Readings Acts10 34 to 43 John20 1 to 18

Alleluia Christ is Risen! He is risen indeed, Alleluia!
A message of hope then and a message of hope today.

These past few years we have witnessed on our television screens many times, women weeping in places across the world. Weeping the tragedy of a death, whether through warfare or forced separation it is a scene that we are all too familiar with.

John tells us that having seen Jesus die on the cross Mary Magdelene comes, so she thinks, to offer one last gift of love, to the man who changed her life. She has been weeping, but she knows that there are things still left to be done. These were the important rituals of anointing and there had not been time enough to complete them because the Sabbath had intervened. She enters into the garden and moves towards the tomb. But when she arrives, she cannot believe her eyes. The tomb is already open and empty! So for her, seeing the empty tomb must have seemed like another twist of the knife. Someone’s taken him away. Was it the gardener: or a labourer, or even a cruel trick by the soldiers, or Herod’s servant. But who?

There then begins a period of hectic activity, more running takes place in these few verses than in all the rest of the gospels! Mary goes and gets Peter and John. They run to the tomb. John stops outside, Peter rushes past and goes in no doubt exclaiming ‘what’s going on?’ but then John goes in himself. Both of them see something that puzzles them. The linen cloth that had been carefully wrapped around his body was lying there, like a deflated balloon, and the cloth that had been used to wrap around the head of Jesus was lying by itself removed from the rest.

Both of them saw the same evidence but only one at that moment realised what had happened. Hope rises in John… but Mary remains there, weeping.

There comes a moment in any bereavement, when we can restrain ourselves no longer and our tears flow. For Mary, the final breaking point is that even the body has vanished. Bitter despair, loss, hopelessness, and utter confusion overwhelm her.

But the story thankfully, does not end there.

Someone is standing behind her, he questions her: 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.”

Mary in one way is exactly right. Jesus is the second Adam. The first Adam was a gardener, given the responsibility of looking after God’s perfect creation. The second Adam stands before her, and names his new creation. “Mary!”

She shouts ‘Raboni’ or ‘Teacher’ and flings herself at him, but he will not let her hold on to him. For Jesus, there are still things to do. There is not a moment to lose.

‘Go Mary… tell your brothers’

At that instant, Mary Magdalene becomes the first Apostle. If you had thought that Peter held that title, well, scripture most firmly shows us that Mary was the first person, after the resurrection that Jesus sent to be a witness of the resurrection for the word Apostle means ‘one who is sent’ – no more, no less. And so she goes, running through the empty early morning streets of Jerusalem and she bursts in through the door and shouts: ‘I have seen the Lord!’

As David Runcorn put it in his book ‘Rumours of Life’, the news of the resurrection broke upon the world as a rumour spread by the women. Anyone wanting to claim that these stories were made up by later Christians has to explain the scandal of this central detail. In the culture of those days, no-one inventing a resurrection story would start like this. But Mary witnessed to an event everyone thought was impossible. The physical raising of Jesus from the dead was the most outstanding miracle of all time. 

The bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ is central to our faith. Without it, we might just as well pack up and go home.

In a world which is often short of good news, at Easter (and every Sunday) we celebrate the fact that God not only has entered into our world and shared our sufferings, but he has also provided the means by which we can enter an eternal relationship with him.

Jesus went to the cross voluntarily. Maundy Thursday’s readings show us that he struggled in the Garden of Gethsemane when he understood that for a time, when he was carrying the sins of the world on the cross, he would of necessity be cut-off from his Father’s love, as the cup that he had to drink was the wrath of God against all the sin and evil in the world. He wouldn’t be human if he didn’t recoil in horror from what he had to face.

But he went to the cross because of love. God didn’t hate the world so much that he sent his Son into the world to save us from our sins – it is that God so loved the world that he sent his Son to save us. And it is this clear message that we need to get out there. So, today, we can raise our voices and shout together with Mary and with Christians everywhere: Alleluia Christ is Risen! He is risen indeed, Alleluia!

Happy Easter everyone! Peter