Sermon:  “Sharing Jesus”

Prayer:   “May the words of my mouth, and the meditations of our hearts and minds here together be acceptable to you, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer.  Amen.”

Thank you, readers, for bringing our Easter story to life for us today.  I thought that having you read scripture like that, with different voices for the different people in the Gospel, might help us hear John’s version of the resurrection a little differently.  Did anyone notice how competitive those three disciples were – Mary, Peter, and John? 

Mary Magdalene gets to the tomb first, but when she finds it empty, she can’t figure it out.  She runs to tell Peter and “the other disciple” what she thinks happened.  “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him!” That other disciple, “the one whom Jesus loved,” we assume is John, the story’s author.  Jesus may have preached humility, but John has no problem calling himself “beloved.” And not only that, he makes a point of letting us know he WON the foot race back to the tomb: “⁴ the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first.”

So Mary is first, but John calls himself the winner.  But then, when John “bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there… he did not go in.”  It sounds as if neither Mary nor John had the guts to go INSIDE the tomb to look for Jesus.  It took Peter, “the Rock” to get up the courage to take a closer look.  But wait, there’s more.  John says Peter didn’t UNDERSTAND anything he saw.  So presumably Peter was just standing there looking at a pile of linens when “the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in.”  John gives himself credit for being the first to begin to see Easter as a miracle, because he says “he saw and BELIEVED.” 

Yes, but then both Peter and John go home, and Mary stays behind, weeping.  She waits long enough to be the first to SEE the risen Christ.  And yet, even seeing Jesus right there, she still doesn’t get it.  Stuck on her stolen-body theory, she actually accuses Jesus, whom she mistakes for the gardener, of being among the ones who have “taken away my Lord.”  She repeats her complaint, “I do not know where they have laid him.”

Those are words that still echo through the ages to us today – you see why I thought John’s Gospel was the best Easter text for our Ecumenical Sunrise Service?  All of us, as we hear of the teachings of other churches, we may be tempted to complain, like Mary Magdalene, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.”  When we hear other preachers, we sometimes don’t even recognize him as the Lord we have come to know and love, the one who knows and loves us. 

Mary finally knows Jesus to be her beloved Rabbi when she hears him call her – softly and tenderly – by her name, “Mary.”  That’s when she finally gets it, and she either grabs him or attempts to grab him because he says to her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father.”  Have you seen paintings of this scene?  It’s such a beautiful moment – where one woman reaches out to the Lord with such longing for love and personal connection.  But Jesus tells her to go and share the Good News of his resurrection with others.  He says, “Go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”  When I hear other Christians grab hold of Jesus and refuse to share him, that’s when these words of Jesus make the most sense to me, “Do not hold on to me.”  None of us has an exclusive claim on Jesus.

This is the beauty of our ecumenical clergy group – we know that we have differences, but we share Jesus.  As the Risen and Ascended Christ – as the third part of the Holy Trinity, which we all proclaim – we are all able to know Jesus and to hear him call us by name.  It really is a great thing that we have three of us local pastors to share in leading worship here today – me and Pastor Paul Ricard of Newbury Congregational and Pastor Mark Horton of Valley Presbyterian.  Some might say we are in competition with each other, just like these first disciples, Mary and Peter and John.  But we know our three churches just represent three different choices for Christians in Brookfield.  We are all on the same team.  My husband cracked me up yesterday as we were driving down Whisconier Road and passed St. Paul’s Anglican Church.  They have their Easter sign out on the lawn that says worship is at 8 am and 10:30 am.  “Nuts!” John shouted.  “Those sneaky Episcopalians got the drop on us!  They’re having their early service 30 minutes earlier than OUR early service!  Well, we’ll show them: let’s get started at SUNRISE!” 

It’s great we can laugh at that now, because there have been times in Christian history when we haven’t had the luxury of having such a wonderful interdenominational clergy group – where we can really support one another in our various ministries.  We worship in different ways and places, but we all share Jesus.  And we all are called to share Jesus with our local community and with the world.  This Good News of Easter will be proclaimed today in all our churches, not just here in Brookfield, but around the globe.  It’s good we are not alone in our faith.  But for some American Christians, as competitive as we are, it’s hard to admit we are not the first and only Christians. 

Christians in the U.S. military began celebrating Easter in Guam 14 hours ago and in Afghanistan 9 hours ago, but most of us here in the States are actually a little bit behind the rest of the planet.  Chinese Christians greeted Easter dawn 12 hours ago, and many of them had to worship in secret, in house churches forbidden by the government.  In Jerusalem, Palestinian Christians could proclaim “Christ is Risen!” more or less on site 6 hours ago!  Did anyone stay to watch the Pope celebrate Easter just 5 hours ago? 

Along with Mary Magdalene, and with every other disciple from that first Easter until today, we are all called to proclaim, “We have seen the Lord!”  This affirmation is at the heart of the Easter story, the story all Christians share.  We are also called to share him with others outside the church – share him with lost and suffering people in our town, and in the world.  All who need Jesus get to share him. 

Thanks be to God for this Good News.  Amen.

---

"Sharing Jesus: Mary, John, & Pater" John 20:1-18 

Narrator:          ¹Early 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. ²So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them,

Mary:               “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.”

Narrator:          ³Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb.

John:                ⁴The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. ⁵He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. 

Peter:               ⁶Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, ⁷and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself.

John:                ⁸Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; ⁹for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead.

Narrator:          ¹⁰Then the disciples returned to their homes.

Mary:               ¹¹But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; ¹²and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying,

Angel 1:          one at the head

Angel 2:          and the other at the feet.

Narrator:          ¹³They said to her,

2 Angels:         “Woman, why are you weeping?”

Narrator:          She said to them,

Mary:               “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.”

Narrator:          ¹⁴When she had said this,

Mary:               she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus.

Narrator:          ¹⁵Jesus said to her,

Jesus:               “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?”

Mary:               Supposing him to be the gardener,

Narrator:          she said to him,

Mary:               “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.”

Narrator:          ¹⁶Jesus said to her,

Jesus:               “Mary!”

Narrator:          She turned and said to him in Hebrew,

Mary:               “Rabbouni!”

Narrator:          (which means Teacher). ¹⁷Jesus said to her,

Jesus:               “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.’”

Narrator:          ¹⁸Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples,

Mary:               “I have seen the Lord”;

Narrator:          and she told them that he had said these things to her.