Sermon 4/16/06
Here - John 20:1-18
(view lectionary notes for this text)
Throughout the season of Lent, we’ve been hearing monologues performed by different people, hearing from Judas and Peter and Caiaphas and Pilate and the Centurion and the Thief and today Mary Magdalene. Last week, when I brought my little brother, my ringer acting major, to perform some of the monologues, many of you commented that he made you feel like you were really right there with him, experiencing the events he described right along with him, and with the people of Jesus’ day. These comments were exactly what I was hoping to hear, not only because I’m biased and wanted everyone to love my brother’s performance, but also because feeling like we are a part of the story of the Passion is exactly what I’ve wanted us to feel. We are a part of this story – we’re not just observers on the sidelines, and we’re not just passive historians, examining the days of old. We’re part of it, part of the Passion.
All through Lent we’ve been trying to make ourselves a part of the story. Beginning with Ash Wednesday, we’ve tried, as individuals and as a congregation, to walk with Jesus. I’ve been asking you, and trying myself, to put myself into the story. Last week we got to put ourselves into Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem. We were a part of the parade, a part of the celebration – not just sitting on the sidelines. I think the fun was contagious. We weren’t just remembering. We were experiencing Palm Sunday. On Thursday, we gathered for worship, not just to remember a meal that Jesus once had with his disciples, but to participate in that meal, to receive the bread and the cup ourselves and to be the body of Christ ourselves. On Friday, we hear the account of Jesus’ crucifixion, and we’re asked to find ourselves in the scene – as the hymn asks, were we there? Where are we as Jesus is put to death? Last night, we tried to participate in feeling of transition the disciples must have felt on Holy Saturday – after the crucifixion, before the resurrection. Waiting and wondering, sad and lonely and afraid. Those who have experienced the loss of a loved one can relate to this feeling of having no idea what to do next, just going through the motions of living. So far, up until now, we have made ourselves a part of the story, found a place for ourselves in this journey.
But today is a different story. It is Easter morning that’s a problem, the part of the story that’s a little harder to step into, at least for me. For now instead of following the presence of Jesus, the actions of Jesus, the teachings of Jesus, suddenly the focus is on the absence of Jesus – he is not there in the tomb, he is not there when Mary Magdalene, Peter, and the beloved disciple come looking for him. It is that Jesus is not in the tomb, not dead, that is important on Easter morning. How can we relate to such a story? How can we put ourselves there by the empty tomb, and what will it mean for us, how can it be important to us? It is hard, I think, not to feel like after playing starring roles in this drama of Lent, we have suddenly become just an audience on Easter Sunday, watching passively as the music is played and the flowers are set, and the service goes by. Easter becomes something that happens with or without our input, instead of something that happens inside of us. And so, sometimes, I’ve felt like after all the buildup, after all the preparations, it’s too easy to be here only in body and not in spirit on Easter. Too easy to sit back and let it happen without us, too easy to sit this one out. After an intense Holy Week, the end of the story sometimes seemed not so impressive.
Not impressed. That seems to be the case with the beloved disciple and Peter when they come to the empty tomb on the first Easter morning. Mary Magdalene, finding the stone rolled from the tomb of Jesus, had called them to come. “They have taken the Lord,” she said, suspecting foul play from one of the many groups who had wanted to see Jesus dead in the first place. So Peter and the beloved disciple race to the tomb, literally, and they enter the tomb, and see that it is empty. And then they go home. They observe, but they don’t participate. They just go back home.
But Mary sticks around. Overcome with grief and confusion, she stays at the empty tomb, weeping. And it is her presence, her ability to stay, to be there, to be at the site, that allows her to be there long enough to encounter Jesus. “Woman, why are you weeping?” Jesus asks her, “Whom are you looking for?” And when she doesn’t recognize him, he speaks her name, and Mary responds, “Rabbouni – Teacher.” Jesus tells her to go to the others, to share the news, to announce the resurrection. And so she reluctantly leaves Jesus, but becomes the first messenger of the Easter news – “I have seen the Lord,” she says. Suddenly, Mary, at the fringes of the gospel stories, has stolen the scene, taken center stage, and become the leading star. She has experienced, really experienced the Resurrection, and taken part in the story in a way that doesn’t leave her silent, doesn’t leave her confused, doesn’t end up with her missing Jesus’ appearance altogether like the other disciples did.
Fortunately, the other disciples eventually catch up. They eventually make their way back into the story, because Jesus keeps breaking into their lives, insisting that they experience and believe in the Resurrection. I think it is the same for us too. If we don’t get it today, God keeps trying to touch our hearts. Because we are a part of the Resurrection story too. Resurrection is about new life, and it isn’t only Jesus’ life that we celebrate today. For Mary, the power of the Resurrection was heightened because Jesus’ resurrection meant her resurrection too. Jesus’ life changed Mary’s life. She isn’t the same person at the close of the gospel as she is at the beginning. Neither is Peter. Neither is John Neither Thomas. The list goes on. No one is the same after an encounter with Jesus, because they are part of the Resurrection too – not a far off resurrection that happens later, in another place, another time, another realm, and not a resurrection that happened already, just to other people, in another age, but resurrection, for us, here and now.
I believe that more than anything, God wants us to be active participants in our life journey, and the journey of the Passion, active participants in our relationship with God, active participants in the Resurrection. God doesn’t want us to be passive observers – just people come to ‘see’ Easter happen, come to read about and sing about Easter and Resurrection happening to other people. Easter – Resurrection – happens to us, today, right here. So come, take part, here, today. God has a part for you to play, and you have a life to give, ripe for resurrection. Amen.
(All sermons written by Rev. Beth Quick. Please give credit if used.)