Read John 20: 1 – 18
If you wanted to make up a story that would be believed back in 1st Century Palestine, you wouldn’t have said it originated with women! They were deemed to be utterly unreliable witnesses back in those days. Therefore we should never underestimate the significance and impact of Jesus’ attitude to women, because women saw how Jesus included and trusted them! Nor should we underestimate the outrage of men! Nor the veracity of the story that survived women’s telling of it!
John tells the story of what happened on the third day, during the early hours of ‘the first day of the week’. He describes Mary Magdalene going to the tomb alone.
I should think we all know the feelings associated with grief, the longing to have a focal point where we can somehow ‘be near’ the one we’ve loved and lost.
And despite the danger of being associated with Jesus, Mary’s grief was strong enough to draw her to the place where she could be as close as possible to Jesus’ body.
But she was shocked by what she found – the tomb had very obviously been disturbed – the stone had been rolled away and Jesus’ body was missing.
Two of Jesus’ disciples (both men) believed Mary’s anxious report sufficiently to visit the tomb for themselves and confirmed her story. Thus far, they concluded, the tomb’s emptiness could only mean that Jesus’ body had been ‘taken away’.
Mary’s was a double loss, made visible in her inconsolable weeping. She had lost the companionship of her beloved teacher, and now his body.
Now, there’s a marked contrast between Mary’s response to the empty tomb and that of the two male disciples in John’s account. As soon as Mary finds the empty tomb, she runs to tell others then returns to the scene, where she remains, weeping. But Peter and the other disciple (believed to be John) neither weep nor spread the news, they simply go home.
It feels as if they’ve turned their backs on the mystery – the tomb was empty. Jesus’ body had gone missing!
But Mary gave herself over entirely to the emotion of grief. She stayed by the tomb and because she ‘stayed with it’ she entered more deeply into the mystery. So she encountered the risen Jesus.
Unlike Peter and the other disciple, Mary stayed around long enough to experience something she could not have expected – how could you expect what followed?
She only recognised the figure behind her when he called her by name – like the good shepherd calling one of his flock.
It’s not surprising really. She saw Jesus through bleary, tear-filled eyes, and the fog of grief that turns everything into a shadow.
Jesus was within touching distance, but he told her ‘Do not hold on to me, for I haven’t yet ascended to the Father’ – suggesting there’s going to be a new kind of relationship from now on.
This ‘Ascending to the Father’ through his passion is the counterpart of the descent of the heavenly ‘Word’ we read about in the first 18 verses of the first chapter of John‘s Gospel, and the theology of what it might all mean.
This movement of grace will open up Jesus’ relationship with the God he calls ‘Father’. Those who heard or read John’s Gospel know what this means – the coming of the Spirit to friends who live by the ‘new commandment’ and make the love of Jesus visible!
And the foundation of this transforming vision is the witness to Jesus’ resurrection being a woman who returned to the disciples, locked away in a room for fear of their own lives! A woman who had to try to explain her enthusiasm to people who probably looked at her a bit blankly – to say the least – because, quite frankly, it was all a bit far-fetched – and you wouldn’t trust an hysterical woman anyway, would you?
And as far as John’s account goes, the disciples really weren’t convinced by Mary’s story – it wasn’t until they saw for themselves the next day that they believed!
Because Mary waited, and perhaps because she laid herself bare and raw with grief, she encountered something beyond and outside of the normal parameters of life – a point where heaven and earth literally met in the risen Christ!
Now, there will have been times I’m sure when, like me, and Jesus when he heard his friend Lazarus was dead, you will have laid yourself bare and raw with grief. And all the while the risen Christ has waited for us to notice, for us to encounter him so that he can enter into our grief with us – if we will wait on him, hang around with him long enough to hear and see.
Here, in the resurrection story of life beyond death, there is a touching place of hope for the future – God’s love for us stretched out for us into eternity.
Here is hope for humankind! That in every particular and challenging situation, love will ultimately prevail, demonstrated in the life and energy that continues necessarily and sacrificially to need putting into so many spheres of human life to help and to heal, to build up life and community and knock down the walls and barriers we falsely put up to divide humankind from one another. Because Jesus shows up for us, and will again – eternally!
Jesus is not here, just like he told you. He is risen and goes ahead of you into every difficult place! Give thanks! Pray for courage and resilience to join the Risen Christ there!
Christ is Risen! Today and every day! And for that we give thanks! Hallelujah! Amen!
I wish you a joyous and faith filled Easter!
Rev Janine