Occasional Sermons

Upon Mary Magdalene’s discovery, that first Easter morning, of the empty tomb, the evangelist John describes moments of near pandemonium on the part of Mary Magdalene, Peter, and the beloved disciple. Mary Magdalene had come to Jesus’ tomb very early – prior to dawn -- for there was something she urgently hoped to find there. She hoped to find there closure. Not the closure, mind you, of a tomb shut tight by a stone, though that may have symbolized the closure she sought. Mary hoped to find closure upon the death of her beloved Jesus. Jesus had been Mary Magdalene’s life’s breath, for Mary Magdalene had been one of those graced to have been healed by Jesus. Jesus had exorcised from Mary Magdalene a host of demons which had possessed and tormented her – body, mind, and spirit. Jesus, out of compassion and care for one considered past compassion and care, had restored her to fullness of life. He had understandably been her life’s breath. But now she had seen his mutilated body staked to a cross. The sight had nearly destroyed her. She couldn’t go on forever in the misery it caused her. She needed to see Jesus’ tomb in order to internalize that it was over now. Jesus was dead in his grave. I suppose we moderns with our quasi- psychological jargon would say that Mary was, subconsciously at least, taking the first step in her grieving process. But then, suddenly, all of her expectations were shattered. The tomb was no longer closed. Mary ran in wild disarray. Out of excitement? Panic? Fear? Partly all of these, no doubt, but even more so she ran to find someone who would care as much as she did. She ran because she could not bear to face this new development alone. She ran because she needed to share her frenzied hypothesis – Someone had stolen the body! Thus when she found Peter and the beloved disciple she declared, as if it were fact, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and I do not know where they have laid him.” This seeming authoritative report set Peter and the beloved disciple running in their own wild disarray, retracing Mary’s steps back to the tomb. The beloved disciple, who was first to arrive at the tomb, hesitated outside. The slower, but more impulsive Peter brooked no delay. Upon arriving at the tomb, he went in immediately. There he found the burial linens but no body. The beloved disciple then followed, and with the evidence of their eyes completing them, they believed. Believed, that is, that the body had indeed been stolen. Under the circumstances, they did what any practical man would do. They went home. Who took the body? Where was it? These matters would have to be dealt with – but after the sun rose, and the day got started. Where was the urgency after all? It was, for all its sentimental value, in the last analysis, a corpse. Yes, they would deal with these matters, but at an hour when such matters were properly dealt with, and after they gotten a bit more sleep. After all, if Peter could sleep on the night before Jesus’ crucifixion, after Jesus had importuned him -- “I am deeply grieved, even unto death, remain here with me, keep awake.” – If Peter could sleep after this heart wrenching entreaty, he could certainly grab what was left of the morning’s slumber. But Mary Magdalene declined to do the practical thing. Mary Magdalene’s grief overwhelmed her practical considerations, and she lingered as the morning light dawned, mourning this now compound loss. Jesus was dead, and now even his body was gone. She was left with nothing. Yet Mary was not quite all tears. Her mind wandered from pure, unalloyed grief. Her curiosity got the better of her, and after a time she stooped amid her tears and looked down into the tomb. As events would have it, God chose not the hard headed, pragmatic disciples, but the passionate, curious Mary Magdalene to be the first witness to the resurrection. There is an almost amusing irony in the seeming resolve of Mary Magdalene to hold on to her original hypothesis about the stolen body – despite mounting evidence to the contrary. Mary Magdalene, when she peered into the tomb saw two angels! Without so much as an inkling that something must be afoot -- something astonishing, something marvelous, something miraculous -- she in tears told the angels, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” She repeated her hypothesis – now for the third time – when turning around she encountered Jesus himself. He asked her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom to you seek?” Thinking Jesus an early rising gardener she informed him of the stolen body. Only when he spoke her name were her eyes opened and her weeping quieted by her recognition of him. Her hypothesis about the stolen body finally gave way to the realization that God had resurrected her beloved Jesus. Now it doesn’t matter whether we identify more with the hard headed, pragmatic disciples or with the passionate, curious Mary, or whether we see our personalities falling somewhere in between. What John wants us to see is that Mary Magdalene, Peter, and the beloved disciple were, like us, pretty ordinary, common sense folks. They lived in a world that had taught them what to expect in life, and so they expected it – good people, sometimes the best of people, get done in by life, by evil and unjust forces; wrongs don’t get put to right; hopes get dashed, and the dead are gone. They will never live again. But John cautions us that the expectations that the world had taught Mary Magdalene and the disciples and that the world still teaches us today can stand in the way of our real assimilation of the resurrection. Like Mary Magdalene, all the expectations the world has taught us firmly in place, we say to him that is now resurrected and before us, “They have taken my Lord’s body, and I do not know where they have laid him.” But John beckons us to realize that something has broken in upon the expectations the world has taught us, something that must now shatter them; and that something is the resurrection. The word of the resurrection is that we need not struggle and cope and fear though this life as though this life is all there is. The word of the resurrection is that evil and injustice may have passing sway but never the final say. The word of the resurrection is that the doctrine of death’s ultimacy is a lie. The word of the resurrection is that you and me, indeed all time and history, and all creation have been bequeathed God’s own eternity. If we can only, amidst the expectations that the world has taught since the dawn of history, hear and believe the word of the resurrection, then we will be set free from those expectations to live for the joyous truth that sets us free – Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen