April 20, 2025
I used to be pretty stubbornly closed minded. I believed what I believed, and I didn’t leave much room, if any, for things that I considered to be on the fringe, or contrary to the neat little box into which I had placed my theology. One of the things that I took a rather dim view of was speaking in tongues. An early Christian mentor of mine had once explained to me that the tongue speaking, disease healing, demon exorcising, dead raising, first century apostles were specially gifted with the ability to do these things because some miraculous activity was warranted in order to “kick start” this new Christian faith. These miracles, he told me, just weren’t something that happened anymore. And I was perfectly content to live with this flawed and narrow-minded belief structure, until I made a friend.
This friend was a person who lived their faith beautifully. And yet, they had a difficulty in their life that was far greater than anything that I could ever imagine trying to live with. It was truly a burden on them, and a heavy one at that. I often marveled at how this person was able to keep things together when everything about them seemed to be falling apart. And then, one day, I found out that this person regularly spoke in tongues. And surprisingly, the first thought that I had when I found this out was not one of skepticism, it was one of dawning comprehension. In a circumstance where abundant grace was desperately needed in this person’s life, God granted that need with the gift of tongues. In a person’s life that was so disrupted and so chaotic, God gently touched this person with a Spiritual gift that spoke volumes to them, re-assuring them that God was intimately active in their lives, that God loved them, and that God was walking every single step with them in their trials.
I also was often skeptical when I heard people say that God was talking to them. Yes, I did understand the guidance of the Holy Spirit and how the spirit will lead us, mostly with ideas and notions and nudges in one direction or another, but I found the idea of having words coming to a person directly from God to strain the limits of credulity.
Most of you know that in 2021 I lost my wife of almost 48 years. I was 15 when we met, 16 when we had our first date, and 19 when we were married. We didn’t have a perfect marriage, we managed to drive each other nuts on a pretty regular basis, but her love was everything to me. On the morning that I lost her; the very first thing that happened was that a Bible verse just appeared in my mind. It wasn’t a verse that I had ever memorized, it wasn’t a verse from a book that I had ever led a Bible study on, in all honesty it was a verse that I had never really paid much attention to, but on the morning that I lost her, there that verse was, plainly in my mind, as if someone had just spoken it to me. The verse was from 1 Corinthians 15 and said “If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.” At a time when I was in desperate need of comfort, God stepped into my life and reminded me of the incredibly Good News of Easter. That Christ is alive, and that He has conquered sin and death, and that death no longer means “goodbye”.
In our story this morning we find Mary Magdalene on her way to Jesus’ tomb while it is still dark. The other gospels tell us that other women went with her, and when Mary eventually speaks to the disciples she does indeed say “we” and not “I”, so, she wasn’t alone, but the author of John focuses his story on Mary.
Because Jesus had died on the eve of the Passover his body was buried in haste. Mary and the other women were going to the tomb to complete the burial ritual so that Jesus could have a proper burial. When they arrived at the tomb Mary was shocked and dismayed to discover that the stone had been rolled away, and that Jesus’ body was not in the tomb.
Possibly Joseph of Arimathea had moved the body, after all, it was a borrowed tomb. Or perhaps the Jewish authorities had moved the body, not wishing for it to become a shrine for Jesus’ followers. Or maybe grave robbers had vandalized His tomb. Mary doesn’t know what happened. All she knows for sure is that Jesus’ body is missing, and that the only logical explanation for this is that someone took it. Distraught, Mary runs to tell the disciples what happened. Peter, and the disciple who Jesus loved ran to the tomb to investigate and they found it to be exactly as Mary had told them. But strangely, they found the burial clothes laying neatly in the tomb with the cloth that had covered Jesus’ face neatly folded and placed on the shelf where His body had laid.
Our story tells us that Peter and the disciple who Jesus loved, “still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead” and with nothing else that they could do there, they returned home. But Mary stayed behind at the tomb, crying. Mary was convinced that someone had taken the body. And then, when she looked into the tomb again, she saw two angels sitting there. But Mary just couldn’t shake the idea that someone had taken the body and so when the angels asked her why she was crying, she said it was because she didn’t know where they had taken Him. And then Mary turned around and saw who she presumed to be the gardener, and she asked him if he knew where they had taken Jesus’ body.
It took exactly one word from the supposed gardener for Mary to go from grief to joy. Mary! Jesus exclaimed. And at once Mary recognized His voice. And we recall the passage where Jesus taught us that His sheep know His voice. Mary must have embraced Jesus because He told her “Do not hold on to me because I have not yet ascended to the Father.” This seems odd because Jesus allowed Thomas to touch his wounds, but the word that Jesus uses here that we translate “touch” in the Greek is ἅπτομαι (hap-toe-my) which doesn’t so much mean “touch” as it means to cling to or to adhere. Mary didn’t just touch Jesus, she clung to Him as if she wasn’t about to let Him go. But now, Jesus had more important things for Mary to do than just to hold on to Him.
