John 20: 1–18
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Lord, may we hear your voice in the words spoken in your name. Amen.
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How do we tell the story of Easter, the faith–filled story of
Jesus — resurrected from the dead? Everyone knows the
end of this story, the joyful proclamation –
Alleluia! The Lord is risen! The Lord is risen indeed!
We love that proclamation because it offers us the hope we need to
live our own lives. It points us in the direction of joy after
sorrow, of new life after death. But if we only tell the happy
end of the story, others will never know how we got there, how this
hopeful ending relates to our own lives and the more difficult places
where most of us live, much of the time.
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So this morning I will follow the lead of St. John, who starts his
account by saying that it was still dark in the early morning of
the first day of the week when Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw
that the stone at its entrance had been removed. When he says
“it was still dark” – he isn’t just
telling us the time of the day.– He is telling us that Mary
Magdalene hadn’t yet begun to understand the story as she would
soon come to see it. She hadn’t yet solved the beautiful
mystery of an event none of us can easily describe or
explain. Seeing that the stone had been moved, she could only
imagine that someone had come during the night to steal the body of
Christ away. And with that thought, her last hope is
gone – the hope of ministering to the broken body of her
Lord. For her hope had been in him. And once he had been
taken from her – she could see nothing else, no other hope. So
in that moment, Mary knew despair.
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In a panic, she runs back to the house where she and the other disciples
had been staying. “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and
we do not know where they have laid him,” she cries. Now
Peter and the disciple Jesus loved – we assume it is
John — are fully alarmed too. With Mary following, they
race each other back to the tomb. While Peter and John investigate
the empty tomb, Mary stays outside, weeping. But something has
changed. Something new has entered into the picture. Maybe
it is light, slowly dawning. For when Mary peers again into the
tomb she sees two angels, sitting at either end of the ledge where
they had laid Jesus’ body.
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“Woman”, they ask her, “why are you
weeping?” She has no new answer for them – but
having said again — “They have taken away my Lord, and I
do not know where they have laid him,” she turns – and
sees a figure she assumes to be the gardener. He, too, asks
her why she is weeping and adds, “Whom are you looking
for?” And this time, when she begins to offer the
same explanation for her tears, this figure speaks her
name. “Mary,” he says quietly. And with that,
she recognizes him. It is Jesus, the Good Shepherd who knows
each of us by name . . . whose voice
we recognize and follow.
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And now her hope is full blown into joy. “Rabbouni”,
she cries, “my Master!”
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This year, as I came back to this story again and again I began to hear
echoes of another, earlier story. I began to hear echoes of the
Creation story at the beginning of the Book of Genesis. There too,
in the beginning, it was still dark. And there too, everything
seemed empty, chaotic, disturbed. But ever so slowly — out
of nothing – as God’s Spirit brooded over the emptiness
and chaos — new life, new hope began to rise up, and something
like light dawned. And finally, God spoke out
loud . . . and suddenly everyone could
perceive the new Creation, alive with hope, alive with fresh possibilities.
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That’s what God did for Mary in John’s story of the
Resurrection. You see, this is not the story of an empty
tomb. This is a story of an empty Mary – a woman who has
suddenly lost everything that had meaning for her. She has lost
all hope. But God knows what he put into Mary when he created
her. He knows what she is capable of becoming. And as
God’s Holy Spirit broods over her emptiness, her chaos, something
like hope, something like renewal, something like a new fresh way of
seeing things rises up within her.
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It doesn’t happen all at once. She has to go back to that
tomb over and over again. But each time she goes, she sees
something new. God sends companions in the persons of John and
Peter to help her in her search. He sends two angels as the
Presence of the Holy to enlighten her way of thinking. And
finally, when Jesus speaks her name in love – she turns – and
finally perceives that all is new, fresh and hopeful, all around
her. He has turned the wilderness of her heart into a fresh garden.
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So finally, I began to get it. The Easter story is nothing less
than a second brand new Creation. That’s why it takes place
in a garden. That’s why John started his story with the
words “early, on the first day of the
week . . . ” It was his
version of “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the
earth . . . ” And certainly,
in the chaos of Mary’s grief and the two other disciples’
consternation – something here was brewing. Something here
was arising. Maybe it was hope. But how do you describe
hope? It doesn’t look like anything you can
describe. It doesn’t taste like anything. In fact, it
looked like nothing at all.
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But it’s right there – right between faith and
love — that our hope begins to rise. And with it comes the
potential for renewal. And I think we all need hope this
year. For many of us have lost something we cherished this
year. Maybe it was someone we loved, someone who meant the world
to us. Maybe it was something we depended on – like a job
or financial stability. Or maybe, in the face of global warming,
it has been a loss of security – the security of trusting in the
harmony of the natural world we have known.
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But this is what Easter promises. Easter tells us how God can
take the very worst things that happen in this world and transform
them into something wonderful and good. Easter promises that when
we have lost all the hope we ever had, when all within seems lost,
then God’s Holy Spirit will brood over our emptiness and create
something new. Out of nothing, out of death, he will bring new
life. Easter is the story of Creation all over again – but
this time it is taking place in each one of us, made in the image of God.
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For our hope lies in Jesus Christ our Lord. And just as he burst
out from the tomb, like leaves and flowers in springtime, so our hope
too will arise, will grow and flourish.
Alleluia! The Lord has risen!
Indeed, he is rising in us.
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Amen.
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