Risen Lord, give us ears to hear and eyes to see your
new creation all around us. Amen.
In the name of our Risen Lord, Jesus Christ, welcome. It warms my heart and puts a smile on my face to see each of you here. Regardless of who you are, what your story is, or what you’ve been dealing with recently, it is a joy and blessing to have you here. God has brought us together this morning as this manifestation of the beloved community. Maybe you were here for every single liturgy during Holy Week, perhaps this is your first time in a church in a long time, maybe you are watching online, it could be that you’re not exactly sure why you’re here – something, or someone, nudged you to be here. As we heard St. Peter say in the reading from Acts, “I truly understand that God shows no partiality.” Indeed, it is an honor to have each of you here to help us celebrate Easter more fully.
The
question that I want to plant in your heart and mind is: “What story do you
live by?” In literary theory, they say that there are only seven stories –
overcoming the monster, rags to riches, the quest, the voyage and return,
comedy, tragedy, and rebirth. I’m sure you can think of a book, movie, or
chapter of your life to fit each of those. But I’m not sure that we need seven
categories; as, really, there are only two stories – fall and redemption; Good
Friday and Easter.
In the sermons during
Holy Week, I’ve focused on one character each day as a doorway for us to enter
into the story. On Easter, we turn our focus to Mary Magdalene. She was a disciple
of Jesus, was present at his crucifixion, and was the first one to see the
empty tomb. Earlier in her story, she was healed by Jesus and was a devoted
follower ever since. For a long time, people assumed that “Magdalene” was a
reference to the town where was from. But more recently scholarship suggests
that Magdalene is actually a nickname given to her by Jesus. “Magdalene” means “tower.”
Given her role as a close disciple of Jesus and the first proclaimer of the
Easter story, Mary Magdalene is, indeed, a pillar of our faith.
A Nigerian poet has said “One
way or another we are living the stories planted in us. We live the stories we
planted – knowingly or unknowingly – in ourselves. We live the stories that either
give our life meaning or negate it with meaninglessness. If we change the story
we live by, we change our lives.” In the story of Mary Magdelene, we see this
power of a changed story.
She came to the tomb
early on the first day of the week empty-handed and empty-hearted. As many of
us do, she went to visit the grave of a loved one. She had memories to cherish.
Things left unsaid that she needed to say, even if to a stone. There were more tears
yet to be wept. So she went to the tomb. At this point, Mary was living the
story of the fall, of brokenness, of the coldness of death. The Good Friday
story says that dead people stay dead; that the brutal power of violence always
squashes the hopeful power of love; that you either harden your heart or have
it broken. This is why, when Mary sees the stone rolled away from the tomb, she
does not think “Resurrection”! There isn’t room for something that glorious in
the story of Good Friday. And so, she assumes, that the body has been stolen.
A lot of us live in that
story. And it’s not necessarily our fault, that’s the story that is told by our
modern society. The news is so often framed in a negative light. We are dealing
with difficult things – like troubling test results from the doctor, bullies at
school, a fractured family, unexpected bills that come up every time we think
we’ve finally gotten our finances under control, caring for aging parents, addiction and
depression that we just can’t seem to shake, a society being broken by
division. The truth of the matter is those things are all real. The miracle of
Easter does not cure cancer, bring about world peace, or take away your pains.
Any faith that does not have room for brokenness is not a faith worthy our
attention. There is a reason why on Easter we still have a cross behind the
altar. We do not pretend that Good Friday did not happen. We do not tell you, “Jesus
lives, so get over yourself.” No, there is always space for the story of Good
Friday to be told.
The issue with this story
of brokenness is that it cannot be the only story we tell ourselves. That story
has a way of blinding us – when Mary first saw the Risen Jesus, she mistook him
for a gardener. The story she was telling herself prevented her from seeing
what was standing right in front of her. The story of Good Friday can close us
off to possibility and makes it seem as if everything is caving in on us. It’s
what some refer to as the “death spiral,” where tragedies compound and we see
brokenness everywhere we look. It can be dangerous to only tell ourselves that
story.
Mary Magdalene’s story
does not end here though. The seed of this other story is found in her mistaking
Jesus for a gardener. God is a gardener. We know from the beginning of Genesis that
when God started creating, it was with a garden. And Easter is the genesis of a
new story, the story of redemption, of possible impossibilities, of Resurrection.
It must be said that the
story of Easter is a gift, not a reward. Mary Magdalene did not say “Now, Mary,
look on the bright side of things.” Faith is not about optimism, it is about audacious
hope even in the face of hopelessness. Easter is a gift from a gracious,
loving, and Resurrecting God, not the reward for our good beliefs or behaviors.
