A Sermon for Easter Day
The Rev. Patricia A. Gillespie
Acts 10:34-43
Psalm 118:14-17,22-24
Colossians 3:1-4
John 20:1-18
"I have seen the Lord."
The words of Mary Magdalen. But just what did she see? Was it the gardener? Was it the Jesus on the cover of this week's Newsweek ? or the one on the stained glass window? or the other one on the office wall?
Did this person Mary finally recognized as the Lord even look like the Jesus she had been following? After all, at first she thought he was the gardener. Had her tears or her grief so blinded her that she couldn't see well enough to recognize that familiar face or does a resurrected body somehow look different?
The bible just doesn't answer that one. Other disciples, too, initially fail to recognize the Risen Christ as the man they had been following. But eventually, they too – even "doubting" Thomas -- like Mary, proclaim the resurrection with certainty: "I have seen the Lord."
But Mary isn't here to tell us what she saw or how Jesus looked after three days -- Was he: short or tall, light or dark skin, short or long hair, brown or green eyes? Was his resurrected body strong and healthy just like before they came to Jerusalem or was he still a bloody, beaten mess? Or maybe his resurrected body had scars where the wounds had healed?
We just don't know. Apparently the Gospel writers didn't think it was important enough to tell us. It is enough that -- however this Risen Lord looked -- Jesus' friends ultimately recognized this living person as their friend and teacher who just a few days ago was dead.
We are a highly visual people - we usually recognize people most easily by how they look. But we also recognize individual voices and footsteps and ways of moving; and, perhaps also, the tenderness with which a loved one speaks our name.
"Mary" the gardener said. And suddenly Mary knew this to be more than a gardener -- this was unmistakably and miraculously her teacher Jesus. And she told her friends so, saying, "I have seen the Lord."
Whatever it is that makes a person individually unique, loveable and recognizable, was there for Jesus' friends to see with a certainty that literally changed the world.
From Mary and the others to whom Jesus appeared after the Resurrection it seems that all we can learn about the resurrected body of eternal life is that, although it may not be immediately familiar, whatever makes a person individually unique, loveable, and recognizable lives on.
So for all our curiosity about just how this resurrected now-alive-forever body looked, Mary isn't telling us. After all, Jesus' didn't say to her: "Now go to the others and tell them just how much better I look," perhaps something like, "the bleeding's stopped and I combed my hair." Recall, though, what Jesus did say: Jesus said to her, "Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father."
Do not hold on to me. Let me go. You can't keep me. It can't be like it was before. Things are different now. Don't hold on to what once was -- let go of the details of death. Let go of the color of eyes and hair, the shape of hands and feet.
If, indeed, the Lord is risen, then everything is different.
It isn't going to be like before, Mary. So listen closely to the message that Jesus has for us: "But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'"
Our Resurrected Lord is ascending to his Father. Jesus is going to God. Sounds good. Lucky Jesus -- after such a miserable death he gets to live forever with God.
But wait. Did you hear it? There's something else here -- "I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God." Jesus' father is also our father? Jesus' God is also our God? Jesus is God's Son. We are God's children.
Don't hold on to me, Mary But go to my brothers. ... "Whom are you looking for?" the gardener asks. Are you looking for Jesus? Let go, Mary. Go to Jesus' brothers and sisters. Are you looking for a beloved child of God? Then go to Jesus' brothers and sisters.
If you want to see evidence of the resurrection of a first-century Jewish Mediterranean peasant, he himself tells us "Do not hold on to me, but go to my brothers and sisters." To see evidence of the Resurrection, turn to those whose lives Jesus has touched and transformed.
One woman says "I have seen the Lord!" And the cry of new life echoes over the centuries and throughout the world: "Alleluia. Christ is risen." "The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia."
The power of the resurrection is in our lives now. What does Jesus' resurrected body look like today? Where can we see the body of Christ? "The body of Christ" is another name for the church. We are the body of Christ.
What does Jesus' resurrected body look like today? It may look a lot like you. Look around you, today. Look for the life of Christ in one another. Look. And know that your own lives -- that is, whatever the mystery is that makes each one of you uniquely individual & recognizable-- that uniquely personal mystery is hidden with Christ in God and shares in the Resurrection.
Remember the words of the Resurrected Lord: His Father is our Father and his God is our God. We are children of the God who gave eternal life to our brother, Jesus. The Lord Jesus is alive We also will live.