John
20:1-8
1
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.
You’ve
been invited to a get-together at a place you’ve never been before. You don’t
know the way, but one of your friends (who also happens to be going) does. So
they say, “You can follow me if you want.”
The entire drive there your eyes are fixed on your friend’s car, hoping
that you don’t catch a red light they squeezed the yellow out of, or hoping
someone doesn’t cut you off and block your view of your friend’s rear bumper.
The entire trip, your safe, timely arrival is dependent on your ability to
remain within eyesight of your friend’s car. Everything works out: your friend
did know the way; you stayed right behind them; and you had a great time. Then
it came time to leave, and the friend you followed has already hit the road.
But you assure yourself you can find your way back, so you get in your car and
head down the road, except now it is dark—it was the middle of the afternoon
when you arrived.
After
driving in straight line for a while, you convince yourself you should turn
soon, but nothing looks familiar. You have yet to spot the little pink house
with the green shudders you saw on the way. You didn’t notice that Jack’s when
you were following your friend, and where are all the streetlights in this
town!? What if I’m lost? What if I wind up in Georgia? What if I get a flat and
my cell phone doesn’t have any signal and a crazy person in a van stops and kidnaps
me (maybe you should stop watching those crime drama shows!)? Your mind starts
to race as you realize you might be a little lost, and the night, the dark,
just adds to your anxiety. You can miss things in the dark.
Or
you wake up at 2:00 A.M.; you can’t go back to sleep. You decide to get a glass
of water, but you don’t want to wake up your spouse or your kids, so you begin
the long, dark journey to the kitchen. You tiptoe down the hall, hoping you
don’t step on a dog toy in the hall, with your bare feet. You start leaning
forward, flinging your fingers out in front of you, feeling in the dark for the
edge of the coffee table before your shin finds it. You run your hands along
the wall, the counter, the cabinets, counting the knobs until you come to the
one where you keep the glasses. Then, you cross your fingers hoping you’ll grab
one without sending the rest of them to the ground in a loud, shattering,
crash. Finally, you reach out, grasping, trying to catch the lever on the
kitchen sink to quietly fill your glass for that drink of water before starting
your blind, groping trip back to your bedroom. If it were daylight, you’d
stroll through the house without a second thought—but in the dark, everything
seems different. In the dark, you might miss something.
Things
are different in the dark. Things seem more dangerous in the dark. Life seems
to require a more cautious pace in the dark. We take the light of day for
granted, for even when the clouds hang thick above us, the sun’s light still
finds a way through to illuminate our lives. Yet in the dark of night, even the
brightest full moon is little more than a pale reflection of the sun’s glory. The
dark is scary: we tell our kids to come inside before it gets dark; we flip
switches and burn fires to keep the dark out; we tell each other “don’t go
there at night, when it’s dark.” That’s why it seems rather strange to me, that
John’s gospel tells us the story of that first Easter morning “while
it was still dark.”
Matthew
tells us of Jesus’ resurrection taking place, “as the first day of the week was
dawning.”[1]
One gets the sense that the sun was rising in unison with the Son of God. Mark
tells it in a more matter-of-fact sort of way. Mark’s gospel is known for its
straight-to-the-point, no-frills way of telling the stories of Jesus; it says
that the events of Jesus’ resurrection took place “very early on the first day of
the week, when the sun had risen.”[2]
The sun is up, bathing the scene with the orange glow of the early morning.
Then, Luke tells us everything took place “at early dawn,”[3]
that time of morning when the air is still cool, the light is soft, and
the ground is still damp with dew. But John’s gospel…John’s gospel leaves no
doubt: “it was still dark.” If it were in those final moments of night
before the initial flickers of dawn’s rays wrapped themselves around the
horizon, then it was surely the darkest time of the night. “[I]t was still dark, [when] Mary
Magdalene came to the tomb.”
Mary
Magdalene is so overcome with anxiety that she simply cannot wait for the first
light of day to run to the grave of her beloved friend to grieve, but when she
arrives—when she’s close enough to see the tomb in the dark—she sees that the
stone has been removed. Now, for those of us who know the story, those of us
who sing songs of joy about stones being rolled away, who shout praises at such
news, we forget that Mary doesn’t know what has happened. She’s afraid someone
has come and taken Jesus’ body; perhaps grave robbers have come in the cover of
darkness and taken his body. In a panic, she runs to Peter. She runs to the
disciple whom Jesus loved. She tells them, "They have taken the Lord out of the
tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him." She thinks the
worst, because all she could see in the dark was that the stone had been
removed. After hearing her report, Peter and the other disciple run to the
tomb.
Now,
I love the way the fourth gospel tells this story. John’s gospel is often
attributed to the so-called “Beloved Disciple,” who is traditionally understood
as John, one of the twelve. So, of course, when Peter and this disciple run to
the tomb, we’re told three times that the other disciple beat Peter to the tomb
(he outran Peter in verse 4, Peter
followed him in verse 6, and in verse 8 we’re told he reached the tomb
first).
Regardless
of who got there first, what the two disciples found when they got there was
disheartening: “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.” The
body of Jesus was gone. They came looking for a corpse, but instead found just
the grave clothes. We’re told the other disciple “saw and believed,” but
it’s telling to me that both of “the disciples returned to their homes.”
You get the feeling they ran to the tomb expecting to find something, expecting
to find his body, expecting to find signs of robbers or foul play, but when
they didn’t find it, they went back home, assuming the wild ride they had been
on with Jesus all these years was now really over. His body had been stolen as
a sort of last slap in the face of the movement Jesus had started.
