Returning With Hope

by Pastor Kathy Barlow-Westmoreland

This week's focus scripture is John 20: 1-18.

I was the first at the tomb. Yet, even by coming so early it was still dark, even by being the first I cannot say I was a witness to the resurrection of our Lord. For the stone had already been moved, and the tomb was already empty. I had waited and stayed away for as long as I could, but I could not stay any longer. My grief was overwhelming, my longing was unbearable. I had to go there just to be close to him in some way. Some thought I had gone to finish the burial rites, but Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, they had taken care of that properly. I went to just sit near his tomb, hoping that by doing so, I would be comforted that he was near.

I was not at all prepared for what followed. I never imagined I would find what I did. The stone had been moved the grave was now open. I went and got Peter and the beloved disciple who ran, racing as it were, to see who could get there first. They looked in, saw he was not there, saw the burial cloths, but said nothing. They just returned home, looking perplexed. They could not explain it either.

But I could not leave. Even if he was no longer there, I didn’t know anywhere else to be. I had no idea what to do next. I was exhausted, deeply grieved. I just stood there and wept. Thinking that perhaps we had missed something I looked again into the tomb- and there were two angels, two messengers of God, standing at the head and foot of the place where Jesus had just been a few hours before. They wanted to know why I was weeping- I guess, just because you are angels, you don’t know everything. I told them how my Lord had been taken from this tomb and that I didn’t know what they had done with him.

Then I sensed a presence behind me. I turned around and it was one of the gardeners. He also asked why I was weeping. I am standing at an empty grave- wouldn’t you be crying? But I thought he might know something, and so I asked him to tell me who had taken the body and where he had laid him.

And then he said it, my name, Mary. And I knew. I knew it was him! And even as I reached for him, he stepped back and said, “do not cling to me.” He really had not come back to us, he was on his way back to God, this time, we would come to understand, he was taking the whole world with him.

And then he commissioned me to go to the disciples and tell them that he was one his way back to God. Which I immediately did-I burst into the room and said, “I have seen the Lord.”

Since that time many have asked me how Jesus was raised from the dead. As I said from the beginning, I was not an eyewitness to the resurrection- it had already happened by the time I arrived. In fact no one saw it. His resurrection is the one and only event in my Lord’s life that was entirely between him and God.

There were no witnesses, we all arrive after the fact. Two of the disciples saw the grave clothes. I was the only one to see the angels. The rest of his disciples would see him as a risen Lord. And yet each of these appearances was significant, for with each one (there were four in all), the disciples become stronger, wiser, kinder, more like Jesus.

When I think about that morning, I realize that the how question really isn’t important. What is important is how we experience his resurrection, how we encounter the living Christ in our lives.

In thinking about it later, I must admit that I was a bit surprised that Jesus would give me the commission to bring the news of his resurrection to the disciples. I mean he could have stepped forward while Peter and the other disciple were still at the tomb. But he waited, entrusting this news, this life changing news to me, a woman. And yet, as I reflected on it, I thought of all the times God chose the small, the least, the ones on the margins, the ones without voice or authority to do his important work. In fact, I came much later to realized that I was now an apostle according the criteria that would be established: I had a first hand experience of the risen Christ, and he had commissioned me to tell the good news of his victory over death. But most of all I was just so grateful to know that the cross was not the end of his great works for us.

You know, this day, when followers of Jesus celebrate his resurrection is about God as much as it is about Jesus. For this day reveals more of the character of God, that the holy work of redeeming us and all creation is not over, and that we are to be a part of that monumental task.

It is one thing to stand in the garden with Jesus, having your own personal conversation, getting your own spiritual pail filled. But remember Jesus told me, and also tells you not to cling to him as though he were yours alone. No, Jesus did not spend much time with me; instead he sent me off with the good news, a reminder that I had committed to follow him.

Following the risen Lord would mean caring about Jesus was passionate about, that is the kingdom of God on earth, where God reigns, not nations or kings or corporate powers. It means working for the world Jesus saw as possible, a world of justice where everyone has enough, when the systems of this world serve people in ways that are fair and compassionate.

I must admit that in that moment in the garden I so wanted things to be as they were. I wanted to continue to listen to his teaching, to watch him with the people, to just keep him where we were now. But that is not how Jesus leads us. We still cannot hold on to him, keeping him here where we are. Rather, we must let us take him where he is going, speak the messages he gives us to say, and continue the tasks of caring for the people that he taught us all.

This day of resurrection is not only about what happened in the garden long ago. It is about today and your experience of new life, your encounters with the risen Christ. Can you stand at the graveside with hope? Can you find peace in a hospital waiting room? Can you reach out to someone, even when it is scary or a bit risky? Are you willing to be inconvenienced to do the right thing?
My experience of the resurrection began, not when I saw the stone had been moved. It began, the moment the gardener said my name. That began my new relationship with the risen Christ, my new path as a follower of Jesus.

So I say to you, never get so focused on that empty tomb and those grave clothes, that you fail to speak to the gardener. Amen.

St. John's Westminster Union Church
1085 Neeb Rd. Cincinnati, Ohio 45233
(513) 347-4613