John 20:1-18
Intro
As a pastor, Holy Week, the time period from Palm Sunday to Easter, is traditionally quite hectic. You’re trying to crank out this and that bulletin, as well as write sermons for this and that service. I know that in years previous I have finished my message for the Stations of the Cross Good Friday service all of an hour before the service would actually begin which meant that the Easter sermon would get finished sometime on Saturday. It’s just busy, and realistically speaking, a time when my main motivation is to get it done, rather than do it well.
This year, however, Jen and the kids headed down to Pennsylvania for the entire Palm Sunday weekend, which meant that besides hearing my voice echo throughout an empty house for too many days, I had time to listen to what God was trying to say, instead of just trying to get a certain number of pages written. I was able to be led, rather then being stuck in my own stuff, my own baggage.
This getting stuck was something that Mary Magdalene absolutely faces in our passage this morning. According to John, she is the first to discover the empty tomb but even after running to have Peter and the Beloved disciple behold what she has already seen, she is not able to get beyond the sadness of Good Friday that is draped upon her like a sack of bricks. It is, at least in part, because of her sadness that she could not recognize her risen Lord, even when he stood before her.
How often have we, because we have been unable to live in the moment, allowed the moment to rocket by? How often have we, because we have been burdened by things from the past, or focused on things in the future, missed God standing right in front of us? The scripture reads this way.
John 20:1-18
20 Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. 2 So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him." 3 Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. 4 The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5 He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. 6 Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, 7 and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. 8 Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; 9 for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. 10 Then the disciples returned to their homes.
11
But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; 12 and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. 13 They said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping?" She said to them, "They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him." 14 When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. 15 Jesus said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?" Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away." 16 Jesus said to her, "Mary!" She turned and said to him in Hebrew, "Rabbouni!" (which means Teacher). 17 Jesus said to her, "Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ " 18 Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, "I have seen the Lord"; and she told them that he had said these things to her."(Insert Your Name Here)!"
Mary had to be grieving so horribly. Whatever she was carrying with her must have been like a lodestone around her neck. Within the last four days she has watched, albeit from afar, as her Lord was betrayed by one of his chosen twelve. She most likely watched as the crowd, when given the opportunity to release Jesus, shouted, instead, to free the criminal Barabus. She then was there, on the hill of the skull to watch as her friend, the person whom she felt was sent by God to set things right, she watched as he faced a humiliating and brutal death on the cross. She watched as, because of his weakened state, he could not find the energy to fill his lungs and suffocated to death, even though he was guilty of no crime. It had to be awful.
With this sort of a primer, its no wonder that what we have come to know as Easter morning was so confusing for her. The way that the Gospel of John describes it she went to the tomb early on Sunday morning and found it empty. After going to get the disciples to show them what she had seen, she followed them back and began to weep. She wasn’t thinking, "my Lord has been risen", she was thinking, "how could it get any worse". Not only had her friend and guide been killed, but now his body had been taken. Talk about adding insult to injury.
So there she stands, outside of the tomb, crying. The disciples have left. She is there alone. Only she is not. For some unknown reason we are told that she looks into to the tomb to behold two individuals, two angels. The thing that I find shocking about the exchange that follows is not so much that the angels are there, but instead how Mary reacts, or better said, doesn’t react, to them.
Think about the different times that angels show up in the pages of scripture. What is one of the first statements that we hear out of the mouths of angels? If you thought, "do not be afraid" then you’re right where I’m at. When angels show up, people get scared. People fall to their knees and put their heads to the ground because they know that something quasi-divine is before them. Old Testament, New Testament: it doesn’t matter.
But how does Mary react to the sudden, unexplainable appearance of these angels who are now seated within the tomb? She acts as if everything is absolutely normal. The angels ask her, "woman, why are you weeping?" She answers, and you can see the tears flowing down her face as she says it, "They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him." She is so caught up in the emotional baggage of the previous few days that she cannot recognize what is right in front of her.
This reality is all the more obvious as Mary turns around and there stands Jesus, but she can’t recognize him, I think at least partly because she is so burdened. Jesus talks with her, and she still doesn’t know that it’s him. Instead she makes Jesus out to be the gardener. She can’t see who is right in front of her!
It’s only when Jesus does what that Mary finally figures out who it is? It’s when he shouts her name that she snaps into the moment. "Mary! I’m right here, as I said that I would be! I’m right here!" It’s when he calls out to her by name that Mary is able to put the baggage down and recognize the miraculous events that she was beholding. She needed to be shaken free of her baggage and then, and only then, was she able to see what was really going on.
As I look at what happened to Mary and then look out at the world of which I am most certainly a part, all I can think is how desperately we need to have that moment where God, in some way, calls out our name and shakes us from our state of focusing on anything but what is actually going on.
For example, my guess is that within the last ten minutes at least a quarter of you started thinking about what you’re going to have to do after this service. You’ve got to get this or that food prepared. You have to drive here or there to meet up with relatives. You’ve got to make sure that you remember where you hid all the eggs because the last thing that anyone wants is to find a lost egg by smelling the lost egg. I’m not saying whether or not I think this is good or bad, I’m just saying that we do it. And we do it a lot.
Instead of being in the moment, being with our families, being with our God, we’re mentally off to the next thing, or as we were able to hear in our passage this morning, we are so burdened by the things of our past that we can take in what’s really going on right in front of us. In doing this we end up missing seeing Jesus in our life; Jesus right there in our lives, trying to let us know that we are not alone.
Over the last nine months my family has had its life turned upside down as our youngest son was diagnosed with a degenerative genetic disease that has no cure. Treatments yes, but no medical cure. This has meant that we have spent more time inside of doctor’s offices and hospitals in that short amount of time then most people like to spend over several decades of their lives. Needless to say there have been a whole lot of negative things that we have had to deal with.
At the same time, and I realize that this will sound strange, but it is absolutely true, as we have faced Austin’s illness we have been forced to recognize how precious each day is. His illness has been that moment when God called out "Ryan! Jennifer! I’m right here, with you both now and forevermore." In Austin’s illness we have had the opportunity to recognize the blessings of the Almighty.
I’m not saying that there haven’t been days when we haven’t just wanted to curl up in the fetal position and disappear because of what has happened and all that is still to be faced. There have been. At the same time, most of these days have revealed to us just how precious we are to God, how important we are to God. But we wouldn’t have been able to see these truths unless we were plugged into the here and now.
Mary had to have her named was called out before she was able to snap into the moment and recognize that the risen Lord was right there in front of her. For Jen and I, the illness of one of our kids has acted in much the same way. We have seen God and God’s glory in ways that are truly awe-inspiring.
I hope and pray that this service might act as a time when you are able to put down the burdens of the past, and the concerns of the things that have yet to occur and instead, live in the here and now. God is calling your name! Can you hear it? This Easter let us begin to live in the here and now and recognize the truth that God is at work in our lives!
After Sermon Prayer
Holy God, on this day when we celebrate the resurrection of Your son, help us to realize that You are still at work in the world and absolutely at work in our lives. God, shake us out of the tendency to carry the burdens of the past or dwell on the things that are yet to come. Call out our name and awaken us to the truth that you are with us and will never leave us. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.