Tag: Mary Magdalene

Sermons

Take him by the hand

The Feast of St. Mary Magdalene (transferred) – July 23, 2019 – John 20:11-18 – St. Mary’s Convent, Sewanee

Today’s gospel lesson is the same one that was read at my grandmother’s funeral in April. As all good Episcopalians know, the rite of Christian burial is a service of resurrection. Grandma was a Methodist, but she knew it, too.

What made this lesson all the more poignant was the fact that her funeral took place in Lent, during the week before Holy Week. It was as though we had arrived at Easter a bit early. The arduous passion-tide of Holy Week had been supplanted by a vigil watch over the bed of a dying family matriarch. 

The events of her death and preparation for her funeral were, as all deaths are, a holy time. But it was also an extremely sad time, a time in which the promise of resurrection was desperately needed. 

That’s exactly where we fine Mary Magdalene today. She’s in the still, quiet garden just before dawn, and she’s desperately in need of some hope. Boy does she find it. 

She sees the angels in the tomb and then turns to find the gardener and questions him about the whereabouts of Jesus’ body. “Mary!” he responds. Just like that she realizes that he isn’t the gardener at all, but the risen and living Lord.

We’ve all been to the garden before, perhaps in the dark days after the death of a loved one. We, like Mary, desperately needed some shred of hope. Maybe for you it was in the wake of a divorce, a job loss, or an injury. 

As Christians today, when we find ourselves in the garden we can rely on the well-worn promise of resurrection in all its 2000-year-old glory, but for Mary Magdalene it was all just beginning. She was the first one to discover this promise. 

There is a sense in which, even though we already know what awaits us on the other side of Good Friday, we too must discover God’s resurrection power for ourselves. 

My Grandma once told me that during the hardest time in her life, when she, like Mary Magdalene, stood weeping and alone outside of the tomb, “Jesus found me like a friend, took me by the hand, and never let me go.”

Her comment really puts things into perspective. Some Christians go on and on about how they’ve found Jesus, and they’ll ask you if you’ve found him, too. For Grandma it was the other way around: you don’t find Jesus. Jesus has already found you.

Jesus is already beside you. Even in your darkest hour, he’s there. Even when you might not see him very clearly, he’s there. Even when you mistake him for a lawn care professional, he’s there. 

Each of us may discover his presence in our own time, in our own way, but when that moment comes, it’s not that we’ve found Jesus, it’s that we are finally ready to take him by the hand.  

By God’s grace and God’s grace alone you are loved, forgiven, saved, and redeemed. God has been with you from the beginning, and God will never let you go. God even sent Jesus to take on your human nature, to show you how much you matter, and to take you by the hand.

In response to this amazing news, dear friends, you can come to the table again right now, take Jesus by the hand once more, and then go out and introduce him to everyone you meet.

Sermons

Easter Sunday 2019

Easter Sunday – April 21, 2019 – Acts 10:34-43; 1 Corinthians 15:19-26; John 20:1-18 – Trinity, Winchester

Easter is a day on which we typically don’t pay much attention to our scripture readings. Like Christmas, we already know the story. We come wearing bright colors (and maybe dressed a bit nicer than usual) to sing glad hymns and shout “Alleluia!” My job is to remind you to never underestimate the power of scripture, no matter how familiar you may think it is. 

Each of today’s readings gives us a sense of the fullness of the eternal life into which we walk with the Risen Christ, this day and all the days of our lives. 

From the Acts of the Apostles we hear Peter’s brief message of God’s peace in Jesus Christ. Peter tells us that we carry on as witnesses to Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.

From 1 Corinthians we hear Paul working out one of the Church’s first theologies of Jesus’s death and resurrection. “For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being; for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ.”

Paul tells us that just as we die daily in our sin, we are also continually raised by virtue of the fact that we have been baptized into the life of Christ, who claims ultimate victory over sin and death.

From the Gospel according to John we hear an account of this very morning involving Mary Magdalene, Peter, and John, the disciple whom Jesus loved. 

I commend to you each of these readings (and the psalm!) for further study. However, this morning I want to focus on this rich gospel account.

It reads to me almost like a game of human pingpong. Back and forth, back and forth. To and from the tomb. Stay with me here…

Mary Magdalene comes to the tomb. Startled that the stone has been rolled away, she runs away from it. She tells Peter and John, who decide they need to see it for themselves, so they run back toward the tomb. 

They find the tomb empty, as Mary said they would. They see the linen grave clothes lying inside, but there is no body. Then they go, you guessed it, away from the tomb, back to their homes. 

Somewhere in the course of these events (the scripture isn’t clear) Mary makes her way back to the tomb as well. 

All three of these characters have different reactions to what they observe at the tomb. The gospel tells as that, after seeing the grave clothes, John believed Jesus had been raised. That’s remarkable, really. He had no gospel account to clue him in. It was all unfolding right there before his very eyes. 

We’re not quite sure about Peter. Maybe he gets it. Maybe he doesn’t. Perhaps he has some more thinking to do.

Mary, on the other hand, doesn’t get it at all, which is totally understandable. Thinking his body has been carried away, she remains at the tomb to cry and lament the fact that she has lost Jesus, her Lord, for a second time. 

At this point, some of us might be tempted to identify with one of these biblical characters. You know, the sort of thing we do with Mary and Martha when we hear the story of Jesus visiting their home in Bethany. We tend to ask ourselves questions like, which personality is analogous to mine? 

There’s a danger in that, I think. It limits your perspective on the story. In fact, I think we can identify with all three of Jesus’ disciples in today’s gospel. 

We are all John. We are all Peter. We are all Mary Magdalene. 

We are John when we see something, and believe it. We are John when all the puzzle pieces finally fall into place. “Oh, I get it now.” We are John when we arrive on Easter morning without one shadow of a doubt that Jesus is risen. 

We are Peter when we are unsure. Sometimes it just takes a little longer to sort this stuff out. I am reminded of a young girl, maybe about four years old, who went to church with her grandmother one Easter morning. Her grandmother explained to her the Easter story, including Jesus’ death on Good Friday. “Then, on Sunday morning,” the grandmother said, “he came back to life!” The little girl glanced up with a look of pure innocence, and said, “Yeah right!”

Finally, we are Mary when our grief overcomes our ability to make sense of eternal life. When someone we love dies, grief often overcomes our senses. We don’t have the ability to perceive what’s right in front of us, even if that something is the presence of God. 

Friends, we are all in different places on our Christian journey at different times, and that’s okay. Even on Easter. Whether you run toward the empty tomb with an open mind, or run away from it in disbelief. Whether you need to take a break and come back later, or if you just need a little more time outside to cry. The good news is, the Risen One is always by your side.

Although you may not always perceive him, he is there waiting to call your name—even when you least expect it—and to give you the confidence you need to run from the tomb one final time proclaiming the living God.