Scripture John 20:1-18 (NRSVUE)
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’s 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 touch 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.
Sermon
I want to begin with a line from the psalm we have just read together—I will say, ”This is the day that the Lord has made,” and I invite you to respond, “Let us rejoice and be glad in it!”
This is the day that the Lord has made!
Let us rejoice and be glad in it!
And that’s Easter, isn’t it? From the beautiful flowers and the exquisite music to the happy faces and the sweetness that surrounds the day, both spiritual and edible. This is a day when we are invited to immerse ourselves in joy—the greatest joy, joy based on one entirely absurd proposition: He is risen.
It’s crazy. It makes no sense. Who would believe such a thing could happen? Only gullible people who are not facing the cold hard facts of life, according to the online experts.
But here’s the thing. This story is far more complicated than, “He is Risen, Everything’s All Better!” It’s fine now! No. The resurrection starts in darkness, the darkness of early dawn and the darkness of one grieving soul. The resurrection starts with confusion, and misunderstanding. The resurrection starts with eyes that can’t see what they’re supposed to see, because grief does that. It makes us fuzzy. Nothing looks right.
This is the only gospel in which the women (or in this case woman) has no reason to go the tomb, except for her heart. Today, Mary Magdalene’s heart is big and sore. It’s trying to push right through her skin. It is leading her to that tomb.
But when Mary gets there and finds the stone has been removed, leaving the tomb both open and empty, she panics. This makes sense. Of course she believes Jesus’ body has been stolen. Why? First and most obviously, resurrection is not the kind of thing you expect. But second, I want you to remember what Navy Seal Team 6 did after they had killed Osama bin Laden, the man who planned and oversaw the execution of the 9/11 attacks on the United States. They buried him at sea. Why? Because when a government perceives a charismatic leader is dangerous, and has him dispatched, the last thing it wants is for the burial place of that leader to become a shrine, a place where the faithful will come to pay their respects ever after. The idea that the body had been stolen makes sense. Thus, the first misunderstanding.
We are told Peter and the disciple whom Jesus loved have a footrace to the tomb, and it is exactly the contest it seems to be. Which of them is the most faithful? Which of them is the chosen leader for the disciples after Jesus leaves? The beloved disciple outruns Peter and gets to the tomb first. Peter goes into the tomb first, and sees evidence that this was not the stealing of a body—what graverobber leaves something behind folded neatly? Then the beloved disciple goes in, too, and he believes… but it’s not clear what he believes. The narrator tells us, it’s not that Jesus is risen for the dead. He doesn’t yet understand that.
So, they leave, and go back to their homes, leaving Mary, who is weeping. She is still of a mind that Jesus’ body has been taken. New Testament scholar N. T. Wright finds what happens next to be one of the most comforting moments in scripture. In an interview he said,
Mary Magdalene [is] weeping at the tomb, and it’s when she’s weeping at the tomb that she sees two angels. And Peter and John have been to the tomb, and they have gone in and seen the graveclothes, but they haven’t seen the angels, apparently. And I’ve often thought, maybe, that tears function as a kind of lens… through which one might just see angels. And then, of course, Jesus shows up… “Why are you weeping? Who are you looking for?” And she thinks he’s the gardener… [i]
Why does Mary Magdalene think Jesus is the gardener? Because the tomb is in a garden. What is the most famous garden in scripture? The enclosed garden of Eden, paradise. After the brutal killing of Jesus, his borrowed tomb is in a garden, hints of paradise found.
N. T. Wright continues,
…The misunderstanding is part of the deal. It’s people not getting it and yet Jesus is there… John 20 is all about new creation, but it’s a new creation glimpsed through tears. [ii]
Fear and misunderstanding are all through the resurrection stories in all the gospels. The earliest report of the resurrection, from the gospel according to Mark, has the women running away from their encounter with the angel, silent, because they are so afraid. In Luke’s gospel Jesus walks with two disciples for the best part of a day, something like seven miles, Jerusalem to Emmaus, without them recognizing who he is. Our story continues at night—darkness is a strong feature in John’s gospel—with the disciples gathered in that upper room where they had their last supper with Jesus. They are hiding. They are afraid.
