Given Good News
John 20:1-18
Good morning! If ever there is a day to say that, it is today. It is the good morning, the morning we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ! For the forty days of Lent, we have been on a journey of faith. We have walked through the valleys of the shadow of death. We have seen a court that confused “moralness” with righteousness, and then used that confusion to condemn an innocent man. We have known the sorrow of good that has been beaten down, spat upon, nailed to a cross, and sealed away. We have wept the tears of the terrified, sobbed with the sighs of despair, and lamented the loss of our leader. We, above all people, can affirm that the world has been living under the ominous shadow of Good Friday. But today we have something to say to the world: we have a light that shines in the darkness! We have a clear vision that cuts through the confusion. It may beGood Friday in the world, but Easter Sunday has come!
Today we celebrate that it is no longer the Friday of our sin and death. Today we celebrate that it is the Sunday of God’s grace and new life. Today we celebrate our hope that what God has started in us, and in our world, God will complete through the power and grace of Jesus Christ. This is the good news given to us that changes everything!
This good news is found in a story that begins and ends with Mary Magdalene at the tomb. It is early on the Sunday after the Passover, while it is still dark. Mary has gone to the tomb where Jesus had been laid after the crucifixion. But when she gets there, the stone that sealed the tomb has been rolled away.
We are told that Mary runs back to Bethanyto tell Peter and the other disciple whom Jesus loved. The usual assumption is that this other disciple is John, the gospel writer, simply being modest in this retelling. But the contextual evidence of John’s gospel is that this other disciple is Lazarus, the brother of Mary and Martha. The other disciple is Lazarus, who was in the grave himself perhaps only a week before.
Peter and Lazarus run to the tomb upon hearing from Mary Magdalene that the stone has been rolled away. Lazarus gets there first, but he doesn’t go in. We can understand why Lazarus doesn’t want to go into the tomb, which may be the same one he had been laid in before. So, Lazarus stoops to look in, and sees the linen cloths lying there.
Lazarus would have remembered how he came out of the tomb. He remembered that he needed help to get the cloths off, but who would have helped Jesus? All of his followers had either fled or had been with them in Bethany, so none of them could have done it.
The most likely possibility was that the Romans, perhaps at the urging of the priests, had taken the body. Jesus had only been on the cross for a few hours, hardly time enough to intimidate the people with the terrible power of Rome. We remember, from last week’s sermon, how one Palm Sunday messiah had spent a full week on the cross, while the other had his head displayed on a stake, also for a full week. The only rational explanation for the stone being rolled away is that the Romans have taken the body to display before the Jews, who would be leaving after their Passover celebration.
All this goes through Lazarus’ mind while he waited for Peter to catch up. When he finally gets there, Peter enters the tomb. While Lazarus may have been reluctant to enter the tomb again, Peter was dealing with a different urgency.
It was in part, Peter felt, his denial that led to the death of Jesus. Maybe if he had said something, done something, he could have stopped it. But he didn’t do anything. And worse, he denied knowing Jesus at all. So he has to enter the tomb. He has to see if the worst choice he had ever made had become even more terrible.
Peter enters, and he, too, notices the linen cloths. But he also notices the cloth that covers the face has been carefully rolled up by itself. This little detail is evidence of a caring removal, and not a tossing aside. If you are going to further humiliate someone’s memory, you don’t take the time to carefully roll up the cloth on the body’s face.
The scripture doesn’t say it explicitly, but I am sure Peter would have called out what he had seen to Lazarus, who was still standing outside of the tomb. This new piece of information about the face cloth means that Lazarus can enter the tomb. He can enter because now he knows. Lazarus knows that Jesus, who was dead, is now alive; just as Lazarus, who was dead, is now alive.
Lazarus doesn’t know how he knows this. And he certainly couldn’t explain it to Peter. But there was something in his demeanor that convinced Peter that it was all right that the tomb was empty. In my imagination, I can see Lazarus putting his arm around Peter, assuring him, guiding him, and walking him back towards Bethany.
Lazarus may have come in love, and Peter in guilt, but Mary Magdalene had come to the tomb by a different path. She had followed Jesus, and she had supported Jesus to the very end. She was there at the crucifixion when everyone else had fled. And the last thing Mary Magdalene had heard from Jesus, as he was dying on the cross, were these words: “It is finished.” These are words that would echo in her heart.
After they took the body of Jesus down from the cross and sealed it in the tomb, Mary somehow found her way back to Bethany. The chatter of families preparing for the Passover in the tent cites of the valley around Jerusalem seemed empty and meaningless as she trudged along the path. It was the same path that, just a few days before, had been alive to the singing of hosannas. Every stray palm branch lying on the ground had been trampled, reflecting how Mary felt inside. She continued on only because she hoped Mary and Martha would let her stay with them a few days; at least, until the Passover celebration had ended. It would give her time to figure out what future was left for her, if any.
