must have sensed her desire to move back into the familiar relationship they once had because he instructs her not to cling to him. There is a new situation brought about by Christ’s death and resurrection—and there is an entirely new way of relating to God that is to come shortly upon Christ’s ascension to the Father. With the presence of the Holy Spirit to come all of Christ’s followers will have access to the kind of intimate relationship that Jesus himself enjoyed with his heavenly Father.
Mary is commanded to go and give this message to the disciples, a task she eagerly completes thus demonstrating how far her faith has come in the matter of a few moments. She has gone from mourning and confusion, wondering what had been done with Jesus` body, to calling him her Rabbi and teacher, to proclaiming ``I have seen the Lord! ``
This story ought to speak to all of us here today, regardless of where we are on our faith journeys. Some of us have lived the life of faith for many years—going through many struggles, many losses, shedding many tears. But we’ve also come away with many joys, peace, and a deepened faith. Some here today are perhaps just getting started on your faith journey—perhaps you’ve attended church for a good while but you’ve been hesitant to really explore things too deeply or make too large of a commitment. Or perhaps you are in a state of total unbelief—here this morning only because you wish to appease a loved one by your attendance or thinking that attending church on Easter is simply something one ought to do.
Wherever you are in your journey—take comfort in the fact that each of the characters in our story today spent a great deal of face-to-face contact with Jesus and yet they still swung from positions of unbelief to faith and back to unbelief. Yet no matter where they were Jesus took the time to meet with them and gently reveal himself to them as their Lord and their Master. Now we might be tempted to think, ``Sure they believed, they had a face to face relationship with God. `` Well, that’s true. But even inside our story there are hints that those who are a truly privileged are the ones growing in their faith through the scriptures, not through a physical encounter with Jesus. Upon finding the evidence of Jesus` resurrection John and Peter ``did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead``. They needed physical evidence because they had not yet received the gift of the Holy Spirit who would open themselves up to the truth in scripture in a way never experienced before.
Whatever may be holding us back in our faith journeys, or in our journey together as a church aspiring to move forward, I invite you today to leave it at the empty tomb. The tomb is the place of disappointment and mourning. It is the place of where our fears have been realized. It is the place of loss, confusion, and unbelief.
Let us make room for the Holy Spirit to speak new life into us this morning. God speaks to each one of us personally in a way meaningful only to us. Just as he was patient with his friends so is he patient with us. Let us invite God to heal our hearts and give us a vision for our lives that would change the world the around us. Let us be inspired to proclaim the Easter hope of our risen Lord no matter what the opposition.
I would like to end my message with a short story,
Dr. George Sweeting tells of an incident in the early 1920s when Communist leader Nikolai Bukharin was sent from Moscow to Kiev to address an anti-God rally. For an hour he abused and ridiculed the Christian faith until it seemed as if the whole structure of belief was in ruins. Then questions were invited. An Orthodox church priest rose and asked to speak. He turned, faced the people, and gave the Easter greeting, "He is risen!" Instantly the assembly rose to its feet and the reply came back loud and clear, “He is risen indeed.” Amen.
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