The Sunday of the Resurrection – March 23, 2008
Acts 10:34-43; Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24; Colossians 3:1-4; John 20:1-18
St. Giles Church, Northbrook IL – The Rev. Cynthia J. Hallas
A year or two ago in her Easter sermon the Rev. Carol Anderson, rector of All Saints’, Beverly Hills, told the story of a parishioner of hers who wanted to buy the cemetery plot next to Mel Blanc’s. You probably remember Mel Blanc, who died in 1989, as the man who voiced many Warner Brothers cartoon characters over the years. I will not attempt to entertain you with my less than stellar impressions of Tweety Bird, or Sylvester the cat, or Woody Woodpecker’s signature laugh. But you probably remember that those cartoons almost always ended with Porky Pig, another of Blanc’s characters, uttering his famous line, “Th-th-that’s all, folks!” And that’s what it says on Mel Blanc’s tombstone: “That’s all, folks!” Carol Anderson’s parishioner wanted to be buried next to Blanc so that his tombstone could read, “No, it isn’t!”
That’s why we’re here today. Today is the day that Christians triumphantly answer the question “Is death the end?” or “Is that all there is?” with the joyful acclamation, “Alleluia! No, it isn’t!”
This is the day we celebrate the mundane made glorious and new by the resurrection of Jesus.
This is the day that the tomb is empty; the grave clothes are abandoned and left behind; that tears of weeping become tears of joy. This is the day that a handful of ordinary people just like you and me, Jesus’ disciples - doubting, grieving and fearful at first - become witnesses to the miracle of resurrection. After fasting and penitence and preparation, after following Jesus through the sad and sorry days of his final meal, his trial, his crucifixion and death, here we are to celebrate that fact that after all those things transpired, and the outlook surely seemed bleak and hopeless; if someone asks us “is that all, folks?” we can answer with confidence, “Alleluia! No, it isn’t!”
Of all the accounts of the resurrection, of those events that transpired ‘early on the first day of the week’, John’s is my favorite. And here’s why: coming to church on Easter morning often feels a bit anti-climactic to me. Jesus’ disciples came to the tomb looking for the body within, but we 21st century Christians are looking to encounter the risen Christ, and in most of the gospel accounts, we don’t. We’ve gotten here just a bit too late; we’ve missed the Big Event. The resurrection is a done deal – it’s happened, it’s concluded; and not only that, in most of the narratives, Jesus has left the garden – he is already on the road to Galilee or walking to Emmaus. Like those earliest disciples, for the most part, we’ve missed him.
And yes, I know, that’s the point: He is not here – he is risen! (Alleluia!) But John’s gospel is different. It takes us to a different place, gives us a different perspective. For some reason that we can speculate about but never really know, Jesus is still in the garden. Yes, the stone is gone, the tomb is empty and the shroud and headpiece are discarded, but Jesus is still there. If you’re looking for a window into what those first hours of resurrected life were like for Jesus, here is as much as we’re likely ever to get.
This gospel is also full of unanswered questions. Why is Jesus still in the garden? Why doesn’t he approach his grieving, distraught disciples right away? Is he hiding, for some reason? Why doesn’t Mary recognize him when he does approach her? Has resurrection changed him that much?
We can only speculate about those things. But what is clear is that for John the evangelist, the entire early morning story revolves around the encounter between the grieving Mary Magdalene and the one she supposes to be the gardener.
Mary is, of course, first on the scene, and though usually we’re told that the women who go to the tomb do so to anoint the body of Jesus – the Sabbath is over and they can perform that sad task now – we don’t hear about that motivation in John’s account. It’s entirely possible that Mary was there simply to mourn, to get as close as she possibly could to someone she loved who was no longer with her – we’ve all been to that place, haven’t we, mourning a loved one?
But then she sees the stone gone and is so undone that she runs back for reinforcements, for emotional support – again, the common behavior of a grieving person – and she looks to find it with Peter and the beloved disciple. These two arrive and get a little farther – they look inside, then actually enter the tomb, and find it empty, the trappings of death and burial present but discarded. But in spite of what Jesus had told them about himself on several occasions, the two men don’t quite get it yet and decide to go home, leaving Mary by herself.
She is weeping, mourning, and imagining the worst – that the grave of her beloved friend has been violated, vandalized; all she wants is to know what happened. The angels give her no answer to her question; but then this “gardener” appears. But it isn’t his physical appearance or even the sound of his voice generally that causes Mary to recognize him; that only happens when he speaks her name. And we can certainly understand how, in her joy, Mary wants to cling to Jesus; she had thought him dead, gone from her forever, and now here he was warm and living and standing in front of her and why shouldn’t she want everything to be just like it had been? No, he tells her, you cannot hold on to me, it cannot be like it was, but here’s what you can do: be my first witness; be the one who tells the others that something even better awaits. (And please notice that while God may send archangels to herald births, the divinely sent messengers of resurrection are ordinary folks like you and me.)
Mary becomes, as the Church knows her, the apostle to the apostles – the one sent to those who would be sent. There’s an icon of that on display in the narthex: Mary Magdalene announcing the resurrection: “I have seen the Lord.”
I have seen the Lord. Mary Magdalene encounters the resurrected Christ and her joy and hope are unbounded, her despair evaporates. She had come to the garden thinking it was all over – that ‘that was all’ and discovered “No, it wasn’t”. But there’s another important piece to this encounter between Jesus and Mary. Mary wants to cling to Jesus; wants to hold on, to maintain this precious moment and keep things just as they are, and who among us can blame her? But she cannot hold on, as Jesus gently reminds her. She cannot hold on because there’s nothing to hold on to, in the sense that Mary remembers. Everything has been made new. It’s in letting go of the past, dying to the old, that we find our hope in resurrection.
Does Christ’s resurrection give us hope, for ourselves and for our world? Yes, it does!
Does it mean that suffering is suddenly ended and the world has been rid of all its cruelties and injustices and pain and violence? No, it doesn’t - that’s the work that the risen and ascended Lord would entrust to those who follow after him; kingdom work is still going on and is ours to do at this point in time.
It’s our job to spread that good news of resurrection – beginning this very morning. Are we going to keep this news to ourselves? How can we possibly keep it to ourselves, with so much need all around us? How can we hang on to it, with a world that cries out for renewal, a world that constantly asks us “Is this all; is this suffering and pain and destruction and violence and death the way it was meant to be?” And we know the answer to that: a resounding “Alleluia! No, it isn’t!”
And so let our voices join those of Mary Magdalene, who had seen the Lord; with the eleven who heard the good news from that first apostle; and with Christians throughout history and across the globe as we say,
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen, indeed! Alleluia!