This Sunday, we celebrate Easter. We will be looking at the account in John 20:1-18 as well as Colossians 3:1-4. The title of my sermon is “Bloom”, and it would be worth your time reflecting on the Colossians passage, specifically verse 2 which says “Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”
This is the time of year when I love to notice the greening of our world. I love watching the flowers bloom and the grass green up and the buds on the trees popping open after a long, cold winter.
I love the imagery of new life bursting upon a planet that’s been dormant for so long, especially after the kind of winter we have just come through here in NE Ohio.
But there is a pretty big difference between dormancy and death.
Easter has more to do with Creation ex nihilo than it does with flowers blooming. It’s more like the virgin birth than the Easter Bunny.
Mary goes to the tomb searching not for life, but for death. She seeks the lifeless body of her friend and teacher, and she is disappointed, shocked even, to discover it is missing.
So she runs and tells some other friends, John and Peter, who run to the tomb and find it just as she said.
There is no life there.
They satisfy their curiosity…they enter the tomb and confirm their suspicions…then they leave.
They returned to their homes, leaving Mary to weep at the entrance.
How often do we leave our loved ones standing alone, weeping at the scene of a tragic loss? How often do we run to the scene and take in only enough to satiate our desire for certainty before turning for home, oblivious to the tears on the face of our friend?
This Easter story offers us three perspectives on the Risen Christ and the work that God does in our world. At first, Mary sees only that the stone had been rolled away. Assuming the worst, she runs to tell Peter and John. John is a little bit faster, but stops at the tomb, bends over, and looks in to see the grave clothes lying there.
Peter, as usual, plows past John, goes into the tomb, and notices that the cloth that would have been on Jesus’ head was by itself.
See, each character discovers slightly more about the situation as it unfolds. Mary just sees the stone rolled away, John puts his eyes on the linen wrappings, but Peter actually barges in and can describe how they were laying there, including the cloth that was covering his head.
Then we learn that John enters, believing what he doesn’t understand. (I love that verse).
This is a pretty amazing story. But what gets me this particular Easter, is thinking about what Peter and John missed by going home!
They came, they saw, and they went back home. So they didn’t hear her perspective! They didn’t take the time to listen to Mary, who bent over as she wept, and saw something completely different!
Mary met the Risen Christ because she didn’t let herself off the hook with her grief. She took time to mourn, she paid attention to her tears, and she refused to ignore the gardener!
This Sunday we don’t simply celebrate an empty tomb. Rather, we celebrate a Christ who shows up in the least likely of places, and a God who speaks through strange faces.
This is the work God does time and time again, creating New life where there is only absence, surprising his people through strangeness.
Where have you met the Risen Christ? How is your life being made “New”?
We hope to see you Sunday!
Preparing for Sunday 