Living Christ, you are risen from the dead!
Love reigns!
You are life stronger than death;
raise our eyes to see you
as the new day dawns.
— A New Zealand Prayer Book
John 20:1-18
Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead.
Then the disciples returned to their homes.
But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet.
The angels said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?”
She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.”
When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus.
Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?”
Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.”
Jesus said to her, “Mary!”
She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher).
Jesus said to her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”
Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”; and she told them that he had said these things to her.
Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord.”
That’s the first Easter sermon: “I have seen the Lord.”
Mary offered no theological speculation about the nature of God, failed to state what kind of resurrection had occurred, insisted on no doctrinal agreement, and produced no evidence to prove the truthfulness of her claim. Five words: I have seen the Lord.
John’s gospel tells us this story from the beginning of ministry:
John the Baptist was standing with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, ‘Look, here is the Lamb of God!’ The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, ‘What are you looking for?’ They said to him, ‘Rabbi’ (which translated means Teacher), ‘where are you staying?’ He said to them, ‘Come and see.’
On the morning of the empty tomb, Mary called him “Rabbouni!,” tried to hold on to Jesus that he might stay, and then announced to the other disciples “I have seen the Lord.” The pattern is deep within John’s story — recognition, embrace, and witness. Jesus’ invitation to “come and see” traverses a long road of teaching, healing, and friendship to betrayal and death, where, through the blur of grief, a woman will preach the first Easter sermon: I have seen the Lord.
Come and see leads to I have seen the Lord.
Mary tells the other disciples what she has seen. Not long after, Jesus appears to them all and breaths his peace, gifting them with the Spirit. And then, when quizzed by Thomas, who missed Jesus’ appearance, the other disciples will preach the second Easter sermon: We have seen the Lord.
Come and see.
I have seen the Lord.
We have seen the Lord.
That’s the Gospel of John. That’s the Easter message. Five words from Mary. Five more from the others. Five words announced rebirth, new creation, and resurrection — the whole story of a God who loves the world, who aches with and for all creation, who liberates the enslaved, and who dreams of justice. Just five words.
I can offer no proof. I can’t explain what kind of resurrection.Literal, physical, spiritual, mythological, experiential, metaphorical — writers know such labels feebly describe that which we struggle to explain, the truest things escape the bounds of words. I have no historical evidence or scientific theory. I don’t know which tomb or what hill or how any of this could be possible. Twenty centuries of theological argument has obscured more than it has clarified.
All I know is that years ago, I heard an invitation — an invitation whispered along with water sprinkled at baptism: Come and see. Rabbi, Teacher, Friend, Beloved, Savior. Along the way, even in tears, struggle, pain, and loss, doubt, fear, and grief, whenever I turned my head and really looked, Jesus was there.
I have seen the Lord.
Even now, as our wounded earth cries, as petty Caesars hold sway, as young Black men are crucified for preaching justice, as the poor and persecuted and the hungry wonder if they are forgotten, a tomb stands empty and a table is set. The road from the first invitation to the first sermon was long; the journey from that first sermon to the final embrace of love and justice longer still.
Five words — the beginning, the way, the ending, the always.
I have seen the Lord.
Mary Magdalene’s sermon is mine, too. The simplest sermon. The only sermon. Nothing more is needed. Except one thing — that the “I” becomes “we.”
Hers became the proclamation of those frightened, fearful followers, the ones who learned from Mary how to preach the resurrected life: We have seen the Lord.
Listen. Turn around. Look. Look again.
Have you seen the Lord?
Tell me. Tell me your story. Have you seen him? Where? Tell me!
And let us proclaim together: We have seen the Lord.
The Risen Lord is indeed risen. Present, intimate, creative, 'closer than your own heartbeat,' accessed through your vulnerability, your capacity for intimacy. The imaginal realm is real, and through it you will never be separated from any one or anything you have ever loved, for love is the ground in which you live and move and have your being.
This is the message that Mary Magdalene has perennially to bring. This is the message we most need to hear.
— Cynthia Bourgeault
PRAYER
God of new creation,
from the womb of earth
you raised the Lord of life:
may we receive the testimony of Mary Magdalene
who met you in a garden
and reached for your embrace;
may we see you where we least expect you,
and rejoice that love will never die,
through Jesus Christ, the resurrection and the life.
Amen.
— inspired by a prayer in Steven Shakespeare, Prayers for an Inclusive Church
INSPIRATION
Weeping may last for a night.
Weeping may last for a thousand nights.
But joy comes in the morning.
That morning we went to our beloved teacher’s tomb.
We went to anoint his body.
We carried oil and cloths.
We came to the tomb in sorrow, heads bowed low.
But hope does not die so easily.
It flickers inside, buried somewhere deep.
Hope grows, blossoms like a rose
even through stone,
even in hearts frozen by grief.
When we arrived at the place where he lay
We dropped all that we carried, in wonder, in fear,
to see the tomb laid open, and our beloved gone.
Do not weep, said the man.
This morning we rejoice.
Love lives. Hope lives.
Jesus is not here, he said.
Come and see.
He is risen.
Our beloved is risen. Our hope is risen.
Can it be?
Can it be?
— Molly Housh Gordon, “At the Tomb” from Holy Week Triptych
[ A ]
Long ago, in Kentucky, I, a boy, stood
By a dirt road, in first dark, and heard
The great geese hoot northward.
I could not see them, there being no moon
And the stars sparse. I heard them.
I did not know what was happening in my heart.
It was the season before the elderberry blooms,
Therefore they were going north.
The sound was passing northward.
[ B ]
Tell me a story.
In this century, and moment, of mania,
Tell me a story.
Make it a story of great distances, and starlight.
The name of the story will be Time,
But you must not pronounce its name.
Tell me a story of deep delight.
— Robert Penn Warren, “Tell Me a Story”
There were years
when the Easter Bunny
set out a wrench and a flashlight
beside the baskets—remember,
brother, the pleasure we took
in the hiding and finding
long after the years of believing
in magic were over?
Eggs we floated in plastic bags
in the backs of the toilet.
Eggs duct taped to the inside
of the chimney flue. Eggs
in the vents, inside the piano,
we delighted in what a bit of invention
could do. Tonight I walked out
of the house after dinner
to take the recycling up to the road,
and there, to the west, an outpouring
of light made me stop and stare
and inwardly, sweetly erode.
In a world so bent, I sometimes forget
that the magic is always
inside us. We have all the tools
that we need. All we need to do
is keep trying to find it.
— Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, Easter Magic
Enjoy this musical Easter Alleluia!
beautiful words Thank you for sharing.
Beautiful. Thank you. I hope your Easter was glorious.