This is the Pastor’s Blog for the Service on Sunday April 5th, Easter Sunday at 10:45AM. Included here is the primary Scripture of this message and the Pastor’s notes. Prior to the service it will include an excerpt of the Pastor’s notes and following the service the complete notes will be added. Also following the service a link will be provided at the bottom to Replay this service. We hope you will join us in Worship on this Easter Sunday.
Scripture: John 20:1-18
20 Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. 2 So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!”
3 So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. 4 Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5 He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. 6 Then Simon Peter came along behind him and went straight into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, 7 as well as the cloth that had been wrapped around Jesus’ head. The cloth was still lying in its place, separate from the linen. 8 Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. 9 (They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.) 10 Then the disciples went back to where they were staying.
Jesus Appears to Mary Magdalene
11 Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb 12 and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.
13 They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?”
“They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” 14 At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.
15 He asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”
Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”
16 Jesus said to her, “Mary.”
She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”).
17 Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”
18 Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them that he had said these things to her.
Pastor’s Message:
Let’s go back to the beginning. To the Garden of Eden. To a time when God made the first humans out of the dirt, breathed into them the breath of Life. And all of the other animals were created, too. Thay all lived in a wonderful garden with all sorts of beauty to delight the eyes and delicious fruits to eat. God strolled around the garden, conversing with these first humans. And there were two trees at the center of the garden: the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
Well, we know what happens in this story of beginnings, don’t we? The one thing Adam and Eve are instructed to stay away from is the very thing they go for. They eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. They choose knowledge over relationship with the Divine – a choice humans make every single day, even now.
The choice that Adam and Eva make costs them the garden. They lose their idyllic home, and have to make a new home in the wilderness, a strange and harsh place.
The stories of the Bible recount how things were off-kilter ever since that beginning. Scripture recounts story after story about how humanity makes the wrong choices over and over again, and how God forgives over and over again. And how humans just have a hard time trusting that they – we – are forgiven and that God’s grace knows no end.
John’s gospel begins with a reiteration of God’s grace: the light that shines in the darkness, full of grace and truth. This light dwells In Jesus Christ, the word present from the beginning with God.
John also tells us that the “world” did not recognize this. The shock waves from that story of beginnings in Genesis still rumble even as Jesus of Nazareth travels around Galilee, Samaria, and Judea, showing just how much God loves God’s own creation through his healings, teachings, acts of mercy and compassion.
Jesus’ ministry is seen as a threat by those in power. When we gathered for worship this past Friday evening, we heard just how much those in power want to utterly silence Jesus for good.
When all is said and done – or so the religious leaders thought – Jesus’ lifeless body is laid in a tomb. In a garden.
We are back in the garden, this time with Mary Magdalene instead of Adam and Eve. In John’s telling of the resurrection story, he sends us back to the beginning in a way. With Mary, we get to bear witness to God’s stunning choice and action: God chooses to raise Jesus from the dead. The fear-ridden people in power haven’t gotten the last word. Death isn’t the end!
John’s story begins with grief and confusion, though. What God has done in raising Jesus isn’t yet clear to Peter, or the beloved disciple, or to Mary. The story tells us when the beloved disciple sees the burial cloths folded up that he “believes” – but we don’t know what he believes. Neither he or Peter hang around to learn more – they go home.
Mary stays, though. To be human is to experience death and loss, and Mary is no exception. Sha stands in that garden with her fresh memories of Jesus’ death, her sadness, her pain, and her confusion. Through the fog of grief, she doesn’t recognize the two angelic visitors in the tomb. She’s convinced that someone has stolen Jesus’ body, and she wants to fix that situation.
When she bumps into someone that she guesses is the gardener, how could she possibly know who that person really is? When the resurrected Christ calls her name is when she begins to see and understand what God has done and is doing. She recognizes her teacher, and the world begins to turn upside down and inside out.
Creation, recreation, renewal, and resurrection all flow out from God’s being in continuous, surprising, grace-filled new-ness. Creation and resurrection are God’s work and choice – it’s what God does, who God is. This power is what Mary encounters in the garden.
For us here in the Northern hemisphere, Easter and resurrection coincide with springtime, with lengthening days and buds breaking, grass greening up, and the billowing of oak catkins across our yards. But our brothers and sisters in the Southern hemisphere experience something very different with Easter. Their days are growing shorter and cooler. Trees are losing their leaves, hibernating animals are seeking winter shelter.
I say this to highlight something essential: God’s resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is more than spring time, or a fresh start, or butterflies emerging from chrysalises. Resurrection is utterly new, and it is utterly God’s action. Resurrection is startling, mysterious, hard to accept, impossible to explain. When we hear our names spoken, though, the heart awakens, even as words fail.
Here’s something else: the resurrection of Jesus isn’t just for Jesus. In the garden of resurrection, Christ the Teacher tells Mary Magdalene, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father; to my God and your God.” Mary is swept up into a story that is still unfolding, even as she struggles to understand what is happening.
This story doesn’t end with relief and hugs. Things don’t go back to normal. This can’t be tidied up and fixed. We can’t stay in the garden. The resurrected Christ sends Mary out from the garden to bear witness to what God has done and will do. And we, as people of the Way, are sent out with Mary to do the same. Death has no power! God is making all things new!
My friends, the Lord is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed!
Alleluia! Amen!
