For Easter

RESURRECTION!
The rising to life again of our Lord Jesus Christ after his death on the cross.
The ultimate sign to the world that evil and sin do not have the last word: God has the last word and God’s word is LIFE

HE LIVES! It’s our hope – it’s our faith – it’s the foundation of our Christian identity…

All the stories of Jesus’ earthly ministry – the healings, the miracles, the acceptance of outcasts – were all stories of life triumphing over darkness…people being brought from ‘deadening’ situations to a new state of life, to another chance to live into the fullness of God’s plan for us.

The Resurrection is what Christians hold onto in our darkest moments: the firm belief that in Christ’s rising from the dead good triumphed over evil. God can make something good out of the worst situation. … That’s perhaps also our most difficult article of belief, isn’t it?

It’s easy enough to look at the increasing snowbanks these days (in my part of the country), and then at the calendar, and say ‘It IS Spring, and this will all eventually melt and it will water the land well for crops this year and fill the rivers and lakes for fish.”! (and we hope there won’t be floods). It’s harder to hold onto that sense of hope when someone I love is battling addictions, or cancer, or has just lost his or her job … It’s harder to imagine just what good God will make out of this tragedy…

So let’s return for a minute to our Gospel story this morning (John 20:1-18):
Mary was the first one to meet the risen Lord. Why didn’t he reveal himself to the other disciples also? I'd like to suggest that our Lord revealed himself to Mary because she came with her HEART…the same way we’re asked to come before this great mystery of Resurrection and new life.

Mary came filled with love for her friend Jesus – she risked being seen by the authorities as one of his followers (it says she came while it was still dark), she wept, she came perhaps simply to be near him. She didn’t even look inside the tomb at first. The men came. They looked inside. Saw the evidence. And we’re told – “he believed” – one of them, at least. And they went home … to puzzle it out, I suspect. They went home to try to make some sense (mentally, intellectually) out of what they had seen … They must have been confused, perhaps even afraid at this turn of events. But Jesus didn’t reveal himself to them…

But Mary stayed on, weeping, still convinced someone had taken her Jesus’ body – she stayed because of her love, her heart… And when she finally stole a glance into the tomb she saw two angels! And they spoke to her: why are you weeping? She told them the obvious: “someone has taken away my Lord”. And then a man appears in the garden, and asks her the same question: Why are you weeping? So, she thinks, he might be the gardener – perhaps he moved the body, or at least saw who did. And then Jesus calls her by name: MARY! Wow!

In that moment she recognized him : recognized him with her eyes, as her friend Jesus, and from the depths of her heart, as her Lord.

But Jesus said don’t hold onto me. (Just picture how much Mary must have wanted to cling to him! My Lord, my Lord, I thought you were dead – I thought they had stolen your body – etc. etc.) You know how it is when you are reunited with someone precious whom you haven’t seen for a very long time, or someone that you love dearly and you were really worried for their safety or health …. How we cling to them, how we need to feel their physical presence …! But Jesus says no – go and tell the brothers that I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.

He chose the person who recognized him – with her heart – to go and tell the Good News!

I believe that this is how we, too, must come before the Resurrection. We must come with our hearts. It’s not something to believe with our heads – with our intellect. We come with our deepest love -with our most wounded and hurting selves- weeping, as Mary did for all that we have lost… for what might have been… and Jesus calls us by name! He lives! And in that moment we too come back to LIFE. Our burdens are lifted, our Lord is here to help us carry them. God has the last word, and that word is LIFE. Life can begin again. A fresh start! The triumph of good over evil!

And like Mary, we are called to go and tell the others … to share the Good News – that Christ is indeed risen from the dead and because of his rising we, too, can Live again!

Alleluia! Thanks be to God!