8 April 2007, Easter!

John 20:1-18

The men were too quick. Probably, they jumped to the wrong conclusions. But they were definitely too quick to return home, scratching their heads, as men usually are.

Mary, however, stuck around. She stood there weeping, who knows why. But because she stayed, she got to see the risen Christ with her own eyes. Whatever called her to stay after Peter and the other disciple left is a mystery to us. But stay she did. Maybe it was intuition, which I won’t attribute only to women, but was strong perhaps in Mary. She knew she couldn’t leave—not yet. She had to find out what was going on. She wasn’t like those two disciples who come and gather their evidence and then go back to think about it. She knew there was more.

And indeed there was more: for she would have an encounter that would change her life for always. It was an encounter with her teacher that was unlike any other.

First off, the encounter was unexpected—a new Jesus appeared to her; undeniably a part of the old, but somehow a new visage who came into view. She didn’t expect to see Jesus and indeed she didn’t. She thought he was a gardener; someone she would expect to see in that place at that time.

And secondly, she was to be the messenger of this fantastic news to the others. She was the chosen one to be the carrier of the news that Jesus was not indeed dead, but was alive.

Once again, Mary got what the others missed. She likely understood the teaching of Jesus about how he had to suffer and die and return to life like none of the others did. And she stuck around to see it.

She stayed. She didn’t run away to try to figure it out. She knew, in her heart of hearts, that if she stuck around she would learn the truth of what was going on. Of course her grief caused her to continue to weep and through tear-stained eyes see this person she took to be the gardener.

Tear-stained eyes that had been weeping for days and hours. She had watched the exceedingly cruel and excruciating death of her teacher and friend just earlier. She didn’t come to the tomb on Saturday because, of course, that is the sabbath and a good Jew of the 1st century wouldn’t be doing any work of any kind on the sabbath. And Mary was clearly a good and observant Jew of her day. So she was there, on the first day of the week. But still there were those tear-stained eyes; eyes that would clearly see the missing body of her teacher but wouldn’t recognize the same one when he appeared to her.

Mary stayed and was the first of the disciples that first Easter morning to meet the risen Lord. Her encounter was a surprise to her even though in her heart of hearts she probably knew what was happening.


Do you stick around and stay long enough for Jesus to appear to you? Or are you like Peter and the other disciple who run off to try to figure things out. Most of us, I gather, are too busy, to stay where we should to learn of the risen Christ.

Too often we are busy running off from the empty tomb, wondering what’s going on when we should just stay put. If we do stay, we might have a surprising encounter with the living Christ. If we were to stay, we could just meet Jesus in a new transfiguration.

But most of us aren’t ready for that, I think. We’d rather keep it cerebral, pondering away like the male disciples instead of just staying. We might have to talk to others, gardeners for example, in order to find out what’s going on. And you know how we are these days about talking to strangers! We might not even really want to know what’s going on.

For what’s going on might be completely unbelievable; like the coming to life on one who was dead. How crazy is that?! It’s easier for us to just go off and think about things than have to explain something as crazy as that. If you stick around you just might have to explain something like that to your friends and others who will think you’re crazy.

No, it’s better to leave. Just be done with the whole silly affair. Don’t hang around like Mary did. Don’t risk an encounter with the risen Christ. Don’t risk your image as a sensible, reasonable twenty-first century person by staying around and risking an encounter with someone who’s supposed to be dead. Try to explain that these days: that your savior was dead and is now alive. Still. Some 2,000 years later.

If you stay around, you might have to face the fact that Jesus is alive. To Mary it was a beautiful, life-affirming moment. But to us, it makes us sound foolish. We can’t go running off proclaiming that Christ is alive, can we? If we stay around, like Mary, we must face the fact that Jesus, who was once dead, is now alive. And that could just get us in trouble, right?

Friends, we are part of a faith that claims that death has been conquered. There’s no way around it. So stick around and see, perhaps through tear-stained eyes, the risen Christ and then spread the news that you are a crazy, irrational twenty-first century human whose faith calls you to bring the good news to all.