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.
There are few parts of scripture more intriguing and more compelling than John 18:38 … the words are not even those of Jesus … and it is not an answer but a question: “what is truth?”
That famous question from the Roman Governor of Judea, Pontius Pilate, to a Jewish peasant, Jesus of Nazareth, stares us in the face every year on Good Friday. The fact that it seemingly is left unanswered remains a challenge … to all of us. What, indeed, is truth … of what does it consist? Are there only rival and competing truths – your truth and my truth – but nothing that is universal or eternal? Does the truth matter? Can we ever know that we have found it and are we capable mentally, emotionally and spiritually to cope with its demands?
At his trial (if it can be called that), Jesus doesn’t seem very interested in defining truth. This isn’t the moment for a philosophical debate or an argument about the meaning of words. At any event, he has already addressed this question. In the 14th chapter of St John’s Gospel, when Thomas asks that he might see the Father (meaning God), Jesus says: “I am the way to God: the truth, and the life.” He told his disciples that he came into the world to testify to the truth, and that those who belong to the truth listen to him, but He never gives a philosophical definition of the truth other than to say it embodies light rather than darkness and brings liberation and freedom. Lies are bondage. Know the truth, and it will set you free.
Jesus seems less interested in defining the truth and much more interested in showing us the essence of truth … and what it looks like to live truthfully. He depicts the truth as a living thing (linked to personal honesty and spiritual vision), and to see ourselves as belonging to truth and as bearers of truth. Being human and living in 2022 means, of course, we have multiple truth claims vying for our attention … when they are not being imposed upon us. There is a divide: the truth of the world, the way it is, and the truth of God’s realm — the way God dreams the world to be, the way we believe it can be. Those multiple claims are at the centre of Pilate’s question, ‘What is truth?’ Perhaps he is asking: which truth do you mean? The truth of power, position and pride or some other … that he fears might challenge the privilege and pleasure that marks his own version of the truth.
Jesus doesn’t respond in words to Pilate’s question at that moment. Instead, over the next three days, he reveals the answer with his dying, death, and resurrection. Good Friday reveals a deep truth about the way the world is right now. Not the world that God created and pronounced good … but the world that we have created which is marred by war, terrorism, poverty, malnutrition, addiction and abuse. The world we have made out of fear and greed … out of shame and bitterness … out of our desperate need to boost our self-image or hide our inner wounds. In our desperation and anxiety, we try to make it someone else’s fault; we cast blame and cry out for the blood of someone else, an innocent, someone we don’t know but still dislike, or a politician or media proprietor.
We blame others for destroying the world we inhabit; or conversely, we declare that the suffering are themselves to blame for their own plight. But Good Friday reveals the worst in humankind. Reveals the truth about the hideous things of which men and women are capable when they are afraid or selfish and take the place of God. Good Friday calls for an expression of human shame – that things are not right and we know they are not right, and some response is required of us.
Good Friday also reveals, of course, an even deeper truth about who God is … and how God responds to our predicament. The truth that Jesus shows with his words and works is a profound challenge to the world we have damaged and disfigured. The truth that Jesus shows us is that no matter how benign or beneficial we might think our economic systems and power structures are; they are all fallen … because we are all fallen individually, and together. Our world is infected with injustice – moral, financial, legal and social. Jesus demonstrated with his death the truth about this infectious injustice by becoming a victim of its self-justification and self-righteousness. He shows the almost endless human capacity to find words to excuse injustice and practice cruelty. In every facet of his being, Jesus shows us God’s “NO” to the dominant systems of this world and the malignant forces that undergird them, and God’s “YES” to primacy of love, faith and hope as the foremost forces that will truly define human fulfilment.
These are truths that we can see when we kneel at the foot of the cross, and have eyes to see and ears to hear the revelation that is before us. Pilate is given a chance to see these truths as well. He is the local representative of the dominant system of temporal authority. In this conversation with Jesus he has an opportunity to hear and see and be transformed … and there are elements of the Gospel story that indicate he saw in Jesus something more than a troublemaker. And yet, Pilate can only see the world in terms of earthly rulers and physical force – riches and power – and turns away from the revelation of ultimate and eternal truth who is standing before him. Once the crowd reasserts their commitment to the status quo, loudly affirming that they have no king but Caesar, Pilate finds safety in numbers and it is business as usual. Once Jesus is condemned without evidence of a charge for which He is of course innocent, and is maliciously tortured and mercilessly nailed to a wooden cross … the crowd that was baying for blood, no longer interested in the spectacle, also turns away and go back to their everyday lives. It is bleak, very bleak.
All four Gospel accounts of Good Friday have significant and subtle differences. In John’s version there are no earthquakes, no darkness covering the earth, no temple curtains being torn in two. In John, Jesus simply dies on a cross and is placed in a tomb. The empire doesn’t strike back … so much as it just continues. There is no continuing threat to its authority. People return to their lives of either luxury or labour. The status quo remains the status quo – unabated and unchallenged.
How often do we catch a glimpse of this life-giving, world-altering truth and then resume business as usual? How tempting is it for us to turn away from the things that challenge our existence and chastise our lifestyle? To cover our eyes or ignore this truth because it might be upsetting or oblige a response. The truth is that human beings are capable of horror … and we are constantly at risk of turning away – turning away from the cross of Christ, and turning away from all the crucified people of every generation – and returning to the status quo and the hope of business as usual. It’s so very easy to close our eyes, to change the channel, turn the page, walk away telling ourselves that the reality, the truth, the trauma of the cross doesn’t really have anything to do with us. We are good people – kind, compassionate and caring. “What is truth?” But in hiding from or averting our eyes from that truth, we risk missing an opportunity for transformation that God is always holding out to us to become more Christlike.
The first act in repentance, the first move toward redemption, the first stance of transformation … is simply to not turn away. To not close our eyes to the suffering of others or our own inner anguish … to feel pain over lives cut short or endangered, to feel indignation over the injustice behind tragedy, to feel shame over the way we have blighted this planet, that we have not undone the damage and are not planning to do so because it might involve a personal cost that others might not be prepare to accept – so just in case … we won’t accept the cost either.
The message of Good Friday is that things must be put right in my life and yours; we are not yet at the Easter message which is how they will be put right. But acknowledging, accepting that something is wrong … that’s the invitation being extended to us at this service … to encounter the truth that God’s dream is greater than the world’s nightmare. The truth that God’s “yes” is more profound than the empire’s “no.” It is when we face reality—when we face the truth—when we bear witness to the suffering of Jesus and the suffering of all the crucified people around the world—that is when salvation starts and redemption begins.
It cannot be a coincidence that the first people who see Jesus on Sunday morning are the same ones who refuse to look away from His death on Friday; those who endure the whole bloody execution, who accompany His body to the tomb, and who come again to prepare His lifeless corpse for proper burial; they are the ones who are the first to experience the truth of the resurrection – a young man and a jaded woman. The truth of Jesus’ life. The truth of God’s “yes” and the endless possibilities that it unlocks.
Pilate did not realise he was playing his part perfectly in a dramatic play when he was given the line ‘what is truth?’ The cross reveals the truth. The truth of the pain and suffering that continues to exist in the world, in our nation, in our community and even in our own families, because of the inhuman demands of our unfair systems and unjust structures. Good Friday also reveals the truth that, for those who are willing to join themselves to a community that continues to look on the cross and strives to stand in solidarity with those who are hurting, who are marginalised, who are still being sacrificed – crucified – on the altar of the public interest and the common good, the cross also opens up the way of transformation and salvation. May we be given the strength to never turn away from the cross, and to live more fully into the truth: the way and the life as revealed in Jesus Christ our Lord.