"A Stranger in the Dark"

March 31, 2013 (Easter Sunday)

Gospel Reading: John 20:1-18

¹Early 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. ²So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” ³Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. ⁴The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. ⁵He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. ⁶Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, ⁷and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. ⁸Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; ⁹for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. ¹⁰Then the disciples returned to their homes.

¹¹But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; ¹²and 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. ¹³They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” ¹⁴When she had said this, she turned round and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. ¹⁵Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? For whom are you looking?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.”

¹⁶Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher). ¹⁷Jesus said to her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” ¹⁸Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”; and she told them that he had said these things to her.

Sermon: “A Stranger in the Dark”

You can’t understand a story unless you know the person telling it.  The story we are seeking to understand this morning is Easter, and the person telling it to us is not John, but Mary Magdalene.  So, let’s get to know this Mary, shall we?

Let’s see what we already know about her. 

We’ll start simple: what was her last name?  Magdalene, because she was from a town in Galilee called Magdala.

What did Jesus heal her from?  She was possessed by seven evil spirits. This was a common way to describe mental illness in her day.

What was her profession?

Tradition says she was a lady of the night, but there is no biblical basis for such an idea.  Some assume that she was the adulterous woman Jesus saved from stoning, but that happened after Jesus had come to Jerusalem, after Mary had already been reformed.  So, we don’t really know what she did.

Was she married?  Oh, that’s a doozy of a question, y’all, one that Dan Brown fired up again in the recent past.  Some discarded gospels from the 2^nd century suggest that she was actually married to Jesus, but we’re not going to go there this Easter!  According to our texts, she was not married, nor did she have children, which was controversial in its own way.

Was she at the crucifixion?  In all of the Gospels, yes.

Did she prepare Jesus’ body for burial and then follow it to the tomb?  Again, yes.

Did she witness the resurrection and then go and share that news with the disciples and through them, with the world, including us?  Yes.

 But by Easter afternoon, she is erased from the story.  We know nothing else.  As James Baker wrote, “The Gospel writers probably did not intend to make Magdalene such a mystery that subsequent ages would be tempted to elaborate on her frail biography. By making her less than she was, the Gospels inadvertently made her more.”

So, what do we know of this woman who first saw our Risen Lord?  Well, less than we thought we did, but enough to be grateful for her witness.  We know the most important part of her history: she was there.  She was always there.

She was there on a dark morning in a cemetery, alone.  We all know what it is to go to the grave of a loved one, desperate to feel closer to them.  And we all know that the “darkness” John spoke of was not just about the lack of a sunrise.   As she neared Jesus’ tomb and saw it empty, her first thought was not resurrection.  It was robbery.  She ran to get help.  “They have taken my Lord!” she breathlessly told the disciples, but after checking things out, they left her there at the tomb, alone again.  Except she wasn’t exactly alone.   She saw two angels in the tomb!  Her response showed the depths of her despair, echoing the only words she could.

“They have taken my Lord!”  She said again to the angels.  She then turned and saw whom she thought was the gardener, a stranger in the dark.  “Please,” she pleaded with him. “If YOU have taken my Lord, tell me where you have laid him!”

Eyes clouded with tears, Mary did not recognize Jesus in that stranger.  But then he spoke her name, “Mary.”  “Rabbouni” she shouted, which means “my Teacher.”  Her arms acted of their own accord and hugged him.

Jesus sounded unkind when he said, “Don’t hold on to me, but go and tell!” but I don’t think he was.  I think he knew that time was of the essence: his revolutionary movement of grace and peace was at a critical moment.  Did Jesus rise again on the third day as he promised or was he just another false prophet?  There was no time for clinging embraces and warm words of assurance: Mary was immediately sent out. And she went.  The last words we hear from her are her most profound: “I have seen the Lord.”

So who was this weeping Mary Magdalene, whom Jesus chose to first appear to?

She was the one who saw a stranger in the dark, and recognized him as he called her name.  She was the one who taught us that it doesn’t matter how people misrepresent you, what matters is that you tell God’s story to all who will listen.  But, like I said earlier, you can’t understand a story unless you know the person telling it.

And so we must tell the story of Easter within our own: not leaving the resurrection in a garden tomb, but by seeing God’s new life here, now, in our own lives.  When has God come to us as a stranger in the dark: as a kind nurse, as a patient teacher, as a compassionate child?  When have we brought new life to strangers we will never know through acts of humble kindness and generosity?

Resurrection is not just for Easter.  It is for every moment that lasting life defeats death, that forgiveness and grace defeat retaliation, that light defeats darkness. 

And it is for the seemingly insignificant moments of our days, when strangers in the dark turn out to be our Savior and judged sinners turn out to be prophets.  The story of Easter is true, but only so much as it is a part of our story.  We have seen the Lord!  Now, let’s go and tell.  Amen.