Still Weeping?

by Dan McCoig

Still Weeping? | John 20:1-18 | Easter Sunday 2014 | Dan McCoig

 

1.

 

Listen to what Nadia Bolz-Weber tells persons as they join her Lutheran congregation in Denver, the House for All Sinners and Saints.  She tells them that at some point in their association with the congregation they will become disappointed, perhaps even discouraged.  Someone will say or do something that doesn’t quite measure up.  Someone will not say or do something you thought they should have.  A particular ministry or program will not go as planned or hoped.  That someone may even be her.  In fact, she tells them to bank on it.  And then she says, you will, in all likelihood disappoint persons.  You will say or do something that doesn’t quite measure up.  You will not say or do something others had expected you to say or do.

 

Welcome to the human family.  Welcome to human community.

 

She then adds something else.  The Christian family is human.  The Christian community is human.  But, it is Christian.  At the point of disappointment, at the point of discouragement, resolve to stay, to stick it out, and see what God will do next.  Too often, we call it quits or withdraw or go home or take our toys and play elsewhere.  In doing so, we miss that next thing God has in store.

 

Hold that thought.

 

2.

 

The day of resurrection in John’s gospel begins early, before daybreak.  Only one person comes to the tomb, Mary Magdalene.  She notices something she neither understands nor can explain.  The sizable stone covering the tomb’s entrance has been moved.

 

Mary runs to Peter and the beloved disciple to tell them what she has seen and what she thinks has happened.  The truth of the matter she doesn’t really know.

Mary assumes that the tomb is empty and that someone has taken Jesus’ body.  This is what she tells Peter and the beloved disciple.  In the Christian tradition, the beloved disciple is the gospel writer, who does not name himself out of humility.

 

Peter and the beloved disciple are the ones who are running now.  They race to Jesus’ tomb.  The beloved disciple reaches the tomb first.  He looks into the tomb where he sees the burial cloths, but does not enter.  He awaits Peter, the first disciple, who enters the tomb where he too sees the burial cloths.  Peter also notices that the cloth used to wrap Jesus’ head, the shroud, is laying apart from the other cloths, evidently as if its wearer, Jesus, removed it himself.  Apparently, the beloved, who is now in the tomb as well, sees what Peter sees, and believes.

 

Then, the narrator — the gospel writer — tell us, the readers, that neither Peter nor the beloved disciple (nor Mary, for that matter) at that moment understood the scripture that Jesus must be raised from the dead.  Their faith was emerging, still forming, in process.  The same narrator tells us that Peter and the beloved returned to their homes.  Mary, however, remained at the tomb and continued to weep.  Mary stayed, despite her deep disappointment, her deep discouragement.  Mary stayed.

 

3.

 

Let’s spend some time in Mary’s company as we explore what John is telling us.  Unlike Peter and the beloved disciple, Mary chooses to linger at the tomb, weeping.  She stays.

 

None of them knew what to make of the empty tomb.  Peter returns home, neither believing nor disbelieving.  The beloved disciple returns home as well, but believing.  The writer doesn’t spell out the content of his belief.  From the context, we are to infer that his belief was that God raised Jesus from the dead, vindicating his life and ministry, and especially his saving death.

 

Like Peter, Mary is described as neither believing nor not believing.  Unlike Peter, Mary, rather than returning home, stays.  She may not know what in the world is going on — she may be disappointed, discouraged — but she is going to stay put and await something, whatever it may be.

 

Mary stoops and through her tears looks into the tomb where she sees two figures in white.  They are angels.  Having left, Peter and the beloved disciple miss out on this angelic visitation.  Having left, Peter and the beloved disciple also miss out on Jesus’ first post-resurrection appearance.

 

One of the angels asks Mary why she is weeping and who she is looking for.  She tells the angel what she told Peter and the beloved disciple.  

 

Then, Mary turns, perhaps looking from the dark of the tomb out into the dawning of the new day, and sees Jesus.  At first, she fails to recognize him.  Jesus essentially repeats the angel’s questions.

 

Mary does not, however, repeat the answer she gave the angels.  Rather, mistaking Jesus for a gardener, Mary tells him to please tell her where her Lord’s body has been laid so that she can properly attend to it.

 

4.

 

Believers across the centuries have wondered how Mary Magdalene could not recognize the man she had followed for so long?  Did her grief fog her mind and prevent her from thinking clearly?  Were her eyes so tear filled that her vision was blurred?  Maybe.  It’s hard to say.  It’s possible that Mary was in the dark of the tomb looking out at Jesus who was standing in the light of the dawn.  Jesus was silhouetted.  Silhouettes lack distinguishable features.

 

There is a theological answer.  Jesus’ new body was a glorified or resurrection body, something not of this world.  It was something beyond Mary’s experience.  

 

You can pick your explanation as to why Mary did not recognize Jesus.  Grief.  Disbelief.  Awkward lighting.  Theology.

 

How about another explanation?  Might Mary have been simply stunned by a dead man suddenly alive?  In my experience, dead people stay dead.  I strongly suspect that this was Mary’s experience as well.  I don’t know if I would fare any better than Mary if I was at the grave of someone I loved and the deceased beloved showed up.

