Saugatuck Congregational Church, UCC
©Rev. Alison J. Buttrick Patton
March 27, 2016 – Easter Sunday
Scripture: John 20:1-18
Early on the first day of the week, Jesus’ disciples were still in shock. They moved around in a daze, replaying the events of the last week in their minds, double and triple checking the facts against the hole in their hearts. “Maybe it didn’t really happen. Maybe he’s not really dead.” Except, of course: he was.
To recap: Jesus was a teacher/healer/preacher from the region of Galilee who had walked around the countryside for three years, hanging out with the most unexpected mix of people – smelly fishermen, recently recovered lepers, women, tax collectors and children. He performed miracles – gave sight to the blind, fed hungry crowds, blessed – and he talked a lot about the Kingdom of God – a place he said was utterly unlike the Roman Empire, a place where all people would be cherished and called to serve each other, where those at the end of the line would be moved to the front of the line, and where we’d all eat at the same table. He created a lot of buzz, until the Romans arrested him and put him on trial for treason – that is, for speaking out against Emperor Caesar’s kingdom. They beat him and executed him by nailing him to a cross, under a sign that read, King of the Jews. That was on a Friday.
Early on the first day of the week (or Sunday morning), Mary, Peter and the one called the Beloved Disciple each grieved the death of Jesus in their own way. Peter hid, afraid that the authorities would come after him next; ashamed that he had publicly denied any ties to this man who had, in fact, turned his world right side up. His face burned red and his head swam – how could he have loved so much and still failed so completely?
The beloved disciple openly wept, to the profound discomfort of the other men. But he’d been the only man to remain at the foot of the cross until the bitter end, he and the Mary’s, (Jesus’ mother Mary, Mary Magdalene, and Mary – wife of Clopas) as though they might somehow ease Jesus’ suffering by their refusal to look away from the pain, as though they could stare down the demons. The Beloved Disciple did not leave … but he did weep.
Mary Magdalene waited. As they took his body away, she waited. Through the Sabbath she waited – surprised that her heart could still beat, even after it had been broken. Mary waited for the Sabbath sun to set. Then, on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, she got up, found she still had strength in her legs, and walked to the tomb.
Let me be the first to confess: I am afraid of the dark. I get jumpy as the shadows descend. Once, when the entire street lost power on Halloween, Craig hid somewhere in our house with a bowl of candy – a kind of improvised, indoor trick-or-treat. As we headed up the dark stairway, I made my children go first. They are the brave ones. My mind is far too likely to conjure up images of shadowy, sinister creatures hiding just out of view.
Anybody else? Ever been afraid of the dark? Ever imagined monsters crouched in your closet, or drooling under the bed? Have you ever laid awake listening to the creeks and sighs that fill the night and wondered who – or what – might be creeping through your house? Or worse, have you laid in bed, tormented by the imagined whispers of those nighttime imps, the “What-ifs”: What if I get lost on the first day of school? What if I forget everything I know during that my math test? What if my friend/sister/brother/ husband/wife won’t forgive me? What if I can’t resist taking another drink? What if he hits me again? What if I’m not strong enough, determined enough, brave enough…? What if my heart never heals?
The dark can completely undo us. Peter knew this. And Mary. And the Beloved Disciple. Any of us who has ever felt uncertain or scared, sick or sadder than words can express, knows it. Being in the dark means not being able to see what comes next, not knowing how it will all turn out. It’s sitting in the unemployment office, after you’ve lost your job; or in the doctor’s office, waiting for a diagnosis; or in the morgue, wondering what you will do with your life, now that your beloved is gone. It’s feeling like you’ve come to the end of the path, because the ground has just dropped out from under your feet. It’s flying blind, without a compass. It’s feeling the most excruciating kind of vulnerable. Mary walked to the tomb, while it was still that kind of dark…
But here’s the thing: Darkness is not only the hangout for the twin monsters Worry and Despair. It is also the place where new life begins, “Whether it’s a seed in the ground, a baby in the womb or Jesus in the tomb.”[1] Rev. Barbara Brown Taylor realized this, while she was on a spelunking expedition. Sitting deep in the heart of Organ Cave, where she couldn’t see even her hand in front of her face, it dawned on her that whatever happened early on that Sunday morning, it happened not in a blaze of light and trumpet blasts, but in “complete silence, in absolute darkness.”[2]
While the disciples grieved, Peter hid, the Beloved Disciple wept, and Mary waited, before the sun so much as peeked over the horizon, Death was given notice, the script was being rewritten, God was working up a reunion that would change the course of …everything. And it all happened in the dark.
