Easter Sunday - Alleluia...eventually.

 Introductory comments

Now the green blade rises from the buried grain
Wheat that in the dark earth many years has lain;
Love lives again, that with the dead has been:
Love is come again, like wheat that springs up green.

I have struggled to find words of hope this Holy Week.

We always have to make an emotional journey from the jubilant crowds of Palm Sunday, through the sorrow of the Last Supper, enduring the agony of Good Friday and the puzzled silence of Holy Saturday to reach today.

But this year.. how hard it is to sing those Alleluias -  Praise to God!

Praise God that we are still here, despite Covid – and yet what about those who are not..and what about the fear of another variant.. and what about those countries still without adequate vaccines?

Praise God that voices are heard to speak out against the war in Ukraine – and yet the violence continues and the world’s leaders seem paralysed with fear…and can we really welcome refugees with open hearts?

Praise God that we live on a beautiful planet – and yet the climate emergency has not gone away and there is still the need to act now to avoid global catastrophe…and what about those whose homes and livelihoods are swept away each month?

Praise God that we have a living faith and a church to declare it – and yet the Christian influence in Western Europe is in steep decline...and we know the URC’s 50^th jubilee presents us with cause for lament and not just celebration.

 

If, like me, you struggle with your Alleluias, let’s listen to the story of Easter Day slowly, carefully, and ask God to kindle hope in us as the great truth of resurrection unfolds slowly, like the creeping light of dawn, and yet pray that surely and unstoppingly the light will shine on us and hope will be resurrected.

 

Reading: John 20: 1-10

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 have laid him.’ Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went towards the tomb. 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.

 

In the grave they laid Him, Love Whom we had slain,

Thinking that He’d never wake to life again,

Laid in the earth like grain that sleeps unseen:

Love is come again, like wheat that springs up green.

 

Reflection 1

There is a suggestion I find helpful, that when we read John’s gospel, we could think that John uses the phrase ‘the disciple Jesus loved’ to mean any one of us – it is a way of reading ourselves into the story, of imagining how it would be to be there, alongside Jesus, an eye-witness. 

Let’s try it.

Our story begins in the dark. Yesterday was the sabbath, and we rested, thinking only of how Jesus, the master, had been tried and crucified and now lay in a tomb – broken and gone forever. There can be no hope, no future, only regret, despair, sorrow.

Mary comes running to tell us that she has been to Jesus’ tomb, and seen the stone has been moved. The grave is disturbed, and Mary is distraught  - ‘Jesus’ body has been taken, and I don’t know where it is’. This is baffling, why would anyone steal the body of Jesus?

We run, with Peter, to the tomb. From outside we can see the linen wrappings – empty – but left behind.

Then Peter catches up, runs in and says he can see alongside the empty linen wrappings the head-cloth, rolled up by itself. We have got to see for ourselves – this is no grave-robbing: Jesus is…not there.

“The disciple Jesus loved” saw and believed. Saw the evidence for himself – no stone sealing the tomb, no body in the wrappings, no dead body of Jesus.

Dare we start to believe – Jesus is not dead…?

 

Reading: John 20: 11-18

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 have laid him.’ When she had 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 have laid him, and I will take him away.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Mary!’ She turned and said to him in Hebrew, ‘Rabbouni!’ (which means Teacher). 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.” ’ 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. 

 

Forth he came at Easter, like the risen grain,

He that for three days in the grave had lain;

Quick from the dead my risen Lord is seen:

Love is come again, like wheat that springs up green.

 

Reflection 2

Mary’s story, too begins in darkness and disillusion and death – and ends with the words “I have seen the Lord”.

Mary wants to mourn at the tomb – and then becomes almost obsessed with finding the dead body of Jesus. She runs to tell Peter & John/ ‘the disciples Jesus loved’ – “they have taken his body and I don’t know where they have laid him”. When the disciples see the wrappings in the tomb and return home (to think things through?), Mary stands weeping outside the tomb. Even the sight of angels in the otherwise empty tomb doesn’t shake her from her grief, and when the angels ask why she is weeping, she says, again “they have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him”. 

Even when Jesus himself stands before her, grief blinds her out of recognition and she says “If you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him”.

Three times she wants to find Jesus’ body – the empty tomb, the angels, even Jesus himself cannot help her see the truth that there IS no dead body.

I wonder what tone of voice Jesus used when he said “Mary!”..?

Then Jesus says ‘do not hold onto me’ ( but go to my brothers and tell them I am ascending to the Father). Jesus releases Mary from her grief, tells her to let go of his earthly body, soothes her pain, lifts her eyes, and gives her a task ‘Go and tell’.

So Mary learns to shout her Alleluia – praise be to God -  “I have seen the Lord”.

The light of hope has dawned.

 

As the light of hope dawns for us this Easter Day, let us find our Alleluias:

Praise be to God for the faith of the church – that the love of God is stronger than death, that Jesus the saviour was raised form death, and that through the Spirit we may now Christ living with us and in us today.

 

Praise be to God that in the flesh of Jesus Christ he went through pain beyond our imagining, but returns to us in the feeble early light and calls us by our name.

 

Praise be to God that he will hold us in mercy and grace as our eyes slowly open to the truth of life eternal.

 

Praise be to God that we too may see.. and believe.

 

In the name of the risen Jesus Christ. Alleluia. Amen.

When our hearts are wintry, grieving or in pain,

By Your touch You call us back to life again;

Fields of our hearts that dead and bare have been:

Love is come again, like wheat that springs up green.