"I have seen the Lord!"

Readings: Jeremiah 31:1-6, Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24, Colossians 3:1-4, John 20:1-18, Matthew 28:1-10

Some two millennia ago, Mary of Magdala took a Sunday morning stroll to the tomb of her rabbi, the man they’d called “messiah”.


She walked through the streets of Jerusalem before the sun rose, John tells us, to get there. Maybe grief had jarred her from her sleep; maybe she’d never managed to capture sleep at all. The gospels don’t offer many details. We only know that she was suffering from the loss of him, as were all the disciples.

Perhaps she wanted to pay her respects. Perhaps she wanted to sit outside the tomb and question God: Why? Whatever her aim, she found that the bleak calm of the pre-dawn was shattered when she discovered that the stone which was used to seal the tomb had been rolled back.

The Gospel of John suggests that she ran to the disciples to beg their advice and supervision before proceeding. Other gospels present the moment differently: she and a companion are met by an angel alone, without the male disciples intervening. Whatever the case, Mary found herself before the open and empty tomb, and the whys? in her head were forced to morph.

It is Mary who is first privy to the miracle of Jesus’ resurrection. The gospels, again, present the miracle with variations: in John, she encounters the risen Jesus but does not recognize him; in Matthew, an angel announces his resurrection and fills her with fear.

And then she experiences the first post-resurrection dawn: Jesus speaks her name, and she knows. Or: Jesus stops her flight, greets her, and she knows. Light enters earth once again.

This is the wonder of Easter. On the Friday of Jesus’ death, the hopes of all the apostles seemed hopelessly disappointed. Messiahs were not supposed to die; they were supposed to radically, politically and noticeably transform the earth. Yet he left in his wake a still tumultuous Rome, a world still plagued by persecutions and injustices, and followers who were, quite frankly, stumped.

And yet the deed had been done; Christ, the anointed one, had initiated a period of new life, a new kingdom of God. Mary of Magdala was the first to be gifted with a viewing of it that Sunday morning; each Easter subsequent, our eyes have searched for it, too. We wake up and wait for God to call our names. We hold our breaths, anticipating Jesus’ coming in glory.

How far are we beyond Rome? Our kingdoms still disappoint us. This Easter morning, peace will elude so many people. As war rages on in Libya, as shots continue to ring out in the direction of Syrian and Yemenis protestors, peace will seem a distant prospect. Japan will still be struggling to recover from a devastating earthquake and nuclear leaks. Egyptian women will still be wondering how it is that they, though they thought they’d secured their freedom by participating, frequently at the fore, in this year’s protests, have once again been relegated to second class citizens. Our gulf will still be polluted and the people who depend on it will remain out of work. Cubans will have traded dictators. Tibet will still not be free.

The earth will spin to face the sun on Sunday, and light will fall across the regions slowly, and so many will not know it as peace-filled dawn. So many will not see immediate evidence of the kingdom of God.

And yet, the mystery for us is, each year in succession: he has risen. Indeed, Christ has risen. Death was defied. Something new began.

We are promised peace in God’s kingdom, and are still waiting for clarification on how that will come. Two thousand years have taught us, as three days taught the disciples, that there will be nothing conventional or predictable about God’s ultimate gift. We do not get peace here because he died; we are charged to work for it because of his precepts. Our wars and troubles are, to the degree which we create them, our responsibility; our souls are his.

We come to church together on Easter to celebrate Jesus’ new life. We come anticipating new life in Jesus. We gather in the pews because a new light has dawned. We wait for the risen God to call our names. We trust that he will.


photo credit here