"Our Easter, But Not Ours Alone"
April 16, 2006: Easter Sunday, Year B
The Rev. John MacIver Gage, pastor
United Church on the Green, UCC: New Haven, CT
www.newlights.org

Scripture:
Isaiah 25:6-9
On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear. And God will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations; God will swallow up death forever. Then the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces, and will take away the disgrace of God's people from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken. It will be said on that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for the Lord, so that God might save us. This is the Lord for whom we have waited; let us be glad and rejoice in God's salvation.

John 20:1-18
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. 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." Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. 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; for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. Then the disciples returned to their homes. But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; 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. 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." 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). 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.'" 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.

"May God speak through these words and make from them a holy word for us today. Amen."

Sermon:
I was reminded this week of the first children's Easter sermon I ever gave. It was here at United, and I had brought in a flower bulb to use as a prop. I made a comparison between the dry, dusty bulb and the many beautiful flowers we had decorating the sanctuary then as we do today. "This bulb doesn't look like much, does it?" I asked. "In fact, it looks kind of dead." At which point, one little boy chimed in, in a clear, ringing voice, "It looks like poop!" Well, what was I to say, except, "You're right. It does sort of look like poop."

Now, I'm just an uncle, and a long-distance one at that, so I'm not telling you parents anything you don't know already, but it's true: children will say, and ask, anything. They engage the world around them unhindered by so many of the hang-ups we adults have. It's all still so new for them. They've got a few theories they're working on about how things work, but nothing is set in stone. They devour the world with their questions, checking every new piece of information against what they think they already know and then making the necessary changes to their world view to accommodate it.

So their asking questions is not just a way of annoying the adults in their lives—not just—but an essential part of who they are. It's how they learn and grow and become themselves. So 24-7 it's a constant stream of "Why is the sky blue?", "Why do birds fly?", and "Why does my big sister get to stay up late and watch television and talk to her friends on the phone all night long, but I have to go to bed early?" And of course my personal favorite that comes up every year around this time: "If the Easter Bunny is a rabbit, why does he bring eggs? And why is he a he?" If ever you see the good folks at Cadbury, you can thank them for me.

All kidding aside, asking questions is important, and not just for children, but for us, too, even in church—particularly in church, I think. But somewhere along the way, we forgot that, or had it drilled out of us. Children learn quickly enough that certain kinds of questions make adults feel uncomfortable, and those kinds of questions are to be avoided if you want to get along and get ahead. And that goes double in church. Good little boys and girls don't ask the bishop why Mary, the mother of Jesus, was taken up into heaven but Joseph was left behind to die like everybody else.

Well, as you know, at United Church we specialize in just those kind of questions—and those kind of boys and girls. Even in church, yes, and even at Easter. We believe that asking questions is not just our way of annoying the wider church—not just—but an essential part of what it means to be faithful people. It's how we learn and grow and become mature followers of the way of Christ.

So, this morning I'll pose this question: Every year at Easter we read these stories about how Mary Magdalene got up early that long ago first Easter morning and went to the tomb. Well, why? It wasn't to catch the sunrise service. Jesus, her friend and her great hope, is dead. The political and religious climate in the country is terrifying, and growing more dangerous. So why, why does Mary go? It's not a simple question.

Well, for one thing, Mary goes to the tomb out of a sense of social obligation. Jesus had been taken down from the cross and buried in a hurry on Friday because the sun was setting and the Sabbath, with its prohibition against labor, was setting in, and his body had lain in the tomb untended and unmourned since. Mary ventures out on the next morning after the Sabbath because under Jewish law caring for the dead was and is a mitzvah, a ritual good deed; in fact, it is a very great mitzvah, this hesed shel emet, because it is a selfless act, done without hope of being paid back, and caring for the dead body of one who has no immediately family, a met-mitzvah, one like Jesus, who has been disowned by his own family, greater still. Mary goes to the tomb that Easter morning because that's what any good person would do.

Mary also goes to the tomb to remember Jesus, to remember all he was to her and all that happened to her since first she met him. Despite the fanciful and best-selling imaginings of The DaVinci Code, we don't know much about Mary of Magdala. Most of the stories told about her down through the centuries are apocryphal, that is, they're not found in the Bible. But the little that is in the Bible is certainly evocative. In both Luke and Matthew's gospels she is identified as someone out of whom Jesus exorcised not one, not two, but seven demons. So we can safely say that knowing Jesus was a life-changing experience for Mary. She felt firsthand the power of his loving, healing, affirming presence, and like the other disciples, she left whatever her life was before in order to follow him and dream a new way of living into being.

But now Jesus is dead. The powers that be—the political powers of government and empire and even the powers of the religious community within which she was raised—have colluded to kill him. We can imagine her walking along the road in the predawn shadows, wondering whether it was all worth it, in the end, whether it was worth getting to know him and getting her hopes up if this is the way it was going to end all along, with all her dreams dead and buried along with Jesus in the stone cold tomb. No wonder she weeps. Jesus—her friend when she had no other, her teacher when no one thought her worthy, and even, she had only just begun to believe, even her Lord—Jesus is dead. So, yes, Mary goes to the graveyard because she must, because it is a holy day of obligation, but also because she needs to mourn her faith, her young faith, taken from her unfairly.

