Easter Sunday
April 5, 2015
John 20:1-18
“Mary
said to them, ‘They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have put
him.’”[1] This statement of Mary’s gained new meaning
for me last August. Not many of you know
this, because we didn’t tell hardly anyone; we were too overwhelmed. Even most of our family didn’t know, unless
they happened to call during this time.
My son, A.J., who was born last August, spent his third and fourth days
of life in the NICU, the Neonatal Intensive Care. Everything went normal, he came exactly on
his due date, and we were all set to be discharged on time. I was
discharged on time. The night before we
were to be sent home, the nurse came to get A.J. around 1 a.m. to run some
final tests and bloodwork to get him ready to be discharged. Around 3 a.m. she came back with him and
another nurse to say that they were moving him to the NICU. A.J. had started breathing abnormally while
they were doing the tests and it hadn’t resolved itself after over an hour, so
they wanted to keep him under closer observation. They had brought him back for me to kiss
good-bye before taking him to the NICU for observation. I was then supposed to go back to sleep until
morning – yeah, right! I called my
husband to let him know. I pulled out my
Bible to try to read and find comfort. I
pulled out my devotional book to try to pray.
“Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work or watch or weep this
night.” And I couldn’t do any of
it. They had taken my baby away and I
didn’t know where to find him. The NICU
wasn’t included on our tour of the hospital.
I knew, rationally, that it couldn’t be far, but I had no idea where it
was. I tried calling my best friend,
who’s a night owl, but she didn’t answer.
And then I called my mom. My
mom’s a nurse, and she works in the newborn unit of a hospital in Raleigh. She told me to call my nurse and ask to be
taken to the NICU. Best. Advice.
Ever. It was as simple as
that. They had taken my baby away and I
didn’t know where to find him, [pause] until
I asked the right person. Mary first
tells the angels, “They have taken away my Lord, and I don’t know where they
put him.” Then she speaks with Jesus,
who she doesn’t know is Jesus and who she thinks is the gardener, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him,
and I will get him.” Then she finds out it’s Jesus. Then
she finds out where he is: standing right in front of her.
The
first point here is that old saying that people
usually find what they’re looking for.
That saying is so old, it’s even in the Bible, in the book of Proverbs:
“Those who seek good find the goodwill of others, but those who look for trouble
will surely find it.”[2] Unlike the band U2, who still hasn’t found
what they’re looking for, most of us usually find what we look for. The car keys eventually turn up. The reading glasses are most likely on top of
our head. And I’ve learned the best
place to look for something missing in my household these days is in between
the car seats. We usually do find what
we’re looking for, whether it’s a lost item or lost pet or expecting people to
behave a certain way. It’s like the
story that is told of the Greek philosopher Socrates:[3]
Socrates
was sitting on a hill overlooking Athens, when a man stopped to talk with
him. The man asked, “What are the people
like down there in Athens?” Socrates
said, “Where are you from?” The man
replied, “Sparta.” “And what are the people like in Sparta?” The man replied, “Rude, mean-spirited, not
nice people.” Socrates said, “You will
find the people in Athens just the same.
I would not go there.”
Later,
another man approached Socrates and asked, “What are the people like down there
in Athens?” Socrates said, “Where are
you from?” The man replied, “Sparta.”
“And what are the people like in Sparta?”
The man replied, “Kind, generous, good people.” Socrates put his arm around the man and said,
“Let’s go to Athens together. You will
find the people in Athens just the same.”
If
you look for the best in people, you’ll find it. If you go looking to stir the pot and create
chaos, you’ll find that, too. Mary came to
the tomb looking for the Jesus who had died, and she found him. Peter and John
came looking in response to news of a possible grave robbing of Jesus’ body,
and that’s what they found: a missing body.
What do you look for when you come to church? To be bored?
Then you probably will be. Or do
you look, like Mary, for an encounter with the risen Savior? Then you will probably find him and be found
by him.
I
say “be found by him” because we don’t
always recognize Jesus when we see him.
Mary thought he was the gardener.
On the road to Emmaus, Cleopas and his friend thought Jesus was just a
fellow traveler, until he broke bread with them. When Jesus stood on the shoreline and called
out to his fishing disciples, Peter and the others could not recognize him. And
in our Gospel reading in a couple weeks we’ll hear that when the eleven first
saw the risen Jesus, they believed they had seen a ghost.[4]
Mary was even looking for him, “Sir, if you have carried him
away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him,” and doesn’t
recognize that it’s him. We have trouble
recognizing Jesus sometimes, so it’s a good thing that Jesus finds us and lets us know, “hey, it’s me.”
