Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more…Likewise reckon ye yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord…
Jesus suffered a savage scourging and crucifixion and he died about 3:00 p.m. on a Friday. Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus wrapped his body in clean linen cloths and they wrapped his face with a sudarium, what our text calls a “napkin.” They put his body in Joseph’s new tomb which was in a garden close to Calvary. The women who loved Jesus watched all this at a short distance. While that was happening, Pilate, at the Pharisee’s request, dispatched a guard of Roman soldiers, around 16 men, to establish a chain of custody for the body of Jesus. It was the “koustodia,” the Roman Guard, that officially sealed the tomb thus establishing Caesar’s custody over the lifeless body of Christ. All that was accomplished before sunset on Friday.
“The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre. Then she runneth, and cometh to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple, whom Jesus loved, and saith unto them, They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid him.”
Early on the third day of his burial before sunrise, Mary Magdalene and other women went to the tomb in order to complete a proper Jewish burial. When they arrived the stone was rolled away. The Romans were gone. Mary, probably assuming that the Romans had taken the body, ran to Peter and the other disciples who were likely staying in the rented room in which Jesus, on Thursday night, had instituted the Eucharist. Peter and John ran to the tomb. John beat Peter to the tomb but he waited for Peter to enter first. Astonishingly the grave cloths were there on the stone slab where Jesus was laid. And the sudarium, the head covering was there as well, but it was rolled up neatly by itself.
“Then went in also that other disciple, which came first to the sepulchre, and he saw, and believed. For as yet they knew not the scripture, that he must rise again from the dead.”
John followed and he saw what Peter saw, namely the grave cloths just lying there and the neatly rolled up head covering and the text says, “he saw and he believed.” What did he believe? Not that Jesus had been resurrected, but rather he believed Mary’s report that someone had taken the body of Jesus. At this point the Apostles have no narrative of the resurrection. Their narrative is that Jesus is dead and someone has moved his body, just like Mary said. Peter and John returned to the other disciples leaving Mary at the tomb.
When we experience something that does not make sense, we may feel alienated by the strangeness, by the unknown, but we quickly recover by interpreting the strangeness away. We don’t permit strangeness to linger long and for many of us the sense of wonder that may be quickened by the unfamiliar is a long lost memory of childhood. The poet or the mystic may get caught up in wonder even without the lure of oddness, but most of us seldom experience the world with the blessedness of a naïve heart. The world comes our way as pre-interpreted, meaning is prepackaged and that allow us to move through life a little quicker so we can get on to things we want to do. But occasionally we experience something so weird that it defies interpretation because we don’t even have words and categories to talk about it. Such was the case with the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. It was so weird, so strange that the very newness of it disabled the disciples’ natural tendency to interpret it. In fact it took some time for the Church to know, to understand what happened on that patch of real estate in Jerusalem on the first Sunday following Jesus’ crucifixion.
Now, Mary was worn out and her last real meal was probably with Jesus – four days ago. She had seen horrific torture inflicted on Jesus. She was traumatized. Her affect is flat. She was drained, exhausted, very nearly used up. The only thing motivating her at this point is — not grief — but fining Jesus’ dead body. Mary mustered the courage to look into the tomb herself and she saw two Angles sitting there.
Now under normal circumstance if you see an angel it is traumatizing. In the Book of Revelation John sees an angel and he faints. Had Mary not been in a state of clinical shock, she would have frozen in fear and trembling. But very little of her experience was registering with her in a normal way. Be attentive to the text. This is the very picture of what we call today, as I have said, clinical shock. Even when the angels speak to her she answers flatly. What keeps her going, what literally enables her to put one foot in front of the other, is a single question: “Where is Jesus’ body?” Mary turned around as to walk away from the angles and Jesus was standing right there. She mistook him for the gardener and again begged for his dead body. The narrative that Mary is bringing to this event is not a resurrection narrative. Her’s is a narrative of death and loss that she is unable to let go of until Jesus speaks her name, “Mary.” Maybe it took a few seconds to sink in — we don’t know — but when it did she fell at his feet weeping. Without any categories to understand what was happening, without any prepackaged resurrection narrative available to her, she simply gave herself to this event and his love. No one in the world could say Mary’s name like Jesus. There are two things I want you to understand: Though Jesus was standing right in front her, at that point she did not understand, she did not have our understanding of what a resurrection is and she probably thought it was like Lazarus raising. That’s a mighty flawed understanding of the resurrection. But it was her experience of the resurrected Lord that provided her and the Church with an emerging understanding of the resurrection. Secondly, she knew one thing — unbelievable as it may be, the robust man standing in front of her was not recovering from unfathomable torture. But she also knew this was Jesus and he was full of life and he was in control. He sent her to Peter with the message that he is risen from the dead. According to Luke some of the disciples went back to the tomb after this but they did not see Jesus and they fell deeper into despair.
It was hardly Noon and the disciples were breaking up and leaving Jerusalem because it had become a dangerous place for them. Among those getting out of Jerusalem were two of Jesus’ disciple returning to their home in Emmaus. You know the story. They were utterly crushed by what had befallen Jesus. And as they walked on toward the village, Jesus began walking with them but they did not recognize him. These men have a narrative and if we listen to them we will easily learn it: “We had hoped that Jesus would restore the nation of Israel.” Please note that the resurrection has nothing to do with their story. But at the end of journey as the resurrected Lord broke bread their eyes were opened and they knew their companion to be the resurrected Christ. They turned around and as fast as they could they walked back to Jerusalem to the place where they knew they would find the other disciples. And when they arrived at the upper room they cried out “The Lord is risen indeed!” And by this time other disciples were returning to the upper room because Jesus had appeared to some of them just as he had appeared to the women. And then suddenly Jesus came and stood in the midst of them and cried out, “Peace be unto you!” And they were filled with wonderment, fear, and with great joy.
Day One began with Jesus’ morning appearance to Mary and it ended with the Church in Jerusalem gathering around Peter and the other Apostles. But as you know Thomas was inexplicably absence. The next Sunday Thomas was in Church when Jesus appeared at the celebration of the Eucharist.
Everything I have laid out here really happened and I have only skimmed the surface. The meaning for us and all creation will take all eternity to unfold. One last point: Caesar never stops trying to take custody of the Body of Christ one way or the other. But regardless of how high and mighty, how menacing, how ominous they are, Caesars are puny and they always die. You belong to Jesus and Jesus has custody of you and your body and that is for good and no one can take you from him!
Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more…Likewise reckon ye yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord…