Look! Listen!

Preached at Dickey Memorial Presbyterian Church on Easter Sunday, March 31, 2024

Scripture: John 20:1-16, 18

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. 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." Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in.

Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the cloth that had been on Jesus' head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. Then the disciples returned to their homes.

But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; 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. 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." When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. 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." Jesus said to her, "Mary!" She turned and said to him in Hebrew, "Rabbouni!" (which means Teacher).

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.

Sermon: “Look! Listen!”

In the very front of our Bibles, stitched into the sacred text before almost everything else, is a story about the human condition. Coming on the heels of creation mythologies, it’s the story about the first humans. And as many of us know, it begins in a garden, a beautiful, safe, verdant home, full of diversity and harmony among all things.

Once upon that time, there were two trees planted in the midst of this home. One was called the tree of life, a tree that we return to at the very end of our Bibles, when God comes again with resurrection and hope. But the other tree, planted among the first humans, was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

And it was that tree—the one fixed in the middle of paradise, appointed with delicious fruits—that tree was where humanity was forever changed. As the ancient Hebrew authors told it, this knowledge was not an unadulterated blessing, but rather a heavy responsibility.

The authors of the Hebrew Bible continued to wrestle with this story and burden of knowledge—holding it up to human experience to see what might be learned.

As a result, we hear a variety of stories, like King David, who uses knowledge of a woman and her husband to abuse his power. But there are also good stories about the responsibility of knowledge, like Joseph, who conceals his identity and ultimately forgives his treacherous brothers.

We all know that knowledge is complicated. We’ve all learned a secret or two, secrets that we want to stuff away, and pretend we never heard. When we’re kids, we learn about a certain jolly man in the North Pole who might be a little closer to home than we realize. Or we accidentally discover what a loved one is giving us for our birthday. Maybe we’ve stumbled upon a hard truth about ourselves. In all of those things, we sometimes struggle with the burden of that knowledge, for better or worse. As Arthur Miller once put it, “The apple cannot be stuck back on the tree of knowledge.” 

Today, Easter morning is fixated—maybe obsessed—on what is known and what is not known. It draws us to fruits on the tree of knowledge that we may or may not want to receive. 

We start with the cross of Good Friday.

The Gospels record Jesus’ death in excruciating detail, describing his wounds, the physical torture he endures, and who witnessed his death. They tell us about Jesus’ tunic and the blood and water spilling from his side. They tell us about the mockery and humiliation that Jesus endured. 

It is horrific and violent and gory and evil, and the Gospels won’t let us look away. They want us to know the death of God; they want us to encounter the brutality of Rome and the utter defilement of Jesus’ corpse. But unlike some who place their hope in nothing more than crucifixions, we don’t stare and gaze at Jesus’ death for its own sake. To be a follower of Christ is not to objectify and glorify suffering; it is not to lick one’s wounds and continue living in death. Rather, the Gospels walk us to Calvary because it is there that death takes on new meaning. We are brought face-to-face with the wounded God because of the resurrection; it is here, Easter morning, where we uncover the true power of God in this world. 

The Gospel writers give us knowledge of Christ’s wounds not to torture us or drudge up guilt or shame, but because the knowledge of Christ’s wounds bring us a deeper knowledge of the resurrection. If God has resurrected Christ from the violence of Rome and the wounds of the cross, how much easier it is for God to bring resurrection into our own lives. How much easier it is for God to bring new life into this church, and our hearts, and our community, and everywhere from Dickeyville, Maryland to Dickeyville, Wisconsin. How much easier it is for God to know our sufferings, our deaths, our burials. How much easier it is for God to meet us in the tomb.

“To be a follower of Christ is not to objectify and glorify suffering; it is not to lick one’s wounds and continue living in death. Rather, the Gospels walk us to Calvary because it is there that death takes on new meaning. We are brought face-to-face with the wounded God because of the resurrection.”

We can’t put that fruit back on the tree of knowledge. But this knowledge of Christ’s wounds reveals to us that resurrection isn’t for the healthy or the wealthy or the wise. Resurrection is only for the dead; the crucified; the subjugated; the poor; the communities that have been forgotten. Though we don’t know when, or why, or how resurrections happen, we can be sure that death is a prerequisite. The knowledge of death is where we can be surprised with resurrection.

And I don’t know about you, but that’s a breath of fresh air. In our deepest longings for new life—longings for connection and belonging and hope and joy and safety—those are the spaces where we will meet the wounded and living God.

After painting this death so vividly, the Gospels take us to the tomb of Jesus. Mary Magdalene brings us to the foot of the tomb, where we are met not by answers or resolution or peace of mind, but by another unsettling truth: Jesus is gone. In the earliest manuscripts of the Gospel of Mark, appearances by the resurrected Christ are wholly omitted. Those earliest accounts never take us beyond the empty tomb.

But what’s striking is that even at this point—without any firm answers—the very possibility of Jesus’ resurrection upends the disciples. Not the actual resurrection, but the mere possibility. What do we see in this morning’s text? “The other disciple, [John], outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb.”

John doesn’t enter the tomb at first. He stands there. He doesn’t look inside, and he’s unable to take those steps into it. It is Simon Peter who goes first, and only after his own encounter that John goes inside. If we try to imagine John’s experience, it’s pretty easy to imagine some apprehension. Because if Jesus is resurrected, if the wounded body of his friend was raised from the dead, if this was not the end of Jesus’ ministry, then what might be coming?

