Easter Sunday: It's Not Too Late (Text)

By The Rev. Anne Bolles-Beaven, Sabbatical Priest

(This sermon is also available in video.)

“Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb.” May I speak in the name of the Crucified and Risen Christ who leads us from darkness into his glorious light.” Amen.

Mary Magdalene. Mary Magdalene appears in virtually every story of our Lord’s resurrection, her name usually first among the women. She had been possessed by seven demons and Jesus had freed her. Seven. It was the number of completion either of perfection or of evil. To say that Mary had been possessed by seven demons is to say that she had been one very sick woman—beyond hope, beyond repair—a terror to herself and to her neighbors. I say this because we see the saints of God in stained glass and we forget the journey that they took to be where they are. Jesus had put her in her right mind, had freed her from the tomb of psychosis, depression and despair from which she could not escape. She was utterly devoted to him. By every account she was last at the cross and first at the grave. It wasn’t faith that led her there. It was love, love that could no more run away from him than he had run from her, he who had called her name: Mary, and led her into the light.

She had come, she didn’t know why, to anoint him to wrap him in spices as she’d wrapped him in love though what she could add to the 100 pounds of spices Nicodemus had already wrapped him in was difficult to say. Even for this it was too late. Still she came. She couldn’t keep away. She’d come while it was still dark—when the only people out were people you wouldn’t want to meet. The Passover had seemed interminable. She was impatient to be near him. How she thought she’d move the stone was anybody’s guess—a large disk rolled edgewise into place in a gutter at the mouth of the cave where Jesus lay. Her mind was on heavier matters: like how she was going to live without him.

The disciples had fled but she’d been there for the hammers and the nails and the blood. She was there when they crucified her Lord, was there when they laid him in the tomb. She was under no delusions as to what she would find there a face—that Face—marred beyond human semblance. The One who spoke and demons fled—her demons. The One who touched and lives were made whole. With him no storm was so big he couldn’t still it, no crowd so great that in his hands 5 loaves and 2 fish couldn’t feed it. Now it was all over. He was gone. Who would roll away the stone in her heart? That was the question—the lump in her throat? How was she going to live?

She arrives at the tomb to find it open. And expecting it about as much as we’d expect the open grave of our loved one only buried two days before she greets it with unmitigated horror. Oh NO!! Not this! More desecration! More violence! Someone has stolen him! She takes off running and returns running with Peter and the beloved disciple alongside. Peter goes into the tomb to find the linen wrapping lying there “still in its folds” says the Greek, as if he’d dematerialized out of them. His body is gone. The disciple “whom Jesus loved” goes in, too. We’re told he “saw and believed” but it could only have been but a glimmer of belief because we’re also told that they did not yet “understand the scripture that he must rise from the dead.” In any case, after all this urgent running we’re told simply that the men “go home.” Rather astonishing, but there it is.

Mary remains weeping at the tomb unable to leave the last place she saw him. Now she bends to look into the tomb but instead of linens lying there she sees is two angels where none were seen before. “Woman, why are you weeping?” They are angels but she seems strangely unaware of that. She is looking for her Lord—the one who made the lame walk and the wounded whole: “They have taken away my Lord and I do not know where they have laid him.” She turns to see a man in the garden whom she presumes to be the gardener. “Woman,” he asks, “why are you weeping? Whom do you seek?” She is looking for her Lord—the one who made the deaf hear and the blind see: “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him and I will [come get him].”

He says her name: “Mary” and at the sound of it she turns. It’s an inner turning, a reorientation of mind. She’s already facing him. She is suddenly, in her right mind. He’s done it again! Suddenly astonished, she recognizes him: “Rabbouni!” Teacher! And she goes to lay hold of him. Jesus is risen and standing in front of her. She wants to lay hold of him. She wants to return to the way things were before. What else would she know? What else do we know? We are often looking behind us at the way it was before. “Do not cling to me. I have not yet ascended to the Father.” Once he does ascend we can cling all we like. God’s story moves forwards not backwards, always forward. “Go tell my brothers I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” The risen Christ sends Mary to proclaim the good news of Jesus’ resurrection to the disciples. She is the apostle to the apostles—talk about astonishing—women couldn’t even be witnesses in a court of law and Jesus entrusts her with the most important testimony of all time: I have seen the Lord!

I love the way this story is told. Mary Magdalene doesn’t recognize Jesus but he’s standing right there in front of her, right there! This is extraordinarily good news for you and me. Just because we are unaware doesn’t mean Jesus is not standing right there, right there in front of us. We think: it’s too late. It’s too late! We can’t see past the reason it’s too late. We can’t see past our tears, our shattered hopes our broken hearts. Easter tells us we have a God who doesn’t know the meaning of the words: too late, whose greatest work was done in and through the crucifixion not before it.

We’re weeping. We’re weeping at the door of the tomb…but he’s not in there…. Angels address us, messengers of God, messengers of grace and truth but we don’t hear them, not really. We don’t really know who sent them. Jesus meets us but we think he’s the gardener, our colleague, our partner, our little brother. We are lost in our grief, lost in ourselves. We’ve lost our bearings. We’re out of our minds. The mystery of the resurrection is all around us…talking to us, trying to reach us, asking us why we weep. What a lovely thing! God notices and cares that we are weeping. “Woman, why are you weeping?” ask the angels. “Woman, why are you weeping?” asked Jesus, “Whom do you seek?” “They have taken away my Lord and I don’t know where they have laid him.” They have taken away my life, my future, my hope and I do not know where to find it again.

It’s not too late. Whatever we’ve done or left undone. Whatever has happened to you and me: illness, divorce, the death of a loved one: It’s not too late. Someone may have stolen your childhood through abuse, neglect or simple misunderstanding but God’s got your future. That’s the message of Easter. That is the message. So don’t be afraid. Go to the tomb. Go to the last place you saw him. Go to the place where hope died, where faith was extinguished. Jesus is there. Unexpectedly. Impossibly. Jesus is there with angels of comfort and mercy asking why you weep and calling you by name, your name: your name, my name, a name we hear without guilt, without shame—in our right mind—a name formed in the mouth of God, a name formed in the heart of God, calling us until we recognize him, until we recognize ourselves, until we cry out with Mary: I have seen the Lord!

My Friends, it’s not too late. It is never too late.

Alleluia, Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed, alleluia!
Thanks be to God.

© 2009 The Rev. Anne Bolles-Beaven