Thomas Kleinert
Today is the best and first of days: the tomb could not hold the Lord Jesus captive, and new life has begun for all of creation!
Mary Magdalene was among those standing near the cross on Friday, and this morning she was the first to come to the tomb, early, while it was still dark. She had spent the sabbath who knows where, who knows how. I doubt it was much of a sabbath. A day of numb silence, a long day of waiting for time to pass, not a day of holy rest, but a day of mourning, a day of exhausting grief. And Mary wasn’t just sad. She was angry, furious at the world and the powers that rule it with selfish ambition and such unspeakable violence. How long had it been — a few months maybe? — since Jesus had given her the courage to believe? To imagine the contours and the nearness of a world where the hungry are fed, where the blind see and the lame dance, where masters kneel and wash the feet of servants, and all who mourn are comforted? She had allowed this man to awaken hope in her, bold, boundless hope. Because of him, she had begun to lean into a world of divine possibility: the possibility of forgiveness, the possibility of belonging to a community shaped by love, the possibility of life in fullness for all, young and old, brave and timid, friend and stranger, rich and poor.
And now he was dead and buried, just like that. John tells us it was early in the morning, while it was still dark, that she came to the garden, alone, and no, there was no dew on no roses. There was only the unfathomable void that had swallowed up light and life like a black hole. All Mary had were her memories — and the tomb where Joseph and Nicodemus had laid his body.
She came by herself — she wanted to be alone, I suppose, or she could have asked one of her friends to come with her. And then she saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. Talk about a black hole — all she saw was this gaping mouth of death. All she could see was yet another layer of loss. She ran back and told the others, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb.”
“It matters little what we see when despair takes hold,” writes Jonathan Walton. “We will interpret all reality through this prism.”[1] They have crucified my Lord. They have extinguished the light of his luminous presence in the world. And now they have taken even his body. They have managed to make his absence unbearably complete. It was as though the predawn darkness became even darker for Mary.
John seems to think we could use a little comedy now. We get the interlude with the curious footrace between Peter and the other disciple, and who got there first, and who saw what first, and who was the first to believe, and then, how the two of them, get this, how the two of them went home. It’s like we get this close to joy erupting in the garden — but no, the two went home. The news of this morning breaks both slowly and suddenly.
Mary stands outside the tomb, weeping, and now she bends to look inside, and she sees two angels. “Woman, why are you weeping?” they ask her, and yes, they sound a tad insensitive. Had Mary any strength left in her, I imagine she would say to them, Why am I weeping? Why aren’t you? Haven’t you been paying attention? Don’t you see what is going on here? Don’t you see how they take away everything that is beautiful, destroy anything that is promising, and pile up only ugliness and lies on every side, solely in the name of power? How can you not weep when they have extinguished the light of the world? They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.
The angels say nothing. And now John turns to comedy again, with a moment of mistaken identity. Mary turns around and she sees Jesus standing there, but she does not see him.
“Woman, why are you weeping?” The stranger sounds just like one of the angels. “Whom are you looking for?” he asks. She thinks that perhaps he’s the gardener, while some of us are wondering what he is wearing, since John was so very careful to tell us that all the grave clothes were still in the tomb.
“Sir,” she says, “if you have carried him away, please tell me where you have laid him.” You almost want to step in and say, Mary, can’t you see? No, she can’t, not yet, all she can see is what the narrow vision of her despair allows her to see.
According to John, seeing the risen Lord is not about showing up at the right tomb at the right time. On the night before his arrest, Jesus told the disciples, “A little while, and you will no longer see me, and again a little while, and you will see me.”
“What does he mean by this ‘a little while?’” they wondered, and he responded, “You will weep and mourn, you will have pain, but your pain will turn into joy. I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice.”[2] This is what happens here in the darkness before dawn. Jesus sees her, but she doesn’t see it’s him until he speaks her name, “Mary!” And when the Risen One speaks her name, everything changes: light and life return to the garden. “Rabbouni!” she says, light and life in her voice, and joy and confidence and hope. Marilynne Robinson writes,
The old ballad in the voice of Mary Magdalene, who “walked in the garden alone,” imagines her “tarrying” there with the newly risen Jesus, in the light of a dawn which was certainly the most remarkable daybreak since God said, “Let there be light.” The song acknowledges this with fine understatement: “The joy we share as we tarry there / None other has ever known.”
“How lovely it is,” Robinson continues, “that the song tells us that the joy of this encounter was Jesus’ as well as Mary’s.” How lovely, indeed, to be reminded that the joy of the resurrection is mutual, ours and his, the joy of the relationship between those whom Jesus loves and sees and those who trust him with their lives. I’m particularly grateful for Robinson’s comments about this little song, because she’s opened a door for me:
[F]or a long time, until just a decade ago, at most, I disliked this hymn, in part because to this day I have never heard it sung well. Maybe it can’t be sung well. The lyrics are uneven, and the tune is bland and grossly sentimental. But…
And here she opens the door:
I have come to a place in my life where the thought of people moved by the imagination of joyful companionship with Christ is so precious that every fault becomes a virtue. I wish I could hear again every faltering soprano who has ever raised this song to heaven. God bless them all.[3]
This, of course, is not just about an American song from 1912. She reminds me, and perhaps you as well, that the point of our companionship with Christ is to encourage every faltering voice to raise their song to heaven. The stories of Jesus’ life and ministry, of his humble birth and cruel death, his radical hospitality and boundless compassion, and his resurrection from the dead — all these stories “tell us,” Robinson declares,
that there is a great love that has intervened in history, making itself known in terms that are startlingly, and inexhaustibly, palpable to us as human beings. They are tales of love, lovingly enacted once, and afterward cherished and retold—by the grace of God, certainly, because they are, after all, the narrative of an obscure life in a minor province. Caesar Augustus was also said to be divine, and there aren’t any songs about him.[4]
A little while, and you will no longer see me, Jesus told us, and again a little while, and you will see me. His vision of life awakens hope in us, and we all know how the powers of this world destroy and bury such hope. We mourn with Mary, we weep with her, we seek answers, we plead, we run back and forth, and much of what we see is ambiguous — although I must say, there’s no ambiguity about a Caesar wannabee selling Bibles to pay his mounting legal fees.
A little while, Jesus told us. Remember, nothing and no one can extinguish the love that makes us one with God and with one another. No tomb can hold the light and life of Jesus. The Risen One sees you, and you will hear him calling you by name, and you will see him. He promised not to leave us orphaned, and he has kept his promise.
Easter is the mother of all Sundays, the mother of all days, because the Friday darkness could not overcome the light. So let us be brave in our joy and lean into a world of divine possibility: the possibility of forgiveness, the possibility of belonging to a community shaped by love, the possibility of life in fullness for all, young and old, straight and queer, brave and timid, friend and stranger, rich and poor. Let us sing with Mary and encourage every faltering voice to raise their song to heaven.
[1] Jonathan Walton, Connections, Year B, Volume 2, 192.
[2] John 16:16-20
[3] Marilynn Robinson, When I Was a Child I Read Books (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012), 125-26.
[4] Marilynn Robinson, When I Was a Child I Read Books, 127.