Voice

Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Church Episcopal
April 9, 2023

Easter Day 

          My grandparents died some 30 years ago, yet I can still hear the sound of their voices calling my name.  My mother’s mother had a distinctive southern accent specific to southeast Alabama.  I would recognize that accent anywhere and I embarrassed my children more than once going up to strangers in various parts of the country and asking them where in southeast Alabama they lived.  The southern accent of my paternal grandmother was the raspy southern accent of a well-heeled lifelong chain smoker.  My father’s stepmother was from South Carolina and never lost that South Carolina drawl.  And my grandfather had the deep voice of a Texan who had lost the twang but kept the accent.  While they were alive, I could hear the love in their voices when they spoke my name.  Now, to remember the sound of those beloved voices speaking my name is to know their love deep within my soul.

          This morning, Mary Magdalene is frantic.  She has gone to Jesus’ tomb in the week hours of the morning before daybreak and the tomb is empty.  Someone has stolen the body of Jesus and she does not know where to find him.  Peter and the other disciple are not frantic; they just seem a bit confused.  They look into the empty tomb and one believes but we are not told what he believes.  We are only told that the two did not yet understand the scripture that Jesus must rise from the dead.  So they just go home, which I find rather anti-climactic. 

          But Mary stays at the tomb, weeping.  She stays in that way that we linger at a grave, holding on to a moment, not quite ready to go home.  The tomb is peaceful, if empty, and home is full of grief, dashed hopes, and loneliness.  When she looks back in the tomb, two angels ask her why she is weeping, and again she says “They have taken away my Lord and I do not know where they have taken him.”  In her grief, she is not the least bit fazed by the presence of two angels speaking to her.  She is focused.  She is not going to abandon Jesus.  She is going to find his body.  Then, in one of my favorite lines in all of scripture, Mary turns from the tomb and sees Jesus but mistakes him for the gardener.  Not until Jesus calls Mary by her name does she recognize the risen Lord in her midst.  She must have embraced Jesus in her joy, because Jesus says “Do not hold onto me.”  Then he tells Mary to go to his brothers and tell them that he is ascending to his father.  Her witness to the disciples is “I have seen the Lord!” and she tells them all Jesus said to her.

          Three things strike me about the Easter story in John’s gospel.  First, Mary thinks her beloved Jesus who she knows so well is the gardener, because who else would be in the garden so early in the morning?  I wonder how many times we are focused on the work we need to do, trying hard to be faithful and do good, and we mistake the risen Christ for a helpful friend, or a grumpy neighbor, or a stranger doing a random act of kindness, an impossible toddler, a person in need, or just a caring voice calling our name?  Easter opens our eyes to the reality that the risen Christ is abundantly present in our midst, sometimes in the least likely places. 

Secondly, Mary recognized Jesus when he called her name.   There is a lovely passage in the book of Isaiah in which God says “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.”  (Isaiah 43:1).  When the resurrected Jesus calls Mary’s name, Mary is being claimed by new life.  In that instant, Mary’s focus turns from looking for a dead body to wonder and awe at the new life before her.  Her life is transformed.  Easter calls each of us by name in the same way, releasing us from the hold of death to the joy and hope of resurrection life. 

          Lastly, Jesus says to Mary “Do not hold onto me.”  Like Mary, we do not get to hold on either.  Easter faith is not about holding on.  Easter faith is about letting go.  Like Mary, we can long to cling to the way things were before….before a pandemic, or a family tragedy, or a disappointment so we can be who we were before.  But the tomb is empty, giving us no reason to cling to the past.  We do not belong to death.  The voice of the Risen Christ claims us and calls us to let go of the tomb in all of its forms so we can move forward into the abundance of resurrection life and love. 

Like Mary, the resurrected Christ calls us each by name so that we can know the love of God deep within our souls, so that we can recognize the risen Christ in our midst, and so that we can move forward into the world to proclaim with our lives that resurrection life and love have won this day and forever. 

                                                                   Amen.