"MINE EYES HAVE SEEN THE GLORY"
EASTER

03/27/05  The Rev. Alan Jackson

SERMON

Dan Brown wrote a highly successful suspense novel entitled The DaVinci Code. The book has sold very well. Unfortunately, it has also bamboozled a lot of people with fiction masquerading as fact. I thought of that book this past week because Mary Magdalene occupies a key role in both the novel and in John's account of the resurrection. Without giving away too much of the plot (in case any of you might be currently reading the book) I think we can safely say that central to the novel is the contention that for two thousand years the Church has conspired to cover up the alleged "fact" that Jesus had been married to, and had children with, Mary Magdalene.
 
Now if that were true, that would be a startling discovery. But the truly fatuous thing about The DaVinci Code is that Mr. Brown seems to think, hence the characters in his story seem to think, that this revelation would destroy the Christian faith, because it would prove that Jesus was human. If the idea of Jesus being human is news to you, I'd invite you to open our Hymnal to selection 138. You will find there one of the church's earliest affirmations of faith – the Nicene Creed. Close to the middle of that creed you'll notice what it says about Jesus: "…born of the Virgin Mary and was made human."
 
The notion that Jesus' humanity would destroy the faith has to be one of the more air-headed notions in recent history. If Easter Sunday has any real meaning, if our worship this morning contains any real hope or joy, it rests precisely in the fact that as a real human being, Jesus really died. Without a real death, there cannot be a real resurrection. If Jesus, as a true human being, had not become truly dead on Good Friday, if his death was just play-acting on the part of a divine being, if he never got to the point when the heart's electrical activity stops, the blood within the body pools and discolors, and the brain goes dead, then, as St. Paul put it, we of all people are most pitiably deluded.
 
Now, anyone who has ever had to deal with the death of a dear one knows that the finality of death can make you desperate and just a little crazy. You can't fix it, reverse it, or make it go away. The person you loved is gone in such a way that you cannot reach him or her any longer. My heart aches for those of you who say to me, in the months following the death of a spouse, "Just about every day I catch myself thinking, ‘I can't wait to tell him about this.'" And then that sickening feeling of finality grabs you anew the moment you find yourself wishing it. You can't tell him anything. Not anymore.
 
That is our common human lot, and it was Jesus' human lot, too. He was that dead, that irretrievably gone. And yet he returned. And that is the good news we celebrate today. The gospel is based on the promise that if God could do that for Jesus, we have living proof that he can and will do it for every one of us. The Bible makes it clear that Jesus could not raise himself. Yes, we believe Jesus was fully divine and well as fully human. But for two thousand years we have been confessing that the power of God the Father did for Jesus what Jesus, as a dead human being, could not do for himself.
 
His divine nature was no guarantee that Jesus would not stay dead. His body could have decomposed in that tomb the same as anyone else. Jesus was raised from the dead only because of and by the power of God his Father. And that is our one great hope; because without God's help, you and I would stay utterly dead the moment our hearts shut down. But Jesus demonstrates God's fierce determination not to let that happen. We can and will be raised because Jesus was raised. That is what today is about.
 
And that is why all the astonishment and joy of John chapter 20 is so authentic. John tells the climax of the gospel story, but he does so in about as understated a way as can be done. Here we have no pre-dawn earthquakes, no soldiers fainting dead away. Like the other gospels, we have absolutely no description of the moment Jesus emerged from the tomb. John purposely keeps this whole story on the level of ordinary expectations so that when those typical expectations are shattered by the new thing God has done, our amazement and awe will be all the greater.
 
The account begins with Mary Magdalene going to the tomb. On discovering that the stone had been removed from the entrance, Mary could only assume the worst and ran for help. Mary's response is quite understandable. Jesus had died; and since Mary knew what dead looked like and how undeniably Jesus had fit the bill that past Friday, if he wasn't in the tomb where they had laid him, someone else must have taken the body. As a rule, dead people don't do a lot for themselves.
 
So Peter and the other disciple (probably John) came running and, after a more thorough investigation of the alleged crime scene, they came to the same conclusion. When John says he "saw and believed" in vs. 8, it's clear he believed that something fishy, perhaps even grizzly, had been going on. Whatever they may have been thinking, the passage makes it quite clear that neither Mary nor Peter nor John had realized that Jesus had been raised from the dead.
 
The two disciples returned home, bewildered and frustrated and probably angry – while Mary remained, weeping over this last indignity visited upon the body of this man she loved. Presently, the risen Jesus asked Mary why she was crying. Of course, we know that it was Jesus standing there; but Mary didn't recognize him – she was probably too distraught. We might be tempted to read Jesus' words in a tone similar to what a parent would take toward a child who is crying over a dead pet when, in reality, the pet is just fine and sleeping in the corner. "Jimmy, why are you crying? Open your eyes. Squeaky is right over there!" But I don't believe there was any condescension in Jesus' voice. I say that because Jesus knew better than anyone that Mary was weeping the same tears that have been part of the human story for ever so long now.
 
Mary was crying because, just as we all must, she had come face-to-face with the irretrievable finality of death. She was weeping because death had done to Jesus' body what death does to each person's body: rendering it vulnerable to decay, as well as defenseless against the whims of those who might be warped enough to abuse a corpse.
 
