God's Via Positiva #9 | Say Amen to Life

0:01 Lean close, my friends. Let us listen together to the story of the first Easter as recorded in the Gospel according to John, chapter 20, beginning with the first verse. Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved and said to them, They have taken the Lord out of the tomb and we do not know where they've laid him. Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb.

0:55 The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the cloth that had been on Jesus' head, not lying with the linen wrappings, but rolled up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple who reached the tomb first also went in and he saw and believed. For as yet they did not understand the scripture that he must rise from the dead. Then the disciples returned to their homes.

1:54 But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb, and she saw two angels in white sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. They said to her, Woman, why are you weeping? She said to them, They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they've laid him. But when she'd said this, she turned round and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, woman, why are you weeping? For whom are you looking? Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you've laid him and I will take him away. Jesus said to her, Mary.

2:59 She turned and said to him, Rabboni, which in Hebrew means teacher. Jesus said to her, do not hold on to me because I've not yet ascended to the father, but go to my brothers and say to them, I'm ascending to my father and to your father, to my God and to your God. Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, I've seen the Lord. And she told them that he had said these things to her. This is the word of God. For you, the people of God, thanks be to God. Mary mistook Jesus for a gardener. I suppose that makes sense.

3:55 After all, she'd been crying. Mary came to the garden early that morning, clutching a fistful of daffodils. She came to visit the tomb of her dear friend, a big-hearted drifter who spent his days throwing an encouraging arm around downtrodden souls, breaking bread with hungry folk, telling people stories about love. Mary Magdalene mistook Jesus for a gardener. I suppose that makes sense. Mary and the disciples had just experienced one of the worst weeks imaginable. After the crowds and the trials, Pontius Pilate made an example, a bloodied and broken example of Jesus.

4:52 Rome excelled at this sort of thing. Pilate was an accomplished bully, practiced at intimidation. He lined the roads leading to Jerusalem with billboards of death. Nothing like rows of crosses, spatchcocked with wheezing rebels to show the masses who's in charge. Good Friday was Pilate's sick flex. Resistance is futile. Mary Magdalene mistook Jesus for a gardener. I suppose that makes sense. Her spirit had been through the ringer. For a while, things were going so well.

5:46 Mary's life seemed full, full of grace, full of friends, full of the sense that God was doing something new in the world. Mary had found purpose. She was part of heaven's plan. And then... Boxer Mike Tyson once said, everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth. getting punched in the mouth hurts it hurts a lot so many nerve endings it's a disorienting sort of pain you know what I'm talking about there are wounds dished out by life that make you think twice about standing back up there are hurts that make you wonder if you really want to fight the good fight.

6:53 Good Friday was one heck of a punch in the mouth. Mary Magdalene mistook Jesus for a gardener. It makes sense, right? I mean, after everything, Mary's focus has narrowed. After the violence and the heartache, after Pilate smirks and heads off to his country club, Mary gets busy. She does one of the simple, gentle things that humans do in the face of death. She pays a visit to the cemetery. She's going to tend Christ's grave, to brush grass clippings off the stone, to whisper a few kind words to a set of ears that can no longer hear.

7:47 Arriving at the tomb though, life's indignities seem to multiply. Mary finds the stone shoved aside, Christ's body is gone, two bright figures there try to explain the situation, but Mary has had it. Really, really is human cruelty so insatiable? Couldn't they leave well enough alone? Furious, Mary spins from the empty grave and almost bumps into a fellow who's standing right behind her. He probably walked up while she was cussing out the perpetrators of this horror show. He must be the groundskeeper who else hangs out in a cemetery at sunup. Maybe this guy knows what happened to the body of Christ.

8:43 Sir, she says, if you have carried him off, tell me where you have laid him and I will take him away. I'll take what's left of Jesus far, far away, so far away from this mean and ugly world. Mary Magdalene mistook Jesus for a gardener. Down through the centuries, painters have latched on to this case of mistaken identity. Artists have had a lot of fun playing with the notion that on Easter morning, Christ shows up wearing a disguise. We have assembled a postcard collage of these imaginative paintings for you.

9:42 These works portray the resurrected Jesus carrying landscape tools, a shovel, a hoe, a rake. On the cover of today's bulletin, Rembrandt dresses Jesus in a Dutch gardener's getup, complete with a floppy hat.

10:07 Perhaps these painters were aware of an apocryphal story that suggests that Christ abandoned the clothes that he wore in death, left his burial shroud folded up neatly on the slab and went in search of something new to wear. One version of this legend says Jesus found a shed and borrowed the gardener's coveralls.

10:39 I like this fanciful speculation because it's the sort of religious goofiness that dances with a deeper truth. I say this because these paintings make me wonder, was Mary Magdalene mistaken?

11:04 I mean, if we flip to the beginning of the good book, we can read in Genesis the Bible's poetic description of humanity's first encounter with God. In that old, old story, humankind came to consciousness in a lush landscape, a place teeming with life, the Garden of Eden. And it's in that orchard that our ancient ancestors bump into the divine gardener, the author of the cosmos, who's wandering around planting seeds, pruning shrubs, unfurling the tendrils of life.

