Seeing
Resurrection Through Tears
Rev.
Dr. Rebecca L. Kiser
Easter
-B 4/1/18 John 20:1-18
Christ is risen!
Answer: Christ is risen indeed!
I looked up children’s books about Easter
on Amazon to send to my granddaughter – there are lots of them out there. There’s a cute one done according to the
Berenstain Bears, Pete the cat, a cute mouse, Little Critter, Pinkalicious (!) and more.
This morning we’re going to look at the
Easter story according to Mary of Magdala, the first person who comes to the
tomb, and the first person to see the risen Jesus – and actually, the first one
to tell people about it.
I love Mary of Magdala – she’s gotten a bad rap from sometime early
in Christianity when someone decided she was the woman aught in adultery,
although that woman is not named, and anyway, she was forgiven. Magdalene does not mean adulterer or any
worse word – it’s a CITY, the city where she was from. Evidently she’s one of those women that
traveled with the disciples and, as last week’s text said, provided for them. I mean, we have this picture of Jesus and the
12 men traveling through the desert from town to town as a male band. Actually, women traveled with Jesus, too, using
their money to feed and clothe everyone, cooking and sewing and all, and
listening to Jesus as well. Maybe some
of the disciples had wives, it never says.
Certainly, Jesus’ message appealed to everyone. More than likely, Mary was a woman of means
who turned to Jesus. I mean, Jesus fed
a crowd with fishes and loaves, but that’s just one day – he ministered for 3
years!
We all know that Jesus’ body was laid in a
tomb gifted to him by a follower, right before the Sabbath started, so all the
burial rituals could not be completed.
That’s why Mary comes early on the day after the Sabbath, ie Sunday (which
is why Christians now worship on Sunday, the first day of the week). She brings the traditional herbs and all, a
final gift to Jesus of laying him out properly. We can imagine, having had to
do difficult things ourselves, that she is still incredibly sad and confused,
and yet finding some solace in the thought of this last ceremony.
People all used to do this for their loved
ones, and at their homes. The traditions
and ceremonies around death and important to the grieving process, and
eventually help us head towards healing.
Nowadays we relegate that kind of humble work to undertakers and have
other traditions. When I was a kid, I
was scared of dead bodies, and the knowledge that this is our common human end. Now that I’m older and have been with people
while they mysteriously move from a warm, breathing human, and into death, there’s
nothing scary about bodies anymore, especially the body of those we have
loved.
So Mary comes to the tomb, the place of
death, and perhaps we can imagine she is not also sad, but also wondering what
will happen to his followers. You may
remember that it was a scary time to be a follower of Jesus – Peter had been
scared to admit he knew Jesus, and the disciples gathered behind a closed
door. Mary sees the rock that sealed the tomb now
rolled to the side, and the tomb empty. We
can imagine that she is totally freaked, and thinks his body has been moved or
stolen – and perhaps even something gross done to it…. Our imagination can take
us terrible places. But even our
imaginations can’t take us to RESURRECTION – that just isn’t something that
happens on the human plane.
So she runs and gets some other folks, and
stands there crying while they look inside the tomb. We might imagine this empty tomb is yet another
shock – her friend Jesus was arrested,
condemned, killed – and now his
body has disappeared! I know I’d be
crying….I’d be numb.
Mary just can’t leave the tomb, even
though the others go. She can’t leave
yet, she’s still weeping and confused. And
just in this terrible moment, someone says something to her – she thinks he’s a
gardener. They’re in a garden, that’s logical.
Of course she doesn’t expect to see Jesus… would we?
Yet it is at this place of loss, in the
pain and confusion of human grief and incomprehension - it is through her
helpless tears that Mary recognizes the new Jesus, the risen Christ. And they talk. Can you imagine her absolute amazement and
confusion? Finally, she returns to the others
with the totally weird testimony, “I have seen the Lord!”
It seems to be uniquely true for all of
us, that it is at our most dire times, our deepest crises, our losses and
failures, our time of grief and weeping, that as we wrestle with where God is
in the midst of this chaos --- we somehow see God anew, we see new aspects of
God, we find an expanded vision of God’s self.
I started to write that this is not my favorite way for my faith and
vision to grow. It certainly isn’t the
easiest or the most pleasant. But on the
other hand, isn’t it important that God is there in our very worst
times????
I’ve named many of my awful times as ‘times
of disillusionment’ ---- things weren’t
like I’d thought or expected – or even believed. God, as I knew God up to that point, didn’t
seem to be there. One day it hit me that
in order to be disillusioned, I must have been living in an illusion to start
with! It hurts to be disillusioned, to
shed those illusions – yet they ARE illusions and actually need to go. God IS there – it was my expectation that
fell short, it was my understanding that was incomplete. Suddenly I see God in a new way; I learn; my
faith grows. It seems that I learn more
of God’s reality in my soul, at times of weeping.
Yes, we know that our faith benefits and
grows from mountaintop experiences like good conferences, meaningful retreats,
or hearing great preachers that challenge and fill our spirit. The year I attended our General Assembly and
saw this whole hall of displays of the missions we Presbyterians do when we
work together – that was both humbling and exhilarating at the same time. And the large worship services, hearing
hundreds of people singing together, taking communion in a convention hall
packed with Christ-followers – my spirit overflowed with joy. God was there.
Isn’t it also good to trust that God is
there is our lowest points, too? And
isn’t it good to trust that God is the God of new and unexpected life? Weeping
might be the best response to some of the things life throws at us, when we
find ourselves standing by the place of loss like Mary. Yet our God, who created all that is around
us as well our very human selves, also is a God who can create things out of
our imagining.
Theologically speaking, God is Life and
Being. God’s mysterious name given in
the Scripture is variously translated as, “I am that I am,” or, “I will be what
I will be.” Its some form of the verb
“to be,” anyway, so God’s name encompasses being itself; the creative power or
energy of life. Hildegard of Bingen
spoke of God as the greenness; my teacher Matthew Fox referred to God as
“isness.” Others have tried to express
God philosophically as the Ground of Being, the Logos or Word. All of these ideas, in the 60s expression,
‘blow our minds.”
The truth is, where God is, life is. God creates anew. God is the power in creation, and God’s
spirit in us is always moving us towards healing – healing of our souls,
healing of past hurts, healing from addictions and other things that damage us. The power of new life springing up is
God. Of COURSE God will do a new thing,
and Jesus will be raised in a new kind of life, a kind of life that we all who
follow Jesus will share. Death is never
the last word where God is concerned.
Life is always pushing out, pushing forward, despite setbacks and
hardships ….. and even despite mortality. That makes my mind swirl – God made all the
mysteries & complexities we humans are still discovering…So it makes sense,
doesn’t it? - that God could create even stuff beyond this. God is alive in ways we can’t understand, and
God is almost out of the realm that our brains can comprehend…
However, we can comprehend this: God holds the power of Life and New Life. Death does not defeat the Life of God, nor
the Love of God. Life wins. God wins. Sometimes we have to affirm that
through our tears, like Mary at the tomb.
And then we are privileged to see the power of the God of life burst any
bonds.
Christ is risen.
Christ is risen indeed.
