There's Still More (John 20:1-18)

Sermon as preached at Lambs and Evington UMC on 4/20/14

Image Courtesy of Vanderbilt Divinity Library

Has anyone seen a crucifix before A crucifix, , is simply a cross that still has the image of Jesus hanging on the cross.  For Christians it is a reminder of the gruesome way in which Jesus Christ was killed, and at the same time it is a reminder of the great love that God has for us, that Christ was willing to die on behalf of our sins. The crucifix also has a lot of  deep theological significance to it as well. It reminds us that God came to Earth as human for our sins. It also reminds us just as we have been talking about throughout Lent, that we as humans are sinful. That we have rebelled against God’s love, and that our nature is one that is now self-serving rather than God serving. Most of all the crucifix reminds us of what we as Christians honor as Good Fríday, the day in which Jesus Christ died on a cross, died for our guilt of sin, and died so that through grace we may be reconciled with God. There is in fact good news in Good Friday. As we have said we are able to celebrate the forgiveness of sins, we are able to marvel at the amazing love of Christ, that our God would die for us.  And yet far too often in Christianity the story seems to end there, we tend to leave Christ up on the cross, or at least let him rest in his grave. While the crucifix may be more common in Catholic churches, the emphasis of Jesus on the cross is quite common in many Protestant churches. Just look at some of the hymns that we love to sing.  “On a hill far away stood an old rugged cross the emblem of suffering and shame; and I love that old cross where the dearest and best for a world of lost sinners was slain.” or               “Christ our Redeemer died on the cross, Died for the sinner, paid all his due; All who receive Him need never fear, Yes, He will pass, will pass over you.When I see the blood, when I see the blood, When I see the blood, I will pass, I will pass over you.”     Or even   Jesus paid it all, All to Him I owe; Sin had left a crimson stain, He washed. it white as snow.”    

            While the crucifixion of Christ is certainly important to us as Christians, far too often we focus so much on Jesus’s death that we act as though the story ends there. We become like the disciples and friends of Jesus on that Holy Saturday; Appreciating what Jesus has done for us, but heartbroken at his death. We rejoice at the forgiveness of our sins,  but begin to ask ourselves what now?  This is how we find the disciples and Mary Magdalene in our scripture for today. It is now the third day and Mary is going to the tomb of Jesus.  When she gets there she realizes that the boulder in front of the tomb has been rolled away and so she runs back to the disciples in a panic and exclaims, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him."   Peter and the beloved disciple respond to Mary and the three dash off back to the tomb. The beloved disciple gets there first he looks into the tomb and sees nothing but the linen wrapping lying there.  Peter then arrives and in typical Peter fashion he boldly enters into the tomb. As he enters he see thes linen just like the other disciple had noticed, but he also found the cloth that had been on Jesus’s head rolled up in a place by itself. At that moment the beloved disciple got it. Scripture tells us, Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed.”  He started to piece things together in his mind.  At first they had suspected that grave robbers had taken the body, but grave robbers wouldn’t have taken the cloth and linens off of the body and rolled it all up nice and neat, no they would have just taken the body.  You can imagine at that moment in the mind of the beloved disciple things were falling into place like at the end of a good mystery book where all of the clues finally seem to make sense. I imagine the words of Jesus’s farewell flashed in his head, “Very truly, I tell you, you will weep and mourn, but the world will rejoice; you will have pain, but your pain will turn into joy. ²¹ When a woman is in labor, she has pain, because her hour has come. But when her child is born, she no longer remembers the anguish because of the joy of having brought a human being into the world. ²² So you have pain now; but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.”  This is what Jesus was talking about, we have experienced the pain of his death, we have lost Jesus but he says we will see him again. The body is gone, he wasn’t being figurative, Jesus is risen, Jesus is Alive! Though the beloved disciple figures it out, for some reason he doesn’t tell it to the others. All we have in our scripture is that he and Peter return home while Mary remains and weeps.

            We are then left alone in our story with Mary as she weeps at the tomb.  She looks into the tomb for herself and Lo and behold she sees two angels sitting at where the head and feet of Jesus had been. The angels ask her, “Woman, why are you weeping?  Once again Mary answers with her words of heartache and desperation, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.”  Once again Mary sees the empty tomb not as a sign of hope but as a sign of loss, not as a victory over death,  but as some cruel and harsh action done by someone else to further rub in the pain of losing someone she so deeply loved. Even angels cannot shift Mary’s focus away from the cross and towards the good news of the tomb.

             In fact, even Jesus himself is not recognized by Mary.  We are told in our scripture that Jesus approaches Mary as she is looking into the tomb, Mary turns around and does not recognize him, she thinks he is just the gardener. For a second there actually seems to be a little bit of hope in Mary’s voice,  Mary starts to think maybe this guy saw who took him, or better yet maybe he is the one who took the body. She says, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” Mary so desperately wants closure,  she understandably wants to put an end to this drama and heartache of the past few days. She just wants to find the body so that she can return the body to the tomb, so that she can move on in peace, so that it will finally all be over. But the Easter story is not about finality, it is not about embracing  Jesus’s death,  Easter is a celebration that Jesus Christ is risen!  On Easter we do not cling to the cross, we rejoice at the empty tomb. 

