John 20: 1-18
In
our Gospel reading for today, we have four characters: Mary Magdalene, the unnamed beloved disciple,
Peter and Jesus. Mary is the first who
we encounter. She was the first to go to
the tomb, presumably to anoint the body. When she arrived she found that the
stone (which was more like a boulder) was rolled away. She didn’t investigate further. She did not look inside the tomb. She
immediately ran in panic and told Peter and the beloved disciple what she had
seen. She assumed that the body has been
stolen or moved.
The
beloved disciple was the next to approach the tomb. He and Peter raced there. He got there first and peered in. Peter was close behind and rushed in past
him. It was only after Peter went in
that the beloved disciple entered the tomb.
Once in the tomb he saw the linen wrapping, the clothes that Jesus had
been wrapped in before he was buried—that was when he saw and believed. The text also said that he did not understand
the scripture that Jesus must rise from the dead. This is a little confusing, but I will come
back to that.
The
last person to arrive at the tomb was Peter.
While he was the last to arrive, he was the first to go in. He was
always impulsive—act first and think later.
The Gospel of John does not tell us what Peter thought. However, the Gospel of Luke tells us that
Peter was amazed. Both the beloved
disciple and Peter left as soon as they had seen the tomb. Mary stayed and wept.
Each
one of these disciples of Jesus had very different reactions to the empty tomb. Peter was amazed, which means he was in a
state of awe and wonderment. The
response of the beloved disciple is somewhat mysterious. It says that he saw
and believed but it also says that he did not yet understand the scriptures
about Jesus rising from the dead. We
know what he saw. What did he believe? I am not sure it matters. The point is that he believed in
something. The empty tomb gave him just
enough faith to believe in something.
Then
there was Mary. We have the most
information about her reaction. The
first time she saw the empty tomb, she ran away scared. But she came back and this time she
stayed. She stayed and she wept. One can only imagine how much she had already
wept. She had stood at the foot of
Jesus’ cross while he was slowly dying.
I imagine that on this day she might have been hoping for some closure
to her grief. What she found was a
gaping hole---not closure.
Out of nowhere appeared two angels. Mary
did not recognize them as angels. Had
she realized who they were, she might have figured things out a little more
quickly. Instead she told them that they
had taken away her Lord and she did not know where to find him. Jesus then appeared and asked why she was
weeping. She didn’t recognize him either. Only when he said her name did she finally
realize that not only was her Lord alive, he was standing right next to
her.
Each
of these disciples reacted to the empty tomb in different ways, but it would be
a stretch to say that this empty tomb allowed them to believe in the
resurrection. At worst it made them even
more scared, and at best it gave them something to think about. It was only when they saw Jesus in the flesh
did they truly believe.
Yet today, I stand before you asking you
to believe something based on a story that someone told 2000 years ago. I don’t even have an empty tomb. This story goes against everything that we
know and believe about how the world works, how the human body works.
Each
disciple’s faith journey was different.
They met Jesus in different places.
Jesus approached them in different ways. The beloved disciple believed in
something, but could not fully comprehend what it all meant. Mary only believed when she heard the risen
Jesus say her name. It would seem that
the beloved disciple and Peter only truly understood the resurrection when
Jesus made a dramatic entrance into the room where they were hiding.
Much
like the earliest disciples we all experience faith in different ways. Some of
us don’t need a lot of convincing. We
have heard the stories since we were small and it just stuck. Some of us don’t fully understand it all, but
we still believe—we are not sure what we believe, but we believe in something
and that thing leaves us wanting more.
Some of us are content with the mystery and wonder of it all. Then there are many of us who look at that
empty tomb and think, “What happened to Jesus?
Where did my Lord and Savior go when I needed him most?”
There
is something that Mary can teach us. She
teaches us to rest in our doubt, and our fear and our grief. The other disciples left. They figured, well there is nothing else to
see here. Mary stayed and she wept…until
Jesus called her by name. I cannot help
but wonder why Jesus came to Mary first. Why not the beloved disciple or Peter,
the rock on whom he would build his church?
Why did he appear to the person who seemed the most confused, the
slowest to understand? Because she
stayed. She stayed at the foot of the
cross when he was crucified. She stayed
at the empty tomb when she was afraid, confused, and probably a little
angry. She stayed.
Sometimes
we confuse faith with magic. We think it
should be effortless and immediate. We
imagine it coming in visions and transcendent experiences. For some people, that might be true. But for most of the people I have talked to,
including clergy, faith is a struggle.
It’s a long walk full of confusion and confidence, doubt and assurance, grief
and joy. That might not be what you want
to hear on Easter. Easter should be
about joy and candy. While it is more
complicated than that, there is joy and love and even transcendence on Easter. Because
at the end of Mary’s journey, her trips back and forth to the cross and to the
grave, she was able to proclaim to the other disciples, “I have seen the
Lord.” That is the most any of us can
ask for, a moment where we can say with assurance, that we have encountered the
living God.
Consider the times in your life when you have encountered God. It doesn’t have to be majestic. It might be very simple. When have you have felt close to God: the
birth of a child, (the baptism of a child) the first time you felt love as an
adult, the holy moment when you held the hand of a loved one as they slipped
into the next world, a harvest moon that took you by surprise, the rainbow you
saw because you were stuck in traffic on the HRBT. I will
give you a moment. Those moments are precious and holy.
What makes these moments faith sustaining is the ability to put them in
the context of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. That is why we meet in
church to talk about these things. Sure
you can experience God outside of church.
Here is where we make the connections (between the ordinary and the
extraordinary and to one another.) Sometimes it’s not all about joy and candy. Sometimes it’s cold and rainy. So we come together to remind ourselves and
one another of these holy moments, to help one another see them more clearly. That
way we can say together, “I have seen the Lord.”
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