Easter Sunday
March 23, 2008
Acts 10:34-43
Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24
Colossians 3:1-4
John 20:1-18
“I have seen the Lord,” announces Mary Magdalene to Jesus’ disciples on that first Easter morning. “I have seen the Lord,” and this is what he told me: “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” Now, go. Tell my disciples that you “have seen the Lord.”
And so, Mary goes to Jesus’ disciples and makes her announcement. But today Mary Magdalene makes her announcement to us. We are the disciples who are meant to hear her message. Today we share in the role Jesus’ disciples played on that first Easter morning. Like them, we will not get to see Jesus emerge from the tomb. Like them, we must wait for Mary’s announcement and we will only be able to hear what Mary has been privileged to see. But this is also what makes our Easter story so remarkable.
Our story is remarkable because Jesus makes his first appearance to Mary Magdalene, and NOT to his disciples. Jesus appears to Mary, even though Peter and the unnamed disciple go running to the tomb to investigate Jesus’ disappearance for themselves. Jesus stays hidden to them. But soon thereafter Jesus appears to Mary Magdalene, a beloved disciple, and a woman, and he gives Mary authority to tell his disciples that she has seen him, and talked to him. Remarkable, I’d say. Remarkable for two reasons: first, because Jesus chooses to make his first resurrection appearance to a woman. Remarkable also because Jesus’ disciples believe what she says about his appearing to her. They believe that Mary has seen Jesus and talked to him, and they take it as sign that their Lord has in fact fulfilled the promise he made to them about his death. That death would not be the end of life; rather death would mark the beginning of new life in resurrection.
You have to wonder, though, why Jesus would choose to make his first appearance to a woman, and give her the authority to carry his message to the men who have been so much closer to him as his disciples. You have to wonder because, as I have said in many other sermons you have heard me preach, women did not count for much in the patriarchal social structures of the ancient world. A woman was nobody without a father, a husband and a son in her life. A woman’s status came from being a daughter and wife and the mother of a son who would care for her until she died, and her power and authority were limited to clearly defined family roles.
But in today’s scripture, Jesus has laid aside the trappings of death and walked out of his tomb to make his appearance to a woman. And not just any woman. Mary Magdalene is a woman who challenges social and religious convention; a woman who lives a life quite independent of traditional family structures and relationships. A woman who, on this morning, defies one of the strictest rules of her gender; she has gone out to a public place alone early on a Sabbath morning without the authority of a man or the company of other women. She has come to the tomb alone, in the darkness and at considerable risk and possible danger to herself, to grieve the death of the One she has loved so completely; one she has followed so faithfully in his life and to his untimely and unconscionable death. But Mary does not seem to fear risk or danger this morning, and she has little regard for the rules of gender which would keep her in her place. Because Mary has come to be with her Lord. She has come to keep vigil for the One who has loved her so differently from her other loves. The one whose love has removed her fear, and emboldened her to risk being near him. Because he has mattered so much to her and his presence in her life has made a profound difference in the way she lives it.
And so, it is easy to see why Mary Magdalene would come to Jesus’ tomb that morning. Still, why would Jesus’ choose to appear to a woman? Especially this woman. And what would make his disciples trust what she has seen and believe what she says? As you might imagine people have come up with many possible reasons for this encounter Jesus’ has with Mary. Modern historical and scientific research has offered a few reasons of their own, and it is easy to guess what some of them might be. But what we know is that in all of the accounts of Jesus’ passion and death, his disciples run away from him. And they stay away. And even in today’s gospel when Peter and the other disciple run to Jesus’ tomb, they quickly return home when they find it empty. It is apparent that they are afraid. But they have a good reason to fear. If Roman authorities catch them at the tomb or find out they are disciples of Jesus, they could well suffer the same fate.
