Who are you looking for?

Our long journey through the Easter story, Hosannas and foot washing, arrest and trial, humiliation and death, ends for the disciples with Jesus body being placed in a tomb.

Mary went to the tomb on Sunday morning, John doesn’t tell us why.

She finds the tomb empty and goes to tell the others. Notice in her conversation with the two disciples, ‘angels’ and ‘the gardener’, Mary shows no indication that she thinks Jesus has been raised from death, she says: They have taken the Lord from the tomb.

Mary thinks the body of Jesus has been stolen.

What if it had been?

Would it matter if there was an empty tomb, but no encounters with the risen Jesus?

What would Christianity look like without resurrection? 

I suspect it would have finished with a group of frightened disciples in the upper room, hiding from the authorities.

The religious and political leaders would have been right, you kill the leader, the whole thing falls down like a house of cards.

Resurrection means more than an empty tomb about 2000 years ago.

We can hear this story, and all the Easter story, and hear it as a historical drama.

Does this story have anything to say to us today?

Does this event have any impact on our living?

We live in a world where there is still death and despair, oppression and slavery.
We live in a world where there is still violence and betrayal.
There is still unrest in the Middle East, and it looks like we are walking into another Cold War.
We live in a world where millions of people are displaced or seeking refuge.

Closer to home, about one woman each week dies at the hands of their partner, or ex-partner;
There is still a gap between the health and education outcomes for our indigenous brothers and sisters and other Australians.

We live in a world where money speaks
We live in a world where violence and retaliation are seen as the answer We live in a world where children die from lack of food

What does resurrection have to say in this world,
in this world of hunger and greed and violence?

…….

Who are you looking for?

This is the question Jesus asked the guards as they came into the garden to arrest him: Who are you looking for?

It is the same question Jesus asks Mary at the tomb: Who are you looking for?

Mary hopes this man has some information for her, but when he says her name: Mary, life changed.

Mary knows it is Jesus.

She was looking for the body of Jesus, and now she has been found by the risen Lord.

Can you remember a time when you realised you were known, and loved?

Maybe Jesus looking like a gardener, is a link between this new creation with the first creation?[i]

Resurrection offers us new life. Not the same life over again, but a new way of living. A way of living defined by love, sacrifice, humility, liberation and forgiveness.

We don’t have to justify our existence or prove ourselves. God loves us.

………….

Maybe the answer to hunger and greed and violence, is relationship.

Relationship with each other and relationship with Jesus.

From my experience the answer to the question: Who are you looking for?
Is often ourselves, our true self, known and loved by God;  
not the persona we hide behind, so we don’t get hurt by the power plays of the world.

Who are you looking for?

Is it your true self? Come and be found in the love and grace of Jesus.

Who are you looking for?

Come to the one who knows you and calls you by name
the one who forgives you and offers you peace
the one who takes away your sin
the one who thinks you are an amazing person,
the one who heals the pain of broken relationships and betrayal
the one who offers you new life.

Come to the one who seeks you.

And then live out the resurrection life

By loving and forgiving
encouraging
seeking justice and reconciliation
living out the new life you are offered in Christ
so that others might also have life and food and peace.

This Easter I encourage you to think about your experience of resurrection, the ways in which Jesus has and is transforming your life.

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[i] Working Preacher podcast, https://www.workingpreacher.org/narrative_podcast.aspx?podcast_id=1001

Ecumenical Easter Sunrise

Today is the day, as Christians, we want to celebrate,
to sing and shout hallelujah.

But…

I think we get ahead of ourselves.

If you follow the last week through Mark’s gospel, we have heard of Jesus riding into Jerusalem to shouts of Hosanna!
cleansing the Temple;
Jesus being anointed by an unnamed woman;
the Last Supper;
prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane;
betrayal, arrest, crucifixion, death and burial.

and then the section we heard this morning:

Three women went to the tomb, to do what was necessary.
The body was buried quickly, and now they body needs to be prepared properly,

The women are carrying the spices with them and wondering how they will roll away the stone.

These women weren’t setting out to change the world that Sunday morning, my guess is they would have been disheartened. Jesus, who they thought was going to change the world is now dead and buried:
what was going to happen now?
what was the past few years all about?

They are doing what they can, going to the tomb to prepare the body, and hoping that somehow the stone can be moved.

I wonder this morning:
What are the worries we carry with us?
What stops us from living out our call from God?

In the midst of fear, in the midst of despair, at times we just carry on as best we can, putting one foot in front of the other, doing what has to be done without any enthusiasm or energy. 
Worried about the ‘what ifs’;
worried that we won’t be able to make it through the day;
worried that something else will complicate life even further. 
some days, and weeks, are like that.

I am guessing that is how the women felt.
They were friends of Jesus; executed as a criminal.
their hopes for a new world dashed.

The worry about how to move the stone, however, wasn’t enough to deter them from their task. They continued; together.

Then when they see the stone has been moved, and the tomb is empty, they are utterly amazed. To their despair is added disbelief and astonishment. After their encounter they flee from the tomb, trembling and bewildered, and too frightened to say anything.

The women were faithful in going to attend to the body,
but in their shock they run away speechless.

Mark finishes the story in an unlikely place, but it allows us to write the next part of the story with our lives. We get to live the resurrection. In the midst of pain, despair, fear, or terror; we can look for the signs of God’s presence, the signs of resurrection and live into the hope we have as Christians. 

“Christianity is the only world religion that confesses a God who suffers. It is not all that popular an idea, even among Christians. We prefer a God who prevents suffering, only that is not the God we have got. What the cross teaches us is that God’s power is not the power to force human choices and end human pain. It is, instead, the power to pick up the shattered pieces and make something holy out of them – not from a distance but right close up.

…. That is the power of a suffering God, not to prevent pain but to redeem it, by going through it with us.”

[From Barbara Taylor Brown, God in Pain]

This is a story of hope in the midst of fear;
this is a story of transformation in the midst of tyranny.
In my lifetime I have seen the Berlin Wall fall and the end of Apartheid.  Both things considered impossible. People who dreamed of a new way of living and didn’t let hate or fear get in the way.  People who practised resurrection living, in the everyday. People who trusted God would act. 

  

Today is a day of celebration,
celebration of new life
celebration of hope
celebration of the power of love.

Not because there is no more suffering or pain,
not because there is no more evil
but because our God has taken the evil and the pain and the suffering of the world and lived through it and died with it and redeemed it.

We have a God who knows suffering,
who knows rejection,
who loved the world, the whole world and each individual, enough to live in our pain, to bring new life and new hope.

And we get to join in with resurrection life;
trusting that God will change the world;
participating with God in that change;
looking for where God is active and getting involved.
That may mean taking some risks,
facing our fears,
finding life in new places.

The tomb was found empty,
from death comes new life.

Where are you finding new life?