And so, out of deep compassion and empathy, Jesus asked Mary why she was crying. Jesus knew that Mary stood that morning as an emblem of the whole human condition. And I'm here to tell you that it is precisely into that state of dereliction that Easter has to break forth. Do you know where Easter happens? There's a profound sense in which Easter doesn't happen in the places where people gathered this morning to watch the sunrise. Easter doesn't happen here in this place or in any similarly decked-out-in-white church sanctuary. Easter doesn't happen when our families gather around the dinner table to feast this afternoon.
 
Let me tell you where Easter happens. Easter happens in the E.R. when the doctor comes out to the waiting area and shakes his head: "I'm so sorry – we couldn't save him." Easter happens at the funeral home where that first glimpse of Dad in the coffin hits you so hard so you can hardly breathe. Easter happens in those dark places where people slowly kill themselves with drugs, where life has become a living death. Easter happens in the nursing home where once strong-bodied men and women watch their peers disappear one by one, and where these wheelchair-bound precious people know that all of life has now come down to this long wait for death. Easter happens where death is, because that is the only place it is needed.
 
Is there a place inside of you that is dead like that? Today, no less than on that long-ago morning outside Jerusalem, Jesus still catches us by surprise and asks, "Why are you weeping? Why are you depressed? Why are you abusing your body? Why are you so afraid that you, too, will end up in that wheelchair? Why are you so sad?" Every one of those questions has a logical answer. None of us weeps without cause. Mary didn't either. She, like every one of us, had a perfectly good reason to cry that morning. And had God not done that day a new thing the likes of which the world had never known, Mary could have gone on crying and it would have been entirely appropriate.
 
That's why Jesus didn't rebuke her. There was no hint of "Knock it off" or "Come on, woman, open your eyes!" Jesus knew that Mary needed to spill those tears if the truth of what had just happened was going to come to mean exactly what it still means for all of us: that we have the hope of new life right where we need it most: in the midst of a world full of death and dying. Has Easter dawned on you that way? It can.
 
There's one more thing that John chapter 20 might teach us. Once Mary recognized who was behind her, she evidently threw herself at Jesus in a hug – but he stopped her. Now, that doesn't seem very nice. Granted, there are people who will hug for any reason at all and those who clearly prefer a civil handshake. But even those who aren't huggers will allow an embrace on occasions of singular joy and astonishment. For instance, you may typically dislike hugs. But I can guarantee that if your kid sinks the winning basket with one second left on the clock, you would welcome a hug from just about anyone near you in the bleachers.
 
But it was not so with Jesus on this incredibly joyous occasion. "No hugs," he as much as said to Mary. "Do not hold onto me, for I have not yet returned to the Father," were his words. Well excuse me, but hugging him after he ascended to heaven would be a whole lot more difficult. So what does this mean? I think it is part and parcel of John's larger Easter portrait, all of which is understated. Perhaps what he's getting at is that for now, you and I, like Mary, cannot grab Easter fully.
 
"Mary, you can't hold me here," Jesus said. And yet I'm sure that's exactly what she wanted to do. I'm sure she wanted to wrap her arms around his neck and not let go. I suspect she wanted to grab his hands and then just sit there, staring into his eyes. Now that she had her beloved Lord with her once more, she never wanted to lose him again. Yet Jesus said she had to let go.
 
The ascension had to happen. And if there was to be no holding onto Jesus before the ascension, we're here today as living witnesses to the fact that there is no embracing him after that ascension, either. It seems that if Mary Magdalene stood for all humanity when she wept over the sadness of death's presence in our world, she also stands for all of us even after she learned the truth of Easter. She, like we, can't quite yet take hold of that resurrected person in the middle of the story. She, like we, couldn't hold him there – keep him there. Life goes on, death continues to stalk us, and we are left with many tears that have not yet been dried from our eyes.
 
But I want you to notice one last thing. Before the Easter drama was over, Mary ran to where the other disciples were and she became the first apostle of the Christian Church. She was the first to declare to another, "I have seen the Lord!" She saw him – she knew she had seen him – even if she could not hold onto him. The same is true for us.
 
Folks, the good news we have to share on this Easter morning is that if you open yourself to a relationship with Jesus, you also will see the Lord – probably not with your eyes (although a blessed few have had that experience) but I promise that you will recognize him. Like Mary, you may well still do your share of crying. But remember that it's in the midst of those tears that Easter happens. You discover a hope, and then you cling to that hope, to remind yourself that death is not the end.
 
John chapter 20 is unstinting in its realism. You may wonder how a story about something as seemingly surreal as the resurrection could be a good example of realism. And yet John reminds us of what Jesus has always done – and still does. He comes up behind us in a world that properly makes us weep; he quietly calls our names and points us to the grand thing that God once did for his Son and will again do for every one of us.
 
Now, you and I can no more prove that today than we, or Mary, could hold Jesus to any given spot. But if you will invite Jesus into a personal relationship, your eyes will see God's Easter glory. Perhaps the light of that glory will be refracted into your heart through the prism of your own tears, but you will see it. As with Mary, you too will have seen the Lord. And for now, that is enough.
 

amen

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