Christ Lutheran Church in Aptos, CA
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Happy Easter everyone! I’m taking this in. It’s just so good to see so many faces. Our little parish isn’t used to this. If you went to the local megachurch today, they might not be as awkward as I am, but they also wouldn’t appreciate you as much as I do, so...
I want to start by talking about Mary Magdalene. She gets her time to shine today, which I think is awesome, on this Holiest Day of the church year.
And I’m not talking about the Mary Magdalene we’ve seen in paintings or pop culture — you know, we either get the weeping penitent, or whatever scandalous version is currently making the rounds in the Netflix documentaries. Today, let’s try to get in touch with the actual Mary Magdalene. The one in the story.
Here’s what we actually know: Jesus had cast seven demons out of her. So... she’d been through some stuff. And after that, she followed Jesus; all the way to the cross when the disciples ran away, all the way to the tomb on Sunday morning before it was even light.
That’s who she is. Someone who’d been through the worst, been found by Jesus anyway, and then refused to leave.
She’s also, for what it’s worth, the one the other gospel writers tell us was the last one at the cross and the first one at the tomb. The disciples (yes, the men) had scattered. But Mary stayed. I don’t know exactly what to do with that except notice it and say: sometimes the people who’ve been through the most ‘stuff’ are the ones who know how to stay.
She comes to the tomb in the dark. And she isn’t hopeful. She’s actually bringing spices to finish preserving a corpse. This is a grief errand. Maybe you’ve been there... When you’ve lost someone and you don’t know what else to do. So you go where they last were. You just go.
And she notices... the stone is already rolled away.
An angel tells her: he’s not here. He’s been raised. Go quickly. Tell the ones who ran (yes, aka, the guys).
So she goes. And on the road, Jesus meets her.
Note that he doesn’t meet her in the temple. He meets her on the road. An ordinary road. In the middle of yet another errand.
Greetings, he says. Which in Greek is literally rejoice.
The first word the risen Christ speaks to a human being isn’t an explanation, an exhortation, or an abstract theology. It’s: rejoice. Don’t be afraid. Go tell the others.
A woman who has literally been through hell and back in her life... who came to perform a burial ritual... leaves as the first preacher of the resurrection. This is more than a mere accident. I don’t know about you, but I see that God is driving home a point and I’m not sure if we’ve gotten it.
It’s Easter morning. Some of you came this morning and you’re not sure why. Maybe someone asked you. Maybe it’s just what Easter means in your family. And that’s wonderful.
Maybe you used to believe something and you’re not sure you do anymore and you came anyway, which is actually a more honest thing than it might feel like. And by looking at this story, we see that the resurrection wasn’t recognized first by the people who think they had life all figured out. It happened to a grieving woman in the dark. Just doing what she’d do if she’d lost anyone she loved.
We live in a loud and exhausting moment. And life is life. Things are hard and broken and the pace of it doesn’t let up. Easter doesn’t ask you to pretend otherwise.
I’m not going to stand up here and tell you the world is secretly fine. You know it isn’t. Easter isn’t about spiritual bypassing. The anxiety and despair we experience in life is real. But here’s what I’ve staked my life on, and I want to offer it to you plainly: despair is not the most honest response to reality. It just feels that way sometimes. Easter is the argument that yes, despair exists. But it doesn’t have the last word.
Easter says that God has stooped all the way down to be active inside the worst of it — not watching from a distance, but all the way in—redeeming it from the inside out in ways that you and I would never dare to redeem it. We remembered that two days ago on Good Friday at the foot of the cross, the depth of the darkness, and in the stench of death. God went all the way into God’s own despair. And came out the other side. This wasn’t a reversal or a cosmic ‘undo’ button. It revealed a pattern that’s eternal. The lamb of God slain before the foundation of the world. God, not some sky fairy, but the ground of being itself. God as more of a melody than a deity... God as the breath of life. Using the dying as a portal to newness. Upending the old, dead ways to make all things new. This is what’s on full display in Jesus on the cross. Which takes us to the tomb.
Mary didn’t come to the tomb expecting anything. She came to finish a sad task. To bury her friend. And she left that empty tomb with a fullness she never knew before. With a word she didn’t expect and a direction she didn’t choose.
That’s my prayer for you this morning. To be held peaceably in the embrace of a Love far bigger than your own capacities. To be made new by the God who made you and loves you and goes before you always. This God is moving in your life right now, no matter what you believe or don’t believe. This is just what the God of death and resurrection does. We don’t have to acknowledge it, but I can attest that life takes on a whole new depth and vividness and joy when we do.
In a few minutes we’re going to do something very simple. We’re going to come forward toward this table. There will be bread and wine (and if you’re a Methodist, grape juice)... And words that have been said in rooms like this one for two thousand years. All around the world right now, these words are being echoed: Body of Christ, given for you. Blood of Christ, shed for you. Yes... For you.
There are no tests or dotted lines to sign on. Just a God who wants to be with you right now. You don’t have to be certain. Mary wasn’t certain — she was still frightened when she ran to tell the others. She’d made plenty of mistakes that she was starkly aware of. But she followed her feet. And she was met by Jesus, the God of the Universe enfleshed.
So the invitation stands... Come and be met.
For Jesus is not in the tomb. Christ is risen. Jesus is everywhere. He is risen, indeed.
Rejoice.
It’s now weeks after Easter and I can say - I never knew the resurrection intimately as I now sense I do. Rereading your Homilies of this time - and a dream that propped up an AI discussion about connection, recognition and purpose and my eternal need for GOD and then this simple email that led me back to you - and how this weird word RESURRECTION comes into play with Mary Magdalene whom recently speaks to me in a volume that I have never quite heard before…… well all of it! Leaves me resurrected in the darnedest way! Thank you, once again!