Karen Hollis | April 9, 2023
Easter Sunday
John 20:1-18 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 towards 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
round and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her,
‘Woman, why are you weeping? For whom are you looking?’ 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.
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be reflections of your word to us today, in Christ’s name we pray. Amen
The Resurrected Jesus says to Mary, “don’t hold on to me.” “Don’t cling to me.” I don’t blame her for reaching for him even in his strangely embodied state: Just a minute ago he was alive . . . just a minute ago they were all having dinner together, dialoguing about his teaching, learning how to offer healing. Just a minute ago. Now she finds herself in the garden, not anointing Jesus’ poor, abused body . . . that body is mysteriously gone. Christ appears in a new body.
It’s so, so strange, resurrection. It’s him and it’s not him. It’s not the “him” he once was . . . and yet the essence of him is still there. Resurrection isn’t a time machine; it doesn’t take us to the past. It doesn’t erase what took place. When Jesus later reveals himself to other disciples, he shows them the scars his body bears from Good Friday. This new body still bears the truth of what happened. Our God of love and life heals the past and leads us forward into something new.
Even as God leads us onward, we humans are not in the same place as we begin the journey. Resurrection is deeply personal and meets each of us where we are. Peter runs into the tomb and puzzles over the strips of cloth lying in two different places; resurrection meets him in the emptiness of the tomb. The Beloved Disciple brings his faith in something larger than himself. Resurrection meets him in a world now pregnant with possibilities.
Mary lingers at the tomb, still distressed by her belief that Jesus’ body has been stolen and her fierce desire to honour him, resurrection sends angels who greet her in her grief. Jesus, himself, meets her, calls her by name, and sends her with a message to the others.
Where does resurrection meet you? Does it find you wind swept on a grey Easter morning? Does it find you in a state of joyful wonder? Reaching for the past? Grieving for something that cannot be?
What does resurrection even look like today in Jesus’ own homeland, or in Ukraine? What does resurrection look like when the cost of living continues to rise, and people don’t have enough to eat? Yes, I want to cling to Jesus and bring him into situations that are causing suffering with no end in sight.
But the answers are not in the past or with the person Jesus was . . . he is now the resurrected Christ . . . in his rising, he raises us with him.
The Orthodox church has a beautiful teaching about how Christ saves. As the person of Jesus, he seeks out people in relationship; he is present with people where they are, he teaches, he heals . . . transforms lives. He even willingly to absorbs the violence of humanity. God doesn’t send Jesus to save humanity from God’s self . . . Jesus absorbs the violence of humanity and responds with love and forgiveness. After Jesus’ resurrection, Christ continues to seek us out in relationship . . . he has already been to the darkest places a person can go . . . and God brought him back to the light . . . so he seeks us out in our unique expression of darkness. In the depths of our struggles he finds us. In our struggles about the change in our world, in our struggles about our planet, our family, situations beyond our control . . . and situations within our control that we can’t seem to get right. There is no place we can go where Christ won’t reach us and bring us back to the light . . . and it is in the deepest darkness that the light is easiest to see.
While Mary is mistaken when she guesses that Jesus is the gardener, in a way, she is profoundly correct. Christ tends creation like a gardener cares for a garden that grows with the persistence of life. We see it in the spring growth that is impossible to contain. Author Mark Nepo reflects: “Before I had cancer,” he writes, “I used to complain so much, annoyed that every chore would need to be done again, that the grass would grow back as soon as I’d cut it. Now I am in awe how it will grow no matter what you do to it. How I need that knowledge.”
We can find the persistence of life not in the past . . . for the body of Jesus is gone . . . and not in the future, for that has not yet been made known to us . . . but in the eternal now. Christ comes to us now with the love of God that heals, transforms, and brings new life and balance to all. Whether we can perceive it or not, the ancient love of God continues
to find us every moment.