Jesus told Mary to bring the news to the disciples and Mary went directly to them and proclaimed “I have seen the Lord”. And in so doing, Mary Magdaline became the first evangelist; the first person charged by Jesus to bear the Good News that He was alive! And please note the fact that Jesus didn’t wait for a man to come around to be the bearer of this news. In fact, Peter and the Disciple that Jesus loved had already gone home. It was Mary who waited, trying to solve the mystery of what had happened. And though Mary’s proposed scenario of someone taking the body was completely wrong, she received the news of Jesus’ resurrection immediately and with great joy and rushed to bring the Good News to the others.
Mary did not keep her theology in a neat little box. Mary instantly broadened her perspective with one word from Jesus. Mary was not willing to put limits on the things that she believed God could do, even when one of those things was as completely impossible as a resurrection from the dead. If we limit what we believe that God can do, whether it is having someone speaking in tongues or having God speak directly to our minds or to our hearts, or even God raising His Son from the dead, then we may miss out on some of God’s greatest blessings. One could conceivably even miss out on the opportunity to become one of Jesus’ followers. How many people in Jerusalem that week welcomed Jesus on Palm Sunday and then called for His crucifixion on Friday because He didn’t meet their expectations? We need to be willing to ask ourselves the hard questions, but then, after we ask them, we really need to stop and listen to what God has to say.
Theologian Karl Barth says we come to worship to answer this one, simple question: “Is it true?” Is it true that God exists? Is it true that he created a perfect world, and that humans were part of that creation? Is it true that he wanted us to love him the same way he loves us, freely, and of our own choice, so he made it possible for us to choose not to love him? Is it true that we broke his heart and the perfect world he created by choosing the wrong thing, and he’s been working to heal our brokenness ever since? Is it true that he loves us so much he gave his only Son to die, so that we could be reconciled to him? Is it true that this same Son not only died, but rose again, to give us eternal life? Is it true?” If we are not open to miraculous possibilities, we may never know; we may never find out.
But to the heart that is open, to the heart that believes in God without limits, the resurrection stands as a brand-new beginning. Satan no longer has any power over us, because Satan stands defeated and because God’s Spirit protects us from Satan’s influence. And death no longer has any power over us because we know that if Jesus was raised from the dead, those who belong to Him will share in His resurrection. There is no greater Good News than this.
And there is one more thing that I would like to point out about today’s lesson. Throughout the Gospels Jesus refers to His followers sometimes as “disciples”, sometimes as “servants” and sometimes as “friends”. When He speaks of the Father He refers to Him as “the Father”, or “the Father who sent me”, or as “my Father”. But look at what Jesus does here in verse 17, “Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” The word Jesus uses that we translate “brother” is ἀδελφός (a-del-fos) and ἀδελφός literally means “from the same womb”. It is a word that expresses a deep familial relationship, and this is the first time that Jesus has referred to His followers as His brothers (or more correctly as His brothers and sisters!) It is also the first time that Jesus has referred to God as “my Father and your Father, my God and your God”. N. T. Wright says, “Something has altered, decisively. Something has been achieved. A new relationship has sprung into life like a sudden spring flower. The disciples are welcomed into a new world: a world where they can know God the way Jesus knew God, where they can be intimate children with the Father. [1]
This new type of relationship isn’t just for the disciples. It’s for all of us. When we read the story of the crucifixion we read that, at the moment that Jesus died, the curtain in the Temple was torn in two. The most holy place in the temple was the holy of holies, which was the dwelling place of God’s presence. The holy of holies was separated from the rest of the temple by a curtain that hung 60 feet from ceiling to floor. The holy of holies was entered only once each year on the Day of Atonement, and only by the High Priest. So terrifying was the prospect of entering the Holy of Holies that tradition tells us that when the High Priest entered there he had bells tied to his robe so that the rest of the priests could hear him moving, and he had a rope tied to his ankle so that if the bells stopped ringing because he had been struck dead they could pull him out without anyone else having to enter. It was this curtain, the curtain that separated the temple from the awesome place of God’s presence that was torn in two. Through the work that Jesus did on the cross, no longer do we need to fear being in the presence of God. We don’t need any ropes tied around our ankles. Through Jesus we can come to God directly and be welcomed as treasured members of God’s beloved family.
This, my friends, is the meaning of Easter. It’s a story of God refusing to let us go. It’s a story of God pursuing us until His love finally touches our hearts and causes us to turn to Him. It’s a story of a God who loves His children with a love that will stop at nothing in its quest to reconcile them to Himself. And this wonderful, gracious, extravagant, love, He holds just for you.
[1] N. T. Wright, John for Everyone Part 2: Chapters 11-21, Pg. 103
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