Easter Evening  John Ch 20 v 10 – 18

He is here! – do we see him?

Today we celebrate the resurrection of our Lord! Did you truly hear the news?  He is risen!

It is the third day after the crucifixion. We know from the gospel accounts of the crucifixion that Mary Magdalene was present throughout.  She had stayed at Christ’s side, witnessed his death, and had probably been present at the anointing of His body for burial in the tomb of Joseph of Arimethea along with Nicodemus.

But it didn’t stop there for Mary; she still wanted to be close to her master.  So early on the third morning John tells us that Mary went to the tomb early in the morning to anoint His body again following the traditional Jewish custom - bodies were anointed until the third day. So Mary Magdalene was not doing anything unusual, but she was the one who went first, and the one who did not go back home when she found the tomb was empty.

She went back, not knowing what she would find.  What I am about to say may sound very strange, but  I sometimes think that the disadvantage of always being a Christian, is that I can’t remember hearing the Easter story for the first time.  For I would like to be able to remember how I felt when, alongside Mary I discovered Christ had risen.  That I had heard the Easter story not knowing what the next event would be, instead of I suppose growing up with it.  To enter that cave with Mary and not know what we would find, not to know before I hear the words, who is standing behind her.

She had to discover what had happened, and weeping she looked into the tomb where she saw two angels

dressed in white, sitting where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and one at the feet.  When they spoke to her what must she have felt – this loyal servant of Christ?  She certainly didn’t quite understand what had happened.  Then someone else appears and speaks to her, she doesn’t recognise him until he calls her name and she turns round and calls out in great joy ‘Rabboni’

How often does that happen to us?  How often does God speak to us, and we don’t understand, we cannot see his message for us?

For this appearance was an answer to her prayers, and how often do we pray for something and when the answer is given we don’t recognise it.  We are so wrapped up in our own thoughts, our own disappointments that we miss God’s answer to our prayers. Mary only took a few moments to hear the answer to her prayers, but I suspect that some of us take much longer than that, perhaps years to see an answer to our prayers.  When we do see we have had an answer we wonder how we missed it in the first place, but we are so caught up in our own thoughts and worries than we cannot hear God’s answer.

Of course it was not Mary’s eyesight which made her not see the angels at first; for this reading is about Mary’s second visit to the tomb; or indeed not able to recognise Christ until he spoke.  As with us today it is not physical blindness which causes us problems but spiritual blindness; something which Christ alluded to so many times in his earthly ministry.

But isn’t the grief of Mary, the world’s grief, perhaps specially today Israel’s grief. The grief of all who suffer, all who are lost, all who feel the meaning in life has gone. So when we have problems, feel life is treating us harshly and suddenly out of the blue there seems to be a light at the end of the tunnel, what do we think?  Do we think ‘it’s a funny old world, what a coincidence’ – or do we go down on our knees and thank God for listening to our prayers, for being alongside us and answering our prayer.  For being at our side when we least expected it, just like when Jesus appeared to Mary outside the tomb.

Tom Wright, the Bishop of Durham, writes ‘Mary’s intuitive guess, that he must be the gardener, was wrong at one level and right, deeply right, at another. This is the new creation.  Jesus is the beginning of it’.  He goes on to say ‘Remember Pilate saying, ‘Here’s the man! Here he is: the new Adam, the gardener charged with bringing the chaos of God’s creation into new order, into flower, into fruitfulness’.

So when life is hard, we feel misunderstood, alone, whatever, and we suddenly find an answer, feel there is after all a way forward, let us see it for what it is.  God’s answer to our prayers, perhaps not exactly the answer we expected, we may have to adapt, but God responding to our need guiding us forward, offering us a new start, a new fruitfulness. For with God his love and compassion is never ending, there is always the promise of a new start, a new direction, his love is eternal.

Let us never forget, through the fact that we know the Easter story so well, what its true meaning is.  It was not just an event which took place two thousand years ago, but an event which affects our lives each day.  That one great sacrifice for me and you, buying for us salvation, the promise of never ending love.

And I want to finish with one more quote from the Bishop of Durham, obviously written for the doubters.

‘If someone in the first century had wanted to invent a story about people seeing Jesus, they wouldn’t have dreamed of giving the star part to a woman.  Let alone Mary Magdalene.’  That’s true isn’t it – only Jesus could think of doing that.  Amen