Someone once claimed that it is darkest just before the dawn and maybe that’s no coincidence; maybe one gives birth to the other. Like all those gorgeous, phosphorescent creatures that live in the deepest reaches of the ocean, that evolved to emit that bright blue glow precisely because they live in the inky blackness. And like the people you know who have lived through hell and somehow come out the other side more likely to forgive, more eager to invite you to dinner or lend you a hand, precisely because they know what it’s like to fall on their face.
So, sometime around 4 am in the morning, Before Mary arrived, before the angels appeared or the gardener went missing, in the inky blackness of a dead-silent cave, something stirred. Incomprehensibly, outrageously, counter-intuitively, a breath stirred the air, a massive stone rolled away, and someone resembling the gardener – but definitely not the gardener – stepped out into the fresh air to take a pre-dawn stroll. If Mary had been undone by her walk through the darkness, then her encounter with the Risen Christ must have had the opposite effect – like the pieces of a shattered picture falling back into place, but with a twist: somehow, mysteriously, during the night, the picture had completely changed. Shades of midnight blue had somehow turned to gold. What was dead and buried was now alive. “Mary,” said a familiar voice. And her hitherto broken heart began to sing.
“Go and tell the others,” Jesus instructed. And Mary did.
“I have seen the Lord!” she proclaimed. “The tomb is empty!” She proclaimed. “The Kingdom of God, that Kingdom that Jesus was always talking about, where all people will be cherished and we’re called to serve each other, where those at the end of the line will be moved to the front, and we’ll all eat at the same table… that kingdom is at hand, and we, we’ve got to help usher it in!” So Mary, the first witness to the resurrection, also became the first to embody it.
This I have come to believe: that darkness can be a place of blessing. The source of hope. The birthplace of courage, creativity, and possible impossibilities.[3] In darkness, precisely because we can’t see what will happen next, nearly anything can happen. In darkness, because we are undone, God can slip in and write a brand new story.
Do you remember Malala Yousafzia – the young, Pakistani woman who grew up in a region of Pakistan controlled by the Taliban, where girls were not permitted to attend school? At a young age, she became an activist for women’s education. In October of 2012, when she was 15 years old, a Taliban soldier shot Malala in the head. After what I can only imagine was a long, dark season of not knowing how it would turn out – whether she would survive, whether she would heal, whether she would dare to face the continued threats on her life, Malala did recover. And rather than shrinking back into the tomb of fear, she became an even more vocal activist. Last year, she received the Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts. “We realize the importance of our voices only when we are silenced,” she once wrote.[4] Malala found her courage in the dark.
So tell me: What is taking root in your darkness this season? What new life might God be working in you, through you, among us? Today, as we celebrate the resurrection, as we proclaim our alleluias and marvel at what God has done, try this: Shine a flashlight under your bed, into the dark corners of your room, into the dark corners of your spirit, and into the dark corners of this hungry, angry, aching, God-beloved world. Ask yourself what frightens you most, then ask God to transform your fear into courage, your quavering into curiosity, your worry into wonder. You may need to wait, just a bit, like Mary, wait in the dark. But if you do, if you dwell in the dark just long enough, you will see whether God doesn’t conjure up a resurrection!
Scripture
John 20:1-18 – New Revised Standard Version
20 Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. 2 So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” 3 Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. 4 The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5 He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. 6 Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, 7 and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. 8 Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; 9 for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. 10 Then the disciples returned to their homes.
11 But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; 12 and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. 13 They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” 14 When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. 15 Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” 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.” 16 Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher). 17 Jesus said to her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” 18 Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”; and she told them that he had said these things to her.
Footnotes
[1] Learning to Walk in the Dark, Barbara Brown Taylor, 129.
[2] Learning the Walk in the Dark, Barbara Brown Taylor, 129.
[3] It was the researcher Brené Brown who observed that vulnerability is not only the core of shame and fear; it’s also the birthplace of creativity.[3]
[4] Malala Yousafzai, I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban.