April 24^th – Easter Sunday

Acts 10: 34, 37-43    Ps 118    Col 3:1-4 or 1 Cor 5: 6-8   John 20: 1-18

1.         The two Apostles arrive first at the Tomb.

The do not see Jesus.

They only see an empty tomb.

For on that is enough to make him believe.

Jesus had said: "The Son of man must suffer many things and be killed, and on the third day be raised." Luke 9:22.

Simon Peter – he came, he saw, he left. He was perhaps unconvinced? Confused? Bewildered?  Perhaps he was slow and it took him time to process what his eyes had or had not seen.

But the two Apostles did not tarry. They did not stay. They did not sit still and realise that God was very near. The woman however – she stayed! She was rewarded.

2.         As we celebrate Easter, I find it very symbolic that the Risen Christ should appear first to two women. The first one is not even mentioned in the Gospels. Jesus took the time while in torment on the cross to make provisions for Mary, his mother. Jesus said to the disciple, 'Behold, your mother!’" (Jn 19:26-27). I firmly believe that she was the first person to see the Risen Lord. What took place in that encounter is too precious and too sacred to put into the written word. It is material for our prayer and contemplation.

3.         The first recorded appearance of the Risen Lord is to Mary Magdalene.

A woman! Teyve, the Fiddler on the Roof would have exclaimed. Unbelievable, unheard of! Tradition, tradition, what would happen without tradition. Tradition is a holy and beautiful thing. It keeps us from repeating the mistakes others have done in the past. But the downside of relying only on tradition is that we try to put in a box, the God of Surprises.   As we read this story people will draw different lessons for themselves.

Mary Magdalene is sometimes identified as the sinner who washed the feet of Jesus at the house of Simon the Leper. If that is the case, then a Messenger from Jesus, an Apostle of Jesus could be anyone. It could be a sinner or saint, man or woman, educated or illiterate. As Isaiah says in ch 55, the Word of the Lord will go forth and not return without empty. It will accomplish that for which God sent it.

            It would help if we were holy. It would help if we were knowledgeable in the Gospels. However, the Holy Spirit gives knowledge, understanding and wisdom. It is God’s spirit that gives us the courage to put the message of God in our daily lives.

4.         However for our prayer let us focus on the encounter between Mary Magdalene and Jesus. “She saw Jesus standing there, but did not know that it was Jesus.” I would like to offer two scenarios, which we could take for prayer.

First Scenario: Mary has come to the garden with her own agenda. She takes Jesus to be the gardener. Like the Apostles, she had heard Jesus say three times that the Son of Man would suffer and be put to death. She has also heard him say that he would rise on the third day.  But like the Apostles, she did not believe. She did not say like Thomas, unless I can put my finger into the holes that the nails have made, I will not believe. But she definitely acted in the same way.

            She saw Jesus, the gardener. According to tradition and in the presence of a strange man, she probably did not look Jesus in the eyes. She probably stared at the ground when she talked. “If you have taken him, let me know where you have put him.”

            Her agenda was: Jesus died and did not have a proper burial. I am going to see that the right thing is done. In a way she represents each one of us as we come into God’s presence with our prayers.

            Jesus told us seek and you will find, ask and it will be given to you, knock and the door will be opened to you. So we come to God with our petitions as we should. But we do not stop there. We have a blue print, a floor plan as to how God should answer our prayers. We have the date, time and place.

• ·      Dear God, my son, my mother, my friend is sick with cancer. Just cure him/her – preferably by the 1^st of May.
• ·      Dear God, I have a boss who is arrogant and stubborn – please take him away, give him a transfer, promote him to another section. And so we pray! 

The other scenario:

Mary Magdalene goes to the burial place. We too visit cemeteries. We visit the graves of those near and dear one.  Even if they have died a few years ago, there is still an emptiness and dull pain. For Magdalene, the pain was fresh, the pain was deep. Jesus had said, “Luke 7:36-50 "She Loved Much Because She Was Forgiven Much"

Now to make matters worse, the tomb was empty. We hear about vandalised tombs in our times. But this was not the case. There was confusion now. It compounds the pain of loosing a dear one. Will anyone tell her what has happened?

Then Jesus appears and calls her by name. Anyone who has been acknowledged by name, knows the pleasure it brings. The joy that fills Mary must be in proportion to the pain she recently felt.  This is Jesus. He is not like Lazarus whom Jesus had brought back to life. In that case it was Lazarus resuscitated, or Lazarus recycled. Same height, same weight, same scars, same grey hairs or bald!

The Risen Jesus is not tied down by space, by time, by material barriers. It is the first hope or sign of the life that awaits those with whom God finds favour.

Mary encountered Jesus in a totally different way. So will each one of us who has not seen, but believe. Mary was the FIRST to encounter Jesus, but she will not be the last.

The risen Christ is constantly in our midst. We ought to feel his presence.  In the letter to the Corinthians, Paul speaks of the Jewish housewife who thoroughly cleant the house before Passover. There was not a sign of leavened bread in the house. Paul invites us to clean our own household of the leaven of – anger? Hatred? Envy? Revenge? – anything that would hinder us from celebrating this Paschal feast of Christ the Lamb without blemish.

Easter is all around us – for us to see. Elizabeth Barrett Browning referring to Moses and the Burning bush would say:

Earth is crammed with heaven. Every bush afire with God.

Those who see, remove their shoes. The rest sit around plucking blackberries.

We are called to bask in the light of the risen Lord, not to sit around and pluck at shadows.