Now, I don’t imagine that Jesus’ disciples loved Jesus any less than Mary Magdalene loved him, but in this time of great violence and fear of death, their love for Jesus has not been able to conquer their fear. At least not yet. But we know that eventually love prevails, because love is stronger than death. And love is stronger than the doubts and fears which can make us prisoners in our own life. We know that soon after Pentecost, Jesus’ disciples grow strong and courageous enough to embolden them to go into the world to establish the Church in Jesus’ name. And each one will bravely suffer a death much like the one Jesus suffered. But on that fateful Sabbath morning, Jesus’ disciples are not ready for Jesus’ appearing to them. They were too full of doubt and fear. And we know what doubt and fear can and will do to us. Doubt will not allow us, and fear cannot let us see truths which are beyond our comprehension Doubt will not be open and fear cannot be open to possibility. Doubt will not hope and fear cannot hope for any more than the way things are or have always been.
Doubt and fear are the reasons which keep Jesus from appearing to his disciples. The lives of Jesus’ disciples are bound up in doubt and fear. And we know that Jesus is not able to make his presence known to those who will only doubt him, or those who can only fear him. This is undoubtedly why Jesus appears first to the women in all four of our gospel accounts. Because the women who come to Jesus’ tomb have little reason to doubt and less reason to fear. They come in the hope of encountering the person they know is in that tomb. And any doubt that they might not encounter Jesus in that place is dismissed by the possibility that they will.
It is the women who bring us the message of resurrection on that first Easter morning. Because they can. Because without the restrictions of fear and the limitations of doubt they are able to love their Lord and freely express their love in ways which open them to love’s possibilities. And what is possible when we rid ourselves of doubt and fear and become free to love? Love makes it possible for us to garner the strength and courage we need to overcome our fear; love can turn doubt into belief, love can turn dead ends in to possibilities, love can engender hope in times of despair, love can enable us to see and hear with more than just our eyes and ears; love can open our minds to new ways of thinking and our hearts to new truths which the mind cannot fathom. This is the message Mary Magdalene brings to us this Easter Sunday and this is the message we need to hear if there is any chance that we might find new life and a new way of living it in our story of resurrection. Because resurrection is all about change. The kind of change which can transform our life and transform our world. Resurrection is all about new life coming out of dead or dying places. Change comes to us in resurrection; change we can believe in.
Over the past several Sundays we have been hearing about the ways Jesus’ death and resurrection prepare us for the change we experience in this life and the change which will come to us at our death. But there are some important things we need to remember about the kind of change which comes in resurrection, and they are illustrated in John’s gospel account of resurrection on this Easter Sunday. We need to remember that change which comes in resurrection can make us unrecognizable to others who knew us so well for the people we once were. Mary Magdalene does not recognize Jesus until he speaks to her and calls her by name. Mary doesn’t recognize Jesus because he has already begun to change; his body has already begun its transformation from death to life in resurrection. And the implication for the change we experience in resurrection is clear: people find it difficult to recognize us when we undergo a dramatic change of heart, or mind, or behavior.
We are not the same person we once were and we are not the same person others knew them to be. And the consequence of this kind of resurrection to new life is that relationships change as well; new life and a new way of living invite new relationships to develop and grow, and former relationships which do not support new life must, by necessity must die. And in the end this is what resurrection is about. Dying. Because resurrection to new life can only come to us in the dead and dying places of our life. But first we have to acknowledge the dead and dying places in our life and recognize the ways they keep us from living into the fullness of living it. Because fullness of life is what Jesus invites us to experience in resurrection.
On this day of resurrection Jesus calls us to be the Easter people we proclaim ourselves to be. He calls us to be the change we want to make in our life and in our world. And he is ready to be a presence in our life for that change. Jesus is calling us to come out of our own tombs, tombs of our own making and tombs other people put us in. He has rolled the stone away and he is waiting for us to come out of the shadows of our fear and the darkness of our doubt and despair into the light of hope and promise and possibility so that we might see him for who he truly is, and see ourselves for who we might become, if only we will follow him into new life.
But first we need to open our eyes so we can see him; we need to open our ears so we can hear him call our name. And then we need to open our hearts and our minds to the changes which are possible in new life which comes in resurrection. Then, like Mary Magdalene, we too will be able to say with confidence, “I have seen the Lord,” and he is the change I can believe in.