|
|
Easter For Three John
20:1-18 Easter
Sunday, Year A A sermon preached at
First UMC, De Queen/Gillham UMC on March 23, 2008 by The Revd David S.
Williams This is the
most ancient of Christian liturgies. I say, “The Lord is Risen,” and you all
say, “He is Risen Indeed.” Let’s try it, shall we . . . “The Lord is Risen.”
“He is Risen Indeed.” “The Lord is Risen.” “He is Risen Indeed.” In John’s
Easter story today, three of Jesus’ disciples play the main characters: Ø
Peter, fresh off
his denial of Jesus in Pilate’s courtyard, Ø
Mary Magdalene, one of the
courageous women who stood at the foot of the cross during Jesus’ execution, Ø
and the unnamed disciple
whom Jesus loved, who sat next to him at the last supper and was also present
at the crucifixion. The story
opens with a flurry of activity. Everyone is dashing about, running this way
and that. In other words, there is something about Easter that should produce
excitement, energy, the kind of energy present at a track meet. Faithful Mary
is at the tomb first this Easter
morning, while the male disciples are still sleeping, or cowering someplace in fear of the Romans – sounds
like an ordinary Sunday worship service to me, some are here and some are
still in bed. When Mary
arrives at the tomb, to her horror, she sees that the stone has been rolled
aside and the first thing she does is run. She runs away from the tomb,
bumping into Peter and the Disciple whom Jesus loved, who are finally out of
bed. Winded Mary
tells them what she has discovered. It’s bad news for now. The grave stone
has been rolled away and that can only mean one thing, the grave robbers have
already done their grizzly work. So she passes the baton to Peter and the
beloved disciple and they pick up the race, running in the direction Mary had
just come from, back in the direction of the empty tomb. Mary is
running away from the bad news, Peter and the other disciple run towards bad
news. That’s how bad news works. It
repels some and attracts others. All of this
takes place in the first four verses of today’s reading. In the next 14
verses, these three disciples encounter the resurrection of Jesus in three distinctly different ways. All
three disciples can be found in the garden this morning. Perhaps you
will identify with one or another of them, or maybe even all three. I want to
take a look at how each one experiences the resurrection of Jesus, and what
we can learn from them about the joy of Easter. The first is Peter. Let’s call
him Peter the detective. As soon as Mary passes the news to Peter and the
disciple whom Jesus loved, the two men take off at a sprint. John suggests
they actually race one another to get the tomb. The first
thing we discover about Peter, the same Peter who denied knowing Jesus, the same Peter upon whom Jesus will build his church, the one Jesus called the rock is, that, well, Peter runs like a rock. John makes a
point to tell us that the other disciple outran Rocky to the tomb. Once again,
Peter arrives late and out of breath. Peter gets into gear once he arrives,
however. He is the first disciple to actually go into the tomb and take a
look around. Peter
discovers two things inside the garden tomb, the linen wrappings that had
been around Jesus’ body, and a cloth that had been on Jesus’ head. That’s enough
for detective Peter. Wrappings,
cloth, no body. Like Mary, he
knows of only one conceptual possibility, “They have taken my Lord away and I do not know where they have laid
him.” Peter may not be a great athlete, but remember, he’s the detective disciple. In a world of
rationality, of cause and effect, with the laws of motion and mechanics
soundly in place, dead bodies do not
simply disappear. Somebody has to move them. So Peter leaves the empty tomb,
still unaware of the Lord’s resurrection. In fact, Peter
does not hear the extraordinary good news of Easter until much later, after
Mary’s encounter with the Risen Christ in the garden, after Mary rushes back
to the other disciples in their homes saying “I have seen the Lord.” Peter doesn’t believe until Mary tells
him, convinces him that his first impression was the wrong one, that his detective work was incomplete, that the good news is real, and death has been overcome forever. Perhaps some of you
might identify with Peter, the
detective disciple. The second disciple is Mary, her story
begins in sadness. Let’s call her the disciple
of hope. After making the awful discovery that the stone has been rolled
away, and after telling detective Peter and the disciple whom Jesus loved,
Mary returns to the tomb. The other two disciples analyze the situation and
go home. But Mary doesn’t. Rather, she stands outside the tomb and weeps. Hers is the
broken heart of one whose hopes have been dashed and dreams destroyed. Mary
loved Jesus, not by way of the Da Vinci Code myth of
romantic love and physical chemistry. Her love is of the deepest, most
abiding kind. She loved Jesus because Jesus loved her, a woman, perhaps even
a prostitute. Jesus valued
her. He gave her hope and purpose and a place in the world. He gave her a
community to take part in and loving friends to support her. She has come to
pay tribute to the body, to honor it as was the Jewish custom. And so she
weeps when she discovers the body is no longer there. It is then that Jesus appears to her. He
says to her, “Why are you weeping?”
