Easter Encounter and Mary Magdalene
So today is a wonderful day because Christ is risen, and I pray that I will speak in God’s name. In our gospel story today, at the end of a week of real drama, we have gone from joyful adoration through pain and betrayal to the wonderful events of this morning. In that gospel story that we heard this morning, we have people who are confused and bewildered. The disciples are confused and bewildered because
They, like everyone else, have seen Jesus die and made the very reasonable assumption that he is still dead. Mary is bereft because she has gone to the tomb to attend to Jesus’s body, as is the custom.
And he isn’t there. This, for her, adds insult to injury. Isn’t it enough that he’s dead? I can’t even tend to him in the way that I would wish. So she goes and tells the disciples, ‘They’ve taken away my Lord and I don’t know where he’s gone.’ They look into the tomb and see the cloths lying there. I don’t know whether it’s shock, grief or just disinterest that makes them not pay attention or not understand, or perhaps that was the gospel writer’s intention.
But Mary is standing outside the tomb and she is weeping. She’s in deep grief. Her friend and master, whom she loves, is dead. The body is gone.
At this point, the disciples have just gone back to their homes. I love how that’s in a very short sentence. They just went home. Mary steps and Mary looks into tomb and sees something different. Not just the linen lying there, that would be surprising and confusing enough. She sees two, and they say to her, “Why are you weeping? What are you looking for?” She sees what the disciples did not see: signs that something extraordinary has happened. And then something else extraordinary -
She sees Jesus and thinks he’s a gardener. That moves me every time. Makes me wonder what he was wearing. What was it that made her think that Jesus was a gardener? And she says to this man, “She thinks he’s the gardener.” Lord, if you have taken him away, tell me where you have put him and I will take. Mary still feels a deep sense of responsibility to care for Jesus’s body. And it is when Jesus calls her by name, “Mary,” that she recognizes who he is and calls him.
And quite naturally, she wants to hold on to him. If you saw somebody that you thought was dead and then had worked, you would want to hold on to them too, wouldn’t you? But he says, ‘Do not hold on to me.’ He says, ‘Go and tell the disciples who have gone back home that I have not yet ascended. I am going.’ To my father and to your father, this is not two different fathers. This is the same God. That this would be extraordinary in that moment, we are brought into fellowship with the living God. My father and your father, we are one with God. That is extraordinary.
Here are the ways where we can comprehend anything. Notice that section that tells us that Mary was barking. The train stood outside the tomb weeping begins with the words, but Mary. But Mary. Did something different. Mary didn’t do what the other disciples did, but Mary did something different. That might be a balance for you. But Mary, because Mary, the mother of Jesus, also did something different. She treasured all these things in her heart. Mary in both of.
These cases are the ones who do what is not expected, do something different and remarkable. This thing, which is being played out, is played out today too for each of us. At Ainscough, I had a beautifully small congregation and I could call everyone by name. I can’t do that this morning. We’d be here till lunchtime, but nonetheless, Jesus called you by name this morning. I wonder for each of us when we think about this story, who would we be? Would we be the disciples who rushed ahead?
Because it’s all confusion and distress. Didn’t see much and went home. Or would we be like Mary, standing outside the tomb, weeping for the one we have lost and trying to make sense of it all? Whichever you do, Christ calls each of us by name.
When you get home later, try reading that gospel and putting your name in it. See what effect that has on you. Jesus calls you by name, says, ‘Do not hold on to me. I will ascend to my Father and your Father.’ We too are brought into fellowship with the living God.
Because what we miss sometimes is that nothing happened on Holy Saturday. Nothing happened yesterday. It’s a quiet day. It was certainly a quiet day in many senses, but it’s not true that nothing happened. What I love about Holy Saturday is it’s the day when everything happens.
Nobody saw it. Nobody paid any attention because, as far as they were concerned, the story was over. Jesus had died; it was all lost. And depending on who they were, if they were the Pharisees, they felt vindicated—they’d done the right thing. If they were the disciples, they were bereft; possibly felt a bit betrayed. But none of that is true because the story ends differently. Because the spirit that was powerful enough to raise Jesus from the dead when nobody was looking is the same Holy Spirit.
We talk about every week, and which is within each one of us. Isn’t that a remarkable thing? We contain something of the spirit that was powerful enough to raise a man from the dead. And the question is this: What will we do with it? Mary, you want to hold on to Jesus, the man she thought she’d lost. Will we say, ‘Oh, Jesus is mine. I know Jesus is my friend. I will keep him close.’ Or will we, as Jesus asks, not hold on to him but do what Mary did and say?
In whatever way I have seen the Lord, and just like Mary, many people will think we’ve lost our marbles. It doesn’t matter if we know the truth; we know the truth, and we are to share that truth because that is for each one of you and I this morning. Jesus, who looks like a gardener because he is a gardener, tends them, tends each one of us and helps each one of us to grow. Jesus calls us by name this morning and invites.
You need to fellowship with him because of Holy Saturday. And what comes afterwards is a reminder that sometimes when God appears silent and absent, the very opposite is true. We live in a world that needs to hear that message.
The world tells us that it’s all doom and disaster, and the evidence would seem to suggest that that’s the case. Easter Day is a perpetual reminder that the story ends differently. If we believe, we can look into what seems like an empty cavernous space, and see something different. If we believe, we can show our grief to God, and He will call us by name and call us into relationship and comfort with Him. My prayer for each of us this Easter.
Is that you will know the love of the risen Christ, and you will believe the words of Mary, who says, ‘I have seen the Lord.’ And I pray that love and compassion and grace of the Lord, who says, ‘Do not hold on to me,’ will carry you through. Not only this day, but the days which are to come, and I pray all of it in Jesus’ name. Amen.