Easter Sunday
John 20:11-18
In the gospel
of John, Mary of Magdala came to the tomb alone. The stone is missing so she
runs for help—Peter and John come running. John arrives first but hesitates
outside the tomb. Peter rushes in. They didn’t understand exactly what had
happened at this point… and they went home wondering… but Mary stayed there,
weeping. She bent in to look again, and saw angels through her tears. “Why are
you crying?” they ask. But she doesn’t wait to hear their answer. Maybe in her distress, she is still searching
for the lost body of Jesus… or maybe she saw some look of recognition in their
faces…and turns…
Mary turns
and there he is but she doesn’t recognize him. She assumes the person standing
there is the gardener.
This detail
captures my imagination. The gardener… I imagine Jesus with dirt under his
fingernails, planting seeds, watering tender plants… Well, what would you do first if you were raised from the
dead? “Oh, you know… a little gardening.” Like God the creator in the first
garden, Jesus—who has been with God from the very beginning—the risen Christ is
tending a garden when Mary turns toward him.
And then we
get to look on knowingly in this story, we know it’s Jesus while Mary figures
it out.
“Why are you
crying?” Jesus asks, and once more she tries to find her lost Beloved One.
Jesus says
her name, and Mary recognizes her Lord—alive!
As
unbelievable as it was, somehow she knew it was true.
Resurrection,
it seems like, it often like that. When we have resurrection stories, we
usually start kind of like this… “Now, don’t think I’m crazy but…” And then we
tell our story of life coming right out of near-death, or actual death.
When we’re in
the middle of times of betrayal, suffering and death, when we’re in the
grief-filled waiting, it’s hard to hold on to hope of resurrection.
When we are able
to hold onto hope even through the worst times, it’s a gift.
Like Jesus
who on maybe the most disappointing night of his life created a meal for us to
share every time we gather where we remember and experience Christ’s living
presence in the ordinary things—bread, gluten-free wafer, juice, wine—ordinary things, and the words “for
you,” and in everybody who receives those gifts.
When we are
able to hold onto hope even through the worst times, it’s a gift.
Like Jesus
who from the cross as he was dying forgave strangers and promised paradise to
criminals. Who from the cross created family between his mother and the
disciple he loved, making sure they would care for one another when he was gone,
so that when it was all finished they would able to be a blessing as family, to
family that would one day extend all the way to us.
When we are
able to hold onto hope even through the worst times, it’s a gift.
When we’re
waiting, because we reached over and felt our loved one was cold as stone. When
we feel like we’re in a tomb because everything we own is disrupted, or our
relationships are strained, or we’re facing challenges that are completely
overwhelming but we’re trying to move forward into new visions, a new day…
Holding on to
hope for spring through snowfalls in April, with our chalk in hand, our bubbles
to blow, our seeds ready for planting… this is all gift. Right now, we wait,
but in time, we’ll be looking back at the waiting time, remembering how
resurrection was both happening and on it’s way all that time, already and not
yet. It was just hard to wait.
Mary’s gift,
Mary of Magdala, was holding onto hope of finding Jesus’ body just as tenaciously
as she stood by through his ministry, even when he went to Jerusalem, even at
the crucifixion. Once she realized Jesus was alive, she was prepared to hold
onto him and never let him go again… but in this moment in his journey, raised
from the dead but not yet ascended, Jesus points her forward. Your gifts of
hope, love, and telling the story can’t be contained right here—I need you to
bring these gifts to my disciples, hovering in fear behind locked doors.
Now, here in
the garden, Jesus points out to Mary that he is no longer God’s Only Son… now,
they are all God’s children. They are invited to have the same close
relationship with God, kinship with each other, closeness with God’s purpose. They
are asked to replicate Jesus’ relationship with God far beyond what they could
have ever imagined.
So, what
about for us? When the apostle Mary comes to our locked doors and says, “I have
seen the Lord! I thought it was the gardener, but when I heard my name, I knew
Christ was alive! And listen to this—he said something so much like his
ancestor Ruth. She said, “Your people will be my people, and your God, my God.”
(Ruth 1:16). Jesus said to go to Galilee—our
home territory—where he will ascend ‘to my
Father and your Father, to my God
and your God.’”
I can only imagine that once
she delivered the message, she traveled on… back to Galilee, to her synagogue
in Magdala (5 kilometers from Tiberias) to share the news of love and deep joy.
And I can only imagine that
this is what God hopes we might do today… like Mary of Magdala shared the news
of love and deep joy, that whatever our circumstances, the risen Beloved One
calls our names and invites us not to hold on tightly to the source of love so
much as spread it, break up evil from the inside with unfathomable love.
I had the opportunity to see
the film A Wrinkle in Time this
weekend, based on the science fiction novel by Madeleine L'Engle (first
published in 1962). At one point, a wise character says about the uncertain 14-year-old
main character, “I think we need to tell her something, I think we need to show
her why this is so important…” and then they begin to show a greater reality to
Meg than she could have ever discerned on her own. They’re involved in a cosmic
struggle between forces of hate and forces of love, and they ask her to use all
her faults and the gifts she doesn’t really know she has yet in this cosmic
struggle. She learns that finally who are different, who have had wounds, who
have doubts and struggles, but who practice deep love-in-action—those are the
gifts that are needed most.
Madeleine L’Engle’s vision
was very shaped by the gospel of John—who also saw the influence of Christ as
cosmic, and the need for knowing our belovedness to God as critical for this
time, for every time.
But just in case we get to mystical,
too out-of-body, too big, John also places the risen Christ right in the
dirt—gardening—and later on he’ll breathe on them and invite them to touch his
wounds. They’ll cook and eat some fish together at the lakeshore. It’s all very
down-to-earth. You’re invited to take this down-to-earth
love to a family gathering today or to the next place you encounter a stranger.
You’re invited to practice it as you share a ride, give an offering, sing and
pray. Christ is alive and is already at work—making all things new—tending
roots and branches, with buds that will become leaves and fruit. Yes, this is
for you.
Alleluia! Christ is risen. Christ is risen indeed. Alleluia!
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