What’s going on here?
Good morning, Friends! Today is Easter Sunday. It’s a big day for us. Maybe the biggest day of the whole Christian year.
Easter is a bigger day than Christmas. I know, everybody likes to unwrap presents. But Easter is bigger than that!
Easter says that the world has changed. It’s more than somebody saying “Jesus was a good person, and his memory lives on.”
Easter says that Jesus is alive. He was killed, he was buried, but he’s alive again, forever. The life in him was so great, that on the third day after he was killed, he rose again. That’s what Easter says.
Now, we’ve been celebrating Easter for more than 2,000 years. We all know the story pretty well. But I want to ask us to go back, to that first Easter morning. And hear the events as if this was the first time.
What seems like a wonderful and glorious day to us now, was a strange and confusing and scary time then. Let me read you the Easter story, as it’s recorded in the gospel of John.
Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance.
So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!”
So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. Both of them were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first.
He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen cloth lying there but did not go in. Then Simon Peter came along behind him and went straight into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, as well as the cloth that had been wrapped around Jesus’ head. The cloth was still lying in its place, separate from the linen.
Finally the other disciple, the one who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed.They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead. Then the disciples went back to where they were staying.
Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and she saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.
They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?”
“They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.
He asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”
Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”
Jesus said to her, “Mary.”She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”).
Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”
Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them that he had said these things to her.
John 20:1-18
The first person we meet on Easter morning is a woman named Mary Magdalene. She came from a village a couple of miles away from where Jesus began his teaching ministry. She had followed Jesus for two or three years.
Mary had been there for everything that happened. The gospel names her as one of the people who was there when Jesus died. It’s likely that she was one of the ones who helped to take Jesus’ body down, and wrapped him for burial.
On Easter morning, in the dark hour before dawn, Mary came out of the city, picked her way through the dark, and sneaked into the cemetery. And she found that the tomb was empty.
She didn’t know what to do. So she ran back to the city, and found Peter and another of Jesus’ friends. She shook them awake and she said, “They’ve taken him away. We don’t know where they put him!”
So they all went back to the cemetery. It says that Peter and the other disciple ran, and they left Mary Magdalene behind them. They got to the cemetery, and they were gasping and out of breath.
It was just as she said. They found the tomb empty, and they found the burial clothes just lying there.
And they literally didn’t know what to think. They didn’t have any kind of background to fit what they saw into their understanding. So – they went back home.
Mary had caught up with them by then, and it says that she stood outside the tomb, weeping. It was still dark out. The sun hadn’t come up yet.
It says that Mary bent over, and she saw a light in the tomb. It looked to her like angels. She didn’t understand about them, either.
They said, “Why are you weeping?”
She said, “They’ve taken my Lord away, and I don’t know where he is.” And she turned away, still crying.
And then, right beside her, she saw Jesus. She didn’t recognize him! She didn’t know who he was, even though she had known him for years. Maybe she was still crying too hard. It says she thought he was someone from the maintenance crew.
And he said to her, “Mary!” He called her by name. Even though she could hardly see, in the dark and through her tears, she recognized his voice, calling her by name.
And she said to him, “Teacher!” And she ran to embrace him. And Jesus gently untangled her, and told her to go and tell everyone. And she went and found them, and she said, “I have seen the Lord!”
That is the story of Easter.
The people who were there on the ground, the people who knew Jesus best, didn’t understand what was going on. Frankly, if these three people on Easter morning didn’t understand what was going on, I think that cuts a little slack for the rest of us. If we’re honest about Easter, we’re going to ask, “What is going on here?”
The first person who got a glimmer that something was going on, was the other disciple. We don’t even know his name. He’s only called “the disciple who Jesus loved.” It says, “he saw, and believed.”
It doesn’t say what he believed. Literally, it means that he trusted. He had faith.
That’s different from saying he completely understood what was going on. I don’t think that anyone really understood, that first Easter morning. We still have trouble understanding, in spite of almost two thousand years of discussion and debate.
Easter is about discovery. Not discovering the whole picture, but discovering that something new and completely unexpected is going on.
It’s like feeling a change in the wind, or a trembling in the ground. It’s like the first, faint line of gray on the horizon. You don’t see the sun yet, but you know that’s the direction where more light might come.
Or it’s like the whisper of a promise. The tomb is empty. The Lord who we know and love isn’t here, and we don’t know where he is. But maybe – just maybe – what we see isn’t the last word. I think that’s what that other disciple felt. It was hope. Nothing full-blown. Nothing spelled out.
It was like daring to think that something could be alive again. It was like holding a candle, in a dark and empty grave. Easter is just the beginning. It’s the gift of hope, the gift of light, the spark of life.
And what did they do about it? Do you remember? It says that Peter and the other disciple returned to their homes.
They didn’t say anything about it, to anyone. They didn’t go home singing Easter hymns. They didn’t go home saying, “Thanks be to God, who has delivered us from the finality of death!”
They were scared, and puzzled. So they just went home.
But Mary Magdalene stayed. And I think that’s an important part of the story. She stayed there, in that place of fear and puzzlement.
It doesn’t say that she understood. It says she stayed there, weeping. She was crying so hard, she couldn’t tell what she was seeing.
But then she heard a voice. And it said, “Woman, why are you weeping?”
And she said, “They have taken away my Lord, and I don’t know where they have laid him.”
Remember, at this point, all that Mary really knew, for sure, was that Jesus was dead and buried. She was exhausted by grief, from running into town and running back again. She was crying uncontrollably.
And you know, there’s always a thinking part of us, that tries to make sense and do something right, no matter how much we’re hurting.
That part of Mary’s mind thought the voice she heard must be the gardener at the cemetery. So she said again, “Please, if they have carried him away, tell me where they have laid him, and I will take him away!”
She thought maybe Jesus’ body had been taken out of the tomb and thrown away, like garbage. It would have been the crowning insult, after everything else she witnessed that weekend.
And here is where the story really changes. Here is where Easter really begins. She heard that familiar voice call from behind her, in the darkness. Jesus called her by name: “Mary!”
And Mary turned around, and said, “Teacher!”
That is Easter, right there. Just those two words. The one word when Jesus calls us by name. And the one word when we answer back. That’s the Easter miracle. Christ calls us. And we answer. That’s Easter, right there.
Mary must have reached out, and embraced Jesus. Because after a while, he said to her, “Don’t hold on to me. Go to my friends and say that I told you, ‘I am ascending – to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”
That is such a powerful image – “Don’t keep me here. Don’t hold me back. Don’t hold onto the past. I’m on my way. I’m going to God. Go and tell my friends.”
So Mary went and told everyone, “I have seen the Lord.” And she told them what Jesus had told her.
That’s the real Easter story. And it’s probably just as difficult to understand and believe now, as it was then. Nobody gets penalized for having trouble believing it. Everyone here this morning gets an automatic pass, just for listening to the story.
Just remember, that Easter means hearing whispers of hope. Easter means seeing one glimmer of light, and not turning away from it. Easter means seeing one new flower, one new blade of grass, one unexpected miracle, and not ignoring it.
Easter is as simple as Jesus calling us by name, the way he called to Mary. Don’t be afraid to answer.
And Easter means that death is not the last word. No matter what happens. No matter how bad things can ever be. Easter says that against all the odds, against all appearances, that Christ is alive.
Just hold onto that. And everything else is still to come