The world
looks blurry through tears and she does not recognize him at first, assuming
him to be the gardener. It is not until Jesus calls her by name, “Mary!” that she sees and runs to hold him. Perhaps you are
like Mary this Easter morning in the garden, remembering someone who has
died. Easter is a fine morning to remember the dead and celebrate their
resurrection with Christ. Maybe you know
the resurrection because at some point in your life, perhaps when you were
overcome by grief and sadness, you sensed Jesus calling you by name, putting
his arms around you, assuring you that death does not have the final word, and the promise of eternal life can be
glimpsed in a loved one’s embrace. Mary then goes
to Peter and the other disciples proclaiming the good news, “I have seen the Lord.” Mary is the disciple of hope. Maybe some of you
identify with Mary this morning. The third disciple is the one whom Jesus
loved.
Let’s call him the disciple of trust.
Not only is he faster than Peter, he is the first disciple to actually look
inside the tomb. Ø
Mary is the first to see the stone is rolled away, Ø
Peter is the first to bodily walk inside, Ø
but this disciple is the first to get down on his knees and
take a look inside with his own eyes and see that the tomb is empty. At that
moment, John says, he saw and believed.
“He saw and believed.” The
disciples recognize the resurrection in different ways. Ø
Peter leaves the tomb without knowing and has to rely on Mary
to bring the good news. Ø
Mary sees the empty tomb and even has a conversation with
Jesus before she recognizes him when he calls her by name. Ø
Later on, Thomas won’t believe what the others say until he
actually touches the hands and side of the Risen Lord. Ø
But this disciple, the disciple
of trust, the disciple whom Jesus loved, after one look in the empty tomb
he sees and believes. Mary is the
first one to proclaim the Lord’s resurrection. She is the first Christian
preacher, the first one to say “The Lord is Risen!” But this
disciple, he is the first one to believe. Perhaps the Risen Christ has
never stood before you and called you by name as he did Mary. Jesus has
probably never offered you his punctured side and bleeding hands, as he did
to Thomas. Many of you
may be more like this disciple whom Jesus loved. You believe because you’ve
known Jesus for a long time and have come to trust him. Thus, when
this disciple saw the empty tomb he did not
think defeat, abandonment, a stolen body, or the laws of Physics. He thought
freedom, victory, life, Easter. Death has been conquered forever. So, whether
you are like Peter the detective,
not sure of the evidence and perhaps a little skeptical, and you’ve come this
morning because somebody else, somebody you love like Mary, has told you the
good news of the resurrection and brought you to the tomb. Or you are
like Mary and you have come because you know what it is like to weep over
someone you love, and you know what it is like for Jesus to call you by name,
to put his arms around you and hold you close in the joy of eternal life and
give you hope. Or you are
like the disciple whom Jesus loved, and you’ve been on a journey of
discipleship for a long time, so long that you have developed faith and trust in the one called the Christ,
and a quick glance in the empty tomb confirms what you already know to be
true. The good news
is that the risen Christ came to all
three of them, and will come to all of us – one way or another. And so my
friends, “The Lord is Risen.” “He is Risen Indeed.” Happy Easter. *Thanks to the inspiration of The Reverend Craig Kocher,
Assistant Dean of the Chapel and Director of Religious Life at Duke
University Chapel, for the sermon Which Disciple Are You? |
