Called To Share The Miracle

 

Rev. Moira Finley

Trinity United Church of Christ and St. John’s United Church of Christ

27 March 2005

Easter Sunday

John 20.1-18

 

This is a good morning, a good morning indeed.  The patient waiting of the seven weeks has finally been rewarded.  The contemplation, prayer and study, the preparation of our hearts and souls, has been worth it.  We stand here this morning beside an empty tomb.  Three days ago our hopes were dashed, sealed inside a great stone cave.  Now they have been replaced with the joys of a new morning, a new life, a reason to celebrate.

 

This morning we’ve dressed ourselves in some of our best clothes, filled the sanctuary with delicate and fragrant lilies, and gathered our friends and family close to us.  We’ve come together to celebrate the miracle that Jesus’ death was not the end, the triumph of life over death.  But that first Easter morning must have felt very different, filled with fear, confusion and uncertainty, with shadows, sadness and mystery.

 

Mary Magdalene and the other women had stayed at the foot of the cross.  While the other disciples ran away in fear, they stood by Jesus, watching everything that happened.  After Jesus took his last breath, they waited with Joseph of Arimathea as Jesus was taken down from the cross.  They walked together and looked on  as the body was placed in the tomb.  The body had to be prepared for a proper burial, anointed with herbs and oils and spices.  But that would have to wait.  They only had time before the Sabbath to wrap Jesus’ body in cloth.  That done, they watched in sadness and grief as the tomb was sealed with a great boulder.  Then they went back to their homes, uncertain of what to do next.

 

After what must have seemed an intolerable wait, the time was right to go back out to the tomb.  Mary wakes early that day, the world is still shrouded in darkness.  Mary Magdalene went to that tomb, consumed with her grief, but intent on seeing to Jesus’ final needs.  Her grief is tempered by the fact that there’s something to do, some actions to perform, the rituals of death and burial and remembrance that need to be carried out.

 

I’m not sure what she expected to accomplish at the tomb.  She couldn’t possibly have rolled the stone back by herself.  Maybe she thought someone else would have been there to help her.  Maybe the disciples would have returned, conquered their fear and come to their senses.  Maybe Joseph of Arimathea would have been there, it was his tomb after all.  But whatever she was thinking, she goes out to the tomb that morning intent on seeing to Jesus’ final needs, focused on making the proper preparations for Jesus’ burial and memorial.

 

When she arrives at the tomb it doesn’t look the same.  The stone has been rolled away.  Confused she runs back and finds Peter and another disciple and tells them that the body is gone, that they’ve taken her Lord from the tomb.  Not only is Jesus, the one she loved more than life itself, dead, but now the body is gone.  She can’t even perform for him the last courtesies of a proper burial.  They all run back to the tomb.  Peter and the other disciple both go into the tomb to verify for themselves the truth of Mary’s testimony.  The tomb is indeed empty.  The body is gone.

 

Peter and the other disciple return to their home, but Mary stays next to the tomb, weeping.  She sees angels in the tomb sitting where Jesus should have been.  They ask her why she’s crying and she says that her Lord is gone, that she doesn’t know where he has been moved to.  She turns back, away from the tomb.  She discovers someone standing there with her.  In her sadness and confusion, she thinks he must be the gardener, come to tend the area around the tomb.

 

Just like the angels, the man asks her why she’s crying.  She repeats her plea, “they’ve taken away her Lord and she doesn’t know where to find him.”  Then Jesus speaks to her, calls her by her name.  She instantly recognizes him, calls him Rabbi.  Mary wants to stay with Jesus, to cling to him, but he sends her back to the other disciples.  He sends her to share the good news, the surprise of the empty tomb, the miracle of the resurrection.

 

There are hundreds of ways to interpret what happened that first Easter morning, debates and disagreements among theologians about who the angels were, and why only two of the disciples came running when Mary told them the tomb was empty.  There are scientists who argue about whether or not the human body could physically be resurrected, and if it could be what it would look like.  But however we answer those questions, whatever we decide about what happened to Jesus’ physical body or the angels in he tomb, something incredible happened that morning in the garden.

 

I think it’s important that Mary doesn’t really understand the resurrection until Jesus calls her by her name.  When she gets to the tomb all she knows is that Jesus isn’t there, that his body has been moved.  Not only is the person she loved more than anything in the world dead, seemingly gone from her forever, but now she doesn’t even have his body to remember him by.  She sees the stone rolled away, the empty tomb, the cloth they had used to wrap his body, the angels sitting where the body had been.  It’s not until, standing in the garden, the risen Christ calls Mary by her name that she understands who he is.

 

This is the resurrection of the God who knows each of us by name, knows the depths of our beings, knit us together when we were still in our mother’s womb.  Only when God calls her name does Mary recognize the miracle of what’s happened.  Everyone of us has been named by our God, chosen for particular ministries, selected to play a specific role in the great drama of creation, invited to participate in the fulfillment of the kingdom.  Only when we let God call us by our names can we receive the power of Easter morning in our souls, can we claim the ministry before us, can we do the work God asks us to do that the kingdom of peace, justice and compassion might come.

 

Mary heard the risen Christ speak her name on that first Easter and that is what woke her to the miracle standing before her.  The tomb wasn’t just empty, Jesus wasn’t simply missing, his body moved somewhere else.  No, the tomb was empty because Jesus was alive, resurrected to life eternal.  God does the same for each of us.  Standing in the midst of the gardens of our lives, our eyes sometimes clouded by tears of grief, confusion, uncertainty, doubt, God comes to us and calls us by our names, invites us to truly see the triumph of life over death, the miracle of the resurrection.

 

It’s also important that Mary doesn’t keep the wonder of that first Easter to herself.  I could quite easily understand if she had experienced the miracle, spoken to the risen Christ himself and then gone back home and said nothing.  It’s an implausible  story.  Few, if any, would have believed her.  Why should she have risked it, risked losing friends and family members, risked the possible alienation from her community?  But she does.  She takes the risk.  She tells the story of what happened in the garden.  She goes back to tell the disciples, and I imagine anyone who would listen, that she has seen the Lord himself, risen from his grave.

 

Easter isn’t truly Easter unless we share it.  We can’t keep the miracle to ourselves.  We have to take the risk, step out of the unknown, share what we’ve experienced with others.  The Easter story is one of hope, of the triumph of the powers of life and light over the powers of death and darkness.  Our world is holding its breath for that message of hope.  There is tragedy, sorrow and doubt in every corner of the world.  Into that suffering we come as people of the resurrected Christ, come to say with every word we speak and every action we take that Jesus is not in the tomb, but has risen, that death no longer has power over us, but that life has the final word, that peace and compassion are more powerful than anger and vengeance.

 

This Easter morning listen for God calling you, calling your name, inviting you to see with new eyes the risen Christ standing before you.  Listen for God calling you, telling you how you can take part in the ongoing mystery of creation, how you can be a part of God’s kingdom of peace and love.  And share with everyone you meet the miracle that is Easter, the truth we know deep in our hearts, the everlasting hope we have because we stand this day, and always, beside an empty tomb.

 

In the name of our risen savior, Amen.