Easter Day, Yr A (2023) The Rev. Karen C. Barfield
Easter Day, Yr A (2023) The Rev. Karen C. Barfield
John 20:1-18 St. Andrew’s on-the-Hill
In the name of the one, holy, and living God:
who was, and is, and is to come. Amen.
Dear Heart,
I am coming Home.
Dear heart…
I am coming home.
This morning’s gospel reading begins this way:
“Early on the first day of the week,
while it was still dark….”
This morning we celebrate Easter with joy and festivity,
but not so for Mary.
For Mary that morning brought nothing but darkness as she arrived at the tomb.
She had woken up early,
having hardly gotten what you’d call real sleep;
she had spent her night drifting in and out of consciousness.
Knowing that sleep would elude her, Mary rose before dawn,
and under the shadow of darkness made her way to Jesus’ tomb…
perhaps to grieve a little closer to his body and find some comfort there.
But, upon arriving at the tomb,
she found that the great stone blocking the entrance had been rolled away!
Jesus’ body,
whose consolation she sought,
was gone!
Vanished!
Stolen!
Mary panicked and ran to get help,
telling Peter and the other disciple what had happened.
They came running with her,
went into the tomb,
saw the linen wrappings lying empty and useless
and then returned to their homes.
The one disciple - the one whom Jesus loved - went home with a full heart.
We don’t know about Peter…we never know about Peter.
Most likely he went home with the fear and doubt that seem to have overshadowed his faith recently.
But Mary…
“Mary stood weeping
outside the tomb.”
In her aloneness,
after finally summoning enough courage herself to peer inside the tomb
and see its vast emptiness,
she turns around to find a man standing in front of her.
Supposing him to be the gardener,
she asks him where he has taken Jesus’ body
so that she may go and take him away.
It is not until he speaks her name,
as he had so many times before,
that she recognizes Jesus.
“Mary!”
“Rabbouni!”
Have you ever found it curious that Mary did not recognize Jesus
but mistook him as the gardener…
as some man she had never seen before?
I mean… he just died a couple of days ago.
What was the state of her heart when she turned and saw him there?
I imagine her heart was engulfed in the same darkness that cloaked that pre-dawn morning.
Her heart was filled with sorrow and pain and disappointment and fear and longing.
In Jesus she had found Life,
and now that life was gone,
and darkness seemed to be overcoming the light.
But then…
but then he spoke her name: “Mary”
in that same gentle, strong, warm, inviting way he always had.
With the utterance of that one word…her name… “Mary”…
the fiery glow began to burn within her again.
Once again she could see beyond the darkness….
She could see the glimmer of light and hope.
“Mary!”
“Rabbouni!”
“Do not hold on to me,
because I have not yet ascended to the Father….
Go to my brothers and say to them,
‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father,
to my God and your God.’”
So Mary went and boldly announced to the disciples:
“I have seen the Lord!”
I have seen the Lord!
Once again, her heart was full.
My friends, after six weeks of Lenten preparation…
after six weeks of personal prayer and fasting and self-examination…
after six weeks of hearing news of school shootings, tornadoes, and political unrest,
we arrive this morning at the empty tomb.
What is the state of our hearts?
Have they, too, been cloaked in the darkness of pain and disappointment and fear?
As we gather together this morning
and gaze upon the empty tomb in witness to Jesus’ resurrection,
might we, along with Mary,
find that our hearts begin to burn with hope and light?
In case we have doubt,
there are many witnesses who have gone before us.
After Jesus’ resurrection, he appeared to Peter, and then to the twelve.
Jesus then appeared to more than five hundred folks at one time!
Then he appeared to James
and then to all the apostles
and then, of course, to Paul himself.
And the line of witnesses continues to unfold.
Jesus told Mary not to hold on to him because he was going home.
“Go to my brothers and say to them,
‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father,
to my God and your God.”
In calling her name,
Jesus was calling Mary to come home.
Jesus calls us, too, to come home
and to proclaim the Good News to all who have ears to hear.
In the words of David Lose:
“We are [a people] defined by resurrection grace,
promised a place in the household by the Son,
born from above by the One who reveals God’s… heart,
and pursued by God’s love for as long and far as we may run until,
hearing God call us by name,
we realize that we have been known and loved all along.”
Dear Heart,
I am coming Home.
Dear heart,
I am coming home! Amen.
