Scripture: John 20:1-18; Ezekiel 1:5-6 Series: 2021
An Easter sermon on John 20:1-18 that frames the resurrection through the pattern of Mary Magdalene’s going, seeing, listening, and telling at the empty tomb. The preacher contrasts Mary’s faithful ‘showing up’ and persistence with Peter and John, who leave too soon, arguing that resurrection is embodied only when love is enacted and spoken. Drawing on his own courtship of his wife Alina and on Eavan Boland’s poem ‘Quarantine,’ he claims that because Jesus rose, every instance of self-giving embodied love is a grace pointing to the God who became flesh and goes further toward us than we can imagine.
Illustrations: meeting-and-marrying-alina, teacher-never-know-who-you-marry, ezekiel-terrifying-angels, eavan-boland-quarantine
Easter Sunday
John 20:1-18
I did not expect to get married. That was not something that i was planning. I thought it might be cool if it happened, i did not think that it would happen. After living in Denver for a year, I moved back to Austin in 2009 and started connecting with some old friends who were working here. I had a good friend who has an associate pastor at First Methodist, Downtown, who was doing a book study, which I joined. A couple who was a part of the study, invited a colleague, who was a teacher in East Austin. She came to this one study and she was beautiful, smart, out of my league, beyond my comprehension. I thought, ‘that’s too good to be true, so I am just going to move on and not think about her.’
Then a few months later, that same friend set up a dinner party where Alina and I were the only two people who were not in a relationship or married. And there were assigned seats. And it seemed that the rest of the story is history. But of course, the rest is not history. There is a way in which I can tell this story of our marriage that fits all these boxes and fits all our assumptions yet does not reach the reality. What you have with the deep relationships in your life, and it may not be a spouse, it could be a friendship, what you have with those deep relationships is the embodiment of love, the enfleshedness of love.
I have a teacher who used to say that you never know the person you marry so you can never know if you marry the right person, because you don’t know who they are going to be in 20 years. And so deciding on marriage based on this predictive capability is a fool’s errand. Instead, what is necessary in a relationship (and this is not brilliant, earth-shaking stuff) is showing up every day.
I didn’t know what was going to happen after that first encounter with Alina. But through circumstance and encouragement, I kept showing up. Alina kept showing up.
The Reading for today comes from the end of the gospel of John. Mary from Magdala goes to the tomb of Jesus to clean his body but she finds the tomb empty. Yet she is not satisfied with that. Mary could have just gone on with her day, but she didn’t. So she goes and tells; she goes and announces. This is the first part of the good news. She goes and announces that the tomb is empty.
And then word gets to John and to Peter and they both come to see that the tomb is empty. And they come and Mary is still there. Peter and John leave, and Mary stays. She is looking for Jesus. She came because it was her duty to come. She showed up and no one else was there. She showed up when no one else was watching. She showed up not to get credit but because of who Jesus had been to her. Because of his love, she responded by embodying that love and coming to the tomb on the first day of the week, but she could not have been prepared for what happened next.
After the other disciples have figured out, ‘okay, something weird is going on’, Mary stays. Mary stays and weeps. The other guys are fine, they are moving on. Mary says that this is not right.
Then two angels came, two messengers of God are in the spot where Jesus had been. And normally, angels are these terrifying creatures. People are awestruck.
This is how the prophet Ezekiel describes angels “And from the midst of it came the likeness of four living creatures. And this was their appearance: they had a human likeness, but each had four faces, and each of them had four wings… (Ezekiel 1)
When angels come, it is a frightening situation. This is not just two dudes in white drifting down like a feather. They are frightening. So it is pretty astounding that Mary doesn’t run away from the angels. She is like, ‘whatever, I don’t care who you are. This day is already ruined.’ I don’t care if you are an angel. I don’t care if you are a bill collector. I don’t care if you are Caesar himself. Someone has taken my master from me and I don’t know what they have done with him. This sucks.’
And then she turns around, and it is Jesus standing there, but she does not recognize him. This person she loved and followed; she does not know him. After the resurrection, Jesus looks different. There is something different about him, and yet it is when Jesus speaks that Mary hears and understands. This is when the transformation happens. This is when Mary stops weeping. This is when Mary goes again to tell the good news, this is when Mary becomes the first evangelist.
So in this passage we have going, seeing, listening, and telling. Mary goes. Peter and John also go, but then they leave. Mary goes and sees, she sees that the tomb is empty, she sees the Angels, she sees Jesus. She could have left, she could have stopped there, but then she listens. She takes the time to listen. She could have stopped there and been satisfied with her special knowledge of God, but she does not stop even then. It is when she goes out and tells that she has embodied resurrection, resurrection opens up the possibility for love, total unsentimental giving of ourselves for others, and this response is daily.
Mary showed up not knowing what would happen. How many of us show up each day not knowing what is going to happen? But really, I think most of us are a lot more like Peter or like John. We will show up, but if nothing happens soon, we are heading back to our own business. We will give you a shot, but if you don’t entertain or excite us, we are out of here. They did not understand what had already happened. They didn’t go far enough because they didn’t think God could go that far.
We show up. We are here. And we want God to meet us here, but God has gone further toward us than we can imagine. And, like with Mary, Jesus has already been with us from before we were aware of his presence. We need to listen to him speaking to us. And the way God speaks is more like poetry than prose. When reading a poem, we have to wait with the poem. We can’t rush to the end.
My favorite poem is by this Irish poet, Eavan Boland. She had a series where she would read old newspaper articles from the 19th century and write poems about the articles. So this poem comes from that series. It is called Quarantine.
In the worst hour of the worst season of the worst year of a whole people a man set out from the workhouse with his wife. He was walking – they were both walking – north.
She was sick with famine fever and could not keep up. He lifted her and put her on his back. He walked like that west and west and north. Until at nightfall under freezing stars they arrived.
In the morning they were both found dead. Of cold. Of hunger. Of the toxins of a whole history. But her feet were held against his breastbone. The last heat of his flesh was his last gift to her.
Let no love poem ever come to this threshold. There is no place here for the inexact praise of the easy graces and sensuality of the body. There is only time for this merciless inventory:
Their death together in the winter of 1847. Also what they suffered. How they lived. And what there is between a man and woman. And in which darkness it can best be proved.
I read this as a poem of resurrection. Because Jesus rose from the dead, I can read this poem and see that the love this man had for his wife is not in vain. If Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, we should eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die, as Paul says. If Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, the man should have left his wife. She was sick, she was going to die, he could have lived. Each person for themselves, unless there is more to life than this. Unless God goes further toward us than we can imagine. And if this story is true. If this tomb is empty, and this Jesus is God, then the love of that couple is a grace that is not limited just to poetry or to history. It is a grace that points to God. Because each instance of embodied love points to the God who is love who became embodied in Jesus Christ. Who came from the far country to reside with us, abide with us, and to send us out.
Resurrection was not embodied by Mary until she spoke of it. She went to the tomb. It was her duty. She performed the duty of love. She did not leave when the men did. She stayed and weeped and then she looked for Jesus, she did not see him, but when she listened, she understood that he was risen indeed. And then she spoke of it. She shared of it. It was not a light to keep under her bushel. It was something to tell others about. Have you heard this?
- There is more to this life than eating and drinking and being merry.
- There is more to life than survival.
- There is more to living than not dying. Jesus invites us to this embodied love, and if we follow like Mary, we realize God has already come down to be with us, to strengthen, forgive, encourage, embolden, to send us to speak of this amazing reality. Christ the Lord is risen this day.
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.