Alive!

            This is where our Christian faith begins… with the resurrection story.    No, it did not begin on Christmas night when a baby was born in Bethlehem.  It did not begin at a wedding in Cana when Jesus turned the water into wine. It did not begin on a hillside in Galilee when Jesus fed the five thousand.  It did not begin when the lame could walk again… the dumb could speak again… the blind could see again.   It began on a Sunday morning almost two thousand years ago when Jesus rose from the dead… forever changing the way in which we view death.  Christ’s resurrection stretches our ability to imagine the impossible… the miraculous… the inexplicable.  Fortunately, we don’t have to explain the resurrection… rather, it explains us.  It explains who we are and why we are here today.  Because Easter happened… because the resurrection happened… the church happened… and we happened… Easter people… people saved by the death and resurrection of the son of God!  Behold, Christ is risen!  [He is risen indeed.]

            The story of that first Easter morning is so familiar to us that, sometimes, we skip over some of the most important details without thinking much about them.  Let’s go back to that very first sentence of our text and read that again.  “Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb.”  Did you ever stop and ask yourself, “Why?”   Why had the stone been removed from the tomb?  Was the stone removed from the tomb so that Jesus could leave the tomb?  No.  We know from other eye witness accounts of Jesus’ resurrection that Jesus was capable of appearing in a room when all the doors were locked.  He would not need to have the stone removed to leave the tomb.  So, why was the stone removed?  The stone was removed not to let Jesus out… but to let us in.   How could Peter and John witness to the resurrection, unless they had seen for a certainty that the tomb was empty?  And it was empty… Jesus was not there.  And yet, the tomb was not empty.  When they entered the tomb, Peter and John not only saw that Jesus was not there, but that the wrappings… the shroud… the grave clothes… were there.  Who would steal a dead body and leave the wrappings behind?   For one of the two disciples, that was enough.  He believed… even though they did not yet understand the scripture.

               So, two little details of that Easter morning create new meaning for the lives of the disciples.  The stone is removed… not to let Jesus out, but to let us in… that we might see… that we might witness to the empty tomb.  And yet, the tomb is not empty… the grave clothes are still there.  Easter removes the stone from the tomb so that we… you and I… might penetrate the mystery of death.  It makes of the tomb a tunnel… not a dead end carved out of rock… but a passage way carved out of love… right into the heart of God.  The empty tomb allows us to see that God’s promises are true.  For one disciple, it was enough.  He believed. 

            But, for Mary, it wasn’t enough.  Tears streaming down her face, she, too, looked into the tomb and saw the grave clothes… but for her, it was just further confirmation of what she already knew… that someone despicable had stolen Jesus’ body.   In fact, she was so convinced of her own explanation of the situation that the presence of two angels dressed in white… two heavenly beings seated in the tomb… did not shake her belief in her own story… even when they spoke to her, asking her why she was weeping.   Now, admittedly, she could have been crying so hard that she did not even see their heavenly glory.  But then, too, she was operating on her own assumptions… and those assumptions overcame the evidence of her own eyes that morning.   Mary knew that Jesus was dead.  She had seen him die.  She had been there at the foot of the cross when he died.  Perhaps, she was even one of the ones who had washed his body and wrapped it for burial… feeling his cold, lifeless form.  She knew he was dead.  His body should have been in the tomb.  It was a sacrilege to move a dead body.  Who would do such a thing?

            Sometimes, the evidence that is before our eyes cannot overcome our own assumptions… our own convictions… the facts that we know to be true.  How many times have we seen this happen?  Movies have been written about this phenomenon… some serious… some humorous.  Many years ago now, a movie called “Short Circuit” was released.  Like most successful science fiction films, it was mostly science… with a little fiction thrown in.  “Short Circuit” is the humorous story of a robot who was struck by lightning and, through some fluke, became a living being.  The entire premise of the movie is built on the logical assumptions of the human beings that the robot encounters during his escapades.  They all assume that the robot is a machine… incapable of thought, emotion, or feeling.  Even the woman who befriends the robot does not believe he is real… for that would contradict everything that she knows to be true.  I can still remember the robot contradicting her statement that he is just a machine. “No, Stephanie,” he says. “Number five is alive!”  He challenges her to think beyond what she knows about mechanics and electronics… to go beyond rational thought… to witness to what was right in front of her… a living being... alive… despite all the known facts about machines!   How difficult it was for Stephanie to put aside what she knew to be true, in order to accept a new reality.   “Number five is alive!”

