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Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Church Episcopal
April 4, 2021

Easter Day 

          When I was in seminary, the Great Vigil of Easter was held very early on Easter morning.  Only in seminary can a worship service begin well before 5am and 100% attendance be expected!  Most of the faculty, seminarians and their families lived on the seminary campus, so between 4 and 4:30 on Easter morning, we would walk across the parking lot from the residences to the seminary chapel.  In all honesty, I remember very little about the service itself, what readings were used, what hymns we sang, who preached or what he or she said.  But I have vivid memories about the short, dark walk across the parking lot in the wee hours of Easter morning.  Somehow, that short walk seemed more like Easter than anything else we did.  The stark darkness and silence held both mystery and hope as we made our way to the empty tomb.  Time seemed pregnant with possibility.  The other travelers across the parking lot were silent as well as if to speak would be an intrusion on a sacred silence. 

          Mary Magdalene is also on a sacred walk in the darkness of early morning, but her walk is not one of anticipation or hope.  Her walk is the walk of the grieving, going to pay her respects to her friend, teacher, and healer.  While we expect the tomb to be empty on Easter morning, Mary Magdalene most certainly does not.  She finds the stone rolled away and the tomb open.  Her first thought is that the body of Jesus has been stolen.  What else would she think?  We can hear the fear and sorrow in her voice as she says to Peter and the other disciple “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.”  After looking into the tomb to confirm that the body of Jesus is, indeed, gone, the disciples return to their homes.

          But Mary stays at the tomb.  When she finally gets up the nerve to peer into the tomb, she sees two angels dressed in white.  In her grief, Mary seems unfazed by their presence.  When the angels ask Mary why she is weeping, her grief-stricken reply is “They have taken away my Lord and I do not know where they have laid him.”  All Mary wants is to know where the body of Jesus can be found.  And then, the risen Christ asks Mary the very same question.  “Woman, why are you weeping?”  Thinking Jesus is the gardener, Mary replies “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him and I will take him away.”   The only thing in the world that Mary wants is to recover the dead body of Jesus so she can pay her respects to her friend.  Had Jesus actually been the gardener and told Mary where to find the body, she would still have grieved, but she would have been content to care for the body of her friend.

          We know what comes next, but Mary did not.  At the sound of Jesus’ voice calling her name, Mary knows in an instant that the person before her is not the gardener but Jesus.  She must have reached out to embrace Jesus because Jesus tells her not to hold onto him but to go and tell his brothers that he is ascending to the Father. 

          On Easter morning, we know that the tomb is open, the stone rolled away, and that Jesus has risen from the dead.  We rejoice in the victory of life over death, of love over hate and faith over fear.  And yet, over the past year, how many times have I gone looking for what was, longing for the ways I went about my life before the pandemic, wanting to find what we have lost and hold on tight?  In other words, how many times have I gone looking for the dead body of Jesus?  And how many times have I mistaken the Risen Christ for the cashier at Heinens, or the Instacart delivery person, or the pharmacist with the Covid-19 vaccine, or any of the many other people who have been the face of Jesus in the midst of this difficult year?  Mary Magdalene went looking for the past, a past that meant the world to her and had transformed her life, so she could properly grieve that loss.  Her grief is deep and real.  But Jesus calls her by name and calls her forward, beyond her grief, into new life.  Grief is transformed into anticipation and hope.

          In the midst of these months of very real uncertainty, frustration, and a great variety of griefs, when somedays all we really want is to go back to February 2020 and hold on tight, the risen Christ calls us by name and calls us forward into new life.  Like Mary Magdalene, our grief is real and legitimate.  And like Mary Magdalene, we do not know what the future, the new reality, will be like.  But the Risen Christ reminds us that the tomb was empty.  There is no going backwards.  The empty tomb calls us forward into a new reality, one that God is holding open for us just as the tomb was open on that first Easter morning.  The darkness of Easter morning is filled with hope and anticipation, pregnant with possibility.  Whatever circumstances, challenges, griefs, joys, or opportunities we face, life and love have won and Jesus calls us forward into new life. 

                                                                                      Amen.