Easter Day
The Right Rev. John Bryson Chane
The Easter narrative of the Gospel of John, as we read it, is not just a story about the Easter story of resurrection, but it is also a story about the way in which God interacts with humankind, and God’s relationship with each and every one of us. We know very little about Mary Magdalene who appears in this story as a main character. But what we do know from the accounts of the Gospel is that Mary was a person of some questionable character. In fact, it’s assumed that Jesus cast out from her seven demons in the journey that he had with this woman prior to their coming to Jesus’ end on the cross. Here’s a woman of questionable background and one who was really not a disciple, but one who was a camp follower of Jesus, one who was faithful in understanding or trying to understand his message.
And yet it’s Mary who is the one who comes to this empty tomb and at first encounters what she thinks is the gardener, and then realizes that she has encountered the living Christ. Very important, because when we look at this Gospel lesson for Easter, the other disciples, especially Peter, who is considerably known to be the most powerful disciple in this group of twelve, go to the tomb, find it empty, don’t know what to make of all of this, and so quietly return back to their homes…which clearly indicates that their level of faith was really somewhat to be questioned. Now when Mary goes to the tomb, finds it empty, she’s exposed to the Christ who has survived the cross, her faith is so strong and she is so empowered by this vision that she literally runs back and tells the other disciples about this great story about Christ’s victory over death, his victory over the tomb.
You can imagine how powerful that experience was when Mary came back from that experience to tell those who were unbelieving and who had not yet really understood Scripture. And in fact, it says in this Gospel that the disciples really did not know, from Scripture, what was about to happen or what did happen. And yet it was Mary who was the one who did know.
Interesting for me that God should choose someone like Mary over all the disciples, especially Peter, who was next in line to Jesus, to really tell the story of Christ’s victory over death and to proclaim to us today the story of the great message of Easter. Mary as a woman was despised literally by her culture and Jewish law. And Mary was really not a disciple of Jesus but was a camp follower of Jesus, had encountered him and was intrigued by his teaching, and was faithful in understanding, or trying to understand, what he taught and what he preached.
So intense was Mary’s faith, empowered by this relationship with Jesus, that she was the one who could understand what had happened following the crucifixion of Jesus when she encountered the empty tomb. Interesting, again, that it’s only Mary who understands this great miracle that we claim as our Easter message, the center of who we are as Christians. And it’s Mary, of all the people that God could have chosen, who tells the Easter story.
I’m always amazed that God chooses the least among us to tell the most powerful stories of God’s relationship to humankind, and uses people who are the least among us to tell the great redemption stories of God’s love for each and every one of us. You know, the story of the resurrection is the story of a new creation, a new being; it’s the story of new beginnings for a community that followed Christ. It’s a story of liberation. It’s a story of freedom. It’s a story of God’s inability to be put to death, even by the meanness of the human spirit.
And it’s this reality, this understanding that Mary had through the teachings of Jesus, that literally gave her the vision and the faith and the power to interpret the events of the empty tomb and to encounter the living Christ. For anybody else this would have been very difficult, as the Gospel tells us, but for Mary, the least among many, it was the reality of her time. So really, God chose the least among us once again to tell the great story of the Christian experience, the beginning of the Christian community.
Unfortunately, you and I live in a world where we have yet to master the power of this story. We understand, we think, what the Easter resurrection narrative is all about and we believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ as being central to our life as Christians. What we have a hard time understanding is why God chooses the least among us to tell the great stories and to communicate the power of the faith. We continue to discard the Marys of this world as having no place among us, as having no relevance or credibility. Our sensitivities too often are dulled by our love of things and our own willingness to judge others as having no place in our lives.
That’s not the way God operates. Many might not have a clear understanding about the concept of resurrection. And I know it’s very hard to understand. But all miracles are hard to understand: how it happened, why it happened, what ultimately occurred. But in a mysterious and wondrous way, God simply came to be understood through the human spirit of a human being who was an outcast in her day.
Today, the world can’t tolerate such proximate love and faithfulness as exhibited by Mary, or too often it can’t. It continues to discredit those who are marginalized in this society and have no standing. So Mary, the least among those who should have known that Christ was alive, was the one who brought the good news of his victory over death. And it’s Mary, the least among those who should have known, the one who was despised by her culture and her time, who brought the great Easter message to the early Christian community. There’s a powerful message in that story that extends itself beyond just the greatness of the resurrection. And on that story, and on the gift of the resurrection on this Easter Day, we celebrate it and give thanks.