            Yet, isn’t that what happened to Mary Magdalene? She, too, was asked to put aside what she knew to be true, in order to accept a new reality.  She… who knew Jesus well… certainly did not recognize Jesus when he appeared before her… but then, she was at the door of the dark tomb looking back toward the garden when he appeared.  The glare of the early morning sun behind him may have rendered him as a dark silhouette against the sunlit garden.  And, too, she was still weeping and could not see clearly through her tears.  But what truly clinched it was Mary’s knowledge that Jesus was dead… and her assumption that the dead are not raised.  Therefore, the person standing in front of her could not be Jesus.  He had to be someone else.  Who else would be in this place… at this hour?  Only, perhaps, the gardner.

            And then Jesus spoke her name… and she would know that voice anywhere.  “Mary”  “Rabbouni”  It was enough.   What the empty tomb did not tell her… what the folded grave clothes did not tell her… what the angels did not tell her… the voice of the Master did.  He was alive!  His voice… the voice she thought she would never hear again… spoke her name  and it was enough to shatter all her preconceived notions of life and death.   His voice speaking her name was enough for her to set aside everything she knew to be true, in order to accept a new reality.  He was alive… and she would never be the same again.  The tomb that was filled with death… was flooded with light and life!

               If Mary on that first Easter morning had looked into an empty tomb and seen nothing, she could have shared the story of the tomb’s emptiness with others, but her story would not have been the same.  It would have been an argument from silence…a belief based upon unfounded human speculation… like John’s… based on the assumption of a moment.  Instead, it was Mary who witnessed to the other disciples, “I have seen the Lord.”   For the empty tomb was not empty for Mary.  The Lord whose body she sought was there… but not lying lifeless upon the cold stone.  He was alive!  He spoke to her!  What Peter and John hoped was true… she knew was true… beyond the shadow of a doubt.   She had seen the Lord! 
               Our belief in the story of Christ’s resurrection is not based upon the speculation of some disciples who found an empty tomb on that first Easter morning.  Our belief in the story of Christ’s resurrection is based on the eye witness account of Mary Magdalene… and more than five hundred other people who saw Jesus after his death.   They walked with him… and talked with him… ate with him… and prayed with him.  Our faith is based on a word from Jesus Christ… the name of one whom he loved… spoken in love… to a grieving and bewildered woman… a woman searching for a cold and lifeless body… a woman who found a living Savior.   Behold, Christ is risen! [He is risen indeed!]
               But there is one more thing that comes with Mary’s discovery… the knowledge that death has been conquered and no longer has a claim upon us.  The same Savior who stood in the garden before Mary… filling her dark and empty world with light and life… still stands in the garden today… filling our dark and empty world with light and life.   Yes, there are those who have left us… those whose time on this earth has ended… but because of Mary’s discovery on that first Easter morning, we know that they have gone before us… not into a dark and isolated place… but through that tunnel of love into the very heart of God.  Christ was buried, but he would not stay dead.  The tomb could not hold him and… because of him… the tomb cannot hold us either.  For the love of our God has triumphed over death and the grave.  Jesus Christ is alive.  He lives!  And because he lives, we too shall live.   Now, we can face our future with faith and hope… confident that all of God’s promises are true.  That is the story that we shall tell to the nations.  The same God that passed over the Israelites to smite the Egyptians and lead the children of God from bondage into freedom has passed over us to smite death and lead us into life eternal.  That is the story that we shall tell abroad.  Jesus Christ is alive.  It is the Passover of gladness… the Passover of God.  For behold, Christ is risen! [He is risen indeed!] Amen.
 

John 20:1-18