John 20:1-18
On that first Easter…early in the morning…everyone had left…all had gone…but not Mary Magdalene.
- Mary showed up…she came and saw the emptiness of the tomb…and was afraid…
- And then she saw Jesus standing there… and…
- Well…she thought it was a gardener.
I have this funny notion…in my head…that Mary never lived it down.
- If her friends were anything like my friends…for the rest of her life…
- Her friends would say something like…
- Hey Mary…remember when you mistook Jesus for the gardner? That was hilarious!
I believe the resurrection of Jesus is the greatest story ever told.
- But it’s not a story about Easter baskets and candy and spiffiness.
- Easter is really a story about flesh and dirt and confusion…
- And it’s about the way God never seems to stick to our expectations.
OK then…when Mary Magdalene…this imperfect woman…stood at the tomb…
- She did not encounter some perfected radiant glowing Jesus that morning.
- No offense to gardeners…but Jesus could not have been looking all that tidy and impressive if she mistook him for a gardener…
- And here’s the thing: I like to think that Mary Magdalene mistook the resurrected Christ for a gardener…
- Because Jesus still had the dirt from his crucifixion under his nails.
Of course…the depictions of the risen Christ never show dirt under his nails.
- They make him look more like a wingless angel than a gardener.
- But then what we end up with is a distorted idea of what resurrection looks like.
So…let’s begin from the beginning.
- Way…way back in time…the God of the Universe was sick and tired with being on the receiving end of all our human projections.
- The Lord God was tired of being nothing more to us than what we thought God should be:
- Angry…showoffy…defensive…
- Insecure…in short…the vengeance-seeking tyrant…we would be…if we were God.
So…at that time…over 2,000 years ago…God’s Loving Desire to be Known overflowed the heavens…
- And was made manifest within the womb of an insignificant peasant girl named Mary.
- And when the time came for her to give birth to God…
- There was no room in our expectations…
- No room in any impressive or spiffy or safe place.
- So…God was born in straw and dirt.
He grew up…this Jesus of Nazareth…left his home…and found some…let’s be honest…rather unimpressive characters to follow him.
- Fishermen…Tax collectors…people from humble backgrounds and neighborhoods.
- You may read it for yourselves in the Biblical record.
So…with this little band of outsiders…Jesus went about the countryside…
- Turning water to wine…eating with all the wrong people…casting out demons…
- Angering the religious establishment and insisting that in him the kingdom of God had come near…
- That through him God was coming right to us.
- He touched the unclean and used spit and dirt to heal the blind…
- And said crazy things like the first shall be last and the last shall be first…
- And sell all you have and give it to the poor.
And the thing that really cooked people’s noodles was not the question…is Jesus like God…it was…what if God is like Jesus.
- What if God is not who we thought?
- What if the most trustworthy way to know God is through a person.
- What if the most trustworthy way to know God is to look at how God chose to reveal God’s self in Jesus?
- Because that changes everything.
If what we see in Jesus is God’s own self revealed…
- Then what we are seeing here is a God who would rather die than be in the sin accounting business.
- A God who would not lift a finger to condemn those who crucified him…
- A God who would go to the depths of Hell rather than be separated…even from his betrayers.
- A God unafraid to get his hands dirty for the ones he loves.
- This is the God who rises to new life with dirt still under his nails…
- And chooses a woman with a past to tell everyone else about it.
God is not about making us snazzy.
- God is about making us new.
- And new does not always look perfect.
- New still has dirt under its nails.
New looks like recovering alcoholics and addicts.
- New looks like reconciliation between two family members.
- New looks like every time I manage to admit I was wrong.
- New looks like every time I manage to not mention when I am right.
- New looks like every fresh start and every act of forgiveness.
- New looks like every moment of letting go of what we thought we could not live without.
- New looks like…somehow…living without it anyway.
- New is the thing we never saw coming …never even hoped for…
- But ends up being what we needed all along…
- Because God simply keeps reaching down into the dirt of humanity…
- And pulling us out of the graves we dig for ourselves through our sin.
And God keeps loving us back to life over and over.
- So yes!
- Christ is risen from the dead.
- Trampling down death…by his death.
- And to those in the tombs…being given the gift of new life…
- Believe it with me.
- He is risen.
- Halleluia