After the sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. (Matthew 28:1)
These women, making their way to Jesus’ tomb to anoint his body, were expressing their deep love for their dead master and friend—and also, I think, seeking closure—closure and peace not just for the end of their personal, loving relationship with Jesus, but also with the dream of Jesus’ claim to be bringing the Kingdom of God to the world. We see them in today’s reading, creeping through the night and arriving at the tomb just as the sun rises over the hills. Imagine what they must have felt as they walked—their overwhelming grief, bewilderment, fear, anger…Imagine, too, the raw determination that must have driven them there—that time of day, that time in history, in that season of overwhelming violence. To these women, Jesus’ body still mattered. The remaining physicality of it still had a claim on their hearts; his hands, his feet, wounded and torn as they would have been, still represent the one they love. These women never left Jesus’ side, never denied him, never turned their faces from the horror of his Crucifixion. Everyone else in the story has washed their hands or gone home to hid—but not them. They watched as Jesus’ body was placed in the tomb, and a day and a half later they went back to clean it up. Death, bruised bodies, grieving love—these are all realities of life as we know it, too…they are often the realities where so much of life unfolds, and these women represent the best of the hard work of loving, of being present, that we can know.
The very fact that they came, bearing their oil and spices, tells us that they did not expect Jesus would be resurrected. And yet, instead of his body, they found an angel, and like every encounter with angels, this one starts with the message, “Do not be afraid!” These women were initially afraid, but we know that soon they will be running to tell the disciples the news—and they all—and all the world—will come to know that Jesus’ Resurrection is not about the resuscitation of a body—it is the beginning of the transfiguration and resurrection of the world.
Mary Magdalene and Mary show us this evening that God is present not only in the grand organ fanfares and glorious, hallelujahs of a great, church-filled Easter morning; God is present, too, in the hard places where life unfolds underfoot, even in the grave. God redeems us not only when we are prideful and full of falsehood and arrogance and gluttony and boasting; God also redeems us when we are hopeless and broken by violence and grief and by the sheer exhaustion it takes just to go on. In those times and places, where we expect to find Jesus dead, the tomb does not hold him, and often with unspoken force, God’s grace and love abounds. I pray that all of us, as we make our way this Easter vigil, and every day following, will find the stones rolled away and have our eyes opened to that messenger in the tomb, the one who says, “Do not be afraid,” and that we will know Jesus to be a transfiguring presence in a world that so desperately needs his redeeming forgiveness and love. Jesus is not in the tomb; he is going ahead of us, and his story is not over. Death has not won—death will not win—and we will find in the final triumph that God is in all, and all are in God.
Alleluia, the Lord is Risen!
The Lord is Risen indeed. Alleluia!
