Year A
John 20:1-18
The Very Rev. Denise Vaughn
The Joy of Resurrection
Today is one of the greatest days in the life of the church. The tomb is empty! Christ has risen! Death is vanquished! Sin is overcome! It is a miracle and of all the mysteries our faith invites us to contemplate, the Resurrection is by far the most astonishing. Not simply in the sense of being difficult to believe in a logical fashion. That, in a way, is the very point of it. The very idea of Resurrection shatters in every way how we make sense of our world. It draws us instead into a new reality that transcends all that is natural. When a human being goes into the ground: that is that. We say goodbye. Pay our respects and go on with life as best we can.
This is what Mary was doing that Easter morning. She went to the tomb of Jesus to grieve his death. The message on her heart was: Death had won over the Savior. He was the one she believed in. He was the one she hoped was the savior. Gone now were her hopes for the future. So when she got to the tomb, expecting to pay her respects, she finds instead that the stone had been rolled away. And when she looked inside and didn’t find a body, she assumed someone had taken him. Yet, it didn’t make sense. She knew that Jesus had been arrested in the garden; that he endured the trail before Herod and Pilate, endured the flogging and whipping, and a cruel death on the cross. She saw them place him in the tomb and now, it was empty? This was more than she could comprehend. Death is final.
And if we are honest with ourselves, we are a lot like Mary? We see all the signs and yet can find it hard to believe. The resurrection is entirely unnatural. Therefore, there is something in the story to doubt. In the resurrection, God gives us such a miracle of love and forgiveness that it is worthy of faith, believing in things unseen and therefore open to doubt. What happened is too wonderful for us to be able to fully comprehend. And thanks be to God, the Good News of Easter is that God knows how hard it is for us to believe. And because of that Easter gives us the truth. It’s as simple as Mary said “I have seen the Lord.” Because he lives, we shall live also. Life is not over at the grave when we die. For Jesus defeated death.
This promise of Easter has been the occasion of greatest doubt, but also the source of the most profound faith. This is what we believe, the words that we hold true, our hope for the future, our joy of life with God. His resurrection is our resurrection. Jesus says it this way in the fifth chapter of the gospel of John,” I tell you the truth whoever hears my word and believes in God who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned. He has crossed over from death into life.” Christ’s rising to new life is new life for us as well. And Mary would soon come to understand this Good News in her life also.
After realizing the tomb was empty, she ran and went to Simon Peter and John and brought them back to the tomb with her, but once they saw for themselves that what she said was true, they left because as of “yet they did not understand the scriptures, that he must rise from the dead.” It was unbelievable but Mary remained weeping and not even two angels sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying could comfort her. It wasn’t until Jesus, who she supposed was the gardener, spoke her name, did she recognize him and believe the unbelievable. When Mary heard Jesus speak her name, she recognized him and began to recall other words from Jesus’ previous conversations. She saw the Lord!” And that’s why she fell at his feet in worship and that is where we belong also. Faith is born when we hear God; it is ours when God speaks in our hearts and minds.
If we want to grow in faith and experience the presence of God more fully, then stand closer to him and listen for him in prayer. Join in worship, right now on social media but hopefully soon we will be together again, open the bible, read it more faithfully. Draw nearer to God’s people and stretch your spiritual muscles by reaching out in love to someone in need. This is how we discover the risen Jesus in our midst and live into the message of Easter as children of God. Mary and the other disciples spent the rest of their lives discovering Jesus in their midst. Their discoveries are the substance of the New Testament writings. Jesus did not depart but remained present in the Holy Spirit and the body of Christ was found in new and different forms.
Today’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles is one of the most important discoveries. It takes place a few years after the resurrection. The church, once a group composed of Jewish believers, has grown with Gentiles, has been persecuted, and has spread to areas beyond Jerusalem. It has found that the bread and wine of its common meal provide a place where we encounter the risen Christ. It has discovered that its gatherings as a community, is a manifestation of Jesus’ presence in the world. And Paul today in his letter to the Colossians reminds the church that our lives as Christians are tied into Jesus’ resurrection. We have been raised with him to a new level of life right now, here, where we are and as we live.
Paul tells us to seek and to love things that are above. He implores us to set our minds on those things that are of God because our lives have been changed. Not because of anything we have done or not done, but because Jesus has changed them, and we are now eternally connected to his life and able to change the lives of others. When others see us in our “resurrected” lives, they are able to see Jesus. The unbelievable becomes believable. This kind of joy makes you want to run, to run from your doubts and announce this joy to the world. Mary ran and announced to the disciples the amazing news: Christ is risen! And because she and the disciples believed, Christ’s body walks the earth today, healing, teaching, feeding, suffering, dying and rising. God’s love has triumphed! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!