Alleluia, Christ Has Risen!
Easter Sunday
31 March 2024
The Rev. Robert J. Kossler
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. (p. Jn. 20:1)
Alleluia, Christ Has Risen!
Think about it: Four years ago, we closed our churches due to the pandemic. Words once reverberated within the walls of our churches, silenced due to the pandemic. True, some took risks during the pandemic. We, however, chose to wait until everyone could sing these four words safely. And now, as if that were a bad memory, we sing as one community and one voice, “Alleluia, Christ Has Risen!” What wonderful and joyous music.
What do we make of the scene described by John? Each evangelist describes the Passion, empty tomb, and post-resurrection differently. But, in each narrative, women come to Jesus’ tomb and are the first witnesses. They arrive at the tomb at dawn to care for the entombed body of Jesus. Under normal circumstances, they would have time to procure the spices needed for burial. They were impeded by the Sabbath, which is why they arrived early the following day. And they found the stone pushed to the side and the tomb empty. Theologians, preachers, and many others spent centuries trying to rationalize the Resurrection Gospel stories since each is slightly different. What they have in common is “the empty tomb!”
When Mary came to the tomb, she saw that the stone had been rolled away from the entrance. What she found was not what she expected. After Peter and John, the Beloved Disciple, heard Mary’s report, they ran to the tomb to see for themselves. When they looked inside, they saw the linens that had wrapped the body of Jesus neatly folded and lying on the bench where his body should be, along with the cloth that had covered his face. Deferring to Peter, the Beloved Disciple let him enter the tomb first. When John finally went into the tomb, “he saw and believed.” (Cornwall, 2023)
Peter and the Beloved Disciple left the tomb and returned to the other disciples, while Mary remained weeping and wondering. What happened to Jesus’ body? Who took him and why? The day before, Mary stood at the foot of the cross with Jesus’ mother and two other women. She watched him cry from the cross: “It is Finished!” She watched as he died. And so she stayed to keep watch, hoping to learn what happened.
As Mary sobbed in front of the empty tomb, she decided to look into the tomb.
(S)he bent over to look into the tomb, and she saw two angels in white sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” (pp. Jn. 20:11-13)
Their question, in hindsight, seems obtuse and insensitive. Of course, Mary would weep after the trauma she witnessed. She responded simply and directly, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” (Ibid.)
After Mary responds to the Angels, she then turns away from them. Why did she turn away? The evangelist doesn’t explain, but Mary must have suddenly become aware of a presence; someone else was near the tomb. She turns to see who it is. Like other first encounters, Mary doesn’t recognize Jesus. (Cornwall, 2023)
Only when she hears her name does she recognize the voice of her Rabbouni, her Teacher, who is standing near her in the garden. (Valerio, pp. 34-35)
More than the other gospels, John places Mary in the center of the Resurrection story. Although John tells us that the Beloved Disciple was the first who “saw and believed,” it is Mary who first transmits an actual encounter with the Risen One. Jesus chooses her as his messenger, the first witness to his resurrection. Mary “incarnates” the ideals of a true disciple, a true apostle. She (Valerio, 2021)“recognizes, witnesses, and announces.” Jesus, the Risen One, appears to her first and, rather than allowing her to remain, sends her as a witness to his resurrection to the others. Although never called a disciple, her encounter with Jesus makes her one of his apostles, the first witness.
We do not have the option to run to the tomb-like Peter and John. We do not have Mary Magdalene to confirm the resurrection story. What we have instead is faith and trust that what she saw and reported is what happened that fateful day. We also have the reminder of Jesus’ words, “...that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.” (p. Lk. 24:7)
John Updike wrote the following poem to celebrate Easter and Jesus’ Resurrection. He distills Easter and Christ’s Resurrection to its essence. I cannot think of a better way to remember this day, a day that fully defines us.
Seven Stanzas at Easter
Make no mistake: if He rose at all
it was as His body;
if the cells’ dissolution did not reverse, the molecules
reknit, the amino acids rekindle,
the Church will fall.
It was not as the flowers,
each soft Spring recurrent;
it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled
eyes of the eleven apostles;
it was as His flesh: ours.
The same hinged thumbs and toes,
the same valved heart
that – pierced – died, withered, paused, and then
regathered out of enduring Might
new strength to enclose.
Let us not mock God with metaphor,
analogy, sidestepping, transcendence;
making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the
faded credulity of earlier ages:
let us walk through the door.
The stone is rolled back, not papier-maché,
not a stone in a story,
but the vast rock of materiality that in the slow
grinding of time will eclipse for each of us
the wide light of day.
And if we will have an angel at the tomb,
make it a real angel,
weighty with Max Planck’s quanta, vivid with hair,
opaque in the dawn light, robed in real linen
spun on a definite loom.
Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,
for our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,
lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are
embarrassed by the miracle,
and crushed by remonstrance. (Updike, 2014)
Amen.
Works Cited
Beasley-Murray, G. R. (1999). John (Vol. 36). Dallas, Texas: Word, Inc.
Coogan, M. D. (Ed.). (2001). The New Oxford Annotated Bible: With the Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical Books, New Revised Standard Version (Vol. Luke). New York: Oxford University Press.
Cornwall, R. (2023, April 9). I Have Seen the Lord Sermon for Easter Sunday (John 20) - Reposted. Retrieved from Ponderings on a Faith Journey: https://www.bobcornwall.com/2023/04/i-have-seen-lord-sermon-for-easter.html
NRSVue Holy Bible. (2022). Grand Rapids: Zondervan.
Updike, J. (2014, April 19). Seven Stanzas at Easter. Retrieved from Plough:
https://www.plough.com/en/topics/culture/holidays/easter-readings/seven-stanzas-at-easter
Valerio, A. (2021). Mary Madgalene: Women, The Curch, and the Great Deception. Rome: Europa Editions.