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Mary
Magdalene had to wait, and surely she waited in great pain. After the
lifeless body of Christ was taken down from the cross, after the broken
and blood-soaked body was wrapped in linen and laden with spices, it was
hurriedly placed in a nearby tomb, a convenient place, the Gospel of John
tells us, for the Sabbath was quickly approaching with the setting sun on
that terrible day. But then there was nothing further to do but wait. The
Sabbath law forbade even so much as walking out to the tomb, so the
disciples, including Mary Magdalene, frightened and bereft in a hostile
city, gathered in the upper room and just waited.
But
then Sabbath was over, and Mary was the first to stir on the first day of
the week. Picking her way carefully out the door in the darkness, she
hurried through the streets, out the gate of the city and towards the
place of tombs. “Why am I hurrying,” she thought to herself. “He’s
gone, and so is my world, my hope.” Nevertheless, she pressed on,
perhaps wanting to weep in private at the tomb as she had been unable to
weep in the presence of the male disciples. Perhaps she merely wanted to
touch the rock that sealed the entrance, know the finality of death and
thus move on with her life. What life? What’s to live for now?
And
then she reached the tomb and saw the great stone had been rolled away
from the entrance. And within, nothing but the burial cloths. In a panic
she raced back towards Jerusalem and encountered Peter and John. Gasping
out her story, she told them her fear that the Lord’s body had been
stolen, and watched as they too sprinted ahead to see for themselves. Now
the tears could be contained no longer, and she stumbled back up the path
to the tomb, weeping uncontrollably by the time she reached the entrance
once more.
But
now two men sat in the tomb, and asked about her tears. “Where is the
master’s body,” she cried out to them. Then turning around, she saw
someone she assumed to be the gardener, and again she begged, “If you
have placed the body somewhere, tell me and let me take him away.” And
then he called her by name: “Mary,” and her eyes were opened. She
breathed the word Rab-BON-I, or teacher, and sank to her knees at Jesus’
feet. Her waiting was over.
So
many of us have waited so long for this morning. No, not since Friday.
Much longer than that. Some of us have waited all our lives for Easter
Sunday, because that’s how long we have stumbled around in the dark,
like Mary Magdalene. Some have waited since September 11th,
crying out to God, “Why?” Some have been waiting since this latest
fighting in the Holy Land began, and have bitterly recalled that men have
fought over this same arid land for centuries. Really, Jerusalem has
waited for peace ever since Christ wept over the city.
Others
wait in the dark for other signs of hope. Some wait for test results about
their mind or body. Some have been waiting ever so long for the pain
medication to kick in. Some have stood in cold cemeteries as the bodies of
loved ones were lowered into the ground.
All of us waiting for something longed for, hoped for, yet barely
understood. We wait for a perfected future, but must live in an imperfect
present. Only one thing can make the wait bearable, and that is Christ’s
love.
Love
is the great animating force in the world. It calls forth life where
previously there was only emptiness, like a stream of electricity that
makes enormous engines spark and rumble and brings order out of the chaos
that went before. But just as electricity needs to flow from one pole to
the other to generate life, so love must flow from one heart to another to
end the teeming, jostling loneliness of our stay on this whirling planet
and give meaning and purpose to what is otherwise mere bleak existence.
Christ’s
love for us all flowed out of himself on the cross like a river of
electricity, searching out hearts that would act as a receptacle, and that
electricity, that power makes all things possible. It brings light to a
world that knew only darkness. It brings hope of a morning yet to come,
one that will be far more glorious than anything we can imagine.
We
will go on waiting for the final Easter that is Christ’s promise to all
the world, and we will suffer other blows to our faith, blows that will
rock us to the very core of our souls, but we who have been animated by
Christ’s love will turn to one another and say “We are together. We
are one body. We will not flinch at the sight of a world steeped in evil.
We will persevere, for the rising sun is the symbol of our hope.”
A
true story is told about a distinguished man, the only white person buried
in a Georgia cemetery reserved exclusively for black people. He had lost
his mother to death when he was just a baby. His father, who had never
married again, hired a black woman named Mandy to help raise his son.
Mandy was a Christian lady and she took her job seriously, Seldom has a
motherless boy received such warmhearted attention. One of his earliest
memories was of Mandy bending tenderly over him in his upstairs bedroom
each day and softly saying “Wake up, child. God’s mornin’ is
come.”
As
the years passed this devoted woman continued to serve as his surrogate
mother. The young man went away to college, but when he would come home on
holidays and in the summer, she would still climb the stairs and call him
in the same loving way.
One
day after he had become a successful statesman, the sad message came:
“Mandy is dead. Can you attend her funeral?”
As
he stood by her grave in the cemetery, he turned to his friends and said,
“If I die before Jesus comes, I want to be buried here beside Mandy. I
like to think that on Resurrection Day she’ll speak to me again and say,
“Wake up child, God’s mornin’ has come.”
Friends,
our waiting is over. God’s morning is here, and we all share newness of
life because of Christ’s death on the cross and his resurrection from
the tomb. He is the son whose light shatters the darkness in which we have
lived in fear. Until he comes again, his church will continue to proclaim
that “God’s morning has come.” We shall proclaim this every day, and
especially every Lord’s Day, and especially every Easter Sunday. He is
risen. He is risen indeed. Alleluia.
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