March 23, 2008
(The Sunday of the Resurrection:
Easter Day)
"Why Are You Weeping?"
By
The Rt. Rev. Barry Howe,
Bishop of West Missouri
Acts 10:34-43 • Colossians 3:1-4 • Psalm
118:1-2, 14-24 • John 20:1-18
(From
The Lectionary Page)
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!
Mary Magdalene, perhaps the most faithful of the group of women who accompanied Jesus and the disciples throughout Galilee and Judea, was experiencing full-blown grief in the loss of Jesus as her Lord. Unlike the disciples, she had been present on the hill of Calvary and stood watch over the Lord’s tormenting death. She saw how the crowds belittled and mocked him. She also heard the Lord’s words of great anguish and his pronouncement of forgiveness. She had then been among those who helped prepare his lifeless body for burial.
Mary apparently found little solace in remaining with the faithful followers—many of whom she must have felt abandoned their Master in his final hours—concerned only about themselves. Very early in the morning on the third day of the Lord’s death, she could not find rest, and in darkness went to visit the newly-hewn grave. Knowing only that her world had turned upside down, she stumbled along the path, gripped by the darkness and by her desperate loneliness. She simply wanted to be close to the place where Jesus now lay in repose.
In many ways you and I are not unlike Mary Magdalene as we gather in this beautiful Cathedral sanctuary today. We try our best, or at least we convince ourselves that we try our best, to be faithful servants of the Lord. We want to make a difference in the lives of people through our faltering, but willing faithful service. And we also want to be filled with hope for the future—the hope that will culminate in practical and real transformations in our lives and in the outcomes of our culture and world. But we come also surrounded by much darkness and evil which weighs heavily upon our hearts, and grieves us. The ongoing, never-ending war; the state of the economy; the inability of leaders to focus upon addressing grave issues in our society and in our world; the terrorism near and far; the widening divide between the rich and the poor; the contamination of the environment. And, also like Mary Magdalene, each of us has other personal situations that cause us to grieve, and we bring them with us also to this day and to every day. We too find it hard to rest with our grief, and from the darkness of our sin and our poor attempts at repentance, we stumble along, not quite sure what more we shall find ahead; not quite sure what we are able to believe; not quite sure where or in whom we can place our faith.
When Mary Magdalene found the grave she fell into a greater state of shock. The stone before the entrance to the tomb was removed. She envisioned two possibilities for this development. Either the Roman authorities had removed the body of Jesus and took it to some unknown location in an effort to thwart any attempts by friends of Jesus or by enemies of Jesus to continue to draw attention to the Lord, or grave robbers had come to strip the tomb of anything valuable in it. I will never forget standing once with a funeral director at a grave where the body had just been placed following an internment service. Those who had come to the service had left, and I was dependent upon the funeral director to transport me back home again. I waited and waited with him, not knowing why we remained there. Finally I suggested we might be going. But the funeral director was insistent we stay. He told me he wanted to make sure that those who were responsible for closing the grave did not disturb the casket and the body in order to steal anything valuable from the deceased—jewelry, clothing, gold teeth. This apparently happens frequently. Mary Magdalene needed her friends again—now! How could her grief be greater? She ran back into the city to find those with whom she had lived in community in order to tell them what she had discovered. She convinced Peter and another disciple identified as the beloved in John’s Gospel to go and see.
How ironic that Peter, who denied he knew Jesus, was still a member of the community of followers. It seems he was still taking a leading role among that group. He and the other disciple ran to the place of the tomb—no easy feat to do. Mary followed them. It was Peter who went into the tomb and found it to be empty. The other disciple then followed him into the tomb. It was said that this disciple believed—but we are not told what he believed. An empty tomb is an empty tomb. The two disciples saw it and probably, like Mary, were filled with questions about what could have happened there. But they did not hang around. The two of them left Mary in her grief and went back home. If they had waited around there with Mary, their questions would have been answered by the Risen Lord himself. But they were more intent on continuing to deal with their own concerns—their own struggles with how they would order their lives separated from Jesus.
You and I are often much like Peter and the other disciple. We may not be able to run as they did, but we often rush to respond to serious challenges placed before us. We want very clear and concise evaluations of what we find. And if things remain unclear, we fall back into our place of security—we go home and carry on, still functioning in darkness. Instant gratification about conclusions to our challenges is nothing new. But it is magnified in our lives today by so many false promises for better living.
Mary stayed at the tomb, frozen in her grief. She cried out, “Where have they taken my Lord?” And then she hears a rather silly question, and ignores it. “Why are you weeping?” People always weep around graves, recalling many memories with loved ones, asking the ‘what if’ questions, and feeling that inevitable sense of abandonment. But then she heard another voice—this time from someone behind her. She heard the same question, “Why are you weeping?” In desperation she said to the man speaking to her, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” She still hoped to be able to be near his remains and to grieve in peace. Then she heard her name spoken, and darkness turned to light; grief turned to elation; loneliness turned to knowing again the presence of her Lord with her. When she went to embrace the Risen Lord, she was stopped by him. She was told to go back again to the community of disciples and tell them what she had experienced. They were to hear that the Lord was ascending to the Father, his Father and their Father, his God and their God. We can surmise that Mary then ran back to the city. She announced to the community, “I have seen the Lord.” Hope for the future returned. And the calling of Mary and the disciples was renewed—the calling to “Go out into the world and let people know that you have seen the Risen Christ.”
All that Mary Magdalene experienced on that particular morning is at the heart of every Christian’s story; every one of our stories. It was God who raised Jesus from the dead. It is God who raises us from the dead—raises us from our selfish concerns and our dark places—if we are willing to listen for the voice of Jesus calling to us, and if we are ready to let others know that we have seen him. It is God who enables Jesus to be present with us at all times and in all places. Our names are never forgotten by God, and are called out to us by Jesus. It is God who leads us from the throes of darkness to the places of light. It is God who forgives Peter, and empowers him to bear witness to the saving grace God offers to all people. It is God who forgives us of all the ways we stumble in the dark and fail to believe, and empowers us to also bear witness to the saving grace He offers to all people. It is God who dries the tears of Mary Magdalene, and gives her new life for the work she is to do in His Name. It is God who dries our tears, and promises us the comfort that transcends the ways of the world. It is God who will not let us out of his presence, empowering us with the Spirit of the Risen Christ.
The resurrection of Jesus is not just an act of God giving new life to his Son. The resurrection of Jesus is God’s ever-present action through his Son, giving us new life over and over again, calling us out of the depths of despair and grief, giving us the strength to transcend what we ourselves are unable to accomplish. The resurrection of Jesus is God’s ever-present action through his Son, giving to us the gifts to minister with the Risen Christ in the world, transforming others to acknowledge that they have heard their name spoken by the Lord, and they have seen the Lord in the faces of you and me. The resurrection of Jesus is God’s ever-present action through his Son, promising us a place with His Son in the kingdom of glory, placing before us the hope that nothing can separate us from the unconditional love that engenders that hope. The resurrection of Jesus is our resurrection. And we experience the new life given to us by God as we hear our name called by the Risen Christ, and as we blessedly share with others that we have seen the Lord. We hear our name called by the Lord, and we see the Risen Christ as we open our hearts to his enlivening and empowering Spirit, and share the wondrous gifts given to us.
Do not be stumbling in the dark. Be raised with Christ. Set your minds and hearts on the blessings of this new life. Know well in whom you believe and with whom you place your trust and hope. Go out into the world and share with others what this new life is for you.
