Scripture: John 20:1-19
Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. Then the disciples returned to their homes.
But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”; and she told them that he had said these things to her.
Meditation
We find her in the dark, while the sky is still pointed with stars, and dawn is only a whisper in her ear. We find her in her grief. We find her walking toward Jesus’ tomb, walking towards the garden where they laid him.
Mary’s arms are not full of spices, to do belated preparations of Jesus’ body for his long sleep with his ancestors. She is not walking with others. She goes alone. Maybe she doesn’t know the garden, hasn’t seen the tomb, and just wants to be able to picture where her Lord is laid. Maybe, even though he is dead, she’d rather be near him than away from him. Or maybe she goes because this is the only place she will be able to cry fully, furiously.
Grief resides in the body. It can surprise us when the anniversaries of deaths of loved ones roll around, the headaches, the scrunched shoulders, the body aches. For practitioners of traditional Chinese medicine, grief resides in the lungs, and I believe it. I imagine Mary, inhaling, and exhaling, her breath heavy with loss.
She expects to find the tomb sealed, but it is open. Shocked, she runs. She goes to fetch Simon Peter and the one whom Jesus loved. Her gut tells her that Jesus’ body has been stolen, and there are good reasons for her to think that. The vast majority of the crucified are not allowed the dignity of burial; the authorities may have had second thoughts on the permission they gave. They may also have had second thoughts on there being a location where devotees of this very charismatic preacher and healer can go to remember him, to celebrate him. The last thing they want is a shrine to Jesus of Nazareth. Mary has good reason to think Jesus’ body has been stolen.
The men have a footrace to the garden tomb, and one gets there first, but the other goes into the tomb first, while the first one believes first, though he’s not entirely sure of what. After inspecting everything to their satisfaction, they depart.
Mary stands in the garden, outside the empty tomb, her chest still rising and falling with painful sobs. She bends to look inside. To her surprise—the guys did not mention this—there are two angels there. They are dressed in white, obviously otherworldly messengers.
Mary doesn’t treat them much like angels, though. For one thing, she doesn’t seem in the least bit scared—notably absent are those words nearly always said by angels in scripture: Do not be afraid. Instead, they ask her: Why are you weeping?
It doesn’t occur to Mary that the angels are unusual. She answers by saying the same thing she said to the men: They have taken away my Lord. I don’t know where he is.
I think what happens next, is: the angels tip Mary off to the fact that there is someone standing behind her. I imagine their eyes growing very wide, as they look over her shoulder, because the next thing we know she is turning around to see a man standing there.
We know it is Jesus. Mary does not.
And this is a problem for all of us. It is very easy not to see the risen Jesus.
And, of course, there are good reasons for that. Like Mary, we can have the narrative all written in a flash, so that there’s no room for the risen Jesus in the story. We are not going to run into him in Wegman’s or Price Chopper. He will not be the guy at Gault who looks under the hood. He will definitely not be the person we invited to church who never showed up.
Mary can’t see Jesus because her story is written this way: They have taken his body away, and I don’t know where they have laid him.
We cannot see the risen Jesus, because our story is written this way: Jesus rose from the dead 2000 years ago, and then ascended into heaven, so he’s not here. Or, maybe our story is, Who knows if Jesus was raised from the dead? Maybe it was just a rumor that turned into an unstoppable wildfire. Whatever our story is, we can’t seem to see the risen Jesus.
But the risen Jesus is consistent with everything science tells us about the world we live in. According to those who study such things, Richard Rohr writes, “there are the same number of atoms in the universe [as] there were five seconds after the Big Bang happened, approximately 13.8 billion years ago. They just keep playing musical chairs, and by all evidence — at ever higher levels of complexity and consciousness.” He continues, “It is not poetry to say that we were all once stardust, and what we are yet to be — is the good surprise, gift and pure grace of God.”
Jesus is, and always has been, for us, the pattern of creation: He always was—the eternal and cosmic Christ, from the beginning of time itself; the Palestinian Jew of 2000 years ago, former stardust baby, just like us, who preached, and fed, and healed; and then, the Cosmic and Risen Christ—raised from the grave, transcending boundaries of life and death. Rohr, again: “Nothing is the same forever, says modern science. Ninety-eight percent of our bodies' atoms are replaced every year… Science is now giving us a very helpful language for what religion rightly intuited and imaged.”
The resurrection of Jesus shows us the truth of God’s creation from the beginning: In God’s economy, nothing is wasted, all continues in God’s constant cycle of creating and re-creating. Life, death, new life.
Jesus stands before Mary. Still living in the story as she has written it, she says to the man who must be the gardener, “Tell me where he is. I will take him away.”
And then he says her name.
“Mary.”
And something in her is able to turn the page of that story and see, at last, what is actually written in the being of the man in front of her.
And she breathes, at last, “Teacher.” My teacher.
And the world is re-made. The arm is lifted from the record player, and the atoms settle into their new chairs. Life, death, new life, just as God’s design from the beginning.
Now, Mary can see the risen Christ, and know that, Alleluia, he is risen indeed.
Can we?
Can we see the risen Christ in the person giving us our first Pfizer jab, or the National Guardsman directing traffic at the testing site?
Can we see the risen Christ in the man carefully selecting tomatoes at Price Chopper, or the woman who loads the groceries into our cart? Can we catch him peeking at us from behind the mask, through the windows of the school bus? Can we hear her calling our name at the DMV, or the surgeon’s office, or the coffee shop?
The risen Christ is all around us, but we have to rewrite the story so that we can see the face, so that we can hear the voice. We have to be ready to understand that we have mistaken Jesus for the gardener, the police officer, the kid in the hoodie, carrying Skittles and iced tea home. Only when we can do that… when we can be ready, so ready, for the narrative that God is here to bring new life, and bring it now, in this person, right in front of me… only then will we be able to cry out, with the fullest joy, and a wide-open heart, “My teacher. My Lord. My God.”
Thanks be to God. Amen.