Easter 2019

Sermon Notes Easter, 2019 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. In 1973 the country was caught up in the congressional inquiry that became known as Watergate. Eventually two questions posed by the Junior Senator from Tennessee, Howard Baker, crystallized the issue for most Americans. “What did the president know, and when did he know it?” On this Easter morning we read John’s account of the Resurrection story. We see that story through the eyes of 3 people: Mary, John and Peter. We might rephrase Sen. Baker’s question and ask it of the first discoverers of the empty tomb: “What did they know and when did they know it?” Mary Magdalen comes to the tomb expecting to visit the last resting place of her favorite person in the world. Instead she finds that conditions are not as she left them. The stone is rolled away. From that meagre but astonishing bit of knowledge she surmises a sketchy and plausible story: someone stole the body. Not just someone, they. They have stolen the body. They being all the forces which collectively have done so much over the past week to dash and destroy everything beautiful and clean and cleansing in her life. Jesus. Whose feet she anointed with nard. They stole his body. I think the best word to describe Mary is helpless. Not angry. Not outraged. Just helpless. Forces bigger than she are at work against her at every turn and she is helpless to stop them. Have you ever felt that way? It’s a common reaction to the events and times of our life. Sociologists tell us we have reached a new low in our confidence to change things. We just don’t feel like our voice is heard. We’ve run out of ideas to change things back to the way they were, to a place where we felt confident and in charge. To where we mattered. It doesn’t make a difference if you’re on the right or the left, successful or scrambling to get by. On one hears. No one cares. This is exactly how Mary feels. She just wants to escape from this bloody, horrific nightmare that her life has become. Back to a time and place where she was loved, and listened to, and blessed by her friend and teacher, Jesus. She is running for cover and she runs to Peter. She pants out her discovery, "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him." It’s a curious we, isn’t it? There’s no one else besides Mary at this point in the story and yet she’s speaking in plural. She’s speaking for all of us. We too have lost control and we too long to love and be loved by Jesus: to be more certain of His love than we are of the suffocating world around us. They have stolen our Lord too, and we do not know where they have laid him. What did Mary Magdalene know? The body of Jesus was not where it should be. When did she know it? The moment she saw the stone rolled away from the tomb. John is with Peter and together they set off running to see for themselves. Remember, Jewish justice never accepts the testimony of one as sufficient evidence, let alone one who is a notorious woman. Fleet-footed John arrives first. He bends down to look in, but he does not enter the tomb. He sees only the burial clothes lying there no longer shrouding the body. What did John know? That Mary’s report was true. The body is gone. Did that also mean Mary’s explanation was true? He did not know that. It could have been stolen. They could have taken Jesus’ away. But he did not know that. He only knew that the conditions had changed. Jesus was not where he should have been. Check that. Jesus was not where he expected him to be. Isn’t that often our first discovery of Jesus? He is not where we expect him to be. We expect him to be here, inside these walls. We don’t expect him to be on the crosswalk where he was earlier this week. I saw a homeless man pushing a homeless woman in a wheelchair across the street. A wheel came off and she almost pitched out. But he held her in, and gathered up the broken wheel as the traffic halted and waited on them, all of us touched by his care as he nursed her back to the safety of the sidewalk. I didn’t expect to find Jesus there in front of the drop-in center, but there he was. When did John know what he knew? When he looked into the empty tomb. When his Lord was not where he expected him to be. Finally Peter arrives and being brash Peter he rushes inside. He sees all that the empty tomb has to tell him, at least at this juncture. The linen cloths are empty, and the cloth that was wrapped around Jesus head is lying apart, rolled up, set aside. What did Peter know? Jesus’ body was gone. The tomb was empty. Someone had taken the time to introduce some order into the chaos. Why? Who? For what purpose? Peter did not know but it’s safe to say that his head was probably reeling with the possibilities. Jesus catches our attention in just that way also. Things that seemed to be chaotic and out of control suddenly come to rest. Peace descends on us that passes our understanding. We know that Jesus has touched us, led us out of confusion and filled us with the possibility of peace. When did Peter know what he knew? It’s harder to answer that question, because when facts begin to morph into knowledge, then truth becomes a process and time becomes a sequence. Peter begins to discover that he is about to discover more than he ever thought possible. Finally John too enters the tomb. He sees what Peter sees. But he goes beyond Peter’s wonder and touches something else, something that will become the focus of his life’s work. “Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed…” You could say this was ground zero and Day 1 of saving faith. Faith had been around for a long time. The Old Testament is rich with stories of faith. The book of Hebrews capsulizes the part faith played in preparing God’s people for God’s mighty works throughout history. But until the resurrection of Jesus faith was a noun in search of a verb. When John believed, believed that somehow Jesus was alive, faith became a verb. Faith became an action that had consequences. On Easter morning, faith opened a door that had been closed. Did John know all that? He most certainly did not. The Gospel is clear: “As yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead.” John’s new faith wasn’t yet in the resurrected Jesus that we know. He hadn’t yet begun to explore how the resurrected Jesus would be the way to his own resurrection and the resurrection of the fallen world. He only believed that Jesus’ body was not in the tomb and that somehow God had acted. Faith in its formative stage, yet the kind of faith Jesus talked preached had to take place: small as a mustard seed, able to move mountains. So the Gospel takes us back to Mary. She’s been standing in suspended grief outside the tomb. It’s her turn to know what really happened. With grief swollen eyes she looks into the tomb and sees a change has taken place. The tomb is no longer empty, but occupied by two angels, positioned just the way the seraphs were positioned atop the ark of the covenant. Two angels, face to face, sitting where the body of Jesus had lain. We might expect such a discovery to drop Mary to her knees in fear, but it doesn’t. Mary’s grief is so deep that she hardly notices that supernatural revelation taking place. She treats the angels as if they were people, strangers not the least out of place in her troubled world. “She said to them, ‘They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.’" Still fixated on the they. Still helpless. Then she turns and sees Jesus. But she doesn’t see him. She sees someone who she assumes to be the gardener, another stranger in her expanding Sunday morning. Jesus asks her, "Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?" Thinking maybe this is starting to make sense, maybe “they” are really here, she answers, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away." This gardener is “they”, They is Jesus. She had it right all along. And Jesus turns to her and says, “Mary.” Mary, it is time for you to come out from behind your tears. It is time for you know the Truth. What did Mary now know? That death did not claim her favorite person in all the world. That he was right beside her. That her overwhelming grief had changed to overwhelming joy. When did she know it? When Jesus called her by name. Because this is every bit as much our story as it was Mary, Peter and John’s, we should ask ourselves, what do we know? When do we know it? We know more than they did at the time. We know that Jesus is resurrected. That he died, descended to the dead, and rose again. On Easter morning faith becomes a verb and opens a door to everlasting life for all human kind. If we believe, we have life within us, the very life of Jesus. We know that whatever struggle we may be in, however disrespected and overlooked we may feel, Jesus is alive to hear us, comfort us, love us, and invite us to share in his life. When do we know this? That answer hasn’t changed from Easter ground zero, Day 1. When Jesus calls us by our name and we hear him. The Day of resurrection His and ours. If you haven’t had your Easter Day 1 yet, may it be this day. He is calling you by name. Hear him. Receive him. Rejoice with us. Alleluia Christ is Risen. The Lord is risen indeed. Alleuia! In the Name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.