Sermon for Easter Day

Read: John 20:1-18

Many of us will have graves that we visit. Perhaps grief is raw, or perhaps we have begun to move on. Perhaps we leave flowers on the grave. But suppose you visited the grave of someone who had been significantly close to you and found the stone cast to one side and a gaping hole in the ground, and the grave empty. It would be deeply shocking. Perhaps we are immune to these emotions, as we read the gospel story for today. Yes, of course Jesus’ grave is empty, for it is Easter and he is risen from the dead. But Mary would not have known that, as she comes to the grave in the early hours of the morning. I sometimes think that the literary style of the Gospels does not always do justice to what is going on. If we were writing today, we wouldn’t say that Mary was weeping. Surely she was bewildered, shocked and traumatised. Wouldn’t you be if you visited the grave of a loved one and found the body gone?

Who is this Mary? She is not the fallen woman or prostitute she was once declared to be in Medieval times, when she was mistakenly identified with the sinful woman who washed Jesus’ feet. She is mentioned by name some twelve times in the Gospels, more often than most of Jesus’ inner circle of the twelve. She was someone who had been cured by Jesus of seven demons, probably a reference to mental illness, seven being the number of fullness – so a very sick woman. But Jesus cured her and she became one of his closest followers. When most of the men had fled, Mary Magdalen was there at the cross as Jesus died. 

Early in the morning, some 36 hours later, Mary comes to the tomb and finds it empty. She is distraught and she asks someone, she takes to be the gardener, what is going on. Jesus, for it is he, says her name – “Mary”. And she says “Raboni”, which means Teacher. Again the Gospel surely underplays the language. I imagine that she must have shrieked the word -  “Raboni!!” What a sense of utter joy must have flooded her heart. She tries to grab hold of Jesus, but he tells her not to cling to him. The past has gone, new life is beginning. She must let go of the earthly Jesus, yet (joy of joys) he is alive again.

I want to suggest to you that it is important not to read these verses simply in an historic way, by which I mean as if we were simply reading a verbatim account of a strange event, some 2000 years ago. Yes Jesus died on a cross. Yes, on the third day those disciples were convinced that their friend Jesus, so cruelly put to death, was now risen from the dead. But Easter needs to be a present reality for us, not just the commemoration of what once was. Don’t just read this text, but imagine yourself into it. Soak up what is going on here. Look at what it means.

For all of us there will be times of weeping. I sometimes think that the Christian faith must lead to deep weeping. We may have our own sorrows, for which we weep, but if we pray with sincerity and seek to see the world as though through God’s eyes, we cannot help but be caught up in the sorrow God must feel at the brokenness of our world. We are destroying our planet. Daily, humans are killing one another. Some possess obscene levels of wealth, whilst so many hundreds of millions are dying for lack of the basic necessities of life. Many are marginalised and oppressed. Slavery is rife. People yearn for a depth of meaning in life, but fail to find it in the cult of celebrity, wealth and fame. Many, in our own society, feel unwanted, abandoned and with little hope.

Good Friday represents God himself sharing in the worst excesses of human brutality – facing the deepest expression of human sinfulness, as humanity hammers in the nails of crucifixion. Where is God in all this? - we might be tempted to cry. He is here, standing alongside us. Whatever the situation, no matter where lies the blame, he is there. And in the mist of our weeping, he calls us by name. Where is my Lord? - we might ourselves ask. Or, if we do not use such theological language, we might ask – What is the point of it all? Where lies meaning and purpose in our living? And Jesus replies by calling us by name.

I said that we must beware of reading this Gospel narrative in a simply historical way, as if we were exploring the past. Easter needs to be a present reality in our lives. In the mist of the complex cacophony of issues, the web of relationships, the challenges of the moment, can we stop to discover the risen Lord Jesus, already there at the centre of everything we are – calling us by name? It is my experience that to discover the risen Jesus, here and now in my life, calling me by name, is to find that self-same joy that led Mary to let out here ear-splitting shriek of “Raboni!!” And Easter becomes, not a remembrance of the past, but the celebration of present reality. Christ is alive!

Nothing we can do, not even the fact that have crucified God on a cross, can defeat the life-changing, self-giving, transforming, creating & healing power of his love. Not even death can defeat him. And if we can see that – if it can touch our hearts – then we have found the joy of Easter, and despite our earthly sorrows, we are transported into a new world that is beginning, in which Jesus is our risen Lord and living King.

Mary was not seen as a prostitute or a fallen women until some 15 centuries later. In the early church she was venerated as one of the Apostles. She was given the title – The Apostle to the Apostles. “Do not cling to me”, Jesus says to her, but “go and tell the others what you have seen”. Her experience of the risen Jesus propels her to go out with the Good News of the resurrection.

We might believe (in our minds) that Jesus rose from the dead, but to discover (in our own lives) the reality that Jesus is risen, is to be transformed, healed, empowered and made new. Easter is not just about what once was, but what is. It is more than about what once happened to Jesus. It is about how a love, that could defeat even death, can envelop and change our own lives. It is an encounter that brings deep joy, but it is a joy that overflows, that is infectious that goes out and seeks to give itself to others. The mission of the Church, which is nothing less than the mission of Jesus himself – a mission to bring good news to the poor, to bind up the sick, to transform and make whole – is a mission which can only well up in our hearts, as and when we encounter the risen Christ in our lives. It is the core of the Easter message – Jesus is risen!. And so our weeping is transformed into dancing. And we shout with joy: Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!