“At the Intersection of Love and Loss: Easter”

John 20:1-18

April 21, 2019

Sermon by Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

First Congregational UCC of Manhattan, KS

“Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw…”

It’s a story that reaches right out and grabs you….right from the beginning. This tale of “resurrection madness” as pastor Ted Loder calls it, is one that still pull and tugs at us...even centuries later. [1]

We fumble towards understanding - grasping onto the bits and pieces of the story that make sense….only to find the whole thing crumbling apart as we try to wrap our heads around all of the parts that make no sense at all.

At times, we give up on making sense of it at all. Instead we let the reality of Easter wash over us in hymns, images, emotions, rituals, experiences.

Some years we turn away, our hearts and minds unable to grapple with Resurrection.

No matter how we respond, the story stands. Peering out at us from the pages from these ancient texts. Our ancestors whispering and sometimes shouting at us from a long ago place and time.

“Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw…”

There’s so much we don’t know about that first Easter morning. If you tried to put together a storyboard of what exactly happened, you’d quickly give up in frustration. The accounts from our various gospels certainly aren’t in agreement. It’s unclear how many people were there, where it happened, whether Jesus appeared somehow or was just missing. In some versions the women run and share the news of what they’ve seen - in others they are silent. There may have been earthquakes, soldiers falling down, or angels bearing silent witness. There is fear and joy and weeping and disbelief.

One of the only consistencies between the different versions is this: the Resurrected Christ appeared first to the women. Which is exactly what you would expect from one who came to turn the world upside down….privileging those who had been pushed aside by the patriarchy, amplifying the voices of those the world tried to silence.

And so, each year, when we come around to these texts again, it’s only natural to notice the particularities of each gospel. I don’t know about you, but I find myself incredibly thankful that the stories can’t be harmonized. It seems to me that Resurrection is not something to be understood as much as experienced. And the fact that the stories don’t line up neatly is a reminder that it’s not the facts that matter here...the important stuff….what keeps us coming back year after year, are the deeper truths that lurk just below the surface.

The particularities of the Gospel of John are these:

• Jesus is laid to rest in a garden
• Mary Magdalene, one of Jesus’s dearest friends, is alone when she comes to the garden first thing in the morning
• Upon finding the stone missing, she runs to find the other disciples, because she initially thinks someone has taken him away
• There is an awkward foot race between Peter and the Beloved Disciple (we don’t know his name) as they each try to get to the tomb first. It seems to me this is probably not the right time for a competition over anything, but I digress. The footrace stands.
• Eventually, after much jockeying over who will be the first one to get into the empty tomb, Simon Peter goes in and sees the burial shroud resting on the ground...no body to be found anywhere.
• Finally, they come to understand what has come to pass. We are told that “they believe” and leave to go home.
• Apparently they just leave Mary standing there, crying. I told you their behavior was a bit awkward.
• And so now we have a second part of the story. Mary, who had come to the tomb early in the morning to do what women always did - care for the body - is left crying, alone, outside the tomb.
• Only not alone! The other disciples have left, but through her tears, Mary sees two angels sitting inside the tomb. Were they there a few moments ago when the men were in the tomb? Did they somehow miss them? We aren’t told.
• Mary continues to weep because she is worried about the body of her friend, which seems to have been stolen. Suddenly, another character appears. Mary assumes he is the gardener and she implores him to help her find her friend’s body.
• The gardener calls her by name and suddenly she understands its not the gardener at all. It’s Jesus, her teacher! He cautions her not to hold on to him because what she is seeing is just temporary. He’s not here to stay. He’s going on to God.
• Mary leaves the garden and runs to find the other disciples, preaching the first Easter sermon, “I have seen the Lord!”

It is a particularity of John’s gospel that there are really two accounts smushed together. Peter and the Beloved Disciple jockeying for the favored place in history as they try to see who “gets it” first is one story. And Mary standing outside the tomb, weeping quietly is another story.

When the two are told together, it makes for a powerful text about the expansiveness of Christ’s resurrection. It turns out that Resurrection is for everyone….those who push in front of one another to get there first and those who bear silent, still witness. The active and the quiet. The weeping and the running. The awkward and the appropriate. The jubilant and the heartbroken. All are invited to bear witness to the newness God brings. Alleluia!

It is also a particularity of John’s gospel that the whole thing takes place in a garden. Jesus prays in a garden. Jesus is executed in a garden. Jesus is buried in a garden. And so we are invited to remember other gardens in our holy texts. The garden at the beginning of the world in Genesis….and the garden at the end of the world in Revelation. Christ stands in the midst of the garden, holding all of this together. Birth and death. Beginning and end. Time and space beyond time. Alleluia!

It is also a particularity of John’s gospel that this is not the first resurrection account. If you turn back to John 11, you’ll see we’ve already had a resurrection in this gospel. Jesus’s dear friend Lazarus died and was dead for four days before Jesus came and resurrected him. We are reminded of this earlier resurrection when we hear that Mary was standing outside Jesus’s tomb weeping….just like Mary of Bethany stood with Jesus outside her brother Lazarus’s home and wept. And just as Mary Magdalene saw the resurrected Christ through her tears, Jesus, too, wept and prayed and bore witness to God’s great love that extends even beyond death as he saw his liberated friend walk out of a tomb. Alleluia!

The particularities of John’s gospel point us towards an expansive promise of resurrection that goes way beyond a one-and-done magic trick unique to the story of Jesus of Nazareth. One of the reasons I’ve never been too obsessed with hard facts when it comes to Jesus’s resurrection is that I don’t think this one story is the point. The point is not that this one man rose from the dead, however you understand that. The point is that this particular story points to a wider truth: that God is in the business of Resurrection. Always and everywhere. Alleluia!

Resurrection is not a one-time thing. It’s not about understanding what happened to Jesus of Nazareth. It’s about following Christ’s gaze to the bigger story….that we are loved by an unending love bigger than we can understand. That the power of that love cannot and will not let us go. That all of those painful parts of being human...the inconveniences, the hurts, the loss, the despair, the agony….they are only part of the story.

God exists beyond the pain, the hurt, the loss….God walks with us through the messiness and terror of our lives, holding us together when we are falling apart. Propping us up when we tumble to the ground….or maybe just cradling us gently while we rest. Always, always, always whispering our names...reminding us of who we are and whose we are. Calling us into and out of and beyond ourselves. Connecting us to one another through the power of resurrection love. A love so big that even death cannot stop it.

A love so scandalous that is causes us to catch our breaths, burst into tears, burst into song as we proclaim the unstoppable hope of Easter morning. Alleluia! Christ is risen. Christ is risen, indeed. Alleluia!

We may not quite be able to wrap our heads around it, but no matter. Mary was confused, too.

But there, at the intersection of love and loss, Christ dwells.

Whether we are jostling with our friends to show off or barely holding it together while we stand next to the grave of a loved one, Christ meets us there. Christ comes to us, calling us by name. Calling us into and out of and beyond ourselves. Standing there where love and loss are intertwined. Standing there - unwavering -  beyond death, beyond understanding, beyond the illusion of our separateness.

Standing there holding it all together.

With us. For us. In us. Beyond us.

Even now. May it be so.

Alleluia. Christ is risen. Christ is risen, indeed. Alleluia!

[1] https://comelearnrest.com/2015/04/06/resurrection/