John 10:1-18; April 9, 2023; Easter Sunday
“Woman waiting in the garden, after men have come and gone, after angels give their witness, silently you watch the dawn.” – lyrics from our hymn, “Woman, Weeping in the Garden.”
My friends, what are you watching for? What are you looking for today?
But first, an apology. For the last 40+ days I have pummeled you. I have pushed the envelope. I have pressed as many buttons as possible to see just how far you’d walk with me. Strike that, to see just how far you’d walk with him.
For together, he and I, we brought you into the wilderness, where together we all cried. Together, he and I, we brought you down into the valley, where together we asked, why? Together, he and I, we brought you to the cross and to his lynching tree, where together we were made righteously angry at the systems of this world that not only persecuted him but that attack our children daily.
Together, my friends, we have done and gone to all those places because in solidarity he first went to all those places. And so, it is with the greatest joy and the greatest relief, that today, together, we also arrive with him at the place of the open tomb and the empty grave, where his linens are left beside as angels nearby sing together:
He is risen — He is risen, indeed!
Man that feels good, doesn’t it? And dare I say, it feels even better because together we went to all those places before. See, sometimes in order for those words (“He is risen”) to have personal meaning, we need to have faced what he faced. Sometimes, in order to fully understand the significance of “He is Risen!” we have to first go down into the depths of hell with him. To weep with him, to sing it is well with my soul with him, to feel with him the force and the reality of what God was attempting to overcome in and through him.
So you know what, I take back my apology, for overcome and destroy all that he did! For where o’ death is your sting? Where o’ death is your power?
For He is risen — He is risen indeed! Amen.
Now, just because we are all excited and moved by that declaration doesn’t mean that all disciples out there are also excited and moved by that declaration.
In fact, it seems that some of the disciples heard and saw it with their own eyes, and then just took their ball and went home. “For as yet they did not understand the scriptures, that he must rise from the dead. So they returned to their homes (John 18:10).”
I honestly find the wording of that verse to be both sad and ironically pretty funny… I mean here they are, at the grand finale of the greatest story ever lived and told, and as the prime audience, the very first witnesses, their big response to everything they’ve heard and seen is just to like quietly leave and go back to their dwelling places? Like, what?
The Greek word for see is used eight times in these eighteen verses. Eight times. All these times they saw and they still just went home quietly. It’s only Mary who tells the others, with exclamation, “I have seen the Lord!” – John 20:18
So what were these men watching for? What were they looking for?
Interestingly, this phrase and question was foreshadowed all the way back in John 1:38. The first chapter. John is pretty cool like that… In the very beginning of Jesus’ ministry, before he had yet identified his disciples, “Jesus turned and saw a small group following him; and so he said to them, ‘What are you looking for?’ And after thinking about it, they said to him, ‘Rabbi’ (which translated means Teacher).” Teacher.
But is that really what they were looking for? A teacher? I mean, they said they wanted one, but at almost every step, and in almost every way, they weren’t ready to learn.
What then are we looking for, my friends? Are we too going to hear all this wonderful news and then just return back to our homes quietly? Treating it like a blip of ordinary news, before moving on to whatever grabs our attention next? Or worse, treating it like false news, like fake news, and then go on back to our death-dealing, duplicitous, and selfish ways?
All around us, if we are watching, there are signs of his life, his light, his hope springing forth, combating the darkness, overcoming death, right here in our community, right here in our church of Grace, everywhere where there is still friendship, and fellowship, and creation taking place. For in him there is light. And in light there is hope. And wherever there is hope there is life. There is life.
But like the disciples we are so often too distracted to see this hope, too unready to learn, and too unwilling to live his sort of life. And so, we get taken in by mistaken identities and false idols and cast our eyes at things that are fleeting and at things that do not last. Be it love for success, or be it love for money, be it love for ourselves, or the minutiae of mindless entertainment, in all these things we distract and blind ourselves to the bursts of resurrection-truth that are available all around us, because we are too busy staring into our own sun instead of at God’s son.
But hear me, I’m guilty of this too! This world gives us so much to get distracted by, both the beautiful and the ugly (and, in these days, a bit too much of the ugly), that it’s easy to miss the shafts of light gracing the corners of our rooms.
This world gives us so much to cry and weep about, that it can feel like everything is falling apart and that the story is coming to an unhappy and unsatisfying conclusion. And so, like Mary, with our senses overburdened, we can’t help but confuse a simple gardener for our savior, and vice versa.
But Mary! Mary… But Brian, Laura, Sara, Joe… I am right here. Can’t you see me? Weren’t you looking for me? Why then are you still weeping? I am risen. I am alive, and in me, there is joy because with me there is life.
There is life. There is life. There is life! Where o’ death is your sting? Where o’ death is your power? With Christ, there is life. Life giving life. A satisfying, love-filled, service and purpose-driven life. Amen!
Here’s the great and beautiful thing about our friend Mary… though she might have been a little confused at first, she also stayed and waited. Unlike the others who came and saw and just went home, and onto whatever, she stayed and she waited on her Lord, and she stayed and she waited until she saw, and learned, and believed.
“Woman waiting in the garden, after men have come and gone, after angels give their witness, silently you watch the dawn.”
Jesus said to her, ‘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). – John 18:15-16. Teacher.
As his disciples then, on this Easter Sunday, teach us your ways, oh Lord. And not just the ways of this world. This world that would otherwise send us home, and keep us there in darkness with one foot in the grave; that would keep equal rights, and justice, and peace, and all innocent life-filled things nailed to the cross. No, don’t teach us our ways, oh Lord, but teach us your ways! Teach us and show us, to wait and stay our eyes on you, to watch and live and believe in you! You who have life. Life eternal.
For what else really is there to look for? Whom better really should we live for?
He is risen! – He is risen, indeed!
Alleluia!
Amen.
