Easter Day
Sermon preached by the Revd Anna Matthews
‘Why are you weeping?’
These are the first words of the risen Christ, addressed to his disconsolate friend by the tomb. She’d been drawn there in the still hours of the night, to this place that represents a last tangible connection with Jesus, a place where she can grieve and weep and remember.
But arriving there she’d found the stone rolled back. And in her confusion and horror she fetches two of the disciples. Not because she thinks this means Jesus is risen – not that, yet – for all his teaching and his miracles, resurrection was something they believed would happen at the last day, not something that would happen now and upend the present with the new life of the kingdom. No, she runs to get them because she fears the grave has been robbed, a final indignity visited upon the body of her beloved friend and Lord – a body already marked with the horrors and torture of the previous day.
Why are you weeping? Where do you start? She weeps because her heart is torn with grief. Because she loves him but there’s nowhere for that love to go, now. Because he’d given her hope, and a place to belong, and a future, and now that seems shut off as surely as the tomb is. She weeps because she remembers – the meals that will be no more; the way he drew others in, as he’d drawn her; the way being with him had made them braver, had changed the way they looked at the world, had filled them with expectation about God.
And she remembers other things, too: the fear that had gripped her as she heard of his arrest. The taunts of the crowd as he made his way through the city. The cross which bore down on him as he stumbled. The scant mercy they tried to offer by their presence and their love as they’d stood by the cross. His anguish and pain as he struggled with more than any human body can bear.
She weeps for all that. And for the callousness of the crowds and the soldiers. For the injustice masked as political expediency. For the violence, the inhumanity, the waste of it all.
Alone at the tomb in her grief, how do you articulate all that? Her tears are her testimony. And that first Easter morning, Jesus speaks directly into her grief. ‘Why are you weeping?’
This Easter morning, the risen Lord asks us the same question. Why are you weeping? And dry-eyed, you might protest that you’re not. But Jesus’ question reaches into the griefs we carry, the losses, the fears, the confusion. I may not be weeping right now, but I’ve cried a lot this past year – in fear as the pandemic began, and the reality of living in the shadow of death hit home. In loss, from the smaller, local loss of closing the church building to the horrifying global loss in Covid deaths. I’ve cried in frustration and impotence and worry; in the smaller griefs that have felt self-indulgent but still hurt – the family and friends not seen; the retreats cancelled; the birthdays and anniversaries missed. I watch the news and see the violence visited on black bodies, women’s bodies, children’s bodies; the intractable conflicts which leave people maimed and grief-struck and stateless and grief stirs, and hopelessness, and anger.
Why are you weeping? Like me, you’ll have your own private griefs and sorrows to add to the list of public ones. It is in all this, because of all this, that Jesus rises from the dead. The opened tomb is not because grave robbers have stolen the body, but because the reign of sin and death is at an end. As the stone sealed the tomb where Jesus’ dead body lay, it looked like death had had the final word. Hope and life and love were buried with Jesus. But in the darkness of the tomb the final word belonged to God as he raised Jesus from the dead.
Easter happens amid the world’s grief and sorrow. Life stirs in the midst of death. God made us for life with him, and he will not let death hold us for ever. Our tombs are opened with Christ’s as Love beckons us into a new future.
This is the future that greets Mary in the garden. ‘Why are you weeping? For whom are you looking?’ And she can’t see, not initially. She is looking for a body and is met by a life. She is looking for a tomb in which her hope and love are sealed off with Jesus, and instead finds an open door. It’s not until Jesus says her name that she sees him whom she seeks; the voice that breaks through her tears to bring joyful, astonished recognition. It’s the voice that had called her initially; had spoken words of healing; had called her into his company, spoke love and gave her a new identity and dignity.
She had thought all that dead with him. But the open tomb and the voice that speaks her name tell another story: there is life beyond death – not just at the last day, but now, as the light of Easter dawns and God’s future breaks into our present and past bringing healing and hope.
Death and sin do not have the final word. God does. All the tombs of our lives that we’d thought closed and sealed can be flooded with Easter life. Love beckons us into a future which says we are not defined by what we have done or what has happened to us; where guilt and shame can be met by a mercy more powerful; where hearts rent with grief can nevertheless sing alleluia, and where the patient, painstaking work of justice can be done because freedom has dawned.
Why are you weeping? What are the sorrows, the griefs, the fears, you carry? And for whom, or for what, are you looking? If you’re looking for escape from all that’s hard you won’t find it in the passion and resurrection – for that is hard and truthful reality. If you’re looking for an undoing of all that’s difficult or painful, you won’t find that, either. The risen Jesus still bears the marks of the crucifixion. The resurrection doesn’t undo what’s gone before, but does offer newness, healing, forgiveness. Peter isn’t left in his denial. Mary Magdalene isn’t left in her grief. The Easter light reaches into the pain and muddle and sorrow to kindle new life. Mary is restored and becomes the first preacher of the resurrection. Peter is restored and is finally able to be the rock Jesus has called him to be. And what of you? Listen, for the voice that called Mary’s name that first Easter also calls you. In your weeping and seeking new life can stir, as the risen Lord draws you from death to life, opening the tombs that hold us, and bathing us all in Easter light.