Sermon: Easter Sunday

Easter: Birth and Beginning
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Easter Sunday, Year A (RCL)
John 20:1-18

Since having kids, I’ve come to the conclusion that while Easter egg hunts on the surface seem to be happy, cute, innocent events, on a much deeper level, they are actually quite tragic. Think about it. As children wait with excitement and anticipation, we run to hide colored plastic eggs filled with candy. Once all of the eggs are neatly tucked away out of sight, then we let the kids loose to run and frolic and find as many eggs as will fit into their baskets. And then, with a basket full of eggs filled with candy, then we tell them to wait. Wait until we’ve had breakfast, wait until we’ve eaten lunch. Now that you’ve found what you’ve been hunting for, found what you’ve been searching for, now that your excitement and anticipation has come to a head, now we have to wait even longer still. While the anticipation before the hunt and the running to find eggs is a lot of fun, the waiting part just plain stinks. It’s Easter after all; shouldn’t the waiting of Lent be over and done with already? I mean, come on!

I imagine that this is how Mary Magdalene must have felt in today’s Gospel. Waking the morning after Jesus’ crucifixion, she must have been filled with that same sense of anticipation; of going to that large empty egg of a tomb and finding her Lord’s body in order that she could ritually purify it. She must have been filled with a sense of urgency as she set out on her hunt for the treasure to be found in that tomb where Jesus’ body was laid. Much like a child on an egg hunt seeking guidance from surrounding adults, Mary shares her discovery of the empty tomb with Simon Peter and the other disciple, hoping that they may help. Later, when Mary encounters the two angels in the empty tomb, again she seeks to share her information with them, that her Lord is missing, in order that they might help her. And finally, when confronted by Jesus himself, seeming to be a gardener, she pleads for some insight as to where her Lord has gone, this time assuming that the gardener himself has carried him away.

Finally, John’s Gospel tells us, she finds what she’s been looking for; what she’s been hunting for. She finds the magical egg that she’s been searching for and, much to her delight, it is even bigger and better than she had imagined. Not only did she find the body of her Lord which she sought to honor, but she found that body standing, living, breathing, talking with her as if he had never died in the first place. In her discovery that the gardener is actually her Lord and Teacher, she has truly found the best egg of all. And then comes the twist. I’m sorry Mary, but you’ll have to wait, wait until we’ve had breakfast, wait until we’ve eaten lunch. Now that she’s found what she was hunting for (and then some), now that her excitement and anticipation has come to a head, now she has to wait.

Wanting to devour her new found treasure which she has discovered in the risen Christ, she is told by Jesus to wait. Jesus says to her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father.” In fact, his words are actually closer to saying, “Do not continue to hold on to me as you once knew me.” Jesus is telling Mary in a rather abrupt yet loving way that things have changed; that he is no longer bone of her bone and flesh of her flesh, that while he is there with her in spirit, he is no longer there with her in the flesh as he once was. At the same time, Jesus is telling Mary that there is still more to come, that his resurrection isn’t the end, just as his death wasn’t the end. He’s telling her not to hold on to how things were but rather to continue to hope for how things will be. Again, Jesus is telling her to be patient and to wait.

Just as tragic as five year old faces once they’ve been told that they must wait until after lunch to eat their candy, I imagine Mary must have been equally troubled by Jesus’ response to her affectionate gesture. They waited and hunted and found the eggs, now simply must be the time to eat all the candy. She waited and searched and found her Lord, now simply must be the time for Mary to finally be rewarded with his presence. We’ve waited and searched throughout these forty days of Lent, now simply must be the time for us to finally break our fasts and sing Alleluia and go on with our day-to-day lives. Its Easter darn it, we want our candy, we want our Lord, we want to celebrate joyously with the church and then go back to the busyness of our lives.

But Jesus tells us to wait; Jesus tells us to stay tuned. Jesus sends us out, not to bask in the glory of Easter, but to get to work in the world around us. After Jesus tells Mary not to hold on to how things once were, he guides her into the way of how things will now be; he sends her out, he ordains her as his first apostle by sending her to his disciples, to tell them the good news of our shared resurrection and ascension. For Jesus, Easter is the beginning, the resurrection is the beginning, Pentecost and the gift of the Holy Spirit is the beginning, the birth of the church which has brought us to today is the beginning.

As many of you know, Easter is one of the best times in the church calendar to welcome the newly baptized. This morning, four children here at St James will be (have been) baptized. A few years ago I received a phone call from someone loosely affiliated with the church I was serving at the time. They were calling to see if they could get their kid “done”. Not knowing what this meant, I asked. They said, “you know, baptized.” Up to that time, I had never heard of baptism as getting the child “done”. To me, it didn’t make sense. Would I need a meat thermometer for the job? It actually seemed more appropriate to refer to baptism as getting a child “started” instead of getting them “done”. For baptism is a sacrament in which we are changed, in which we begin again, just as Easter and the resurrection are a time in our church calendar in which we are changed, in which we begin again.

On this, one of the most climatic days of the Christian year, Jesus tells us to begin again. When we go to grab the pastel plastic eggs which hold our candy, which hold our delicious Easter ham, which hold our joy in the promise of the resurrection, Jesus tells us not to grab hold of these things, but rather, to go, to go out into the world and to share them with our neighbors. While we come to church on Easter to hear about the joy of the resurrection, we must never forget that we have a part to play in the resurrection as well. We are the not simply the consumers of this miraculous event, we are also the messengers; we, like Mary, are the ones who must not take hold of what once was, but instead, must take heart in what, because of the grace of God, can be. Amen.