As Mary left her bed that morning, with her eyes red from crying and a body heavy from three sleepless nights, do you think she had any idea that the world had changed overnight? As she walked through the streets, that were just as dusty and dirty as before, past people who were just as burdened and worried as before, do you think she had even an inkling that this morning would change everything for those people and for those streets?
Even when she saw the stone rolled away and the tomb empty, even then she thought someone had moved the body. The truth was too wonderful for her to grasp. Too good for her to believe all at once.
So if this morning you are not struggling to fully believe the Easter message then you are in good company. You can stand with one of the heroes of the Gospels; with Mary Magdalene as she waits outside the tomb, not yet able to believe. Belief comes in stages for most of us. Mary doesn’t know what to believe, but she waits and she weeps over all the injury and injustice that has so recently carried away the one she loves. Tears of pain, tears of anger, tears of confusion.
When we don’t know what to believe or what to do, weeping is often a good place to start. Start with weeping, and eventually we will get to the celebrating.
It seems to me as we wait by that tomb with Mary Magdalene that we have two great callings as Christians, in fact as human beings: to weep and to celebrate. To celebrate without first weeping is to deny the truth of the pain and struggle of our world. To weep without ever celebrating is to be without hope. Good Friday and Easter are both central to our humanity.
And Mary will celebrate soon, but first she weeps.
And if Easter this year finds you in a season of weeping then you are in good company. Don’t rush yourself. There will be time for celebration. Mary was right to weep first. And we are all welcome to weep with her, outside that tomb – even on Easter morning.
Mary made the right choice – to weep. It is really hard, though. Notice that the other disciples can’t do it. They rush to the tomb, have a quick look inside then rush away. But Mary doesn’t rush. She waits. And because she waits, she is the first to see the risen Jesus.
She doesn’t recognise him at first. Because she is not expecting to see her dead friend standing in front of her. But when he says her name, “Miriam”, she knows it is Jesus. By speaking her name he reveals that he knows her; that he loves her; that he understands exactly why she is there and why she is crying and why, in that moment, her tears are about to be forgotten in unspeakable joy. He communicates all that when he calls her by name. Just as all God’s love is communicated to each of us when God calls us by name.
The time of weeping is over now.
Her teacher is there. Alive! And he is turning everything upside down. Just as he did before the cross, only now on a cosmic scale.
“Miriam”, he says. Not Mary. But Miriam – the Hebrew name that connected her to one of the great founders of her nation – to Miriam the sister of Moses. To the great sing-writer and prophet of her people’s past. Miriam would probably have been the name spoken in her family, rather than the Greek version of her name imposed by the surrounding dominant culture. This is a more intimate name. A name that would have resonated with who she felt herself to be.
My indigenous friends speak of the joy and groundedness they feel when they hear and speak in language. Those of you who were here last week at the Baptism would have heard one of the prayers spoken in the Māori language. This was very important for the family.
When people have been forced to speak in the language of a dominant culture that is not their own, their own language becomes deeply intimate, personal, precious.
Mary’s people spoke Greek most of the time. That was the language of politics and commerce. They also spoke Aramaic – the language of one of their previous overlords. Some of them might not have even known much Hebrew at this stage. But it remained their heart language.
The first Miriam – Mary’s ancestor - had waited and watched in a hopeless situation, when her baby brother was hidden in a basket on a river. As she waited, she saw a miracle. The Egyptian princess, the one person with both power and compassion enough to save him, came to the river, opened the basket and adopted him as her own.
In her grief and fear, Miriam waited, and as she waited, she saw the salvation of God.
And so, her namesake, Miriam the Tower, had waited and watched by the tomb of her teacher, and as she waited, she saw the salvation of God; saw the dawn of the New Creation.
And Jesus appoints this new Miriam as the Apostle to the Apostles by sending her to the other disciples with a THE great announcement. “Go to my Brothers and Sisters and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and Your Father, to My God and Your God.”
Tell all the disciples that I am now alive and God is now their Father!
This is the first time in John’s Gospel that Jesus calls his disciples his siblings. Wrapped up in the mystery of the cross and resurrection we find the creation of a new family for God. Because of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection, his Father has become our Father. Jesus has become our brother. We all have a home. A place to belong in the heart of God.
You all know as well as I do that families are complicated at best, and at worst they can be devastating. But we all have a sense for what families can be: places of love, belonging and flourishing.
When Mary Magdalene went that Sunday morning to weep by the tomb of her teacher and friend, the world looked just the same as it had the day before. And that’s true for us as well, we still don’t see the world enjoying all the justice and health and beauty that God intends; but as Mary wept and waited, she discovered that at the deepest level everything really had changed.
Death had been defeated
God had become her father
And a new family had been born – in which we all have a home – a place to weep and a place to celebrate.
These things changed decisively and forever that first Easter, but they are new every morning as we embrace and live their reality together.
Sisters and brothers, Christ is Risen.
With Love from Rev Margaret
Bible quotes from The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version (1989). Thomas Nelson Publishers.