In the beginning of the first day, Mary Magdalene sits in darkness. Her eyes can cry no more tears, so she just is, with the other Mary. They spent all of yesterday, the Sabbath day, weeping, unable to eat or sleep. Whenever the woman from Magdala stopped sobbing long enough to lay down to sleep, the images flicked on again in her memory: the soldiers mocking, the criminals groaning, and his body sinking. She could not stand to watch as he breathed his last on that horrible cross, so she collapsed in a puddle of humanity beneath it. There is nothing left for these women, except each other. They put all their hopes, their dreams, their future in him. Now he is dead.
As the flood of emotions continues to pour over them, the vessel keeping them afloat, their faith in him, feels like it is being tossed and blown away by the storm of the last forty-eight hours. Mary Magdalene in desperation suggests that they go to the tomb. The other Mary thought, “Why? There’s nothing we can do. He is dead, his body has been anointed, and buried. Are we to just look at the sealed tomb?”
Yet, she was too exhausted to put up any fuss. And, maybe this would give them some finality. Nothing though could deliver them from this hopelessness; nothing could bring them out of their painful captivity. Early in the morning Mary and Mary walk on not buoyed by hope, but drawn by their love for their teacher. They went simply to see the tomb.
In the bleakest darkness Mary and Mary slowly near the place where he lay. As they grow closer, Mary Magdalene hears the snoring and snickering of the guards whom the high priest had dispatched to ensure no followers would steal the corpse. Just as she begins to worry about what they will do when the soldiers see them, suddenly an earthquake startles the placid night. The entire earth shakes in the darkness. At the same moment an angel flies across the sky to the resting place, forcefully flinging wide the entrance to the tomb. The messenger’s appearance blinds those nearby like a lightning bolt. The Marys hide their faces, but instead of a tremendous thunder clap they hear the toppling of the guards.
Trembling out of fear and exhaustion Mary and Mary lie faces down on the ground. “Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for him who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples.”
The women timidly approach the gapping entrance. Mary Magdalene steps inside to see the linens that once enveloped his body. The other Mary touches the massive stone, which had stood sentinel sealing in the Savior. “Where is he?” she thinks, but before they can say anything, the messenger speaks again. “He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.” Not wasting a second, Mary and Mary sprint away from the surroundings of death.
They had never known such conflicting emotion. Great joy wrapped in fear pushes them to run with a reckless abandon through the darkened streets of Jerusalem. In the pre-dawn haziness Mary nearly runs into a figure so familiar that he seems foreign. Before the women can catch their breath he speaks, “Greetings!” Immediately they know.
Jesus Is Alive. Living, breathing, speaking to these most courageous disciples. They walk to him, take his feet, and worship him. The messenger had told the truth, then Jesus echoes the angel’s words, “Do not be afraid, go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”
Go. Tell. See. This is the simple message of Our Risen Lord. And, through the journey of Mary and Mary we discover the fullness of this good news.
We still experience deep hopelessness, as we endure this life’s flood and our own sinful captivity. We are invited to bravely walk with Mary and Mary to the tomb. All their broken dreams and shattered dreams rested inside. Every bit of our sorrow, shame, despair, and sin rests inside that tomb with the dead body of Jesus. To approach the place where all our brokenness lies is like revisiting our darkest moments, those actions we pray will never meet the light of day, and those times when we did not do what we could have done. To know that our Savior is dead, locked away, and guarded makes it seem as though that hopelessness wins.
Yet, in the predawn we encounter not only a messenger, but our Savior. The angel from God brings light into the darkness and opens wide the place where all that we fear was buried. The tomb though is empty. All that keeps us paralyzed in a straightjacket of shame has been transformed by the power of Our Resurrecting God! Jesus whom we then meet says, go, tell, and see.
We must go. We cannot just keep this good news to ourselves. We cannot keep Jesus in the Church, just like we cannot keep Jesus in the ground. We must leave here and tell others!
We must tell. We must share the good news with all whom we meet. Jesus is not in the grave, and neither is all that stuff that we keep locked away in our tombs of shame. Everything that we find wrong with our lives is not somehow magically fixed by the Resurrection, but once and for all we are certain that nothing can keep us from God. This is the good news. Nothing, not shame, not sin, not death, not a single thing keeps us from God.
We must see. Mary and Mary almost run into him. They recognize him though, and they kneel down, touch his feet, and worship him. We can almost run into him as well. We meet Jesus out on the way to Galilee or Birmingham or the grocery store. He is in every stranger we meet and every friend too. He is in all of us for he has redeemed all of us. We see him in those we run into.
The tomb is empty… empty of our sin, our shame, our death, and Our Lord. He is not here. He is risen. Go and tell the good news, and see the Risen Lord! Amen.
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