St. John Chrysostom Episcopal Church – Delafield, Wisconsin
Easter Sunday -- April 1, 2018
V. Rev. Steven A. Peay, Ph.D.
[texts: Acts 10:34-43/1 Corinthians 15:19-26/John 20:1-18]
Years ago I had occasion to travel to England for a meeting. My plane arrived late at night in London and I got off feeling rather alone. A colleague, a clergy person who lived there, said she would arrange for me to have a place to stay, but other than that assurance, there will be a place for you, I was a stranger in a strange land and feeling it.
I walked through customs and past people greeting friends and relatives, wondering how I would find my contact person. Lost in my thoughts of “what will I do and where will I sleep,” I was startled into consciousness by hearing my name called: “Dr. Peay. . . Dr. Steven Peay!” I turned and I was greeted by a gentleman holding a picture of me. He was my contact and his family offered me gracious hospitality -- I was no longer a stranger, I was recognized.
Oh, I suppose it’s a reach to compare my arrival at Heathrow Airport with Mary Magdalene at the tomb. However, as I read the Gospel again I couldn’t get away from how wonderful it was to be recognized and then called by name, especially by a stranger. It is at once jarring, but also very comforting. Had Robert, for that was his name, not recognized me and called me by name, I would never have known who he was. Had Mary not heard her name called by Jesus she would have never known that He was the One she was seeking – in hearing her name, she recognized the Lord.
Mary Magdalene was lost in her grief to begin with and now there’s no body to mourn over, no body to honor with the ointments and spices. She had come to the tomb, found it open and the body gone. Immediately she went to Peter and John with the news. “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” All of Jesus’ teaching about how he would suffer, die, and then rise again didn’t even enter her mind. She had lost her teacher, her friend, the one who loved her when no one else would, and now someone had robbed the grave. It was more than one could take.
So she followed Peter and John back to the tomb; I wonder if she tried to run along with them? They each entered and came to believe that the Lord had indeed risen from the dead, though they hadn’t yet caught the full meaning of what had happened. Mary, however, lingered outside and continued to linger even after Peter and John had hurried off. Eventually she came back to the tomb and peered in, only to discover two strangers sitting in the tomb.
John’s Gospel tells us that they were ‘angels,’ messengers, but Mary wasn’t amazed at these white-robed strangers. When they asked her why she was weeping, she told them what’d told the disciples. This time, however, it wasn’t “we,” but “I don’t know where they have laid him.” Her grief and disappointment were still so great that she couldn’t comprehend the empty tomb. She was so caught up in herself, that she couldn’t see the wonder of what was happening all around her.
Still lost in her grief, she turned and saw yet another stranger. The Gospel tells us that she assumed he was the gardener and, by her question to him, she thought he might know where Jesus’ body had been taken. Then it happened, the mysterious stranger spoke her name: “Mary.” Here Jesus fulfils the word he had spoken earlier in John chapter ten. There he had said, “I am the Good Shepherd, I know mine and mine know me . . . the sheep follow him, for they know his voice.” Mary heard the voice and responded, “Master,” recognizing Jesus and then thinking that things were the same as always. They weren’t, and as Jesus talked with her she understood more and more, came to a new recognition, if you will, that she was truly in the presence of the Risen One.
You see, each year we celebrate Easter and it’s a great festival for the church, the family, and the candy makers, too. We are all reassured with the news of the Risen Lord and the empty tomb, but does it make a difference when we go through the doors of the church and back to the everyday tasks that face all of us? For many of us I don’t think it does; since, like Mary Magdalene, we keep looking for something other than what is really there. We can’t recognize Jesus because we’re looking for a ‘dead’ Christ, a Christ of history, or a Christ of principle. What he taught and did touches and moves us, so we look for him, but he isn’t here. However, it isn’t this Jesus of History who waits to meet us, but the Risen Christ. He waits outside the tombs of our self-absorption and self-centeredness ready to walk with us and ready to love us into freedom through every day of our lives.
Just so you know, ministers and theologians have to come to realize this as well. I am humbled and inspired every time I think of R. W. Dale, the brilliant nineteenth century British Congregational theologian, minister, and first principal of Mansfield College, Oxford. Late in his career as he was preparing an Easter sermon,
. . .the thought of the risen Lord broke in upon him as it had never done before. “Christ is alive,” I said to myself; “alive” and then I paused; -- “alive!” and then I paused again; “alive!” Can that really be true? Living as really as I myself am? I got up and walked about repeating “Christ is living!” “Christ is living!”. . . It was to me a new discovery. I thought that all along I had believed it; but not until that moment did I feel sure about it. I then said, “My people shall know it; I shall preach about it again and again until they believe it as I do now.” . . .Then began the custom of singing in Carr’s Lane every Sunday Morning an Easter hymn.
[A. W. W. Dale Life of R.W.Dale, p. 642]
This distinguished theologian hadn’t really comprehended that Christ is alive until that day when, as it were, he heard his name, recognized the Risen Lord and responded.
All of us need to have our own personal Easters where, like Mary Magdalene and R.W. Dale, we hear our names and recognize the Lord’s voice. The Risen Lord wants us to come to this experience so that we can rise from all the little deaths that we know. The Resurrection, I believe, isn’t just about the end of time, the great “getting-up morning.” Rather, it speaks to us where we are and brings us to life right here and right now.
We may be buried in the tomb of self-centeredness. We may be dying the death of self-doubt or the lack of self-worth. We may be sunk in the grief mourning the loss of a loved one or a relationship gone sour. Whatever the little death we’re experiencing, the Risen Christ stands outside our tombs and today, everyday reminds us that they are empty. Death is defeated and life reigns -- if we listen for the voice of the Risen One calling out our name.
The key here is that we respond. Someone can call our name again and again and, though we may be annoyed, it does nothing unless we respond. We are free to remain sunk in the myriad little graves, the little deaths, lost in our own self-imposed grief, but we don’t have to be. The Risen Christ stands, speaking our name, inviting us to know that we are one with God, that we are loved, and life holds so much more for us.
The response is going to take different forms for each of us. It may happen today or months down the road, but if we listen we will hear. Once we respond in recognition, like Mary Magdalene, we will leave the tomb a renewed, a different person. We will seek to live unselfishly, loving as we have been loved: unconditionally. We will make a difference just by being who we are, because people feel God’s love, God’s care, God’s light flowing through us, all because Christ is alive.
Whether in a crowded airport, or a shopping mall, or a church, or even the quiet of your home, listen for the voice. You may not hear it with your ear, but you will most certainly hear it with what the spiritual masters call the ear of your heart. At that moment you will know that Christ is alive; and for the first time, you will know what it really means to be alive. We are called by name and Christ is alive!
Christ is Risen! He is Risen