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SERMONS

Easter Sunday
April 12, 2009

By The Rev. Sylvia Czarnetzky

John 20:1-18

There is a woman. She has a “checkered” past.  (O’Driscoll “Relating” 111) She has not had an easy life. But in the most recent past she has been a follower of a man named Jesus. She has followed him from village to village in Galilee, and now she has followed him all the way here, to Jerusalem. She used to live in Magdala. Her name is Mary, as you might’ve guessed. (Notes 8)

If you had asked her to explain why she’s followed Jesus all this time, she would probably struggle to find the words to express what this man has meant to her. She’s not very good with words. (7) But she would nonetheless do her best to say how this man Jesus has transformed her life. (O’Driscoll "Relating” 111-12)

On the morning we meet her, it is Sunday, before the break of day. The sky has not yet begun to lighten. (Notes 8) Mary walks in the darkness to the place she last saw Jesus: the tomb where his body was placed. She is still struggling to take in the extraordinary events of the past few days. (O’Driscoll “Messenger” 84)

For when Jesus was arrested and things began to fall apart, she did not run away, like the others.  (O’Driscoll “Relating” 112) She stayed.  She followed him all the way to the cross, where she “watch[ed] him die by crucifixion.” She stayed to the end, watching “carefully as Jesus’ body was taken down from the cross,” and carried to the tomb in the rock wall. 112)
                                                           
That’s where she’s headed now: back to the tomb. She walks through the darkness by herself. That in itself took some courage, for it was dangerous to walk “alone” through the “darkened and deserted” streets of Jerusalem, especially if you were a woman, (112) especially after all that had happened.
                                                           
When she gets to the tomb, it is open. (O’Driscoll, Time 56) She peers inside and sees “no sign of Jesus’ body. Deeply distressed, she turns and runs instinctively” to find the other disciples and tell them his body has been taken, because that is what she thinks has happened. She “beseech[es]” the disciples “to come and see. Two of them…return with her.”  (O’Driscoll “Relating” 112) When they get back to the tomb, all they see on the floor of the stone chamber are the linen wrappings from Jesus’s body, and the cloth that had been covering his head rolled up neatly on the ground. There is no body there. (112) One of the men jumps to the conclusion that Jesus has risen. (O’Driscoll Time 56) But Mary doesn’t -- she continues to search “frantically” for Jesus’ body. (57) The men leave, and Mary is alone again. She weeps as she stands outside the tomb. (Jn. 20:10-11)

“Hearing a sound she turns and sees a figure. She must have felt extremely vulnerable in this grim and solitary place. Such is her desperation that she walks towards the figure and implores him to tell her where Jesus’ body has been taken. At this point she hears her name spoken. Immediately she recognizes the voice she thought lost to her for ever. She cries out the name by which she has known him, and she moves to embrace him.”  (O’Driscoll “Relating” 112) Mary then goes in search of the other disciples. She is no longer panicked, but filled with joy. She tells them “simply, ‘I have seen the Lord.’” (113)

“What does this moment in this woman’s life say to us today?” (O’Driscoll Time 57) Mary came to search for Jesus “early” in the morning, “while it was still dark.” (Jn. 20:1) As we Christians here in 2009 search for our Lord, “it is, in many senses” a very “dark time. In many circles it takes courage to acknowledge being a Christian. Sometimes the search is not easy. Jesus can seem to be no longer part of the world we live in.” (57)

If that sense that God is absent “becomes strong in us, we should do what Mary did, go for help. Join a group of others who are searching for him” too -- who are struggling, like you are, to figure out “what [Jesus] might mean” in your life.  (56-7) Others “will take you further on the search than you can go [by] yourself.” Some may have “clearer” vision; some may have “intuition richer than” your own. (57)

“Others can help, but we must continue to search.
For Mary there comes” a “moment. She doesn’t know Jesus when she meets him as the Risen Lord.” (57) She thinks he is the gardener!  (Jn. 20:15) “We may be searching in our life for something” we thought we’d lost forever, something we’d presumed was “dead.” “Perhaps it is faith itself, perhaps a love lost” or a job lost, or “perhaps a lost sense of fulfillment” in our work or our lives. (57) Whatever it is we think is lost, we should ask ourselves “Why?” Because “[a]sking that ‘why?’ may be the moment Our Lord can meet us again.” (57)

When Mary moved to embrace Jesus, he “told her she could not hold him. We cannot hold faith in Our Lord as a private possession. We need, as Mary did, to share him in community with others.” (57) And “[t]here is another sense in which jesus refuses to be our prisoner. Instead he grows and changes endlessly, and, as he does, he calls us to grow and change in our relationship with him.” (57)

If we choose to follow Jesus, he will be with us and “he will uphold us in the growing which he demands.” (57) And that is the good news of Easter. (57) Alleluia. Christ is risen. The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia. (BCP 361)

Works Cited:

Notes taken during “The Art of the Homily,” a presentation by Herbert O’Driscoll at the College of Preachers, Washington, D.C. in March 2009.  It was the last residential conference offered by the College before it was closed in April 2009.

O’Driscoll, Herbert. “The Messenger” A Certain Life: Contemporary Meditations on the Way of Christ.  Toronto: Anglican Book Centre, 1980. 84-5.

__________.  “Relating to the Past.” God with Us: The Companionship of Jesus in the Challenges of Life. Cambridge:  Cowley Press, 2002. 111-13.

__________.  A Time for Good News: Reflections on the Gospel for People on the Go. Year A. Toronto: Anglican Book Centre, 1990. 55-7.