Today is Sunday, April 12. Easter Sunday.
This isn’t how any of us wanted to celebrate Easter. We wanted to be all together, in our church building, wearing our Easter clothes, singing together, worshiping together, and enjoying a wonderful fellowship time complete with food and laughter and hidden Easter eggs.
But instead, we are confined to our separate homes. And this afternoon, we can’t even go visit family or friends for Easter dinner. I know I’ll miss seeing my sisters and their families, watching my nieces and my nephew hunt for eggs…
This isn’t how any of us wanted to celebrate Easter.
So. What are we to do?
For me, it is helpful to remember that the first Easter also did not take place in a church. It happened outside of an empty tomb… and the disciples? They were together at the Last Supper, but after that, they were scattered. Some of the disciples went one way, some went another…most were sequestered in their homes, grief-stricken and wondering what was going on. They were sequestered, not because of a virus, but by their own fear and sadness.
The crucifixion was not the ending that they had anticipated. This was not the way things were supposed to be. It was a devastating disappointment.
Let’s sit with that for a moment. Let’s ponder the devastating disappointment they felt, when - instead of being exalted to reign on high - Jesus was executed by crucifixion.
Everything they had anticipated, everything they had been looking forward to - all their hopes, plans, dreams - gone.
I think we can better relate to that this year, this Easter; I think we are in a position to understand it better this year. Because this year we, too, are experiencing devastating disappointment, as all our hopes, plans, and dreams for this day and this season have also vanished.
Well. Maybe not all our hopes...
One of Jesus’s closest followers - Mary Magdalene - couldn’t sleep. She was kept awake by grief and anxiety. So rather than lay there in bed, counting sheep in vain, she got up - it wasn’t even dawn yet - but she got up, and in the darkness, she went to the tomb where Jesus’s body had been placed.
Let us turn to the 20th chapter of John’s gospel, to hear what happened next...
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.
You may have noticed how Jesus appeared to Mary, yet she did not recognize him… Strange, isn’t it? She knew him, she loved him, he was standing right in front of her, and yet she wondered: “Who are you?”
Well I don't know about you, but when I'm stressed or anxious, when my heart is filled with grief, it's hard to think straight. For example: several years ago when I got a phone call letting me know that my mom had died, I literally did not know what to do. I hung up the phone, and I couldn't think. My brain froze.
So I got up and went for a walk. It took a walk around the neighborhood for my brain to start working again.
Has it seemed to you that it's been harder to think since this pandemic started? Have you found it hard to process information? Has it felt like your brain’s capacity to think things through has been greatly diminished? You do one task, and your brain is fried for the rest of the day…
That’s perfectly normal. A lot of us are experiencing that these days. We're dealing with a lot right now.
Some days, as I’ve been working through these changes to our worship services, figuring out how best to adapt them to livestreaming, taking into account how worship over the internet makes worship more accessible to some and less accessible to others, and trying to figure out so many new things… I come down hard on myself, and I think to myself, it isn’t that big of a task. It’s not that difficult. I should be able to figure one thing out, and then move on to the next challenge.
Yet when I try, I find that my mind needs a rest, that my mind is needing more times of rest these days than it normally does. And I need to leave some of those other tasks for another time, or find someone else to take them on.
And it’s frustrating, because I think I should be able to handle it all, that, under normal circumstances, I would be able to handle it all.
But these are not normal circumstances. And when your mind is trying to comprehend a world in which everything has gone haywire - it really limits how much your brain is capable of.
So please: cut yourself some slack, if this has been happening to you. It’s normal. And I’ll work on cutting myself some slack as well.
And together, let’s cut Mary Magdalene some slack.
Because this was probably her experience as well. It’s hard enough just to function, just to go through your normal activities, when your brain is under stress. So how on earth is your brain supposed to comprehend the reality of a dead person coming back to life? How on earth can you even make sense of such a thing? It’s just too much.
There’s no room for possibility, for hope, when your brain is already filled beyond capacity with grief, anxiety, and despair.
I totally get how it is that Mary did not recognize someone she knew and loved so well. There just wasn’t room in her brain to process what her eyes were seeing.
Because if Jesus was alive, that means he conquered death.
If Jesus was alive, that means the kingdom he proclaimed is real.
If Jesus was alive, that means that literally everything has changed, and that nothing is as Mary thought.
How can one even begin to wrap one’s mind around that?
It’s so much easier for the brain to assume that this man she saw must be the gardener.
And perhaps Jesus’ appearance was a little misleading. Because the new kingdom he proclaimed is a kingdom in which the first are last and the last are first; a kingdom where a leader leads by serving; a kingdom where the high ruler could, indeed, appear as a humble, lowly, gardener, dirty, ragged.
Was there a shining light like we so often imagine? Was there the sweet sounds of a heavenly chorus? The scripture only says that Mary saw two angels in white, but even angels can look rather ordinary. They don’t always have wings and halos and harps.
Bottom line: what Mary saw that morning in the pre-dawn darkness was not what she was expecting. And for whatever reason, she didn’t recognize that what she saw was, in fact, the thing she most wanted to see, the thing that was the most wonderful thing possible. Not until Jesus called her by name did she understand, and recognize who he was, and what had happened.
I know that this pandemic is not the most wonderful thing possible. Far from it! But I don’t doubt that the risen Jesus is in our midst, right now. Are we too burdened to recognize him?
Perhaps.
Have our minds become too preoccupied, too full of anxiety and disappointment, to know the presence of Christ among us?
Perhaps.
But maybe if we can just listen for Jesus, calling each of us by name… I know it’s hard to quiet our minds and listen, but maybe we can. Maybe we can listen, and know that he’s there beside us: the living Christ. Calling us by name. Assuring us of his love.
And then maybe we can hear him sending us out to tell others, to let others know, that Jesus is alive, that the love of God is present, that not even death can separate any of us from that love...
That seems to be our task, our commission, our calling: to find ways in these difficult times to share the love of Christ with family, friends, and neighbors.
And maybe we need to get creative in how we do that. Maybe our current situation demands that we get creative, in finding ways to show love and care to one another.
And to ourselves. Jesus says to love your neighbor as yourself, so we need to love and care for ourselves as well.
And even though our minds may be only working at half capacity right now, we can do this! We can find new, creative ways to love,... once we hear our name called..., once we remember that God calls each of us by name, just as Jesus called Mary by name; that God has put God’s own image in each of us, and that God loves us with a love that never ends - a love that not even death can stop.
That love is present in our lives right now. The connection we have with each other - even when we are apart - is one way that love is made known to us. We feel it within us. It’s what makes us long for each other’s company.
It’s the love that comes from the risen Christ. A love that is alive. A love that never ceases. A love that is reborn - a love that is made new every morning.
It’s a love that endures through all things and every circumstance. A love that is stronger than death!
All praise and glory to our God, whose faithful love endures forever.
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