Happy Easter! You know, you could have done just about anything this morning and yet you came to St. James. What a beautiful testimony of your heart for God and one another. Choosing each other…it’s such a brave thing, especially when it seems our world is so polarized and divided. This church isn’t some museum filled with perfect people, rather it’s a community of people who miss the mark but are trying to heal wounds and celebrate each other. I am so proud of the way you follow in the path Jesus has set before us and am grateful to be a part of this journey with you. We are just getting started.
In today’s gospel (John 20:1—18 NLT) the scripture tells us that while it was still dark, Mary went out to Jesus’ tomb. We sure have been going through some dark seasons, haven’t we? A global pandemic, financial crises, war; its dark. Yet, Mary went searching for something, just like we are here searching together today.
Now, the synoptic gospels (Matt, Mark, Luke) tell of the same scene, but they say its daylight. Sometimes when we see discrepancies like this we think “AH ha! The bible can’t be true”. Truthfully these things make me much more confident in scripture, which is the story of God and imperfect humanity. Be very concerned with any news story, historical document, or religious text that has everything “nice and neat”. Real life is messy. Different people from different perspectives see and experience things differently. The bible doesn’t “edit” that out. Trust that God means for it to be there. This is probably because God loves to draw us deeper, and He wants us asking hard questions, learning that His word is more about Him revealing Himself to us than things like “was it dark or daylight”. In this case, she could have left for the tomb when it was still dark, then the sun rose. The point is: Her world was dark!
Mary Magdalene’s story with Jesus began when He was healing people early in His ministry and it is said in Luke that she was healed of 7 demons. That is an important number in the bible which stands for completion, or wholeness. The inference here is that if she had seven demons, her life was devoid of God’s spirit. Galatians 5 tells us, “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control…”. Darkness wants to steal those from us… it certainly stole them from Mary.
We can deduce that men in her culture had not demonstrated self-control with her, as was common then and sadly remains true today. Society was not gentle, or faithful, or generous, or kind, or patient with women. How could she have found peace, or joy, or the greatest of these, “love”? She may have felt worthless and disqualified. When we feel we have no value, we tend to act that way, don’t we? Yet, Jesus came into her life and the light of His love changed it all. He set her free from shame, told her of her infinite value as a daughter of the King, treated her as an equal among the disciples, and placed her in leadership.
Now, He was dead. She had watched it with her own eyes! Everything good was torn from her as her Lord was humiliated, tortured, and murdered. The trauma of it all is astounding. Yet there she was, on the third day, being brave again. She was risking being caught as one of His followers. She was confronting the pain of His being gone, and what that meant for her.
Yet her bravery leads to another blow. She arrives at Jesus’ tomb and it appears that someone robbed His grave. They stole Him! They have taken everything, even her right to mourn and say good-bye; so, she runs. With tears streaming down her face she finds Peter, the Rock, and another disciple… who is described as “the one Jesus loves.”
Do you know who early Christians understood that disciple to be? St. John. As in the Gospel according to John. How human is it that the supposed author of this book keeps referring to himself as “the disciple Jesus loved”. He does it five times! He is like Ron Burgundy saying, “I don’t know how to put this. I am kind of a big deal. People know me. I have many leather-bound books… and I am the disciple Jesus loves”. Can you imagine the other disciples with this guy?
I can hear their conversation now… “Yeah, Johnny. We get it. He loves you. Jesus loves everyone!” John replies, “True, true…but were you guys leaning against him at the last supper or was that me? I forget. Also, I beat you in that race to the tomb, Pete!”
Even that little detail we’re given, how human it is, and how powerful. Each one of us comes to Jesus in different ways, at different speeds… not everyone is able to enter the tomb right away. To be confronted by what it means. Yet, they both love Jesus and are loved by Him. It’s beautiful. They don’t stay. They head home… not shouting “He is risen”, BTW.
Mary stays, weeping, outside the tomb. She can’t bear to look, not right away, but some part of her isn’t ready to give up on Jesus. She finally peaks inside and sees two men in white, angels. Peter and John didn’t see them, but she does, though Mary doesn’t seem to recognize them as angels. These are strangers to her and that is important. Why? They ask her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” Without hesitation or pause, she replies, “They took my Lord away and I don’t know where they put Him.”
Remember that I wrote earlier about the risk to her of being identified as one of Jesus’ followers? She declares He is her Lord to the first people she sees. Strangers. So risky. So dangerous. Turning, she sees a third person, but doesn’t recognize it is Jesus.
As a kid this confused me! Was this like a Clark Kent/Superman kind of thing? Which by the way, if you ever wondered, issue 330 of Superman makes clear that his glasses are made of Kryptonian crystals from his space pod which amplify Kal El’s hypno-powers, thus hiding his identity from the world. You’re welcome. See, having a nerd for a priest has advantages!
But no, this isn’t one of Jesus’ miraculous powers. You see, all of the disciples had scattered and went back to their old lives. Peter and crew were back to being fishermen. Mary… Mary was back to looking down. In shame. Not making eye contact with men because her culture told her she was less than. If Jesus was dead, what did that mean about all the things He told her she was? Maybe it was all a lie. Maybe she was worthless after all… and yet… there is fire in her still.
Jesus asks her the same question as the angels did, and she answers much the same. However, subconsciously or not, she quotes Him as she replies, “Tell me where you have laid him”. Do you know where you have heard that before? In our gospel reading two weeks ago Jesus said the same thing to Mary of Bethany asking about Lazarus, whom He raised from the dead. She is still defiantly hoping for a miracle, and it happens.
“MARY!” Jesus exclaims, and His voice instantly reminds her to raise her chin high, with pride in who God made her to be. She replies, “Rabboni! Teacher!” That word is so important because she had already declared Him as Lord to the angels. Using this one word, ‘Teacher’, she reclaims her status as His student, an equal with all the other disciples. She rejects shame. Remember what I said last week about it being forbidden for women to touch men? She grabs ahold of Him and doesn’t let go. It changes everything, because if He is risen, she can rise.
Now, there is a lot of theology and discussions about Jesus saying, “Don’t cling to me”, but in the context of what I am sharing today He is communicating that her value is not bound up in His being there physically. If He rose from the dead, then He truly is God incarnate, so she is a forever a daughter of the King. He says as much, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God”. Her value, her freedom, her worth is not dependent on him being physically present – it can never be taken away again! He even makes her the first evangelist, telling her to go tell the other disciples!
The world is a little dark right now and you have faced, are facing, so much. The fear, the anxiety, the hatred… all of it seeks to steal your love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; to shame you and make you feel worthless or disqualified. But like Mary, we have Good News today. Jesus has risen, and His promises are true. You are His child and in Him you have more value and worth than even death itself can touch. It’s Easter. He is risen… now… you rise and reclaim everything God made you to be.
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