Surprise! (Easter Sunday)

It could have

*** IMAGE: stone rolled away

Mary finds the stone rolled away

Her thought is entirely reasonable: “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.”

It does not cross Mary’s mind that something else has happened, that no one has broken in but Jesus has come out

*** NO SLIDE: So Mary goes out and tells Peter and John. It’s been several days of bad news getting worse, and now this: “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.”

*** IMAGE: Peter and John Running (Swiss painter Eugene Burnard)

*** NO SLIDE: Why are they running? They’ve got to see what Mary’s described, after a Thursday, Friday, and Saturday that seemed hellish, could something else have gone terribly wrong? Is the indignity of a grave robbery to be added to the awful events they’ve experienced in preceding few days? THEY RAN.

Boddy Dodd, Georgia Tech’s athletic director, tells of the coach who, with his team leading 7 to 6 in the last minute of play, carefully instructed his quarterback not to pass under any condition. But when the ball was carried within the opponent’s ten-yard line, the quarterback was overcome by temptation. He passed and the ball was intercepted by the rival’s fleetest back, who broke into an open field and raced toward pay dirt. He was speeding past midfield when suddenly, out of nowhere, the quarterback who had passed overtook him and brought him down.

After the game, the losing coach remarked to his barely victorious counterpart, “I’ll never understand how your boy overtook my fastest back.”

“Well, I’ll tell you,” came the reply. “Your back was running for touchdown—my boy was running for his life.”

—Wall Street Journal

*** NO SLIDE: John outruns Peter and looks inside, but Peter is the first to actually go in. What he finds is odd.

*** PHOTO OF LINENS. The scene isn’t the scene of a grave robbery. First, why would grave robbers bother to unwrap a corpse? And why would the piece of cloth that had covered the face of the dead man be rolled up at the head.

John 20:6–8 NRSV

Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed;

*** PHOTO: John believes

*** NO SLIDE: Peter and John return to the place where they’re staying in Jerusalem, and Mary Magdalene remains at the tomb.

*** PHOTO: Mary outside the tomb. She’s looked in and had a conversation with two messengers: “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.”

*** NO PHOTO: A remarkable conversation takes place that changes Mary’s life

John 20:14–16 NRSV

When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. 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.” Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher).

*** PHOTO: Mary becomes the first witness to Jesus’s resurrection

Love makes John sensitive to Jeus’s truth

Love makes Mary come, and stay until she receives a blessing

Love lets us see beyond time’s limited horizon.

Love lets us in on the power of God unleashed on resurrection morning.

Love helps us wait, even through weeping, to receive the blessing of knowing the living Christ who governs creation and loves all who are called by his name.

He is risen!

He is risen indeed!