And maybe, just maybe, there is still some part of Mary that goes to the graveyard because she believes the promises Jesus made to her and his other followers. Maybe, just maybe, she believes, or wants to believe, that the cross and the tomb are not the end, for him or for her, that after he was "lifted up" on the cross to die he would be "lifted up" again and raised from death to glory through the power of God's deathless love for him, the love he showed them and shared with them. Perhaps even on that dark morning before the Easter sunrise she is remembering Jesus' words to them as they gathered around the table for that last supper with him, when he said, "I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Holy Spirit will not come to you; but if I go, I will send the Spirit to you. And when the Spirit comes, she will prove the world wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: about sin, because they do not believe in me; about righteousness, because I am going to my heavenly Father and you will see me no longer; about judgment, because the ruler of this world has been condemned" (John 16:7-11). Despite all that has happened since, despite the witness of history, fresh and ugly, despite her better judgment even, perhaps Mary goes to the tomb because she cannot help but hope again.

So for whatever reason, or mix of reasons, Mary does go. But when she arrives, just as the new light of day is breaking over the hills, what she finds is nothing like what she expected. For one thing, she doesn't find the body of Jesus. The heavy stone has been rolled away from the opening of the tomb, and the body? Well, it's gone. <Pfft!>Gone. The linen wrappings are there, and the head cloth, it's there, too. But no body. Only there is some body—two somebodies, in fact. Strange somebodies, like men, but not. Like people, but not. Too shiny for people. But two of them, big as life and twice as shiny, sitting there on the floor of the tomb just smiling—no, grinning or better, beaming—and asking her in the most sincere tone of voice, "Woman, why do you weep?"

She doesn't like this one little bit, this funhouse graveyard where everything is turned upside down. She doesn't like having her expectations turned inside-out, no matter how low they'd been to begin with. But when she turns to go, what does she do but run smack into some guy, probably the gardener, the caretaker—who else would be there at that hour? And this new guy asks her the same thing, "Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?" Well that's just too much for Mary. It's all too much, the emotional rollercoaster ride of the last three days, heck, the last three years, and it all comes crashing down on her right then and there. She throws up her hands and in a steady voice that belies her completely frazzled state of mind, she makes one last, desperate plea. "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you laid him, and I will take him away."

"Mary."

That's it. That's how she knows. Not a prophecy, not a theological treatise, not a heavenly vision. All it takes to prove to her that Jesus is alive is her name, spoken once, low, in love's own voice, and she knows. She knows it is true. She doesn't know when or where or how, but she knows Jesus. She knows him because he first knew her and calls her by name: "Mary." Her heart leaps to respond: "Rabbouni," that is, "My dear one, my teacher." Here is the answer to her secret prayer, the redemption of her suffering, her justification in the eyes of the world, the answer to those who scorned and mocked her and called her sinful, the foundation and fulfillment of her hopes, the face of God turned toward her in love. She needs him so very much, and here he is, restored to her once more, and she will never, ever let him go again.

And Jesus is hers, it's true. He is her friend, teacher, and, yes, her Lord, but not hers alone. This Easter resurrection is not for her alone. And so Jesus tells her, gently, I think, with great care: Do not hold on to me, Mary. You cannot keep me for yourself. I am alive, it's true. And I am yours, that is also true, but I have more work to do, and more sisters and brothers to greet. When I said I was going ahead of you to prepare a place for you, I meant all of you, everyone, every beloved child of God. I am going now to my glory and yours, to open the way to life for the whole world.

Remember how I told you, "When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself" (John 12:32)? That is what I am doing now, that is why I am alive now in the Spirit. Go now, and tell all those I love that where once there was only denial and death, where once there was no way, God has made a way in me. God has set a feast for all those who hunger. God has destroyed everything that casts a pall over life, all the disgrace and shame of humanity. God has swallowed up death forever, for all people.

And here I imagine Jesus leaning forward to wipe the tears from Mary's cheeks: I wipe away your tears now, Mary, but through me, and now through you, God will wipe away every tear from every face. Go now and share the good news. And with that he was gone.

Only he's not. Jesus, now the Risen Christ is here with us today. It's true: we have come here for any number of our own very personal reasons: social obligation or family duty; nostalgia for an experience we believe is long dead and lost to the past; maybe even hope. But if what we find here today in this story and this community of faith exceeds our expectations, it's because Mary didn't keep her personal relationship with Jesus private. She didn't keep Christ to herself. And she didn't keep quiet like a good little girl. She didn't walk home, she ran, and she found the other disciples and she told them, she shook them and shouted at them and hooted and hollered the good news at just about anyone who would listen, anyone who needed to hear: This, this is our God; the one we have waited for, the one who is alive among us even now! Our invitation, our forgiveness, our redemption, our blessing, our peace, our justice, our joy, our justification, our hope, our life—This is the Lord for whom we have waited! Let us be glad and rejoice in the salvation God has provided us and all God's children.

Friends, this Easter is ours, but not ours alone. We are called to hold tightly to this faith we have found, or which has found us, but not with a closed fist, fearful that it will be snatched from us, but with an open hand. There are many yet who hunger and thirst for this gospel word of a life so available it cannot be nailed down and so abundant it drowns death itself. Let us freely share the good news that has been shared with us so freely in Christ, for Alleluia! Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed! Alleluia!