Resurrection of Our Lord Easter Sunday
Acts 10:34-43 Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24 1 Corinthians 15:19-26 John 20:1-8 Alleluia! Christ is Risen! “Mary” It’s amazing how much can be conveyed with one word, with a name. With that one word Jesus turns Mary’s life upside down in all the right ways. She goes from weeping in a garden near an empty tomb, talking to a gardener, to beholding the risen Lord, her teacher and friend. It’s been a long journey to get to this place, with plenty of ups and downs, we don’t know much about Mary before her life following Jesus other than she was from Magdala, a fishing village along the sea of Galilee and Luke tells us that Jesus healed her, casting out seven demons, since then we know she’s been one of the group of women followers of Jesus who traveled along as disciples and who took care of Jesus. Her own experience aside Mary has seen and heard some amazing things, she’s seen Jesus heal, she’s seen him feed thousands with a few loaves of bread, she’s heard him teach and debate with scribes and Pharisees she heard him weep for his friend Lazarus then saw raise him from the dead she’s experienced the excitement of the crowds as Jesus entered Jerusalem could this be the long awaited messiah? and then two days ago she saw Jesus arrested, put on trial sentenced to death by crucifixion, and even when many of the disciples fled, Mary and a few others stayed at the foot of the cross and witnessed Jesus die, then watched as Joseph of Arimathea took Jesus’ body down from the cross, prepared it for burial and placed it in a tomb in a garden, with a stone covering the entrance. And with that all that she’s seen and heard, the hope for the future that had built along the way, the purpose she’s dedicated her life to is gone. Dead and buried. She must go observe the sabbath, rest and worship away from this place but John tells us that early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, as soon as possible Mary comes back to the tomb, she’s so anxious to be near her Lord that she can’t even wait for daylight and when she goes into the garden she finds that the stone has been rolled away from the entrance to the tomb and that Jesus is not where he is supposed to be. In a panic she runs and gets some other disciples telling them “they have taken the Lord out of the tomb and we do not know where they have laid him.” And having delivered the message Mary fades into the background for a bit while Peter and the other disciple race back to the tomb and find the cloths that had been used to embalm Jesus lying in the tomb folded neatly and while they still don’t know quite what to think, we who are hearing the story know that this isn’t a simple case of grave robbing, grave robbers wouldn’t have unwrapped the body, and we know it’s not even a return to life like Lazarus who was still bound in grave cloths when Jesus called him from his own tomb, no something else is going on here but in the moment those present don’t know that, the two disciples return home not sure what to think and Mary, Mary stays in the garden weeping, all she knows is that Jesus is not there. She looks in the tomb again then turns around and there behind her is another person and supposing he is the gardener she asks him where Jesus is, and that is when Jesus speaks her name. “Mary” that one word capturing all the moments of a life that have built up to this point, that one word conveying the love and friendship between teacher and disciple. And at last Mary knows who it is before her. She recognizes the voice, the one who knows her intimately and she responds in kind with a term of endearment, rabbouni. So much conveyed with one word and yet that is who Jesus is, he is the good shepherd who calls his sheep by name, they recognize his voice, the voice that they associate with care, protection, with love, that is the voice they will follow because they are known. We all long to be known in this way, to experience this depth of relationship, sometimes we get a glimpse of this in the love of a parent or a partner or a friend. I remember growing up listening to my mom answer the phone, I could tell it was my dad on the other end without hearing his name, because the tone of my mom’s voice changed from formal telephone voice to the voice of one speaking with someone known and loved We recognize when someone knows us, we hear it and we respond to it even in the situations where we don’t expect it, Mary wasn’t expecting the resurrection, to paraphrase Monty Python, no one expects the resurrection, and yet when Jesus says her name she knows who is speaking to her. This is the miracle of Easter, that in those moments in our lives when dead is dead and gone is gone, Jesus says our name and we know who is speaking to us, even if we don’t recognize the person in front of us, especially if we didn’t expect to find new life, love and understanding in that moment. Jesus the good shepherd laid down his life for his sheep, for us and he rose from the dead and ascended to be with God all so that there is a place for us where we are loved and known, So that we may have life and have it abundantly right now. And while we may as yet be in the garden weeping, or staring at the empty tomb scratching our heads trying to figure out what it means, when we hear our name called we will know who it is that is calling and we will proclaim with Mary, “I have seen the Lord.” Christ is Risen! Alleluia!
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AboutPastor Emily Johnson preaches weekly at Christ Lutheran. These are manuscripts of her sermons given at Christ Lutheran. Feel free to engage with them in the comments section of the blog. Archives
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