Along with Piney Grove, I was part of a Lenten service
series on Wednesdays at St. Matthew’s Lutheran in Bowley’s Quarters this Lent
and the sermon series was on how Jesus meets
us. We don’t meet Jesus; he meets us. In a variety of places, in a variety of ways,
but the initiative is his. Our part is
whether we recognize him when he meets us, because he doesn’t always look like
the pictures we have hanging up here. In
our Bible study on why a sense of humor is important in the spiritual life we
recently looked at a couple pictures of paintings of Jesus laughing.[5]
And not just a big smile, but Jesus’ head is tilted back and his mouth
is open and his teeth are showing, that’s how much Jesus is laughing in these
pictures.
It’s a very different
image of Jesus than the ones we usually see.
Do you recognize Jesus in the good and happy and laugh-filled moments in
your life? Do you think he’s laughing
along with you at a good joke? And then
what about the other times in life? That
last Wednesday at St. Matthew’s the title was “When Did We See You, Lord?” and
the Scripture reading was the one from Matthew 25, where Jesus promises his followers that when he reappears
it will be as the homeless, the hungry, the stranger, the sick, and the
prisoner. Do you recognize Jesus when
that’s how he shows up? And yet Jesus
says that when we feed the hungry and give clothes to those who need them and
welcome the stranger and visit the sick and imprisoned, “Whenever
you did it for any of my people, no matter how unimportant they seemed, you did
it for me.”[6] Or to put it a different way from the book of
Hebrews, “Be sure to welcome strangers into your home. By doing this, some
people have welcomed angels as guests, without even knowing it.”[7] We don’t always recognize
Jesus when we see him. Mary thought he
was the gardener, but you can see, she still spoke to him politely, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him,
and I will get him.”
The
point is this. We go looking for Jesus,
but we don’t always recognize him when we see him, so, mind your P’s and Q’s. In my
previous appointment I was the associate pastor at a church that averaged
around 500 people in attendance each Sunday.
On my second week there, I volunteered with the church at the local
homeless shelter, only I didn’t tell any of the regular volunteers I was
coming. I arrived in the kitchen and
said, “Hi, how can I help?” and I was put to work before one of the other
volunteers whispered to her husband, “Psst, that's the new associate!” I wasn't
trying to be secretive, I'm just more comfortable saying, “Hi, what's your
name?” than “Hi, I'm the new associate pastor.” Later on, I was talking with
another church volunteer (who was smart enough to ask back, “What's your
name?”!) and another church volunteer joined us just as we were talking about
my predecessor. The two talked about how they missed the previous associate and
the second one said, “But I hear our new associate has her own gifts and
talents.” I didn't interrupt her, just introduced myself to her when she was
done. I suppose it was a good thing she had only heard positive things about
me! My point is that you never know
who’s listening and you never know who the stranger is at your door. If you treat everyone like you would treat
Jesus, if you roll out the red carpet for everyone you encounter, if you treat
everyone with respect, and mind your P’s and Q’s all the time, then you don’t
have to worry about whether it’s Jesus or not, plus you’re carrying out his
commandment to love your neighbor as yourself.
That’s all Mary is trying to do, anyway.
“Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you
have put him, and I will get him.”
That’s all Mary wants to do, is finish taking care of Jesus’ body. She’s not there for herself, she’s there for
her friend.
“Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him,
and I will get him.” Mary has gone
looking for Jesus. He’s not where he’s
supposed to be. (Imagine that, Jesus not
where he’s supposed to be?) She goes
looking for him only to be found by him.
The catch is that she doesn’t immediately recognize him, because we
don’t always immediately recognize God in our midst. That’s why hindsight is 20-20 and we say with
Jacob from the Old Testament, “Surely God was in this place and I didn’t even know
it!”[8] If we live, though, as if we are always in
the presence of the risen Christ, which we are, then that should make a
difference in our lives. If we remember
who we are and whose we are, and that the One with the final say on that is
God, not anyone else, then it changes how we live and how we treat others. If “They have taken away my Lord, and
I do not know where they have put him” becomes “Tell me where
you have put him, and I will get him.”
If we remember and believe that because of this Sunday death does not have the last word nor does it have any
power over us, then we can go share like Mary told the disciples, “I have seen
the Lord.”[9] Thanks be to God.
[1] John 20:13
[2] Proverbs 11:27
[3] Author Unknown
[5] Based on Between Heaven and Mirth by James
Martin, SJ
[6] Matthew 25:40, CEV
[7] Hebrews 13:2, CEV
[8] Genesis 28:16
[9] John 20:18
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