Easter is an experience best known by those in recovery, in one of the groups
that are Anonymous.
When you talk with people
who have been a part of AA, their story is never “And I woke up and just decided
it was time for a change, so I summoned up my willpower and stopped drinking.” They
didn’t choose to give themselves a second chance. Almost always, they describe
their sobriety as a second chance that was given to them. They will likely tell
you that they were living in a Good Friday world, one in which they were losing
relationships, health, jobs, and control. Many of their stories would include
at least one encounter in which they stared death in the face. But a door was
opened for them, a lifeline was offered, a new story was told. The use of the passive
voice is purposeful because grace is never our work, it comes as a gift. Easter
is always a gift that comes to us.
Mary Magdalene received
this new story as a gift and entered into it. There’s a story that I heard
recently that I think captures what the story of Easter is like. Consider it a
modern-day parable. There was a magician who was working a tough room – lots of
boos and heckling. In a world so closed off to wonder, where we can just look
up “How did the magician do that trick” on our phones, being a magician is a
tough gig. Well, this magician knew he needed to really wow the audience if this
show was going to have any hope.
He needed a volunteer and
called on one of the hecklers. The magician takes his wallet out of his pocket
and asks the volunteer to hold it. The magician then takes off his hat and
tosses it to someone with the instruction “Say a random two-digit number and
then toss the hat to someone else, who will then also pick a random number.”
After five people have caught the hat and given the numbers 16, 32, 09, 43, and
11, the hat is tossed to a woman named Jessica. The magician asks for her name
and says, “Now, Jessica, I want you to think long and hard about your number.
Because when you get home tonight, you’re going to lie awake in bed, staring at
the ceiling and wonder what would have happened if you chose a number other
than the one you’re about to choose. So, what’s your number?” Jessica says “14.”
The magician then turns
to the not easily amused volunteer and says, “I want you to open my wallet and
you’ll find a lottery ticket in there. Please read the numbers on it.” He does
and reads 16, 32, 09, 43, 11, and he starts to lose his mind at this point. “No
way,” he exclaims with a bit more colorful language than that. “14!” The room
erupts in laughter and cheer. In an interview after the show, the magician said,
“I want you to see that volunteer’s face. I want you to see his joy. It’s a
kind of joy that reminds you that what you mistook for dull, uninspired doubt a
moment before was just the weight of worry, pain, anxiety, and, even if for only
a moment, his face shining without that weight is extraordinary.”
Friends, there is a world
of difference between not knowing how something is done versus knowing that it
cannot be done. I cannot explain how the Resurrection happened, but I can tell you
that the empty tomb is full of possibility. Beloved, we become the story we
believe.
For Mary Magdalene, what
brought her into the story of Easter was Jesus, our Good Shepherd, calling her
by name. If you’ll close your eyes for a moment – I want you to imagine being
in a garden and hearing Jesus call your name. Jesus is calling you into the story
of the new and Resurrected creation.
A Disney Imagineer has said
“When we see magic, when something happens that seems to be impossible, we are made
to face the limits of our views, doubts, and expectations. When we encounter the
seemingly impossible, we are reminded that there are things beyond what we see
and take for granted. The real secret is to realize that this is not a momentary
lapse. Every day, we experience the world from a restricted point of view, directed
by ways of thinking that we do not realize are there.”
Easter is the invitation
to open wide the throttles of our imagination. To give ourselves permission to
admit that we do not know or understand all things. To live as rebels who
insist that Good Friday is not the end of the story or the only one. To trust
our ears when we hear Jesus call us by name and our eyes when we see beautiful
and wondrous impossibilities becoming possible. When we see forgiveness, to
celebrate it instead of qualifyig it. When we see hope, encouraging it instead
of squashing it. When we see love, furthering it instead of being made
uncomfortable by its lavishness. And when we see the Easter story, to be like
Mary Magdalene and announce “I have seen the Lord!”
To paraphrase St. Paul’s
words in Romans, “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels,
nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor
depths, nor Good Friday, nor our doubts, nor our sins, nor our mistakes, nor
our could haves or should haves, nor our insecurities, nor our closed-mindedness,
nor the limiting stories that we tell ourselves, nothing, nothing in all of
Creation is able to separate us from the story that Jesus was raised from the
tomb, that all shall be well, that we are forgiven, that there is always
another story to be told, that no matter what and always, we are loved by God
in Christ Jesus our Lord. Alleluia!
