Calling us by name

Easter Day – Eucharist – 31.iii.2024

(Acts 10.34-43; John 20.1-18)

“They put him to death by hanging him on a tree; but God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear, not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God…”

Today we have a choice of Gospel readings – either Mark’s or John’s account of the Resurrection. I’ve been very much torn as to which to choose. But the reading we’re told always to have is not from the Gospel at all. It’s from the Acts of the Apostles where we find these words spoken by Peter the Apostle. However confused the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection might have become – and we find marked differences in the accounts of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John – there are two things that are clear: that Jesus died on the Cross; and on the third day he rose again… and he rose because God raised him. This is the heart of the Easter Gospel: Passion and Resurrection; the coldness, reality and inescapable fact of death – and the new life of the Risen Christ. 

But how we experience that will vary from person to person. There is some confusion between the Gospels as to who is the first witness to the Resurrection. In today’s choice of Gospels, Mark and John agree that it’s Mary Magdalene who first finds the stone which had blocked the entrance to Jesus’ tomb now rolled back. But while in Mark’s account Mary and the other women enter the tomb to find a young man dressed in white telling them that Jesus has risen, St. John’s Gospel has Mary leave as soon as she finds the stone moved, so that it’s Peter and an unnamed disciple who first make their way into the tomb to find it empty. We might wonder what is going on? And perhaps this is part of the truth of Easter - that the writers of the Gospel don’t feel obliged to get their story agreed between them. This is not a fiction artfully constructed. It’s the simple record – with all the confusion of the day - of the undeniable fact of the Resurrection. So our readings today start with Peter’s testimony in the Acts of the Apostles. Jesus died – and he rose again. The risen Jesus has appeared and there are people who saw it, but it’s not for everyone to need to see it. The Resurrection is more than an event you need to witness personally for yourself.

And Resurrection is more than finding a resuscitated body. It’s first of all an empty tomb. But an empty tomb is not proof of Resurrection. In St. John’s account, Peter does not know what to make of this vacated space with its empty grave clothes. The disciple who accompanies him says that he went in and believed – but he still hasn’t put it all together… as John tells us, “as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead.” It will take time before the truth of what they are witnessing sinks in. The Easter story is something that tells us that we can believe – and faith can be a very real thing – but we still won’t necessarily be able to make sense of every problem or setback that life has in store for us us. That’s what Resurrection is about: God active and alive, something we can believe in, even when we don’t feel or understand it.

How is it for Mary Magdalene, the first person to discover the tomb disturbed? St. John tells us that she found the stone moved,.. and she ran for it! Someone must have taken the body of Jesus away. There’s more agreement between Mark and John as to what happened next: when she finally looks into the tomb she finds either one or two men dressed in white. In Mark’s Gospel she and the other women are told that Jesus has been raised – and the disciples will see him… at which they flee in terror. St Mark’s account ends saying that they couldn’t tell anyone about this, because “they were afraid.” And there’s little comfort in St. John’s account. The angels ask why she is weeping. She can only state the obvious that she weeps for her Lord, killed on a cross, and it seems his body cannot even be left in peace. Mary, before she can experience the fullness of Christ’s Resurrection has to acknowledge her loss. For us Easter faith is not a miracle cure for all our woes. It can come only when we recognise the extent of our fears and anxieties, all those issues we would rather not own up to which sap our spirit...

There’s an Easter hymn that strikes a chord for me:

When our hearts are wintry, grieving or in pain,

thy touch can call us back to life again,

fields of our hearts that dead and bare have been:

love is come again like wheat that springeth green.

Easter is not a matter merely of addressing the historical facts of the Resurrection, the emptiness of the Tomb, and the nature of Christ’s Risen Body. Easter is the time when we need to let God address us, to bring before him in Christ those ‘fields of our hearts that dead and bare have been.’ At Easter we do not shy away from the darkness within our souls, the wintry hearts, the grief and pain we may bear. But we find this one man who has been through it all before us: loving those about him, bringing life into broken bodies and relationships, a man who knows the full extent of human joy and sorrow, yet also experiences the pain of betrayal, the anguish of being deserted by friends in his time of greatest need; even on the Cross he has spoken words of care and forgiveness; until finally he has entered even into death itself and the darkness of the tomb. 

Only when Mary can say why she weeps does she turn to find the risen Jesus standing by her all along. She thinks he’s just the gardener, though something moves her to share her grief with him. It’s his response which brings home the truth of Easter to her. He simply speaks her name: “Mary.” It was Jesus who by his touch had brought her healing when they first met. Now he touches her by saying her name – this is how God comes to her in Christ; this is how we know that God knows us and is alive to touch our hearts.

Jesus loves us literally to death – his own death. So that his risen life is life for us all, if only we are ready to accept it. He speaks to us as he spoke to Mary. ‘I have called you by your name, you are mine,’ go the words of a chorus. And how true that is! That is why the use of our name at Baptism is so important. Christ calls to us from the start, whether we hear him or not. 

In a few moments we will renew our Baptismal Vows. As you declare your faith, remember that at your Baptism you were called by your name as the water was poured over you. As we are baptised in Christ he calls us by our name. Will we recognise him as he calls? Will we see him in the stranger, even as Mary finds him in a man she thought was a gardener? Will we find him in our neighbour, in our friends, in those from whom we are divided by misunderstanding and the inadequacy of communication or the frailty of our love?...

... love lives again, that with the dead has been:

love is come again like wheat that springeth green....

 

Forth he came at Easter, like the risen grain,

he that for three days [....] in the grave had lain,

quick from the dead my risen Lord is seen:

love is come again like wheat that springeth green.

Alleluia. Christ is risen! He is risen indeed. Alleluia!