Every bit of meaning in John’s life, everything he was struggling to come to terms with on Holy Saturday, it was going to be irrevocably changed. If resurrection was possible and if Jesus was now alive, nothing was going to be the same. There was no retreating, no ignoring, no rationalizing, no running away that would preserve the status quo. Neither John nor us can put that fruit back on the tree of knowledge. If I were to be honest, I’m not sure I would look inside, either. I’m not sure I would want to know, to risk my life being upended and transformed. I’m not sure I would be willing to look at what could never be undone; to risk knowledge that would turn my life upside down and that could never be put back.

As much as we all like Easter morning, do we really like resurrections? Honestly? Because encountering the living Christ and the resurrection of God won’t let us accept easy answers. It won’t let us accept giving up. It won’t let us put our heads in the sand. Far be it; resurrections will bring us face-to-face with the reality that God is still moving in this world, even when we’re unwilling to see it. Resurrections will bring us to uncomfortable relationships with people we don’t know; with upending ways of managing our money and assets; and resurrections will topple our sense of pride and intellect. Resurrections will fling us off the merry-go-round of our own neuroses; launching us into a world that is full of unimaginable joy and life and undying light.

In 2021, Jennifer Lawrence starred with Leonardo DiCaprio in a movie called Don’t Look Up. The premise was simple: an astronomer discovers a massive asteroid that was going to destroy the earth, and only immediate action could avert the outcome. But, in a nod to climate denialism, society decides that it’s alarmist or outright imaginary. Political pundits turn it into a circus, and convince a fifth of society that this asteroid is all made up. Once the asteroid is visible to the naked eye, Jennifer Lawrence and Leo stage outdoor events, trying to get people to “just look up” and see the reality of the situation.

John—like so many of us—doesn’t want to “just look up” at first. But though he is hesitant at first, he decides to look. He peers inside, seeing what is unimaginable, and is drawn into its deepest recesses. John looks inside and is jolted awake to the living God, the undying God, the God who will never let death or violence or terror win, and there—in that harrowing encounter with an empty tomb—John was changed forever. Look! 

John could never put that fruit back on the tree of knowledge.

That brings us to Mary Magdalene, who never goes inside the tomb. She encounters the resurrection without looking, no doubt with tiredness in her bones, uncontainable grief in her soul, and the wound of loss deeply afflicting her. What does she do? She stands outside the tomb, mourning.

She doesn’t will herself to believe the right things, nor does she drag herself into the tomb out of obligation or shame. She just mourns. It is there, I think, that she opens herself up to God and whatever may have happened. It’s there—in her mourning—that she is so open and receptive to God’s work, that she sees angels. It’s in that openness that she encounters the living Christ.

Mary might demonstrate the greatest faithfulness in this whole narrative, by the mere fact of her openness. She is not passive by any means, and she’s not twiddling her thumbs. Instead, she stands firm on her feet, open to whatever God is doing - resurrection or otherwise.

That posture of faithfulness and openness is a relief. You and I don’t have to fix everything by ourselves. We don’t have to start ten new programs or bring ten new people with us to church. We don’t have to earn more or do more or be more. We don’t have to methodically figure out how to resurrect ourselves or resurrect an institution with a four-step plan. No, Mary shows us that when we are close to death and resurrection—whether we know it or not—what matters is our openness to God. Openness to be surprised and astounded, openness to go home differently than we arrived, and openness to a love of God that is deeper and richer than anything we have ever known. Openness to listen to what is happening all around us through God’s movement.

From within that openness, that is where God meets her. Jesus comes to her, saying only a single word in this entire chapter. He calls her by her name: “Mary.” It is their knowledge of each other, that deep, unending love that allows Mary to encounter resurrection. Without that love, without that abiding hope and trust, Mary would have missed the resurrected Jesus altogether. Love is what puts it all together, what sustains us in our loss, what brings us to Christ, what entangles us with new life, and what will allow us to be transformed by God. It is not belief. It is not being progressive. It is not our bank account or property. It is love, and love alone that will let us encounter the living Christ.

“Without that love, without that abiding hope and trust, Mary would have missed the resurrected Jesus altogether. Love is what puts it all together, what sustains us in our loss, what brings us to Christ, what entangles us with new life, and what will allow us to be transformed by God.”

It is that same love that beckons us to look into the tomb. Listen! Jesus is calling our name, drawing us into the empty tomb, inviting us to look inside for ourselves. It is that love that wants us to encounter resurrections, not just believe in them. It is that love that wants us to experience the living Christ, the one who is still moving in Dickeyville and who still works within this church. It is that voice of love that wants us to touch the burial linens of Jesus, to see that it’s not a metaphor, not some imaginary or heady idea, but unmistakably real. That is the call: To look! To listen! To peer into that tomb, to hear the voice of Love, and to be transformed by this knowledge that will never be put back, that will always be with us. That fruit will never be put pack on the tree of knowledge, because it is far too great, too beautiful, too astounding and surprising to ever go back.

Here’s where we leave Simon Peter, and John, and Mary Magdalene. It’s our stop. Because we have a different journey to walk with the resurrected Christ. The voice of love is calling out to us, too, and it will take us along a path that’s ours to walk with God.

Children of God, look into the empty tomb and be changed by it. Listen to the voice of love beckoning to you. In doing so, we might find the living God.

Thanks be to God.

Bibliogrpahy

Novakovic, Lidija. Resurrection: A Guide for the Perplexed. (Bloomsbury T&T Clark: 2016). DOI: 10.5040/9780567661890.