The power of this truth was finally realized in our scripture through the power of just one word, “Mary.” Mary, Jesus calls Mary by name, finally Mary recognizes who it is that is standing before her, finally she realizes that the empty tomb is not bad news at all, but rather a reason to reason to rejoice. Finally she recognizes that Jesus Christ is alive, and so she cries outs, “Rabbouni!”  Everything changes for Mary with that one word from Jesus, “Mary,” her name.  Being called by name is something special,  it speaks to a recognition of who you are, but much deeper than that it speaks to a relationship that you have.  For Mary, it brings back all of those feelings and memories that she thought she had lost forever, it was a sound that probably sounded much like an echo in her memory of the times she spent with Jesus, the time she thought she lost, and yet here it is loud and clear, that Jesus is still with her, that Jesus had conquered sin and death; that the Lord has risen.

            And so it is for this reason, at least for Protestants, that simply the cross, not the crucifix has become such a powerful statement for our faith.  This does not diminish the significance of the crucifix, of Jesus hanging on the cross. None of this could have happened without his death on a cross.  Our guilt of sin was forgiven on that cross, our hearts were ransomed from the clutches of evil, and yet that’s not the end of the story, as we know there’s still more. We depict a cross without the crucified Lord because we recognize that Jesus no longer hangs on that cross, Jesus no longer lays in his tomb, we depict a cross without the crucified Lord because Jesus is not dead, he has risen!  We celebrate because Jesus has conquered sin and death. Just when it looks as though evil had won, just when it looks as though God incarnate would fall victim to the same fate that awaits all humans, Jesus defies death. It’s not that Jesus couldn’t die, Jesus who was fully human died just like anyone else, but Jesus proved that death had no hold over him, that death wasn’t the end, that through God even in death there is new life.  Easter morning brings us the good news that death is not the end, just as sin was conquered on the cross, death was conquered in the resurrection, and we loved ones of Christ, we as a people called by name at our baptism, have the hope of being freed from the bondage of sin and death. This is good news on Easter morning,    and yet there is still more.

            After  Mary finally realizes who it is that she is talking to, after her cries of joy had died down Jesus shocks Mary once again. He says, “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.'"  Do not hold on to me, this probably has to be the hardest words for Mary to hear. She thought she had lost her Lord,  now finally she just felt the joy of seeing him again, knowing that he is risen, and now he is telling Mary not to hold on to him. It just doesn’t seem fair for her, that he should once again leave, but as Jesus tells her, I am ascending to my father and your Father, to my God and your God.  This too is crucial in faith as Christians.   Jesus Christ died on the cross, he rose again from the grave, but Christ will not die again. No Christ will ascend into heaven to be at the right hand of God the Father.  While for Mary this may sound like horrible news, the truth is for the world it is great news, in fact it is the greatest news of Easter. That Christ is risen, that Christ has not and will not die. That means that Christ is alive, yes Christ is alive even today.  That Jesus truly is Lord, and reigns in heaven and on Earth. The good news for us as Christians when we proclaim on Easter that Christ is Risen, is the fact that he is still risen today. That we are able to be in relationship with him, he is able to guide us, watch us, love us, even today.

            But still as we sit here gathered on Easter morning, we may be wondering why is this celebration of Easter so important?  We know we are supposed to gather here with our family of and friends, we know that this is one of the most important if not the most important Christian holiday, but we may be wondering what does an empty tomb, what does the Resurrection have anything to do with my life? The answer is everything.  In a world full of pain and heartbreak, in this dog eat dog world where it seems as though the bottom line is more important than the poverty line, in a world where the politicians, families, and even the church can be so easily divided, in a world in which we mourn the loss of loved ones that seem to leave us far too soon, in a world like this it is easy to lose hope. It is easy to look around at the world and think that evil has won, that the world is destined for destruction, and that our lives here on Earth have no real meaning, But the good news of Easter is that Christ has won. 

            Christ died, but rose again conquering sin and death, not just for himself but for all of creation. That means for us death is not the end, death is just a continuance into the eternal life that Christ offers us through his resurrection.  Christ victory of death also means that Christ is not dead Christ is risen! When Christ tells Mary not to hold on to him, it means that there is still more in store for this world.  That some two thousand years later Christ is still alive and offering us through the power of the Holy Spirit the same love, the same grace he offered the world centuries before. And it means that long after we have passed and we rest in peace with the Lord, Jesus will still be with humanity, still loving, still extending his grace.  What it means is that Jesus Christ truly is Lord, he is king. That through his life death and resurrection and ascension, Jesus established his Kingdom on Earth and will work with us here on Earth until that Kingdom is fully arrived.  This means our lives do have purpose, we are kingdom builders, we are servants of the Lord. We are helping Christ to change the world and fully establish the kingdom of God.  You see the resurrection gives us hope. It first gives us hope that we too shall not die. That though our bodies will eventually fail us, that we have eternal life through the one who conquered death. But the resurrection also gives us hope that this world that can so often get us down, will one day be made new through a Christ that lives and reigns with God the Father, and the we, as insignificant as we me sometimes feel, have a part in that transformation.  The good news of Easter is that Jesus did not just die for our sins, that he is not someone who we memorialize as being gone forever, but that Jesus Christ is Risen, Alleluia, Jesus Christ is Risen, Alleluia, Jesus Christ  is Risen Alleluia!