Rev Nicole Trotter
Easter 2018
Turn Around
John 20:1-18
It’s all right here…in one holy piece of ancient wisdom…from the gospel of John…it’s all right there…All we have to do is live into it….. There’s nothing I can say to shed any light on it…there’s not even anything to prove or convince you of…John has done it all for me…And he’s done it all for you. I’m not sure any sermon can do John’s gospel justice.… But before you get too excited that you’re getting home early…let me at least try, not so we can see what I can do with it, but rather that we might all hear what John has already done for us. John gives us a place to begin…on the first day of the week…early in the morning…while it’s still dark. No other Gospel writer includes the dark, but John does. John likes to do that throughout his gospel…can we just stay there, for a moment…go back with me to the dark…the darkest moment just before dawn, in grief, on our way to the tomb. And Mary Magdalene is doing what all people do when they grieve their loved ones…she’s going to pay her respects, out of desire…desire to feel closer by physically getting closer to the body of Jesus, because that’s all that’s left now…his body…and maybe in getting closer to his body, she has a better chance at feeling close to him again…the way she did when he was alive…That’s what we do…in darkness, we search, out of desire…we search…It was still dark, and she's searching…That’s not just a metaphor, that’s the reality of our lives, especially if you’ve had the privilege of living past 50. Because by then the chances of life throwing you a curve ball, one that causes you to turn, and wonder how you got here, in this place you could never imagined, and the lights go out. It’s still dark. Sit there with me for just a moment longer, I know it’s Easter… But Easter morning doesn’t happen as just one more celebration among many…it’s born out of darkness, out of Good Friday…from
~~~Meanwhile though…Peter and the other disciple…(who John never gives a name) why is that? Our Weds Bible study came to a consensus on this…In the form of a question….Maybe it’s so that we can see ourselves in the narrative? That we can insert our own name into that of the one whom Jesus loves. Maybe we can, like him, allow ourselves to enter the tomb, to see it, and as John says in verse 9… to see it and believe it….Can we see it and believe it? But then this….this could be my favorite line…The disciple saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. They see it, believe it… but could not yet fully understand it. If that’s not our entire journey with God… We see God working in our lives, we believe God is working in our lives, but we can’t begin to fully understand it. So we too often dismiss it. As something we did, or we call it coincidence, or we settle for metaphors. That’s what our western culture especially our modern
Mary stays….she doesn't go home, but stays. She stays in the tomb and weeps…and it’s through her tears….and her deep desire to see him….that she’s visited by angels. In the place where the body should be, one angel at the feet one at the head…Mary doesn’t seemed phased by the appearance of angels, only that the body is gone. Almost as though she misses the very thing that should take her breath away because she’s so fixated on getting what she set out for. They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. She turned around, in her grief, to see Jesus, but didn’t know it was him, couldn’t possibly fully understand that God had shown up for her…Because she’s still looking for a body…the way she knows and understands a body to be…she can't yet see how God has shown up for her… Just as God shows up for us….time and time again…if only we would see it and believe it….Our Vulnerability is our greatest strength- to be fully in touch with our desire…allows God a space to show up…in our being…rather than our fixing, in our listening, rather than our talking….God enters….and speaks our name.
Mary….Mary… And Mary turns again…just turns… to the hearing of her name and this time… sees him and knows.
God claims us before we are born…
In the deeply personal experience of God, is perhaps when we are most sure. Can you wrap your head, not your head, but your heart that these experiences in life that take your breath away are for you, personally gifted for you, because God loves you and knows you that intimately and personally? Mary would know all too well the psalmist song…For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb….My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
The unexplainable, incomprehensible resurrection of Jesus Christ is experienced…that’s how you know it’s real. It’s experienced perhaps especially in the dark, when you’ve all but given up, and something happens to bring you back home, to breathe again, to love again, to trust again. That’s a resurrection appearance and it’s a gift. And when we accept it, everything is brighter and life itself is gifted to you and for you as you are a part of this incredible creation we've been gifted. Bunnies and baby chicks and butterflies are resurrection symbols because they represent new life. But your life is
Rev Barbara Brown Taylor put it this way…
Jesus was not on his way back to her and the others. He was on his way to God, and he was taking the whole world with him. This may be why all the other Gospel accounts of the resurrection tell us not to be