 

5.

 

This brings us to what one commentator calls the most tender passage in John’s gospel.  Jesus speaks Mary’s name:  “Miriam.”  And Mary responds:  “Rabbouni!”  Mary’s perseverance, her staying, bears fruit.

 

There are only a handful of Aramaic words preserved in the gospel.  Here in the space of two sentences John has preserved two of them.  “Miriam” and “rabbouni.”  Biblical scholars get very excited about Aramaic words in the gospels because there is a high likelihood that they truly reach all the way back to very lips of Jesus himself.

 

Of late, I have been reading and praying the scriptures using the Ignatian way.  The Ignatian way was developed by Ignatius of Loyola in the 16th century for his order — The Society of Jesus, the Jesuits.  The Ignatian way encourages believers to read and pray the scriptures using the imagination and the five senses.  We are to place ourselves in the story and ask what we see, hear, smell, feel, and taste.

 

I want you to imagine yourself as Mary Magdalene.  You hear the words:  “Why are you weeping?  For whom are you looking?”  You may have even thought to yourself, “What dumb questions given whose tomb I am in?”  But you also hear the voice.  It’s different from the angel’s.  It’s familiar.  In fact, it’s very familiar.  It is the voice of Jesus, but how in the world could that be.  You saw firsthand what had become of Jesus.  Most of the others scattered and fled.  But not you.  Not the beloved disciple.  You remained at the foot of cross and saw Jesus breath his last.  You heard his dying words.  And, now, you have remained again, staying at the tomb.  Jesus died.  Jesus is dead.  But . . . here he is.  That’s clearly his voice.

 

According to Father James Martin, a Jesuit priest and author of “Jesus:  A Pilgrimage”, there was something in Jesus’ speaking her name that resulted in Mary’s recognition of Jesus.  Although Mary could not quite make out the features of the silhouetted Jesus, she could make out his voice with its distinctive Galilean accented Aramaic.  It’s the same voice that healed her of the demons that plagued her.  It’s the same voice that made her whole.  It’s the same voice that welcomed her of all people — someone with a jaded personal history — into his circle of friends.  It’s the same voice that told her she was valued beyond all measure in the eyes of God.  It’s the same voice that answered the troubled questions of her soul.  It’s the same voice that counseled her near the end of his earthly life.  It’s the same voice that cried out in pain from the cross and declared “It is finished.”

 

Mary knew that voice.  It was a voice that had spoken to her in love.  She recognized Jesus.  In the words of Father Martin, “ . . . sometimes seeing is not believing.  But, loving and being loved is.”

 

6.

 

In a recent conversation, someone asked me whether I ever heard God.  I said , “Yes.”  I added that I believe in some way and to varying degrees we all do.  The person then asked, “Audibly?”  I said, “No, usually it comes through hunches, intuitions, at the intersection of multiple experiences both good and bad, the words of trusted family and friends, scripture, beloved authors, silence, beauty, tragedy.  It’s the voice that calls me to be who I was meant to be.  Sometimes I would rather not hear it.”

 

St. Ignatius counseled that the voice of God in our lives is recognizable because it will often be uplifting, consoling, encouraging.  All of this was true for Mary.  The voice lifted her up.  It consoled and encouraged her.  It provided her with what she needed most.

 

I would counsel that the voice of God in our lives is recognizable because it is true and it is what we most need to hear if only we would listen.  Listening takes perseverance, staying power, lingering.  I would  also counsel that recognizing the voice of God in our lives takes a lot of practice and no small amount of patience in the course of the practice.  The time Mary spent in the company of Jesus and Jesus’ community, the time she spent listening to him aided her in hearing him once again at the tomb.

 

Mary Magdalene sets out on a run to tell the disciples that she has seen the Lord.  The Christian faith has tagged Mary with numerous descriptors:  demon possessed, prostitute, sinner, female disciple.  On the first Easter, Mary got a new descriptor.  She became the apostle to the apostles, the one sent to those who are sent, the announcer of good news to the announcers of good news.

 

6.

 

The Day of Resurrection shows the Risen Lord meeting Mary, the one who stayed and would not leave, where she was.  Easter Sunday is about possibility.  Not human possibility, but divine possibility.

 

After Good Friday, where were most of the disciples?  They were cowering behind closed doors.  They were afraid.  They were terrified.   They could not see beyond the walls of that closed room.  That was their possible.  God’s possible was something else:  resurrection.  The disciples had a very hard time accepting that God was greater than their imaginations.  

 

Jesus unbound Lazarus from his tomb.  God unbound Jesus from his tomb.    The risen Jesus unbound Mary from her tomb.  The risen Jesus unbinds us from our tombs.

 

For me, Easter is God’s annual reminder to emerge from my hiding place and accompany the likes of the world’s Marys, the ones who stay, who see this faith stuff through — weeping sometimes, searching always, and ultimately blinded by the the resurrection dawn, surprised, delighted, and moved to utter joy.

 

Easter is God’s call to us to trust what Mary saw.  And this is what Mary saw:  Jesus Christ is risen.

 

Amen.