Rev. Teri Peterson
PCOP
We Do Not Know…
John 20.1-18
20 April 2014, Easter
(NL4-33)
Early on the first day of the week, while it
was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been
removed from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other
disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, ‘They have taken the Lord
out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.’ Then Peter and
the other disciple set out and went towards the tomb. The two were running
together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He
bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go
in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the
linen wrappings lying there, and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not
lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. Then the
other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and
believed; for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise
from the dead. Then the disciples returned to their homes.
But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb.
As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in
white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the
other at the feet. They said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping?’ She said to
them, ‘They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid
him.’ When she had said this, she turned round and saw Jesus standing there,
but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, why are you
weeping? For whom are you looking?’ Supposing him to be the gardener, she said
to him, ‘Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him,
and I will take him away.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Mary!’ She turned and said to
him in Hebrew, ‘Rabbouni!’ (which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, ‘Do not
hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my
brothers and say to them, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my
God and your God.” ’ Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, ‘I
have seen the Lord’; and she told them that he had said these things to her.
It was still dark.
Early in the morning.
The first day of the week.
Not just before sunrise dark, but end-of-the-world grief
dark.
The kind of dark that takes your eyes time to adjust to, and
seeing with your heart is impossible.
In the dark, everything sounds louder, and the shadows shift
and play tricks.
In the dark, you have to get right up to the tomb to be sure
that hope is really gone, and you have to be practically at the door to notice
that it’s open.
In the dark, nothing makes sense.
So Mary ran. She did not know what was happening, but she
knew how to run, even blinded by tears and shadows.
“I do not know…but…”
After three years of walking all over the country, Peter and
the other disciple had strong legs too. Even weakened by grief and fear and
uncertainty and anger, they could run, and run they did.
In the dawn light, they looked…but they could not see. They
could not understand. They looked, they even went in to look closer, but still,
it was dark.
It was early in the morning, but it did not seem that day
would ever come again.
It was the first day of the week, but it felt like the end of
the world.
And so they ran away again, back into the valley of the
shadow of death, where they knew how things worked.
We are so familiar with the story that it’s easy to forget
that in the moment, even Jesus’ closest friends had no idea what was coming.
They knew what they had expected, and that it had all gone horribly wrong, and
that was it. They did not know what on earth God was up to.
Mary stayed to watch the sun rise. She didn’t understand
either, and kept saying over and over “I do not know.” To the angels, to the
gardener, to herself: “I do not know.”
These are not popular words. We live in a culture where
we’re supposed to have things figured out, and if we don’t then we just say
that “everything happens for a reason.” Even if that’s true, the reality is
that we have no idea what that reason might be. But to admit that we do not
know…somehow that feels like weakness, like failure. We’re supposed to
know—especially Christians, since we are often portrayed as full of certainty
and answers. But we don’t know where the plane is, we don’t know how disaster
happens, or why we can’t cure cancer. We don’t know what tomorrow will bring,
no matter how much we plan for it or how many glossy brochures we read. We do
not know what, exactly, God is calling us to do, and we have no clue how to
talk about what God is doing without resorting to platitudes. We just don’t
know. The world doesn’t make much sense, and we’re often afraid to admit that
we’re in the dark.
We stand, with Mary, at the threshold of life and death, and
we can’t figure out which side is which or what is happening or where to go.
And then there was one word: Mary.
“I will call my sheep by name, and they will know my voice.”
And suddenly, what had begun in darkness splashed over the
horizon and a new day dawned—not just any other day, but a brand new day like
none other.
Mary turned toward the voice and could hardly believe it.
Just as the other disciples had gone into the tomb and looked but not seen, she
too looks and tries to understand, but her mind doesn’t quite stretch around
this new reality. But she tries—she works and works to figure it out, just like
we all do. The Greek word for “turn” is the same as “to change your mind” …and
Mary’s mind is in overdrive. How does resurrection work? What words can we use
to describe it? Where was it predicted, and how can we make it fit into our
already-configured lives?
But Jesus—who was there when the world was created in
darkness, and who rose to re-make the world long before the sun came up—refuses
to allow this. “Do not hold on to me” he says. Even as Mary’s eyes are still
adjusting to this new reality, Jesus can see that we are prone to turning it
into an idea to think about, a concept to believe—something we can hold on to. But
this is not an intellectual exercise, nor is it a return to the way things were.
Lists of beliefs do not bring more light into the world, and the sun is coming
up on the first day of God’s new thing, whether we understand it or not.
So Mary turns again, making the same turn we too are called
to make: she runs yet again, this time in the bright light of day, and tells
the others: “I have seen the Lord!”
Notice she doesn’t say “I figured it out!” or “let me
explain it to you.” She simply runs to tell of her experience of sunrise at the
tomb. In the darkness, God was still at work, growing love so big and so
incomprehensible that it couldn’t stay behind closed doors. It still makes no
sense, like most things about Jesus, but isn’t that the point? That we don't get
to make the sense, God does. Back at the beginning of John’s gospel we heard
that the Word, the Logos, God’s Logic, is coming into the world, and will not
leave it, for he is the Good Shepherd who calls us out of darkness and into
light. And in God’s Logic, death does not have the power. In God’s Logic, love
is stronger than evil and light is stronger than darkness. In God’s Logic, we
tell where we have seen Jesus, rather than insisting everyone must see what we
see. The new creation built on resurrection doesn’t require our intellectual
adherence—it asks instead for something much more: our lives, our love, our
hope, our serving, our telling.
How often are we caught in the darkness, unable to look past
ourselves? How often do we look without seeing? How often do we try to hold on
to the way things were? How often do we trap God in our minds, demanding that human
logic and certainty must be the foundations of faith? And how often do we run
to tell others that we have seen the Lord?
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We stand at the door that leads into the unknown of a new
day at the beginning of a new week in a new world. We do not know what to
expect, but we know the stone has been rolled away, the bindings of death left
behind, love beyond understanding walks among us, living and breathing life and
hope and peace. Will we look, and see, and tell the story?
May it be so.
Amen.
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