Scripture can be found here…
“Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen.”
This is it, right here, at the heart of Christian hope and proclamation: the tomb is empty.
It’s a message that was at first kept silent out of fear; and then disbelieved and dismissed; and then, vigorously fought, and sought to be disproven; and then… it rolled out across the world like a kind of glorious high tide that caused every heart that embraced it to overflow with joy:
The tomb is empty. Why do you search for the living among the dead?
It’s a message that has been heard and embraced by millions upon millions, over the course of nearly two thousand years.
It’s also a message that begins with a handful of women, most of whom are obscure, one of whom is famous mostly for things that have nothing to do with her, but all of whom were particular, flesh-and-blood individuals with lives and families and work and illnesses and struggles. The twelve are famous, the apostles, Jesus’ inner circle. But there were women who followed Jesus, too. On Friday night we sang, “Were you there when they crucified my Lord? Were you there when they laid him in the tomb?” For these women, the answer is yes.
They were there. They were at the cross, as Jesus suffered and as he breathed his last.
Then at the end of chapter 23 of Luke’s gospel we read,
The women who had come…from Galilee followed, and they saw the tomb and how his body was laid. Then they returned, and prepared spices and ointments.
On the sabbath, they rested according to the commandment.
~Luke 23:55-56
They were there.
Then, the new day began.
After the sabbath, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, carrying the spices they had prepared.
In our story, three of the women are named: Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James. Luke tells us earlier that these women are among those who provided for Jesus out of their resources. They paid the bills for Jesus and the apostles.
The one we know the least about is the mother of James; that’s because we’re not sure which James. Is she the mother of the sons of Zebedee, James and John, whom Jesus called the sons of thunder? Or is she the mother of James the lesser, son of Alphaeus? Or is she the mother of James and Joses (or Joseph), who are identified as being Jesus’ brothers, which would make this… THAT Mary, Mary the mother of Jesus? We simply don’t know. We do know there were a superabundance of Marys in Jesus’ day, just as there were a superabundance of little Dianas in the 1980’s: Herod the Great was married to a woman named Mary, thus the popularity of the name. More than one Mary was a part of Jesus’ life and ministry.
We know a little more about Joanna. We know that her husband was Herod’s steward Chuza. He managed either Herod’s household or one of his estates. Since we know his boss wanted Jesus dead, we have to wonder whether he was very tolerant of his wife’s discipleship, or whether she managed to keep it hidden from him, or whether Joanna just left him, dowry in hand, to follow the itinerant preacher who had healed her. We know that, too. Jesus had healed Joanna.
The Mary we know the most about is Mary Magdalene—the catch is, we also think we know a lot about her that isn’t based on scripture. What we do know? She is mentioned by name twelve times in the gospels, more than any other woman, and more than most of the apostles. She was a follower of Jesus with the means to help support him. Like Joanna, she was healed by him—Jesus had cast out seven demons from Mary. Perhaps the most important thing we know about Magdalene? She is the only disciple—male or female—who is named as a witness to the empty tomb in all four gospels. She was there. One other thing: Her surname, Magdalene, has mostly been interpreted as referring to her birthplace—a fishing village on called Magdala. But it’s also possible that it derives from the Hebrew/ Aramaic word migdal, which means “the great.” Mary the Great.
That’s a lot of time on Easter devoted to what might seem like trivia about the women who went to the tomb. There were others, too, whose names we don’t know. But details about people aren’t really trivia, are they? It matters. It matters who you are, and what your life is like. It matters how you came to be doing what you’re doing, and whether that gives you life or the opposite. It matters how each and every one of us came to find ourselves here, in this sanctuary, on a chilly April morning to celebrate something that not everyone understands or believes in or thinks is even remotely important.
But we’re here, in all our particularity. Mothers and retirees. Grandfathers and musicians. Entrepreneurs and teachers, bus drivers and administrative assistants. Engineers and volunteers and kids just trying to enjoy the last couple of days of their spring break. We’re all here, because some women, about one thousand, nine-hundred and eighty-nine years ago got up while it was still dark out to carry spices and myrrh to a tomb where all their hopes lay dead on a slab.
Or so they thought.
Then, the shock.
Men in dazzling robes, putting a pointed question to them.
“Why do you look for the living among the dead?”
And then, their world turned upside down.
“He is not here; he has risen.”
And what follows is a jumble of stories across the four gospels which lay out this or that person was there, no they weren’t; Jesus appeared to them in Jerusalem; no he didn’t, he appeared in Galilee; no, actually he appeared in both places. Or, the minimalist in Mark’s gospel: They didn’t see him, and they didn’t tell a soul. End of story.
Except, they did. They most surely did tell, because here we are.
What really happened?
The women in our story this morning didn’t see Jesus themselves, at least not yet. But they went and told the eleven remaining apostles what they had been told—that Jesus was risen from the dead. And the apostles absolutely, positively did not believe them, not one bit. Our translation says they thought it was an “idle tale” and I’m here to tell you that is an extremely sanitized version of a word that meant garbage, filth… you can fill in that blank for yourselves.
To be fair: Peter decides to have a look firsthand, and runs to the tomb. He finds that the women have told the truth, and returns home amazed. Like the women, he has not yet seen Jesus for himself.
There are stories, in Luke’s gospel, as well as Matthew and John, of Jesus appearing to people, of people encountering Jesus. But the stories are strange. In several, his disciples don’t recognize him, until he does something particularly Jesusy, like feeding them. In one, Mary Magdalene tries to embrace him, but he tells her a clear no, which has something to do with the state of his body—he is not yet ascended to God. In some accounts Jesus appears in rooms whose doors are locked, and then disappears again.
It's clear that there is something different about the risen Jesus, about his resurrected body. But his people still eventually come to the conclusion that yes, he is risen. And a few years later, writing to the church at Corinth, Paul summarizes the resurrection appearances like this:
I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received… that [Christ] was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.
~ 1 Corinthians 15:3-8
Something happened. Something extraordinary and inexplicable convinced these people who had witnessed Jesus’ death with their own eyes that he was with them again, and even after they couldn’t see him any longer, that he was with them, among them still.
He is with us, too. He is among us, still.
In my research this week I came across the following sentence:
“How often do we spend Easter looking for Jesus in the wrong places?”[i]
That stopped me in my tracks, and I read further. The writer went on to explain that the women who had been following Jesus and ministering to him in his life had faithfully tried to serve him and minister to him in death as well. Then they had that uncomfortable confrontation with the men in white who challenged the logic of where they were trying to find him.
Ultimately, as the Easter season unfolds here at UPC, we will see that Jesus will be found in a room where people are hiding because they are grieving and afraid. He will be found on the water where some apostles will have returned to their old occupation of fishing for fish. He will be found at the funeral of a beloved woman who served her community well. He will be found out in God’s beautiful and broken world, again and again… and that is still where we will find him.
We are here today, like the women at the tomb, drawn by the promise of the presence of Jesus, hoping beyond hope for our hearts to overflow with joy. We are here with our own stories, our own lives, our own joys and sorrows and anger and disappointment and successes and struggles, and all the things that make us who we are. And just like the Mary whose son’s name was James, and Joanna who may or may not have left her husband, and Mary who may have been known as “The Great,” we are being sent out to find Jesus where there is fear, where there is sorrow, where people are working, where people are playing, where people are hungry, where people are hurting.
Join with the women, join with me, with this congregation, with our friends: Let us look for our living Lord among the living, because that is surely where we will find him.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
[i] R. Alan Culpepper, “The Gospel of Luke: Introduction, Commentary, and Reflections,” The New Interpreter’s Bible Vol. IX (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995), 472.