April 12, 2009. The Sunday of the Resurrection
The Rev. Kurt J Henle, Rector, All Saints Anglican Church, Traverse City, MI
OT: Isaiah 25:1, 6-9; Psalm 93; Epistle: Colossians 3:1-4; Gospel: St John 20:1-10
Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us: therefore let us keep the feast. Christ is risen from the dead, and become the Firstfruits of them that slept. This is our Eastertide affirmation and our celebration: In Christ, our Passover and the First Fruits from the dead, we are snatched from death into Life, and from sadness into joy (sermon Hymn).
Somebody once said “We cannot make too much of the death of Christ, but we can make too little of the Resurrection of Christ”. The point is that Whereas we don’t want to truncate our Lenten preparations, we can easily blunt or neglect the celebration of Christ’s victory during Eastertide – 40 days of joy. Christ’s Resurrection is the very life-blood of our Christian faith. Every sermon that the Apostles preached in the record of the NT focused on that cardinal event.
St Paul declared that without the Resurrection our faith is vain, empty, worthless (1 Co 15:14). Even worse, without the Resurrection we are deluded - a sorry lot that needs to be pitied. Christianity – whenever it is reduced to a mere ethical system, to a social action group, to a society, or just part of a 1-world religion – 1 among many – is exactly this: worthless, empty, deluded and a pitiful exercise in vanity. We want to have no part of that.
So, let us consider our Gospel today, which is the Resurrection testimony of St John. He recalls his own experience that morning, shared by Mary Magdalene and Peter. The events that morning were so startling and unexpected that the Gospel eye witnesses each had their own story. We would love to know more details of that morning, an organized sequence edited by a historian. But instead we have independent testimonies and we must put the pieces together ourselves.
What we know from the four Gospels is that at early dawn of that Sunday morning (first day of the week – v 1), Mary Magdalene together with Salome and Mary, the mother of James and Joses, went to the grave of Jesus. Perhaps some other women from the Galilee followed them, bearing spices to finish the embalming work on Jesus’ body. We would love to know the names of each woman there, but that was not on the minds of the writers.
We know of Mary Magdalene that she had seven demons driven out by Jesus (Gospels of Mark and Luke). Some speculate that she was the one who anointed Jesus with perfume, drying his feet with her own hair, but we don’t really know. We know even less of the other 2 women.
However, it appears that these women were the last to leave the cross and the first to arrive at the tomb. And there they found the stone rolled away. Mary Magdalene immediately rushed back to tell John and Peter. She announced to them that – v 2 “they have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him”. None of the three even considered the possibility of Christ’s Resurrection miracle.
Why did Mary Magdalene encounter only Peter and John? Possibly, the other disciples had dispersed, perhaps they went into hiding. Or, the others might have shunned contact with Peter after his denial of Jesus in the courtyard of the high priest. John, the emotional “son of thunder” (brother of James, sons of Zebedee), perhaps was the only one tender-hearted enough to take Peter in, when Peter was in desperate need of acceptance and forgiveness. John’s compassion is consistent with his later role as the “apostle of love”. And so, these 2 were possibly the only ones left in the old meeting place which Mary Magdalene knew so well.
Clearly, both John and Peter considered Mary’s news to be so incredible and impossible, that they had to go see for themselves. Perhaps Mary’s eye sight was getting bad, especially in a dark tomb. Perhaps she was confused where Jesus’ tomb was located. John doesn’t tell.
But without waiting the two men raced to the tomb. John got there first. Tradition says that he was the youngest of the twelve, perhaps in his late teens. Arriving at the tomb with the large stone rolled away, he saw the tomb empty, but respectfully waited for the older Peter to arrive. Peter, arriving all out of breath, went right in – Peter never hesitated when it came to action – thinking comes later for him. The respectful younger John then also stepped in and observed the detail of the linen cloths: not unwrapped, as they had to do for Lazarus when he came out of the grave. Moreover, the face cloth, which had been folded around Jesus’ head was still folded in the same manner where the head had been.
These seemingly small details moved John to believe that Jesus had risen indeed. This Resurrection was very much Unlike the raising of Lazarus, or the daughter of Jairus. Both were revived in their original bodies – they also had to die again. Jesus’ Resurrection was different. He was transformed into a glorified body, a body that could pass through walls and through grave cloths w/o disturbing the folds.
The obvious question is why Jesus did not simply pass through the walls of the tomb after he left the shell of grave cloths. Again, we don’t know, but I believe it was for our benefit. How could any eye witness have testified to an empty Sealed tomb? The Resurrection of Christ is based on solid eye witness testimony because it was so important, marking the new beginning, Christ, the “First Fruit of the dead” to set the pattern for all of us to follow in our time.
For John, the detail of the empty tomb was sufficient to bring him to full faith. Jesus, like the seed in the ground, had left the old shell behind and risen to the light of the Father. And yet, v 9, John confesses that “as yet they did not understand the Scripture that He must rise from the dead”. Jesus had talked many times before of His death and Resurrection, but real understanding came only later through the work of the Holy Spirit.
Well, what about the angels at the tomb, what about the appearances of Jesus? Putting together the information from the other Gospels, it appears that when Mary Magdalene had run off to tell Peter and John, the other Mary - perhaps together with Salome and other women went into the tomb and saw the “angel of the Lord” (“appearance like lightning and clothing white as snow”). It was they who later remembered the angel telling them not to be afraid, that Jesus had risen, they were to tell the other disciples of this miracle.
Some of the women saw one angel, others saw two – I believe that would depend on each woman’s view from wherever they stood. Clearly, they did not first compare notes before giving their testimony. The women dispersed. St Mark tells us that some of them were afraid and didn’t tell anybody about what they had seen. Luke heard from others that they did pass the information to the other 11 disciples.
Meanwhile, Mary Magdalene returned to the tomb, weeping, and also met the two angels who asked her why she was crying. As she answered, she noticed the presumed gardener standing by. He too asked her reason for grieving and she gave the same reply. In the beautiful scene that followed, Jesus spoke her name and her eyes were opened. Jesus then sent her to spread the good news to all the other disciples. This is the message to us as well: Go, Tell.
And so, as we recount the utter confusion of that morning, and the churning of emotion, we notice that with fear, joy, surprise, sorrow, faith, confusion coming and going –indifference was not an option – not then, and God willing, not now. Instead, we must respond. We must go and tell that He is Risen – not just with words, but with our lives. This is the imperative in our Epistle: Christ is the First Fruit – our pattern for the New Life.
St Paul calls us to the resurrected life, seeking the things Above that honor Christ and sanctify our time of service that we have remaining to us here on earth as members of His Body, the Church. And so we declare in the words of the OT lesson, Is 25:1
“O LORD, you are my God; I will exalt you, I will praise your name; for you have done wonderful things; plans formed of old, faithful and sure.”
Alleluia! Christ is Risen. He is Risen indeed, Alleluia. Amen.
