Alleluia! Christ is risen!
The Lord is
risen indeed! Alleluia!
Happy
Easter!
Here’s
an Easter question for you: Why are you
here? What are you looking for?
The
gospel for this morning is my favorite resurrection story. To begin with, it justifies morning
people: “On the first day of the week,
while it was still dark . . .” If any of
the women of my household had known Jesus, they would have missed the
resurrection.
But
all kidding aside . . . Mary Magdalene goes in the morning to the place where
Jesus had been laid where she is greeted with an empty tomb. This not being normal, she runs back to tell
Peter and John what she found. They
themselves run off to the tomb, leaving Mary behind. And they themselves find the tomb just as she
had described it.
Mary
eventually follows them back to the tomb, but by the time she gets there, they
have returned to their homes. And here’s
where the story gets interesting and very personal.
Mary
stands outside the tomb in the garden crying because the body of the man she
watched beaten and crucified, the body of the man who had healed her, the body
of a man she loved had been stolen from his grave. In a moment of, “I can’t believe this is
happening,” she takes another look into the tomb. The body was still gone, but now she is
greeted by two angels. Angels in front
of her and Jesus behind her.
This
whole sequence of the angels and Jesus wanting to know why she is crying,
coupled with her still unbelief that Jesus is alive reminds me of the Star Trek
episode “Amok Time” in which Spock thinks he has killed Kirk. It takes both Spock and Mary a minute to wrap
their heads around the idea that their dear friend is alive. And it’s not until their names are spoken by
the newly realized living that they celebrate.
This
gospel scene is very touching. Jesus
calls her by name: Mary. And with that
personal call, he calls her into a new understanding of life and death. It is that personal touch of this gospel
story that makes it so special.
“Whom
are you looking for? Mary, I’m right
here.”
Whom
are you looking for? Jesus is right
here.
But
while this deeply personal story of resurrection and recognition is a vital and
touching part of the story, what really makes the story is how John completes
the circle begun back in Genesis.
In
the second creation story, God places Adam & Eve in the garden to care for
his creation. While there, they eat from
the tree of good and evil, hide from God when they hear him walking in the
garden, and are sent out of the garden so that they won’t also eat from the
Tree of Life and live forever.
Fast
forward to today’s gospel. The scene
takes place in a garden. Mary, unlike
Adam & Eve who hide from God, comes looking for him. And unlike in the first garden where God is
afraid that people will eat from the Tree of Life and live forever, in the
garden today, Jesus offers himself to us as the bread of life so that we may
live forever.
Whom
are you looking for?
What
do you seek?
We
have been trying to get back to the garden since the days of Adam &
Eve. On this day of an empty tomb and
glorious resurrection, on this day when we loudly and joyfully proclaim
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
The Lord is
risen indeed! Alleluia!
On
this day we find ourselves back in the garden, back with God, and given the
opportunity for life everlasting.
If
you are looking for a relationship with God, or a place of community; if you
are looking to get back to the garden and a place where life is not destroyed
by death, you’ve found it.
We
are all here for different reasons. But
behind all these reasons is the quiet call of a name – your name – and the
reassurance that I am here.
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
The Lord is
risen indeed! Alleluia!
Welcome
to the garden.
Posts
0 comments:
Post a Comment