I’ve
never experienced a resurrection. Not
that I haven’t wanted to. There have
been a number of times when I have stood beside a casket at a funeral and have
looked at the grieving family and I’ve wished that I could somehow bring their
loved one back to them. Grief is a
difficult thing to experience. We all
have done it. Even grieving over the
death of a pet is a hard thing to go through.
This isn’t a day of grief, it is a
day of joy at the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, who died that horrible
death on the cross on Good Friday and was buried in a borrowed tomb. That death produced grief on the part of all
of Jesus’ followers, his family and his friends and we all experienced the loss
of our Lord who meant so much to this world.
The message of Good Friday is that the God whom we all worship is
dead. God came to earth in the form of
Jesus of Nazareth, and showed us all the love, mercy, compassion and joy that
God has intended for all of us. Our
response to that outpouring of love was to kill our Lord and to ignore the
consequences of that.
I have had the experience of walking
through the church on Holy Saturday, the day after Good Friday and have smelled
the flowers that the altar guild has set out for the following day and I have thought
that there was something wrong here.
Holy Saturday is the day that God is dead. Why are we celebrating? Yes, I know that time is of the essence and
that the Altar Guild really had no choice in their timing. They had to get it
all done.
But now it is Easter. This is a day to celebrate the beauty of the
resurrection of our Lord, the giving back to us of the Son of God who took away
the sins of the world and who made so many lives brighter with his love. Simply listening to the stories that we have
told of the mercies that he brought to so many people is enough to help us to
see the beauty that God has conferred on this world by the life of his
Son.
Today, we receive the greatest gift
that can be given to any of us: the
certainty of resurrection and eternal life.
When the Irish experience a death, they many times have what is called a
“wake”. This is a time of celebration
for the life of the deceased and the certainty that their loved one has
attained eternal life. That is a
wonderful idea. Celebration at the time
of death might seem to be out of place, but it is a statement of the truth of
our faith. We will see each other again
when we all find ourselves in the arms of God.
The story that is told in John’s
Gospel about the resurrection is remarkable.
Mary Magdalene goes to the tomb early in the morning and finds the stone
rolled away and the tomb empty. She runs
and tells Peter and the other disciples that “they have taken the Lord’s body
away and I don’t know where they have laid him.” Peter and the other disciple, the one that
Jesus loved, ran to the tomb and found it empty. They saw the linens lying apart, but didn’t
understand what had happened. They
returned to their homes.
Mary stood outside the tomb
weeping. Two angels were there who asked
her, “woman, why are you weeping?” She
told them that it was because they had taken her Lord away and that she didn’t
know where they had laid him. She turned
around and saw Jesus standing there, but she didn’t know that it was Jesus, she
supposed that it was the gardener. She
said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where he is and I will
take him away. Jesus said to her, “Mary!”
Mary said to him “Rabbouni”, which means teacher and she reached out to touch
him. Jesus said not to hold on to him
because he has not ascended to the father. Her tears of grief turned into tears
of joy. Mary ran and told the disciples: “I have seen the Lord!”
I can’t imagine a more wonderful story.
Mary’s grief is incredible and when Jesus says her name, Mary! It creates great joy in her where
grief had been the only thing that she had been able to feel. This is the Lord’s presentation of
resurrection to all of us in a way that we can take for our
own. It helps me to imagine that after
my death, I will see a strange figure before me who will turn out to be my
Lord. Jesus will turn and say Rodge! And I will know that my life in
eternity has started. That is the message of Easter and it is why it is the
greatest holiday of our year. God bless
all of you. Enjoy yourselves on this
wonderful day!
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