John 20:1-2, 11-18

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.

² 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 have laid him."

¹¹ But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb.

As she wept,

she bent over to look into the tomb;

¹² 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.

¹³ 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 have laid him."

¹⁴ When she had said this,

she turned around and saw Jesus standing there,

but she did not know that it was Jesus.

¹⁵ Jesus said to her,

"Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?"

Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him,

"Sir, if you have carried him away,

tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away."

¹⁶ Jesus said to her,

"Mary!"

She turned and said to him in Hebrew,

"Rabbouni!" (which means Teacher).

¹⁷ Jesus said to her,

"Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father.

But go to my brothers and say to them,

'I am ascending to my Father and your Father,

to my God and your God.'"

¹⁸ Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples,

"I have seen the Lord";

and she told them that he had said these things to her.
Text: John 20:1-2,11-18

Theme: communion of saints

Date: July 22, 2007

Assembly: Zion Lutheran

Saints

Our culture may have the view that talk of saints sounds Catholic

And so it is important to remember that we have

a different- rather than a non- sense of saints

Like we celebrate Mary Magdalene today

We have a wide understanding of the communion of saints—we’ll get to that later

Saints

Mary, what do you know that I don’t know yet?

See, you get to ask saints questions like this

Saints are quite literally Holy Ones

Who stand for us as witnesses to the resurrection

There are two classic forms of witness

To See it

And to Tell it

Saints do both

They see the resurrection

And in some way, through their lives, they tell of the resurrection

Mary Magdalene

Is the first witness to the resurrection

First witness at the empty tomb

first to see

first to tell

first disciple of the risen Christ

She sees it—the stone rolled away

And she misinterprets

Telling the other disciples “they have taken the Lord out of the tomb”

She sees it—2 angels

Sitting there presumably ready to deliver a message

But she is crying

And she misinterprets

But, yet, their message is delivered as she turns around

and finds herself face to face with Jesus

She Sees it

She’s face to face with the risen Jesus

Too close and bewildering at first to even interpret it

Sometimes we misinterpret what we see

Mary interprets the removal of the stone from the tomb

as evidence that someone has stolen Jesus’ body

She interprets the angels as a mystery (could be right on)

She interprets Jesus to be the gardener

What other conclusion could she reach

In pre-resurrection world

a joyously empty tomb is not a possibility

After all, she was just standing near the cross with Jesus’ mother and aunt

Can we take a moment to ponder the horror of Jesus’ empty tomb

If you didn’t already know of Easter?

I guess there is a saying at the med school

“when you hear hoof beats, think horses not zebras”

She saw a stone rolled away from his tomb

And her instinct was robbery, not resurrection

She saw a man in the garden

And her instinct was gardener not crucified and risen Lord

She interpreted according to what was, in her mind, possible

But the fact remains that she misinterpreted

So, her saintliness must not reside in being right

Well, evidently misinterpretation is not such a problem

It’s more about how we hear and respond to Jesus’ voice

The moment of new possibility comes when Mary hears Jesus call her by name.

In that moment, Mary abandons her grief

and turns to her teacher with expectancy.

Jesus’ voice summons Mary to new understanding/new life

Her life is changed by being able to hear and recognize his voice

He says only her name

And she responds

Whose voices do you most readily hear

This should probably tell us something about ourselves…

Tessa

She sees it—now her witness continues—she has to…

Tell it

Now there is evidence of the inbreaking of a whole new possibility

Now there is the promise of new life

And she’s just got to tell people about that

She carries the news of the resurrection to the other disciples

Saying, “I have seen the Lord.”

We, albeit in a partial way, are witnesses to the resurrection

We are already witnesses though we do not yet fully realize the resurrection

There is nothing temporary about the resurrection

it forever changes the way God is known in the world

so, we know something of the power of it even today

Jesus himself translates that his ascension means “for us”:

“I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.”

The love that God and Jesus have for each other would be opened up by Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension to include the believing community.

That’s you and me

We are witnesses to the resurrection

Which means we get to tell it too

“we have seen the Lord”

We are part of the Communion of saints

“The fellowship of all members of the church universal in every time and place”

Kevin and Owen are baptized into the communion of saints

This includes Mary Magdalene, each of us, all those who are yet to come,

and all those who have gone before us

Daniel Christ whose funeral was yesterday

stands as our community’s

most recent witness to the full reality of the resurrection

we can believe all the more because how he can see it and tell it

Daniel, what do you know that I don’t know yet?

Hope

Resurrection

New life

Saints