A word is worth a thousand pictures

Easter Sunday, 2010

There are times when words are worth a thousand pictures.
Today’s Gospel is a good example.

“I have seen the Lord!” With these simple words that Mary Magdalene brings to the other disciples of Jesus, everything is changed.

There are no caveats like “You won’t believe this but…” There is no “I think” or “maye” and no defensiveness in these words. Here is what happened: “I have seen the Lord!”

These are the words of a person who has experienced something so amazing, so wondrous, so real and so unexpected that all pretension has fallen away. These are the words of a person who has met the Risen Christ. “I have seen the Lord!”

When we say it during every liturgy through the fifty days of Easter we say it another way. We say “Alleluia! Christ is risen!” And we answer “He is risen indeed. Alleluia!” But try to imagine when we say this that we aren’t in church full of people but one of two people who meet in the street. Imagine that you cannot contain yourself. “Alleluia! (or praise the Lord!) Christ is risen!” And the answer is “He is risen indeed” (or “You betcha!") Alleluia! (Praise the Lord!)”

Now imagine yourself walking around the mall or going to their house and saying to your friends or family “I have seen the Lord!” Go ahead, try it. “I have seen the Lord!”

Oh! You sound so sure right now, but getting there was tough, wasn’t it? Took a little coaxing, didn’t it?

Mary’s journey was not so easy either. In John’s Gospel we hear only of Mary Magdalene coming to the tomb, not the other women mentioned in the other three Gospels. John tells us in the most detail how it was that she brought the news of the Risen Jesus to the apostles. She was truly a disciple of Jesus. A disciple is a friend and apprentice of Jesus Christ. She was a friend—a person who knew Jesus and a person Jesus knew well. Jesus healed her and she became his follower. Tradition gives her the role as a prostitute, and you may have heard about her in a novel or movie or two.

Mary goes to the tomb, John does not say why, perhaps as the other Gospels say to care for the hastily buried body. She finds the tomb and the stone has been rolled away. She does not go in, but runs away. The first time she returns to the disciples, it is out of fear and distress mingled with grief. Here words are not assured but distressed: “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.”

When Mary Magdalene sees the empty tomb the first time, she assumes that the grave had been robbed and that the body was stolen. Notice also that the apostles are not expecting this news…they have to run to see this for themselves. The Beloved Disciple peeks in, then Peter steps into the tomb; then the Beloved Disciple goes in, as well. Peter knows the body is gone; the Beloved Disciple believes that Jesus is risen, but neither of them know what this means just yet. That is left for Mary Magdalene to discover.

John is telling us in these few sentences some important facts: One, Jesus’ body was not stolen by his followers (they did not expect nor understand the empty tomb); two, Jesus was not resuscitated like Lazarus (notice the burial clothes are left aside in the empty tomb, whereas with Lazarus was raised by Jesus, he came out of the tomb wearing his burial cloths.); and, third, he is not a spiritual being translated directly to heaven. Jesus is raised bodily from the dead, and in this Gospel it is Mary Magdalene who will discover that for the first time.

We also learn that the followers of Jesus were surprised that he was raised from the dead. They did not expect it. Up until now, Jewish ideas of resurrection (which were not universally agreed upon!) assumed a spiritual resurrection not a bodily one.

Because of the experience of these eyewitnesses, the early Christian concept of resurrection was completely different than the theories that came before it.

So it took Mary, not to mention Peter and the other disciples, a little while to wrap their arms around this experience. It was so different than what they expected. Once again, a word is worth a thousand pictures, when Jesus says to her gently“Mary!”

Now, she understands! Her friend and teacher is not dead—he is alive! His body is not stolen—he is right here! The grave is not desecrated—the grave and gate of death is burst open!

“Rabbi!” she says and she hugs him. Jesus tells her to go to the other disciples and tell them that he is going to his Father and our Father, his God and our God. The chasm between all of us and God is healed. The breach of sin has been closed. We are now God’s one, undivided family.
Seeing, and holding and talking to the Risen Jesus changes everything. Mary, this woman who was so tentative, and so weighed with grief, now goes to the disciples, bursts in on them and announces “I have seen the Lord!”

Say it with me: “I have seen the Lord!”

Where have you seen the Lord?

Certainly in this community, gathered for worship, for ministry and service, for teaching and learning and in care for one another. Time and again, in beautiful worship, shared meals, quiet moments of prayer and companionship, in good times and in hard times, this gathered people have shown the risen Lord to each other and to the people outside these four walls. We say “we have seen the Lord” with every meal shared in the Soup Kitchen, when we welcome the addicted into our midst and when we open our church for music and fellowship. In all we do, we show more than a thousand pictures ever could that the Lord lives.

We have seen the Lord when we find that our gifts for service are raised up and used in great ways. We have seen the Lord when we are comforted in our grief, supported in our difficulties and transformed in our learning and growth. We have seen the Lord as our creativity is called out, and when we give our hearts to God in prayer.

“I have seen the Lord!”

Mary’s meeting of the Risen Jesus in the empty tomb shows us that whatever happens in our life, there is the Risen Lord. Everything that separates us from God has died on the cross and is left in the grave. Whatever weighs us down is taken away. Whatever tries to smother hope, is removed forever. Whatever deals death in your life, no longer has power over you.
In so many great and little ways, at the moments of our deepest need, the wounded, crucified, and risen Jesus meets us exactly where we are, in exactly the way we need. And when we look past our tears and our grief and whatever weighs us down, there he is: Our friend; Our teacher; Our risen Lord and savior.

“I have seen the Lord!”

You see? Words are worth a thousand pictures.