Nevertheless, Love Persisted

Easter Sunrise Service - 6:45 am

John 20:1-18

Christ is risen—Christ is risen indeed! Just two days ago, at the foot of the cross, we heard Jesus say, ‘it is finished’. He bowed his head and died. But here we are, on the third day, knowing that it is, in fact, not finished. As the story from John is told, Jesus knew each step of the along the way of what was happening. He knew he was to be betrayed. He knew he would be arrested. Within the gong-show that was his so-called trial, Pontius Pilate tried to negotiate with Jesus in order to spare his life. However, Jesus did not relent. He spoke his truth—God’s truth—all the way to Golgotha. Right to the end. And yet, he said, just before he died, ‘it is finished’. Another translation might be, ‘it is accomplished’ and thereby announcing that his work, his ministry was over, completed. Either way, it seems, in that moment, that Jesus believed his work on earth, his ministry in the world, was at its end. And, I have to say, if it were the last that had been seen of him, if that was the last encounter with his followers, his work then might truly have been concluded. Despite knowing the tick-tock (as Sean Spicer, the beloved press secretary of Donald Trump is wont to say), despite knowing the tick-tock, the series of events that would lead to the cruelty of the cross, Jesus did not seem to be aware of what the next actions of God would be—that God would not allow death to be Jesus’ final moment on earth, that God’s love would overcome hate, fear and power. And so, although he thought his work was finished, that his time was over, it was not. God was not yet done with Jesus. Jesus had work yet to do.  And so, love trumped hate. In the resurrection of Jesus, the one that we call Christ, God’s compassion and love set aside the fear, the uncertainty and the greed that was dominating the social and economic systems of the world. And, in his resurrection, it became understood that Jesus was, indeed, the Risen Christ, the messiah, the saviour, the healing and hope for the world.

This story today of discovering the empty tomb is full of beautiful imagery and notable moments. It is hard to know even where to focus. Did you catch that it was still dark when Mary went to the tomb? From the growing darkness of our Lenten journey, to the black of Good Friday, Mary emerges to visit the tomb. She is still in the dark, so to speak. She has no idea of what she is about to encounter. And, did you notice that she didn’t stop to look into the tomb? She knew something was terribly wrong and just as if we arrived at the gravesite of our beloved and saw the headstone toppled and broken, we would not linger, we would run. We would go get help. And so, she runs to get her friends, two disciples of Jesus. The one who is lifted up as the Beloved, looks in and sees the tomb empty and believes. As simple as that. The cloths used to cover the body and face of Jesus lay there in the tomb, neatly folded. Clearly the body has not been stolen, for who would take the effort to remove and fold the cloths? Much less wish to carry a now naked corpse to wherever they were going? No one. And so the disciple seems to understand that something extraordinary happened. It’s not explained exactly WHAT he believes, just that he does. Peter, on the other hand, the Rock upon which Jesus was to build his church, looked in and saw the same emptiness, the same folded cloths, but then left with the Beloved, uncertain of what he saw. I wonder if he just needed a bit more time for reconciling what he had heard through his travels with Jesus and then being confronted with the empty tomb. An Anglican priest, R.S. Thomas, seems to acknowledge how many of us realize, only over time, the significance of what happened earlier in our lives. He writes…

… There have been times

when, after long on my knees

in a cold chancel, a stone has rolled

from my mind, and I have looked

in and seen the old questions lie

folded and in a place

by themselves, like the piled

graveclothes of love’s risen body.

 And so Peter and the Beloved left, one believing and the other uncertain.

Mary however. Mary stayed. And in her staying, she came face to face with the resurrected Christ. She called him ‘rabbouni’, meaning teacher, revealing herself to be a student of Jesus. Now there is a tendency in our modern day, to not catch the significance of this moment. To forget that in our Western society where the role of women is considered nearly equal to that of men, in the time of Jesus to have a woman be in such a prominent position in this pivotal story of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, is nothing short of remarkable. We cannot diminish here that for the authors and communities of the Gospels, women were valuable participants in the ministry of Jesus. History and kingdoms not of God’s making reduced and diminished the roles of women in the church until very recently in our modern time—very recently. But in this critical time of God being known to humanity, women were right there, alongside the men.  And so, we have this student of Jesus, this woman who was at the foot of the cross until death arrived and then at the tomb. Her friends have left. She arrived that morning, expecting there to be a corpse but instead finds the tomb empty. She finds the tomb empty and, still, she stayed. She persisted. She would not leave. In tears, she could not leave. It seems she was not quite ready to let go, to return home as the others did.

