As someone who has written and published a few books, including a couple of biographies and a partial autobiography, I am always conscious of giving the reader a reason to turn the page … and to anticipate what is coming. St John does this marvellously in his biography of Jesus. At the end of chapter 19 he leaves his readers in a despairing place. He writes: ‘at the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had ever been laid. Because it was the Jewish day of Preparation and since the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there’.
And then we come to the opening phrase of chapter 20: ‘while it was still dark’. In John’s gospel, darkness symbolises doubt and despondency. It provides a veil that conceals malevolent thoughts and evil deeds. While it was still dark … as the bleakness of the crucifixion continued to prevail … John focuses on Mary of Magdala (a small village on the western shore of Lake Gallilee) … who is one of Jesus’ closest followers (and not a woman of ill-repute). She has formed a close bond with Jesus and was with, or near him, during a number of key moments in His ministry. Imagine her eyes, puffy and bloodshot from the tears she has shed the past two days as Jesus was arrested, humiliated, tortured and executed. Imagine the anguish, grief, and sheer exhaustion from a lack of sleep and the absence of comfort she carried in her body. Her visit was not a happy one; she had embarked on a sombre, silent, solitary visit to the fresh grave of her spiritual guide, the teacher to whom she had devoted her life. Picture Mary approaching the tomb with trepidation, seeking some tiny bit of peace or comfort, drawn there by an unshakeable feeling of love and loyalty.
John goes on: ‘while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb’. Now imagine the shock, the disbelief. She doesn’t enter the tomb or even peer inside. Her first instinct is to run, as fast as her weary legs can carry her, to find the others and tell them what she has observed. She reaches Peter and John, and they race to the tomb and enter to find the burial cloths lying on the ground, abandoned. No body to be found, just empty space, and perhaps a feeling of tension and perhaps apprehension hanging in the air …
A little later in the chapter (verse 10), John reports: ‘Then the disciples returned to their homes’. Really? Peter and John returned to their homes? They’ve been following a man who told them repeatedly that He would be put to death and rise again, they find His tomb empty as the new day dawns, and they return to their lodging? Their reasoning is difficult to fathom. Perhaps to be fair, we should try to see ourselves in the disciples’ shoes. An open, empty tomb, two days after a shameful public execution?
The sensible assumption, the most likely explanation, would be grave robbers. Grave robbers acting on behalf of the Roman governor or the temple authorities to prevent the tomb becoming a shrine or a place of pilgrimage, or callous people who find amusement in cruelty. Yes, grave robbers would make sense. Just one more indignity, one final humiliation for the troublemaker from Nazareth.
Thank God, then, for Mary Magdalene. Mary doesn’t go home. She lingers by her Lord’s empty tomb, and she weeps. As if she hasn’t cried enough already, she weeps tears of sadness and frustration … and fear and despair. What kind of world is this? You know that expression ‘wearing your heart on your sleeve’? Mary’s entire heart and soul are on display. And through her tears, through her raw grief and deep pain, Mary Magdalene sees something that Peter and John did not see. Maybe they weren’t able to see, that much isn’t disclosed. Could it be that Mary’s willingness to be present, to remain at the scene of the crime, to bear witness to the injustice of it all, makes her uniquely ready? What if her vulnerability and trust and openness are necessary ingredients in this spiritual transformation – this capacity to look and really see?
Mary sees two angels, messengers from God, sitting in the place where she knows her Lord’s body should be. And when she turns around, she sees another person, a man who asks ‘why are you weeping?’. Here is a moment of comic relief to ease the tension in this supremely emotional story — this greatest of all stories, which takes us all through deepest grief to purest joy, has a moment of circumstantial absurdity in verse 15: ‘Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will collect him’. It is a very odd thing to ask because it would be a very odd thing for a gardener to do. And why would he tell her anyway? But it reveals to us that true love never dies, that hope is never foolish, that people never completely leave us. She can’t and won’t let Jesus go.
It is difficult for us to imagine how must it have felt, when Mary, through her tears and grief, heard the voice of her Lord and the mention of her name. He simply says ‘Mary’. This is her moment of awakening, revelation, resurrection. It is only when the risen Christ calls her name that she understands. And it is only when the living Lord calls her name that his resurrection becomes a reality for her. In that brief intimate exchange, in that one word, death is destroyed and fear is obliterated. Heaven meets earth because Jesus utters her name. She is known by God, she matters, the relationship is restored and everything is made new.
The ancient Greek word thura that is usually translated in the English New Testament as the door or opening of a tomb or cave, actually has another meaning. Thura also means ‘an opportunity, a favorable time for accessing new possibilities’. In John’s version of the resurrection, Mary Magdalene isn’t only the first person to find that stone rolled away and see the risen Lord … she is also the first one to know and experience thura: the world’s horizons are infinitely expanded and reality will never be the same. The door has opened, the new day has arrived, and the very heart of God, which had ceased beating, will never be quiet and never be still again. We are encouraged to listen for the heartbeat of God; to discern for the heartbeat of God in the silence and the chaos, the laughter and the tears, in the songs of the birds and the rhythm of the seasons. Can you hear it? Can you feel it?
Mary did. Mary heard God’s voice in the garden on that Easter morning and it was her that God addressed. Mary’s ears and then her eyes, followed by her mind and heart and soul, were transformed on that initially dark morning when she discovers newness of life as the light dawns. It may have been that Peter and the beloved disciple (John) weren’t quite ready; maybe that’s why they returned to their homes without experiencing resurrection. Perhaps Mary was ready for the transformative moment because she alone, through her unending loyalty and undying love for her ‘Rabbouni’, was humble enough, and vulnerable enough, and trusting enough, to see the full glory of the resurrection. Where you are placed determines what you can see. Praise be, she didn’t hoard her gift, she didn’t cling to Jesus; she shared her great joy openly and willingly: ‘I have seen the Lord’, she exclaimed.
Because Mary has seen the Lord, she and her entire world have been redeemed, renewed, transformed. This is not a Middle Eastern or European or white or English message but a universal one. This is why Easter matters; this is why Christians repeat this story and proclaim this message. It is one they don’t own and it is one they cannot sell. It is why Christians offer their Alleluias! It is because the resurrection of Jesus Christ offers us something that cannot be found anywhere else, and it is something we so desperately need. Hope that cannot be crushed, love that conquers all, life that never ends. This is the gift of Easter. Christ’s victory over the powers of death is our victory, too! No evil on this earth, no act of violence or hatred, no grief or sorrow, no weapon or war or wound can take it away. The body of Christ, the heartbeat of God, endures and enlivens, it fills us and all Creation with life everlasting. Now we can live without fear; now we are free from the enslaving powers of sin and the disorientating shadow of death.
What do we take away from this service? The conviction that the door has been opened, the stone rolled away, and the resurrection is here and it is now. Easter life is everywhere around us. Mary heard it, saw it, knew it and experienced it in the moment the risen Lord spoke her name. If we listen, we may hear God calling our names too. Will you respond when you hear God’s voice? Amen.