Acts 10. 34 – 43
John 20. 1 – 18
Easter Day
Fr Alex
“I have seen the Lord!” What incredible joy must’ve been bound up in those five little words that burst out of Mary Magdalene’s mouth, when she returns to tell the disciples all that she has witnessed in the garden.
But before that, what desolation. The others have gone home, mystified, in a daze; they don’t understand what any of it means.
But Mary simply cannot tear herself away from the tomb. Where else can she go? Everything, her hopes, her dreams, her very identity, was tied up in Jesus, and who he said he was.
And so she stays at the tomb, keeping her lonely and tearful vigil. We’re going to press pause on that scene for a moment.
Mary Magdalene is at the centre of our Gospel reading this morning. But we have in fact been walking through Holy Week in the company of two other women, who often go unnoticed in the great drama of this week. All three women happen to be called Mary, and they each have something powerful to reveal to us about the mystery of Christ’s Passion; and a challenge for us in our own witness, all these years later.
So let’s rewind to the night before this week began, the night before Palm Sunday, and take a look at our first scene, and our first Mary: Mary of Bethany.
Jesus has returned to his friends Mary and Martha, and their brother Lazarus, whom he raised from the dead. Jesus knows the momentous things that await him tomorrow; he knows that he goes to his suffering and his death.
But he takes a moment before all that to share the simple joy of a family meal. At the end of the meal, Mary takes a hugely expensive jar of perfume—perhaps an inheritance from parents long departed; perhaps a dowry for a wedding that she hoped for, but for whatever reason hasn’t happened.
She takes this costly oil and pours it out on Jesus’ feet, and wipes them with her own hair. The house is filled with the fragrance of the perfume.
Judas is angry; he thinks they should’ve sold the oil and used the money for something better. But Mary knows who Jesus is; she knows in some way that he is pouring himself out in love for the world. So she pours out all that she has, the best she has to offer; she gives up the security of money, as she knows what Jesus gives is better; just as Jesus will give up all comfort, safety, even his very life, for something much, much better for all people.
And she challenges us to ask ourselves: what is the most important thing to us? Is it money, or status, or our own security? Jesus has plenty of warnings for those who put their trust in things like that that are here today, but gone tomorrow.
Is it family? Jesus showed at that dinner in Bethany that family is important. But where is Jesus, on our list of important things? What are we willing to give up, to follow his call? Do we trust that he will provide, as he promises he will?
Our second scene. Jesus has ridden into Jerusalem; he has shared his final meal with his friends; he has been betrayed, arrested, condemned, and put to death in the most horrible way possible.
Most of his friends have fled; the bystanders have got bored, and gone about their business. But a woman remains, another Mary. Mary, his mother. As Jesus is taken down from the cross, her arms that once cradled her infant son in the stable at Bethlehem, now cradle his torn and broken body.
How could someone bear such a thing, to stay and witness her son in such agony? But Mary doesn’t turn her face away. She comes to the cross, not to try to save her son, but to follow him into the darkness that must come before the light; as she promised she would to the angel Gabriel when she said “Let it be with me according to your word.” As Simeon prophesied when he said a sword would pierce her soul.
And Mary, this faithful mother, challenges us: will we follow Jesus into the darkness? Will we turn our face away from the places of injustice and suffering, or will we go with him, and join him in his work of redemption?
And so back to where we started, our Mary Magdalene, weeping in confusion at the tomb.
She doesn’t recognise him at first, but Jesus is there with her, in her pain. And then, just the two of them, in the half-darkness of the beginning of a new day, he simply says her name: “Mary.”
And in that moment he restores everything to her: her hopes, her dreams, her life, as she experiences the joy of the resurrection.
And she becomes the ‘apostle to the apostles,’ the first to share with the apostles what they will share with the whole world: that Christ is risen, and life is restored, and love is stronger than death.
It is in Jesus that Mary discovers her vocation; and her identity. Jesus says her name, but when she hears it she doesn’t just come to know who Jesus is; she comes to know who she is, too.
So even in this joyful moment, there is a challenge for us: where do we find our identity? Is it in our nationality, political persuasion, our family history, our likes and dislikes?
Jesus has something much better than that. With the risen Jesus, we find our identity not in the transient and exclusive things of this world, but in him: in his eternal and universal kingdom.
By becoming one of us, he makes us his brothers and sisters, fellow children of God. And by going through our death before us, he brings us into his life: he returns us to our origin, the abundant love of God, poured out on the world in creation, in the incarnation, and in the resurrection.
May we rejoice today with Mary, all three of them, and with all the saints; and may we recommit ourselves to our baptismal vocation as children of God. To place Jesus at the centre of our lives; to follow his call into the places where the darkness still awaits his light; and to know ourselves to be loved, redeemed, and restored, as his brothers and sisters. Amen.