When my first daughter was a baby, the nights were especially tough. She had a bubble palate that didn’t allow her to eat particularly well and was eventually diagnosed with a severe case of acid reflux requiring medicine. But we didn’t know that to begin with. We were new parents trying to tough it out like the rest. You don’t know what you don’t know.
So, each night we would both struggle to put her down and be awoken to thrashing, wailing, and tears as she was hungry but couldn’t get enough and what little she did get wasn’t enough to tamp down the burning in her esophagus. It meant hours spent pacing the house in the middle of the night, rocking her in my arms, desperately trying to do anything I could to settle her with the hope of just 5 more minutes of sleep. More often than not, the night ended with both Abby and me in tears.
But along the way, I turned to singing to her. People have been singing lullabies to their kids for centuries and I joined the line. For whatever reason, there was one song I would sing that would always get her to stop crying — the hymn “Abide with Me.” Yes, she’s a Pastor’s Kid whose got no chance. But it worked. No matter the wails, no matter cries, no matter the tears, I would sing “abide with me,” and she’d stop crying and start cooing. It felt like answered prayers as she would start to smile when I sang:
I fear no foe, with thee at hand to bless;
ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness;
where is death’s dark sting? Where, grave, thy victory?
I triumph still, if thou abide with me.
So, when John tells us Mary Magdalene stood near the tomb that first Easter morning weeping, that’s where my mind goes — the mixture of tears and the Good News.
Mary goes to Jesus’ tomb because she has nowhere else to go. She’s not going there to anoint him for death. She’s not going there because she has any hope of a resurrection. She’s going there because the teacher whom she followed, listened to, and hoped in is now gone, dead, forever, and she’s grieving. As Dolly Parton said near the end of “Christmas on the Square,” “Grief is love with nowhere to go,” so Mary wandered back to the last place she’d seen the one whom she loved.
Only he’s not there. Can you imagine the devastation? She goes to the tomb and sees the stone rolled away and it isn’t good news. It means someone has stolen his body. Someone has desecrated his grave. Someone has ruined any chance of closure. Mary runs away to tell someone — Peter and the Beloved Disciple will do — but she isn’t telling them to fix the situation, but to hope someone will share in her grief, and pain, and frustration. Which of course, they don’t do. They go to the tomb, see what’s inside, and go back to town, bewildered, leaving Mary as alone as Jesus was on the Cross.
Through tear-filled eyes, she glances into the tomb. Inside, God gives her the big flashing neon sign of hope amid suffering every single one of us longs for. Two angels appear to announce God’s presence. They are there to herald a new day. They are there to clue her in to the joy that has come in the morning … but she can’t see them. I mean she does, but she also doesn’t.
But she feels a presence behind her. You know that feeling, like you’re being watched? Well, she spins around and sees the gardener. We know it’s Jesus, but she doesn’t. She doesn’t even recognize his voice, “Woman, why are you crying? Who are you looking for?” (v. 15) And it’s not a condescending question. Jesus isn’t being derisive. “Jesus knew better than anyone that Mary Magdalene’s tears are representative of the tears of all humanity. This is the weeping, the bitter spilling forth of salty tears, that has enveloped the human race for ever-so-long now.”[1]
She is the stand in for every last one of us who’ve felt death’s sting — which is the entire human race. Isaiah gets it right when he talks about the veil that is veiling all peoples, the shroud that is enshrouding all nations. (Isa. 25:7) At some point, death sneaks it’s way into our lives and casts a pall over it forever. And so Easter happens whenever these tears are shed … when the doctor gives the diagnosis, when your Facebook memory for the day is of your grandma telling you how proud she is of you, when you sit down for Easter dinner and there’s an empty chair and silence at who is going to say grace, when you hear a song and you’re transported decades ago and wonder “what if…,” when you catch a whiff of fresh baked dinner rolls and remember what love smells like. These are the only places Easter happens because it’s only there that death is preaching a sermon and resurrection is needed.
Yes, Jesus has been raised from the dead — but the valley of the shadow of death is a deep and difficult climb that no one can traverse by themselves, certainly not Mary. On that first Easter morning, death still clung to her so tightly that she could not recognize Jesus either by looking at him or by hearing the voice she’d heard for years. Through her grief, she simply thinks he’s the gardener, which is an ironic thought because he is. He is The Gardener.
Did you know, at least in John, Jesus’ arrest, crucifixion, and resurrection all take place in a garden? John is making a theological statement in doing so — this isn’t simple reporting but a statement about what the cross, Jesus’ death and resurrection does. It is a full circle moment calling back to the Garden of Eden when Sin and Death entered into the world, fracturing and breaking it. Now, a new Adam has come, repairing the broken world by taking on the Sin of the world and defeating Death in his death and now resurrection. And the first work he does, the first ground he breaks, the first plant he puts in the soil is Mary, calling her out of her old life ruled by Sin and Death into a new one fresh with possibility and hope.
***
In “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade,” the penultimate scene is both remarkable and intimate. Having solved riddles, escaped burning rats, survived being chased and shot at by Nazis, gone through the trials of faith, finding the Holy Grail, and saving his father’s life, Indiana has one more trial. The ground around them is collapsing because the Grail was taken farther than it could go. Fissures and crevasses are opening all around, threatening to swallow people left and right. Indiana tries to rescue the pretty girl, holding her hand as he tries to pull her up from a crack in the earth, but her lust for power in the form of desperately reaching for the Grail on a ledge blinds her to her doom, falling down deep.
The ground shifts and now Indiana’s the one hanging on by a thread. His father is now clinging to him while he makes the same mistake as the pretty girl. His doom is imminent as he tries to grab the grail. His dad is pleading with him, “Junior, I can’t hold on much longer. Junior!” It isn’t working, “I can almost reach it,” Indiana repeats. But then a voice breaks in, “Indiana, Indiana.” And his gaze turns toward his father. Indiana escapes the clutches of death because his father calls him by name — Indiana.
Jesus said to her, “Mary”. Jesus calls Mary out of the shadow of death by name. Jesus is the Good Shepherd who knows his sheep by name. When you use someone’s name, it shows you care, you try, you love. Jesus called Mary by name and in an instant the scales fell from her eyes, and she could see Jesus. She is called out of the clutches of death. “Her life will be made new, once again, in the presence and power of the resurrected Christ.”[2]
When Jesus spoke her name, a new story was being written, a new path being forged, a new life was given to her. The brokenness wrought by Sin and Death has not just been repaired but recreated into something new. He spoke her name and it went off like a crack, breaking through her grief. There was no judgment, no “why didn’t you believe?” no frustration, only love and acceptance and hope. We long for that intimacy—to be known for who we really are and accepted in spite of it all.
And the Good News of today is that the resurrected Christ doesn’t just call Mary by name out of the valley of the shadow of death — but he calls out to you. Amid your tears of grief, your tears of frustration, your tears of pain, your tears of broken dreams, your tears of lost hopes, your tears of anguish, your tears of exhaustion, your tears of sadness, your tears of Sin and Death — Christ has come to wipe them all away.
On Easter, God created a new story. When it looked like Sin and Death were going to win again on Friday, Sunday came and that which was broken was made whole. Where is death’s sting? Where grave thy victory? Death does not have the last word — God does. Hope has won. Grace has won. Life has won. Death is not the end—God is.
COMMENTS
Leave a Reply