The mood around the Passover table of Mary and Martha was solemn as the Seder questions were asked. Why is this night different from all other nights? It seemed a mockery to eat unleavened bread, as the people did when they fled from the darkness of slavery. Mary was in darkness, but there was no promise of freedom. There wasn’t any need to dip the bitter herbs in the salt water, as Mary’s tears flavored everything she ate. There was no sweetness in the charoset to lift the burden of her pain. As the answers were given to the Seder questions, the only words that rang in her ears were the words of Jesus on the cross: “It is finished.”
Mary, in her depression, may have slept all day Saturday; or at least, feigned sleep so that the others would leave her alone. At times, she was aware that one or two of the disciples had also found their way to the home of Mary and Martha. It didn’t matter, though; not to Mary Magdalene. She blamed them for not defending Jesus, for not doing something to stop the crowds, stop the soldiers, stop her nightmare. In her darkness, the events played out, over and over again in her mind. Each time, they failed to act. Each time, Jesus died. Each time, she came to the same conclusion -- she was finished with them.
But she was not finished with Jesus, not yet. In the haste to seal his body away, there hadn’t been proper preparation. She knew that burial spices were available in Mary and Martha’s cupboards – afterall, it was the other Mary who had washed Jesus’ feet with the burial ointment. Magdalene decided that she was just going to take those spices, for they owed Jesus that much.
Mary Magdalene may have felt that Mary and Martha would want to help her with the preparations, but this was something she had to do alone. This was something she had to do for him. So she resolved to go to the tomb while it was still dark on Sunday, before any one could talk her out of it, or could talk her into allowing them to go with her.
A few hours before sunrise, Mary Magdalene slipped out of the house with the spices, and headed across the valley to the tomb on the north side of the city. Even though it was dark, she hurried, afraid that someone would notice she was gone. She stumbled and fell in the dark. Her hands and elbows scraped against the rocks, and though she couldn’t see it, she knew she was bleeding. No matter, she thought. She had bled before.
On she stumbled along a half-remembered path. She half-crawled her way up to the garden tomb. Gradually, the cold gray light that comes before the sun rises outlined the rock that should have sealed the tomb, but it has been rolled aside. A horrible thought hit her hard. Someone had stolen Jesus’ body.
To any one looking that morning, Mary Magdalene would have seemed, again, demon-possessed, as she crashed back down the path, tears flowing, sobs wrenching her body. She ran the over 2 miles back to the house where she’d knew she would find the only people who might still care.
Screaming, she yelled for Peter. For the others. “They’ve taken him away. They couldn’t let him rest. Peter, they’ve stolen Jesus’ body! Oh my God! How can people be so cruel?”
Peter and Lazarus were the two who ran to the tomb, and Mary ran after them. In her exhaustion, she couldn’t keep up. These two disciples were likelyalready on their way back to Bethany when Mary arrived again at the tomb. She didn’t know anything about what Peter saw, or what Lazarus knew. She only knew that she was alone again.
So, Mary stayed. She had nowhere else to go. She had nothing left. Even her rage was all spent. She slumped her deadened body on a rock. She shut down. She felt nothing – noteven the will to die.
After a moment, an eternity, Mary took one last look into the tomb. There she saw two persons, the scattered beams of morning light making them look like angels in the darkness of the tomb. “Where have they taken him?” she demanded to know. But she didn’t wait for an answer. She didn’t have the strength to confront them, so she turned to leave.
Through the prism of her tears, she saw the light of dawn slanting through the rocks into the garden. And there, in that golden light, she saw a figure, a man. She thought he must be the caretaker, coming to work. Who else could it be in this place so early? This figure even asked a caretaker’s question, born from the experience of helping visitors find the resting place of a loved one: “Who are you looking for?”
Mary heard herself speak. “Look, if you took his body, tell me where. Please, just tell me where, so I can go and get him, and give him a decent, human burial.”
The figure answered. It was a voice so gentle that it seemed to come from a different world. This figure called her by name: “Mary.” There was something familiar in this voice, and daring to believe the unbelievable, she whispered the name reserved for a personal master and teacher, a name she could only share with Jesus: “Rabbouni.”
The reply brought renewed life to Mary. “I have not ascended yet, but I have defeated death. Go and tell those I love that I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.”
The last words Mary Magdalene heard from Jesus on the cross were, “It is finished.” In these words of Jesus in the garden, she hears, “Now it is begun!”
Evil, in all its smugness, in all its manifestations that found its ultimate expression on Good Friday, had crucified Jesus and claimed for itself the crown of victory. But we are here today to declare that evil has been dethroned by the grace of Jesus Christ. So wipe away your tears of fear and sorrow; replace them with the tears of overwhelming release and joy. Open your eyes and know that we no longer live in the shadows of sin and death, and that we can now walk in the light of God’s grace and love revealed in Jesus Christ.
We are here today to declare that the kingdom of hell has been defeated, and that the kingdom of God is being established among those who believe. We are here today to affirm again the good news that Jesus Christ is the victor over sin and death! It may have been Friday in the world, but Sunday has come! Good morning!