But
Mary didn’t go home. She had come to the tomb at night expecting to see it
intact, and now, with Jesus’ body gone (apparently stolen) she “stood
weeping outside the tomb.” She had yet to look inside the tomb herself,
but when she did, she saw something the other disciples didn’t: “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.” Now, did these angels just appear
only for her, or had the other disciples simply overlooked them? Had they been
so focused on what they were expecting to see that in the still dark hours of
early morning, they had missed these two angels sitting right where the body of
Jesus had been? I don’t suppose it’s that crazy to think. After all, how many
of us have looked right passed something, looked right over someone, because we
were so caught up in what we were doing, caught up in looking for something
else that we missed what was right there in front of us? Of course, it’s the
gospel that tells us they’re angels, for Mary doesn’t seem to recognize them as
such. When they ask why she’d crying she tells them. “They have taken away my Lord,
and I do not know where they have laid him.” For Mary, it’s still about
the corpse. It’s still about figuring out who took Jesus’ body and what they
did with it. In this early, dark hour of the morning, she is so consumed by her
mission to find Jesus’ body and its thieves that she hardly takes notice of
these angels…then again, she doesn’t seem to notice the other person standing
there with her.
“When
she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did
not know that it was Jesus.” She didn’t know. She didn’t know? How
could she not know? She had been with him for a while; she was one of the only
ones had been there at the crucifixion to see his face, his body, as he hung on
the cross. How could she not know? Was the light still to dim to see him? Did
he hide his face? Did he look different? All we know is that when Jesus asked
her the same question the angels asked, when he asked for whom she was looking,
Mary thinks Jesus may have been the robber who carried away his body. “Sir,
if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take
him away.” She’s still looking for the body of Jesus—the dead body of
her Lord. One gets the feeling she’s manic, her hands shaking, her eyes darting
back and forth, her feet unable to stand still as she’s so overcome by her need
to find Jesus’ body, the assumption and expectation that someone has stolen it,
that she can’t recognize the presence of angels or the identity of the one
standing in front of her. That is…until he speaks her name: “Mary!”
(Selah)
A
couple of years before my grandma died, her mind started to fade. She’d see
things like cats smoking cigarettes on the kitchen table. She’d forget where
she was, and she couldn’t remember things. She called people by the wrong
names: she’d call my dad (whose name is Paul) Hubert (that was my granddad’s name);
she’d call Brad, David and my cousin David, Jason. She’d get my sister and my
step-sister mixed up, and just flat out forget some of our kin folks’ names
altogether. But she never forgot my name. My entire adult life I’ve been called
“Chris,” but to most of my family I’m still “Christopher.” Grandma, though,
always sort of left out the middle syllable; to her, I was “Chris-fer,” and if
I was in trouble, I was “Chris-fer Paul” (when she used our middle name, we
knew we were in trouble). Right up to the end, Grandma remembered my name, and
that’s always stuck with me. I can only imagine what might go through my head
and my heart if I heard her voice say it again. I imagine it would be something
like what Mary felt when she heard the voice of Jesus say, “Mary!”
Immediately,
Mary stops her panicked search for Jesus’ corpse and those who may have taken
it. She’s jarred back to reality by Jesus’ voice. She calls him “Rabbouni!”
“Teacher!” and tries to touch him, but Jesus says 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.'”
I’ve always thought it was a bit odd that Jesus says to her, “Do not hold on to
me.” Was Mary trying to grab him, trying to hug him tight in the hopes that she
could somehow keep him so he couldn’t leave her again? To hold on to something
means you can control it, manipulate it, on it; maybe Jesus wanted to make it
clear to Mary that the work wasn’t over and there was still more to be done? Either
way, he tells her to go to the other disciples and tell them about his
ascension, so she runs back and announces to the disciples, “’I
have seen the Lord;’ and she told them that he had said these things to her.”
She had seen the Lord. After Peter
and the other disciples saw nothing but the grave clothes, after Mary herself
overlooked the angels’ presence in the tomb, after Mary mistook Jesus for the gardener,
and after— only after— Jesus called her name, did Mary see the Lord. She sees
the Lord only after her assumptions and expectations are shattered by the mere
mention of her name. She sees the Lord after she is reminded that he knows her
name, that she is known by him. That’s when we
truly see the Lord, when we let go of our expectations and assumptions of what
the Lord should look like and when we realize that the Lord knows us by name.
That’s
when I’ve seen the Lord, and like Mary, I’ve come to testify. I’ve seen the
Lord—not in the false piety of legalism—but in the presence of those gathered
in the living room of a friend to share communion. I’ve seen the Lord—not in
the self-righteous pronouncements of fundamentalism—but in liberal acts of love
by those who take the command of Christ seriously. I’ve seen the Lord—not in
the ritual acts of over-stressed religion—but in our youth as they joyfully
serve others in the nursing home and while away at Passport in the summer. I’ve
seen the Lord—not in the divisive practices of those who expect him to look,
talk, and act like them—but in the eyes of Haitian children as the walk holding
hands with American adults on the dusty roads of rural Haiti. I’ve seen the
Lord—not in the ways I’ve ever expected or assumed—but in the way that friends
gather in the kitchen of one who has just lost a loved one to share a prayer,
hugs, and to say “I’m here if you need me”—and to know they mean it! Friends,
I’ve seen the Lord! I look out from this pulpit this morning and still see him,
and I know that many of you have too. I’ve seen the Lord, and it’s almost
always in the most unexpected ways, and it’s always once I realize that the
Lord knows me already. This Easter morning, I’ve seen the Lord. What have you
seen?
Amen.
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