11:50 This is how scripture introduces us to God. So is it surprising, really, on Easter morn, when Mary Magdalene spins around and sees a figure holding a spade? Hasn't God always been a farmer, helping sprigs of hope to grow, showing up despite all our good Fridays? all the punches in the mouth that we've endured to tug our exhausted souls toward life.

12:31 In today's text, this figure with mud on his trousers looks out from under the brim of his floppy hat and says, Mary, it's a simple moment, right? I mean, the risen Christ calls to his earnest, grieving, frustrated friend. He calls to her by name. It's the most ordinary thing imaginable, this voicing of Mary. And yet, to people of faith, this is the moment when Pilate's smirk begins to fade into the dust of history. It's at this moment on Easter morn when another face, the face of the world's gardener, comes into focus. And it's at this moment when the powers of death start to look not so powerful, not so invincible.

13:38 Invincible. Emboldened by this wild encounter, Mary Magdalene flies from the garden. She runs and preaches the very first Easter sermon. She proclaims for the benefit of the world, I have seen the Lord. By now, many of you know that at some point on Easter, my phone rings, buzzes. And when I pick it up, a voice with no introduction, no pleasantries of any kind declares, Jesus is on the loose. And the next sound I hear is the click of the connection ending. I know who it is. It's my roommate from seminary. It's his quirky way of saying Christ is risen.

14:34 Now over the years, other friends have joined the tradition. And now I get dozens of texts and emails and calls. The first one came in at 12.01, Alex Ryerson in Nashville. Jesus is on the loose. It wouldn't be Easter without this wild, joyful chorus, but please, the preacher the night before Easter needs his beauty sleep.

15:06 I blame Mary Magdalene for the fact that this sort of Easter exuberance still ripples through this battered world. In the face of all that is really and truly hard, there remains something at the heart of this day that still beckons to us in powerful ways.

15:32 Last month, Reverend Werner forwarded a video to the clergy of this church. This short clip came from Spain, from a Spanish news telecast. It tells the story of a seven-year-old girl who was fiddling with her mother's cell phone. And in the contacts between her mother's friends Javier and Joachim, this little tyke found a contact for Jesus. Excitedly, she punched the number, and when no one picked up, she left a message. The news program had obtained the voicemail that this girl left on Jesus' phone, and they played it on the air.

16:24 In the most excited seven-year-old girl voice you can imagine, the youngster begins, I can't believe that my mom has your number. Even though you died. Thank you. Thank you for creating the earth. I know everything about you. I love your teachings. I want to be your friend. And then she signs off with kisses, super kisses. Another case of mistaken identity?

17:03 Maybe. Maybe not. Your clergy have been playing this voicemail over and over. I can't believe my mom has your number even though you died. You don't need to know Spanish to be inspired by the exuberance in this young soul's heart to feel her Easter joy. But is it enough? Is Mary Magdalene's proclamation enough? Is I've seen the Lord enough to keep us going? Is it enough to lift our hearts and straighten our spines as we walk through the world's graveyards counting our losses unsure as to how much more chaos and malevolence we can possibly bear. And yet this is precisely where Easter interrupts our doom spiral.

18:07 It grabs us by the shoulders. It stops us mid-spin. And when we skid to a halt, we're no longer staring at a tomb. We're looking at the sweaty, smiling face of Eden's groundskeeper. We are greeted on Easter by the one who gives the faithful their marching orders. The one who said, I came that you might have life and life abundant. Reverend Wallace Alston is a retired Presbyterian minister now living in South Carolina. You may remember that Wallace and his wife Alice were here in worship with us last November. We sang happy birthday to my 90-year-old curmudgeonly friend.

19:06 I heard from Wallace this week. He wrote to say that his daughter, Lane, received an email a week ago Friday, an email that without ceremony brought to an end her employment at the Department of Labor in Washington, D.C. A good dad, Wallace, called to offer his daughter consolation. Don't forget, he said to Lane. that we, you, are Easter people. To which Lane replied, I know dad. And then she promptly boarded a plane for Brazil where she was scheduled to present the talk at an international conversation on workers' rights. What does it mean to be Easter people?

20:05 Clearly it's not snapping on rose-colored glasses. Easter people know that Good Fridays keep coming. Easter people know that traumatic events, illness, and heartache, war, and disaster are still unfolding all around us. Easter people know that Pontius Pilate was not a one-off. Mary Magdalene gets this. She's well-versed in how rough the world can be.

20:42 So what does it mean to be Easter people? It means, my friends, that even in the midst of dark valleys, the good news of this day shines. It shines like a beacon. It means that the fear stalking our hearts is nothing compared to the joy of running to announce to our friends that the bad guys didn't win. It means that the tomb, while painfully real, is not our compass.

21:25 It means that Mary Magdalene was right all along. In this rough, rough world, we worship a gardener. And this, my friends, is the good news of Easter. Our North Star is out there in his floppy hat, drawing our eyes away from the powers of death and calling us by name. Calling us to live our days with wonder, joy, and courage. calling us to the world's parched places, beating us prop up tendrils of hope, challenging us in word and deed to say amen to life. What else can we do?