Easter

April 17, 2022

“Oh God, take our minds and think through them, take our lips and speak through them, and take our hearts and set them on fire. Amen.”

In the summer, my wife and I spend most of our evenings on our screened-in back porch, enjoying our views of the garden we have created over the years. It has taken a lot of hard work, a lot of money but over those years, we have created a sanctuary of beauty for ourselves that offers us respite from our busy and stressful lives, and offers our cats an endless supply of squirrels, chipmunks, rabbits, and birds to frustrate them. 

And there’s always more work to be done. A Norway maple on the border of our neighbor’s property came down during a storm last summer, so we are having to fill the vacated space with new plantings and an expanse of fence. As we’ve grown older, we have come to rely on others to do much of the heavy work that we once did, but we still spend time weeding and clearing and trying to keep the yard as beautiful as possible.

Gardens. Places of beauty and serenity in the midst of busy worlds, combining the beauty of nature and the work of human hands, human creativity and ingenuity alongside the beauty and endless diversity of God’s creation. Gardens are places of beauty and hard work, places of respite and toil.

Our gospel reading takes place in a garden. “Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark”—For some of us, this mention of first day and darkness may take us back to the beginning, to the story of creation, of light coming into the darkness, and the first garden, the garden of Eden planted by God at creation and in which God placed the man and the woman to care for it, to husband it.

Here, too, there is a woman, and a man, or at least one mistaken as a man.

The tragedy of the first garden, disobedience, expulsion, an angel at the gate to prevent the first couple’s return to it.

The tragedy of the second garden: the death and burial of the one beloved by his followers and disciples. Two angels, not preventing entry but asking her a question, “Woman why are you weeping?”

It’s strange how John tells the story. The angels ask a question with an obvious answer but there’s another question unspoken, unanswered. Why had Mary Magdalene come to the tomb? It’s a question John doesn’t ask, nor does he answer. We’re only told that she came to the tomb. Not to embalm him; remember Jesus had been anointed for burial by the other Mary, Mary of Bethany, a week before. And Nicodemus had brought 100 pounds of burial spices to the tomb. So she didn’t come to do anything, except to grieve. 

She came to the garden, to grieve, to reflect, to process all that had happened. Her beloved teacher had died; the one she had believed to be the Messiah; the one on whom she and the other disciples had pinned all their hopes; the one they had seen offer abundant life to others, who healed, and taught, and transformed lives, including their own. 

She came to the garden and her grief was suddenly compounded with horror. The tomb where she expected to grieve and reflect had been desecrated, robbed. She didn’t even stoop down to look in. She ran back to tell the others and the three of them ran back. Peter and the other disciple, Jesus’ beloved disciple, raced to the tomb. They saw the linen wrappings; Peter, then the other one entered, and we are told that he “saw and believed.”

The two of them had seen enough. They went back to the house where they were staying while Mary stayed back. And where could she or should she go? She had come to the garden to grieve and whatever emotional turmoil that had brought her here was only intensified by the fact of the empty tomb.

But suddenly, her tears were interrupted. She saw the gardener, and then it wasn’t the gardener. He spoke her name, and in that moment, she knew her Lord. Sorrow turned to joy; mourning and grief were gone. Her world had changed.

Suddenly, the garden was no longer a place of respite and grief; and even as she sought to process all this, no doubt as she wanted to linger, to ask questions, to understand, she was sent outward and away to share the good news. Jesus told her, “Don’t hold on to me.” Her very human, all too human desire to understand, to rejoice with the risen one was overwhelmed by another desire, another task: to share the good news.

And so Mary Magdalene became the first to share the good news; the apostle to the apostles. It was she he told the others that Christ had risen from the dead; that he had conquered sin and evil, and changed their world; changed the world.

One of the many things I love about Grace Church is the Vilas window, to my right, with its depiction of this very scene in the garden, Mary encountering, and recognizing the Risen Christ. In the late afternoon on a sunny day, if the nave is dark, the deep reds of the window suffuse the entire church, bathing it in ethereal light. I have preached and ministered under that window for thirteen years, thirteen Easters and it still has the capacity to take my breath away. A detail from that window is reproduced on our Easter bulletins and while it can’t do justice to the refracted light of a stained glass window; it still captures something of the beauty of the image, and the beauty of that moment.

Churches are refuges: buildings like ours are places of beauty and serenity where time seems to stand still and we can sense God’s presence. We have felt the loss of this sacred place over the last two years and the opportunity to gather on Easter to worship, to hear the story, to sing the familiar hymns, to experience joy is an amazing gift.

Gardens are refuges; places of beauty and serenity that provide us with spiritual sustenance in difficult times. Gardens, for all their hard work, can be escapes from the challenges of our daily lives; from the constant pressures we feel; a balm to our emotions scarred and wounded by the world’s events. For us, sitting on our porch in the evening, nursing a drink, watching the antics of our cats frustrated by the screens that prevent them from chasing rabbits or squirrels, or birds or chipmunks, All of that discracts us from the pressures of our busy lives, brings smiles to our faces, and the occasional laugh.

Mary came to the garden to grieve and mourn, and she left, full of joy and the power of the gospel, ready to share the good news. Similarly, we have come here, many of us after long absences to be strengthened, for an infusion of hope, to hear the good news, for reassurance, to encounter the Risen Christ in word and sacrament. But like Mary, the Risen Christ who tells us, “Don’t hold on to me, don’t stay.” He sends us out like Mary, to share the good news to share Christ’s love, the promise of new life; the certainty of resurrection. May we go from this place into the world, our hearts on fire with new life in Christ; our hearts on fire with faith and love. 

Alleluia! Christ is Risen!