All of which is to say, the disciples have experienced a devastating loss, the death of their leader in the most cruel and shameful way. If he is risen from the dead, does that instantaneously erase their grief? Can they pack their trauma away in a little box and be unabashedly, uncomplicatedly happy? It doesn’t seem so. The same threatening forces are out there. Their grief cannot be disappeared overnight. That’s not how grief works. Instead, they are learning, perhaps ironically, that even in the face of grief, they can have hope.
Before she can believe, Mary hopes. Without realizing what she is experiencing, she sees the hope of the new creation through her tears. The writer Kate Bowler speaks of the hope of Easter, which she describes as
…a kind of anchor, pulling us toward a future we can only glimpse. We are being pulled toward God and toward a consummation of things being made right. And it isn’t just the promise of heaven, but all creation restored. [iii]
We live in a broken world. Our bodies can be broken. Our institutions seem to be fracturing before our eyes. Our trust in the center holding seems tenuous at best. But Mary Magdalene offers us, even before she recognizes Jesus, a model for what our hope might look like. It might look like the view through the lens of our tears. For Mary it’s angels. For us it might be a new vision of our neighborhood. A spark that tells us what a loved one needs from us. The impetus to get ourselves to a meeting of community organizers, or a book group. The instinct to seek out joy.
Mary Magdalene, after she hears Jesus’ voice asking her, “Why are you weeping?” still doesn’t recognize him. Not even that beloved voice. It is only when he calls her name—“Mary”—that she finally, finally recognizes him as her dear Rabbouni, “My Teacher.”
My friend Richard says, we are not here today to celebrate a metaphor. I agree. Something so wondrous happened that it has continued to capture the imaginations and hearts of people all over the world for nearly two thousand years. Jesus returned to his friends in bodily form so real, he ate meals with them. Kindled a fire and served them breakfast on a beach. Tended to their ongoing distress with gentleness and invitation. “Follow me.”
This is a story that ends—our portion of it, anyway—with a joyful Mary Magdalene running to the disciples, now apostle to the apostles, and proclaiming, “I have seen the Lord.” A preposterous idea, right? But in a fracturing world that is keeping us up at night, hope also looks like joy. Each of us has a holy responsibility to ourselves and our community to tend and nurture joy as if it were a baby bird fallen from a nest. Each of us needs an infusion of joy at least daily. Each of us can say, “I have seen the Lord” if we have had the gift of living in community that takes seriously our responsibility to look at each and every person and see in them the face of Jesus.
Mary Magdalene runs toward the community that Jesus has built, knowing that, if this encounter with Jesus means anything, it must be welcomed, and nurtured, by the community, as the community nurtures itself. These are not days for flying solo. These are days for reaching out our hands to those who are isolated to bring them into community. These are days and for finding community ourselves, if we are the ones who haven’t had dinner with anyone but the evening news in months.
Jesus is risen. Out of death comes life, vibrant, miraculous life, and this is God’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes. Sometimes it looks like red peony stems pushing through the tangle of dead branches that were never cleared away last fall. Sometimes it looks like the relationship we thought was in the grave suddenly brought back to life by a two-word text. Sometimes it looks like determined people fighting to keep their country from spiraling into lawlessness and chaos. Sometimes it looks a first century Palestinian Jew showing himself to a devoted follower and calling her by name. Out of death comes vibrant, miraculous life, and in that is our hope. Kate Bowler continues,
[Hope] doesn’t blind us to the reality of the present, but asks us to keep moving forward with each other and with God, to a gorgeous future. And that’s going to demand all the hard work of justice and service in the meantime, but we’re hopeful because we’re really going somewhere. Hope keeps us moving, especially with people who can remind us that every small effort counts. [iv]
This is a day of joy, from the lens of tears that reveals angels to the gardener suddenly taking on a familiar, beloved face. From the call to community to the gift of hope and the imperative of joy. So, on this joyful Easter Sunday, say it with me again.
This is the day that the Lord has made.
Let us rejoice and be glad in it!
Thanks be to God. Amen.
[i] N. T. Wright, “The Hardest Part: Week 08 with N. T. Wright,” Kate Bowler, February 26, 2025, YouTube.com, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SOk6uSKEEc.
[ii] Ibid.
[iii] Kate Bowler, “Believing!”, The Hardest Thing, Easter Sunday, April 20, 2025.
[iv] Ibid.