Simone Weil, French philosopher and mystic wrote,

“One must want to go towards reality; then, when one thinks one has found a corpse, one meets an angel who says, ‘He is risen.’ 

In her grief, she sees a man she does not recognize. He calls her name and suddenly she understands. She believes. She believes because, just as God loves each and every one of us, loves us so much that each hair on our heads are counted. Just as God loves us that much, Jesus, the Good Shepherd knows his flock, each and every one so that when the gate is opened he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. For anyone who has been called the wrong name, especially when you were growing up and you were called all your siblings names before your own—I was MarcImeanVicki for at least ten years of my life—if you’ve been there,  you might appreciate how Mary might have felt in that moment.  The Risen Jesus, in his life beyond death, still knows who Mary is, what her name is. Think about this for a moment. When you turn to your own beloved, to your parent, to your dear friend, and maybe it hasn’t been the best of days, and you ask, ‘do you love me?’ It wouldn’t do for them to say, of course I love you—I love everyone, all of God’s people. NO. You want your beloved, your mom and your dad, your dear friend, to say, of course, I love YOU—I love you Heather, I love you Phillip, I love you Gary, I love you Elsa, I love you because I know you, I know your heart and I know your whole self. And it is this love that Mary hears early that morning on the third day after she lost her close friend, teacher and Rabbi.

In an instant Mary’s grief becomes joy. Jesus tells Mary not hold onto him, that he cannot return to how he had been, that things must change and that she must go forth and make this known. She understands that what was cannot remain the same. That they will not always have Jesus to be their leader, guiding them and telling them what needs doing. In his telling her that he will be ascending to God, she realizes that the disciples, the followers, those who loved and cared for Jesus will have to start figuring this out for themselves. Those who have understood his message that the Kingdom of God would break through only if they participated in God’s love and peace in the world, need now to realize in their discipleship, they have been transformed in how they experienced the world. They no longer allowed fear and scarcity guide their actions, hopes and dreams. The love of God, through the example of Jesus, was the new way of experiencing the world. God is the name we give to the way of living in which we experience the world as worthy of living for, fighting for, dying to our old way of being.

Jesus charged Mary to become the first resurrection preacher, to find his followers and share with them this Good News of the resurrection. The news that hate and death has not had the last the word, that goodness and love had prevailed. That to empire’s no, God has said yes and has overcome. It is this moment that propelled the ministry of the man Jesus, who, before his death, was itinerant preacher who moved from town to town speaking of the Kingdom of God, it is this moment at the empty tomb that takes his circuit rider ministry and reveals the work and teachings of Jesus to be that of the messiah, a saviour, of God incarnate. His work was not done on the cross. And so, we learn that Jesus’ work, his ministry was not finished. Neither Jesus or Mary could know the fullness of how God works in

the world. How God could and does work through and amongst us. In this moment of calling Mary by name, by showing his care and love for her and then sending her to spread the message that death did not win, hope was not only created, it was witnessed as being a reality. We are reminded that God loves each and every one of us beyond measure. That our presence matters and that we are to be participants in what is coming next, although as we do not fully understand what next is. Even Jesus, at the cross, did not know, Mary did not know what next was. But when called by God, they responded and carried on the ministry that was begun by the man born in a stable and who was baptised by the Holy Spirit. Declaring that love for one another shall always, each and every time, be the measure by which we live our lives, create policy, develop communities, structure our socieities—love one another, first and foremost. We know the resurrection of Jesus did not end violence, did not end persecution, didnot end marginalization of the widowed, the poor, the orphan. However. However, the resurrection showed how love persisted. Nevertheless, love persisted. Thanks be to God.