This morning I had the joy of preaching at my home congregation, Spring Garden Lutheran - about Mary meeting Jesus face to face after his resurrection from the dead. Without further ado - here's the manuscript. This was a hard sermon to write - but it finally came together.
Friends, Grace to you and Peace from God our Creator and God’s Resurrected Son, Jesus the Christ. Amen.
When I graduated college in 2012, I decided to pick up and move across the country – to do something different for a season before I began seminary. I moved to Washington State, where for a year I worked in the mountains at a Lutheran retreat center called Holden Village – what was once a rustic mining town in the 1930s. Even today – there’s no TV, no phone, and very limited Internet access. To go there for a time is to say goodbye to family, to friends, and largely to the “outside world” as you know it. I entered into the Holden community in the summer of 2012 knowing that I wouldn’t see my family for quite a time. I entered in the busy season – 500 guests per week that all needed to be fed. We joined in nightly worship together, hiked together, and ran around in the cold glacier water of Railroad Creek together. Summer soon turned to fall. The air got cooler, and the trees on the top of Buckskin Mountain turned a golden yellow.
My family – my mom, dad, two of my brothers and my dad’s parents – decided to come and stay for a week in October, after I had been there for five months. The journey to get to Holden is time consuming – a combination of train, plane, bus, boat, and another bus – so I wanted to meet them at the boat dock as sort of a “Welcome to Holden!” greeting. When I got down to the lakeshore, I saw the big “Lady of the Lake” boat come around the corner, hidden by another alpine mountain. Across the lake, my brother spotted me and yelled, “Dean!” I would recognize that voice anywhere – and he had called me by name. I hadn’t seen my family in months, and missed them terribly – and now all of a sudden – they were here!
Our Gospel text today is also concerned with calling people by name in a way that lays claim to and makes known. Our names and titles are how we are known in the world – by our vocation, by our role in the family, and so on. Our names give us our own distinct identity. I am Dean. You are Carol or Scott or Dennis or Pauline. You are father, mother, brother, or a teacher, business owner, or homemaker. Collectively, we are Spring Garden Lutheran Church. Jesus who calls us by name encounters us all. It began with this story in our Gospel text. We meet followers of Jesus who are in mourning – who have been dedicated to following him, who identify with him, but are facing the harsh reality of a world without the Messiah.
We encounter three people in this narrative – Mary Magdalene, Simon Peter, and “the disciple whom Jesus loved”. They are running to the tomb. They are running to the tomb because Mary found the stone rolled away, and no one is sure what to make of it. It’s been a confusing, distraught, and schizophrenic week for Mary, Simon, the unnamed disciple, and the rest of Jesus’s followers. In a week, they have gone from seeing Jesus lauded and paraded into Jerusalem on a donkey’s back to Christ hanging on a cross drinking sour wine and calling out to God, saying it is finished. They by and large didn’t understand Jesus’s talk about resurrection. Mary, as expected, was surprised and horrified to find the stone moved early in the morning. A thief, she thought. Not only is Jesus dead but someone has come for the body. They eventually, after some hesitation, enter the tomb and find the linens Jesus was laid in neatly rolled up. The body was gone. Supposedly, there was nothing left to see. Simon Peter and the disciple return home, leaving Mary at the tomb. Alone. Alone, Mary waits and lingers.
Angels appear to Mary, but they tell her nothing. They act as signposts, really, for what is to come next, and it is arguably one of the most moving scenes in the whole of the Bible. In her mourning, Jesus appears to her. She didn’t recognize him at first, mistaking him for a gardener – and what she says to him demonstrates the ultimate mark of discipleship – “tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” Then calling her by name, Mary, the ever-faithful disciple that she is, recognizes Christ face-to-face, as she exclaims “Teacher!” Filled with joy – she has seen Christ resurrected in the flesh – she returns to the disciples and tells them everything. Sorrow has been turned to joy. Mourning into gladness. Death into life. Come and see. Jesus is alive.
I like to think that in this moment, God is smiling on creation. Something’s in the air here. Something has changed. People are being called by name and believing is happening and the distance between God and the world has been closed. That moment was the first time that Jesus appeared to his followers after being laid in the tomb. At that moment the whole world was turned upside down, and the Christ’s earthly ministry was handed over to the disciples. Jesus instructs Mary not to hold on to him, for he ultimately knows that he will not be on earth much longer. The responsibilities have shifted. The ministry turns to the people, and that ministry begins when Mary starts running.
That’s the beauty of the church’s 2000-year existence; not much has changed. Since Mary first came to the disciples and told them about the risen Christ, we are doing much the same thing. We live in the hope of the resurrection today, and for 2000 years people have been called by name to carry out God’s work. We still live in the promises of Christ’s resurrection and ascension while things are being made new by God in the world around us. Through Christ’s resurrection, salvation is taken care of and all sins are forgiven. Through Christ’s resurrection, we each individually are called by name as children and beloved of God.
What does this mean for us? Here at Spring Garden, we see resurrection lived out in extraordinarily ordinary ways. We are all, in one way or another, Mary. We are searching and finding out what it means to be God’s people in this very place to only have our names called by Jesus himself. The gifts, talents, and ministry we each individually bring to this place testify to that calling. Whether you sing in our choir, help prepare and serve meals at a funeral, present your child for baptism, receive communion around the altar, or go on mission trips to Guatemala or Tanzania, we are all participating in the new life, the resurrection life, that God has invited us into through Christ’s rising. When Jesus called Mary by name and she noticed him for the first time clearly, so Jesus calls us by name as well to be disciples and participants in God’s justice being done on earth – whether it’s cooking a meal for a family or giving a friend a shoulder to lean on – believe me when I say that all of that counts.
In all of this, know that in resurrection you are claimed by your deepest identity. We celebrate the empty tomb in all that it means – death has been defeated and Christ has triumphed salvation for every single person in this room and undoubtedly the whole world. Christ was not only then, but he is also here and now and very much for each and every one of you. In God, we have been invited and welcomed into something that is nothing short of miraculous. Jesus is inviting you to come and see that resurrection is here and resurrection is now – and for that, I say, “Thanks be to God.” Amen.
God's Joy -
Dean
