Karen Karpow
United
Easter Sunday,
John 20.1-18
While It Was Still Dark
I begin this morning with the immortal words of
Calvin. Not John Calvin, the influential
pastor and theologian of the Protestant Revolution. Calvin, the boy, and Hobbes, his
extraordinary imaginary tiger. They are
walking together in the woods.
Calvin: Why do you think we’re here?
Hobbes: ‘Cause
we walked here.
Calvin: No, I mean, here on earth.
Hobbes: ‘Cause
earth can support life.
Calvin: No, I mean, why do we exist?
Hobbes: ‘Cause
we were born.
Calvin: Forget it.
In the Gospel this morning we find Mary facing the same
dilemma as Calvin: an eternal,
life-altering question for which she can not discern any answer at all.
Her question: What’s the point?
Have you ever asked that question?
Mary has been following Jesus for a long time. She loves him. She believed in him. She thought things were going to be
different—and apparently they’re not. It
looks like the forces of power and privilege have triumphed again. In their attempt to keep everything the
same—in particular, protecting their positions of influence and power—the
religious authorities have extinguished the life of one who promised change,
freedom, and love.
Mary comes in the dark to the garden, expecting to find a closed tomb with the body of her beloved teacher inside. She can’t even begin to make sense of what she finds instead. It’s springtime, a time when we expect resurrection on the graves, in the form of flowers coming up. That wouldn’t be a surprise. I’ve got hyacinths blooming right by the door to the parsonage this morning, filling the kitchen with their sweet scent. But resurrection in the grave? No. Mary goes to say goodbye, like we do at a funeral. She goes to grieve. She wants to go back to ground zero, to try to figure it out, perhaps to salvage something of the way it was supposed to be. If only she could return to the past, maybe the future could play out differently. Until last Friday, she had been a new person. She was no longer Mary the Nobody from Magdala. Because of Jesus, she became Mary, the disciple of Jesus. But now she doesn’t know who she is.
It’s not a coincidence that it all starts in the dark. John emphasizes this:
Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb…
John is not describing physical darkness alone, but emotional darkness as well. Mary is confused, distressed, adrift. It’s dark—too dark to see, and not only the material world. The darkness also obscures the words and thoughts of Jesus. He has promised that he will die and rise again, but none of his disciples, including Mary, have understood him.
So
Mary goes to the grave to grieve. But
when she gets there, the nightmare is even worse. First she’s shocked. When she sees that
the stone has been rolled away, she immediately goes and gets the two disciples
who stayed in the area after the crucifixion, Peter and “the beloved disciple,”
whom we identify as John, the writer of this gospel. In this society, two men are required to
establish a legal witness. They run to
the tomb, look in, and see grave clothes.
These are actually a sign of the resurrection—if thieves had stolen
Jesus’ body, they would have taken the valuable linen cloth. But the disciples don’t react much. The gospel tells us that the beloved disciple
“saw and believed,” but not what he believed, because,
9 (They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.) 10 Then the disciples went back to their homes…
Then Mary looks in. She sees two angels! But so deep is her grief, so complete her darkness, that it doesn’t even register on her. She can’t stop crying.
13 They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?”
“They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.”
Then she turns around and sees Jesus himself, and doesn’t recognize him either. She is still crying.
15 “Woman,” he said, “why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”
Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”
And then everything changes.
16 Jesus said to her, “Mary.”
Imagine how Mary must feel! Nothing has changed—and everything.
Mary
begins the day in fear, confusion, and tears.
And then she finds new life standing before her—and it is not what she
expected. An unlikely movie from a
couple of years ago expresses that feeling.
“Ratatouille” is an animated film in which Remy, a French rat with
amazing gifts for food, lives underground in pipes and sewers, as rats do. But one day, all the rats are swept away by a
flood of water. Remy gets separated from
all his friends and family. Late at
night, hungry, lost, and alone, he starts climbing up the dripping, slimy pipes
to get his bearings. He reaches street
level and keeps going, up between walls of buildings, through cracks, along
girders, out on a balcony, up the vines on a pillar, and finally onto a roof
where suddenly he is looking out over the Eiffel Tower and all the glorious
beauty of Paris at night. Wow! All this time he’s been underneath
Jesus
promises life beyond life, even better than
But
we don’t have to wait. We don’t have to
spend our lives underneath
When Jesus says her name, Mary’s hopes rise—now everything can go back to the way it was before! But no. She has witnessed the power of God, and she has work to do, a story to tell.
17 Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” 18 Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them that he had said these things to her.
But telling a 2000-year-old story once a year doesn’t change much. And resurrection changes everything. So let’s not just put this story back on the shelf until next Easter. Jesus is calling our names, calling us to live as if the resurrection mattered.
There’s a difference between resuscitation and resurrection. When Lazarus died, and Jesus brought him back to life after four days, that was resuscitation. Lazarus lived as he had lived before, and then he died again and stayed dead. But resurrection is different. It’s a new kind of life. Everything changes.
My oldest child, my son Andrew, turned 23 a week ago today. I didn’t get to see him, because he lives too far away, but I called to wish him a happy birthday. While we were talking, I was remembering that moment of new life. I thanked Andrew for making me a mother. That moment, when Andrew came into the world, changed my life. You who are parents, you know—there’s no going back to the way things were before.
I recently experienced a different kind of life-changing
time: having cancer, and getting
well. If you were here on Easter last
year, you might remember that I was bald then.
I’m healthy now, thank God. But
coming through and beyond that experience has led me to think about the
difference between resuscitation and resurrection. The temptation is very strong to just try to
make everything the way it was before.
That’s resuscitation. I’ve got a
few limitations I have to work around, and I can try to ignore them. I often just want things to be the way they
used to be.
But there’s a better option. Having had a “wake up call,” I can choose a
new kind of life. Because of what Jesus
has done, I can choose a resurrected life—now.
When something disturbs us, when something rattles our cage, we choose
how to respond: resuscitation or
resurrection. We can try to go back,
where things are familiar, or we can go forward.
God's resurrection power is immediate. The God of the open
tomb is also the God of our daily lives.
The God who gives us victory over death also gives us victory over
life. Jesus says, "Go
testify—tell the good news to the others."
He invites us to start living our calling now.
What are your concerns today?
The Bible does not promise that we will be spared
suffering. Our Lord suffered. He had his Good Friday, and we have ours. But the promise of Easter is that God in all
God’s power is present with us in our painful moments, amidst our fears, when
life seems darkest. The promise of
Easter is that God not only walks with us through the darkness, but that God
will bring us into the light again.
The poet and writer Wendell Berry coined the phrase
“practice resurrection.” From his poem, “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front” come
these lines:
So, friends, every day do something
that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it. …
Ask the questions that have no
answers.
Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest. …
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts. …
Practice resurrection.
Friends, Jesus calls us by name and offers us the
opportunity to practice resurrection. We can choose to live as if the
resurrection matters; choose to live meaningful lives, free of fear. It doesn’t all happen at once. It takes practice. We can, in fact, be joyful, even though we
have considered all the facts. We can
practice resurrection.