Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary

By President Phil Amerson

1Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. 2So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don't know where they have put him!" 3So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. 4Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. 6Then Simon Peter, who was behind him, arrived and went into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, 7as well as the burial cloth that had been around Jesus' head. The cloth was folded up by itself, separate from the linen. 8Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. 9(They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.) 10Then the disciples went back to their homes, 11but Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb 12and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus' body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot. 13They asked her, "Woman, why are you crying?" "They have taken my Lord away," she said, "and I don't know where they have put him." 14At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus. 15"Woman," he said, "why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?" Thinking he was the gardener, she said, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him." 16Jesus said to her, "Mary." She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, "Rabboni!" (which means Teacher). 17Jesus said, "Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, 'I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.' " 18Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: "I have seen the Lord!" And she told them that he had said these things to her.

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Easter Day, 2010
Text: John 20:1-18

"i thank You God for most this amazing day: for leaping greenly spirits of trees and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything which is natural which is infinite which is yes." -- e. e. cummins

Easter! We stand in awe before the events of this day and the complexities of our world. During Lent, we have been seeing a great mystery story unfold. Charles Dickens' book The Mystery of Edwin Drood was never finished and since then many have attempted to complete the story... without very much success. This is the way we receive life -- a story unfinished, clues all around, yet to be understood. Harry Emerson Fosdick once said, "I would rather live in a world where my life is surrounded by mystery than live in a world so small my mind could comprehend it." The question for us becomes, where is our place in this wonderful mystery we call Easter?

Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early on the first Easter morning and found the grave clothes neatly folded in an empty tomb. She is greeted by the gardener... you know the story. "Where have they taken my Lord?" She asks, beside herself with fear and concern. As she looks for an answer, she baptizes the mystery of this empty tomb with her tears. But there is no logic to it, no explanation. There is no Sherlock Holmes solving the puzzle; no, "Elementary, My Dear Watson." Ken Gottman, former pastor of the Mayflower Congregational Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan writes: "Easter is not a left-brained season... Easter is an expression of the wild, passionate freedom of God that cannot be captured and held and which is better described in the praise of poetry than in polished prose. Because Easter is a divine mystery we must rely on signs and symbols, rites and rituals, musical instruments and melodies to carry the freight of feelings too deep for full expression and truth too immense to imagine."

Mary hears these words when she steps into the garden, "Why are you weeping? Who is it you are looking for?" She turns and the mystery is gloriously, profoundly and ultimately deepened as Jesus welcomes her into a new reality - a breakthrough to the already! At the first of this story all Magdalene saw was the empty tomb, by the end baptized by the glory of the resurrection she goes to the others shouting, "I have seen the Lord."

At Easter, Christians around the world celebrate the mystery of the resurrection through the ritual of baptism. New believers are baptized thereby reenacting the death and resurrection of Jesus, yes, and also their own commitment to God's renewing purposes for our world. Each time we celebrate a baptism, the community is saying together, i thank You God for most this amazing day. Each day offers the opportunity to practice resurrection. Each day, we respond to mysteries around us through acts of justice and mercy, through the building of community and the life of faithful discipleship. Each day, immersed in the mystery of God's world we are reminded to say yet again "yes!" God continues to call us from places of death to the glory of life beyond death. Baptism is our Easter sign and symbol. We are plunged headlong into this mystery and rising again we give thanks.