Whom Are You Looking For?

Welcome happy morning age to age shall say – so goes the hymn. Today, we who follow Jesus, we who live so much after the first Easter morning, shout with joy.  But at sunrise on that first Easter day, the people who loved Jesus were not joyful.

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb…

Mornings can be such a lovely time. If you manage to get up before the birds, you can hear them begin to sing as the world awakens to a new day. You can feel the slight chill of the morning, the slight dampness of morning dew on your face and arms, and can breathe in the fresh morning air.

Sadly, Mary Magdalene probably didn’t notice any of these things on that fateful morning, as she hurried toward Jesus’ tomb. What good was morning joy to her, a woman wracked by sorrow and numb with grief?

John doesn’t tell us why she left so early in the morning, before sunrise, nor does he tell us what her purpose was in hurrying to the tomb. Leaving in darkness can have a practical reason, she didn’t want to be seen. And, as you have probably surmised, there is also a symbolic one.  She was in the kind of darkness we feel when someone we love deeply has died, and in her case, it is even worse, because the person she loves so much, the Light of the World, has been murdered by the state, publicly executed, and she has idea what is going to follow this brutal act..

It hurts to think about what Mary is going through as she heads out. What does she hope to accomplish, what is she looking for as she approaches Jesus’ burial place? As far as John’s Gospel is concerned, we may surmise she has gone to sit outside the tomb to weep and pray. She cannot reach Jesus’ body, because the tomb has been sealed, but she will be as close to Him as it is possible for her to be.

But then, something truly horrifying happens. As she approaches the tomb, she can see that the stone that sealed it, keeping His body safe, has been moved, leaving the tomb open and the precious Body inside unprotected. How many shocks can one person bear? Not at all surprisingly, especially for ancient times, she turns and runs–back to the men. Let them know. Let them deal with it.

And they come running. Hard to imagine what was going through their minds. What could they be looking for – proof of what Mary has told them, evidence of what has happened?

The two disciples are Peter and the Beloved Disciple, which is to say, Peter and John, the same John in whose Gospel this story appears.  Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb.  The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first.  It’s John’s Gospel and John wins the race! 

He then looks inside, sees the wrappings that had held Jesus’ body and, deferring to Peter, doesn’t enter first.  Peter marches right in, and then John follows him.  Both men look and see the same thing, but they don’t come to the same conclusion.  Confronted with the exact same evidence they respond differently.

We are told of John, that he saw and believed.  For Peter, however, seeing is not believing.  He obviously doesn’t understand what’s happened, and the Gospel confirms this by saying, they did yet not understand the scripture, that Jesus must rise from the dead. The two men then head back to where they are staying, most likely to inform the other disciples, and to try to figure out what to do next.

The men are gone. Mary is left standing alone outside the tomb, grief stricken and weeping. Having no idea what to do, she braces herself, bends over, and looks inside. She doesn’t really want to see the empty linen wrappings and that bare slab of rock where Jesus’ body had been laid, but there’s nothing else she can think of to do. 

As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet.  She doesn’t seem surprised, most likely because she is so distracted and in so much emotional pain, she can’t take in what she’s seeing.  They said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping?" She said to them, "They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him."

Mary is mortal, human, she doesn’t recognize angels.  Why would she?  She’s never seen one before and thus has no frame of reference.  She is human in every way, grief-stricken, confused, frightened, possibly also upset with the disciples for leaving her without a word of comfort.  She is looking into a tomb on a day she never thought would happen, after an execution she never would have believed could have occurred, and she sees angles?  No!  She isn’t looking for angels. She sees men in white, sitting where her Lord’s body ought to have rested, and they also offer her no explanation.

In our times of need, do we ever encounter angels in our lives?  Yes, we do, because they are there.  Do we ever recognize them?  Of course not!  We, like Mary, are mortal, and angels are beyond our frame of reference. Mary turns away from the tomb and encounters – the gardener.  Who else would she be likely to see in the early morning outside the tomb?  She looks directly at Him whom she seeks, at her beloved Lord, and doesn’t know Him.

Jesus said to Mary, "Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?"

Whom are you looking for? Jesus asks this question three times in John’s Gospel. He first questions the disciples of John the Baptist, when they leave John to follow Him. He asks, “What are you looking for?”. In the Garden of Gethsemane, He questions those who have come to arrest Him. “Whom do you seek?”

The disciples follow Jesus because they are looking for the Messiah, and because John the Baptist has referred to him as the Lamb of God. Do they know what that means? They haven’t got a clue. Not yet. The soldiers who come to arrest Jesus are looking for a troublemaker, someone who poses a threat, and Jesus identifies Himself as the person for whom they seek. Do they have any idea who they have found, who they have arrested? No! Mary is looking for the body of her dead Lord and friend. Then she meets Him face-to-face, and doesn’t know who He is. 

We who come to church on Sunday and on Communion Sunday receive the bread and wine, which has been identified for us as the Body and Blood of Christ, still have little grasp of what this means, of what we are receiving. Like the disciples we are here because we have heard Jesus called Messiah, Savior. But like those who came to arrest Him, we often do not realize who He is. Like Mary, we can look Him in the face and not recognize Him.

Jesus is not someone who rose from the dead 2000+ years ago, left the earth, and hasn’t come back since. His tomb is empty. Death no longer holds Him. The linens that bound Him are long gone. He is not confined to the tomb. Because He has risen from the dead, He is present everywhere, He dwells among us. He hides Himself and reveals Himself even today, in friends and family, and in the least of our sisters and brothers whom we meet along the way, in the most ordinary and unpredictable situations of our lives. He is alive and is with us always, shedding the tears of those who suffer, and adding to the beauty of life through the small acts of love carried out by each of us. Whom are you looking for?

Supposing him to be the gardener, Mary said to Jesus, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away."

The sheep listen to the voice of the shepherd. The shepherd calls his own sheep, using their names, and he leads them out…. The sheep follow him because they know his voice. And Jesus said to her, "Mary!"   And it happens.  She turned and said to him in Hebrew, "Rabbouni!" (which means Teacher).

She has searched, and she has found Him, and everything changes from grief to ecstatic joy. From that moment on, nothing is the same. This is the joy it is to find and recognize Jesus.

Whose voice do you hear in those God sends to you along the way, the loved ones, the needy, the poor, the beggar?  Who are you looking for? 

It is Easter. Every year I see cards that say "He has risen", but that's not it. That is about yesterday. He is risen! He lives! Alleluia!   

Let us pray: Dear Lord Jesus, three things we pray, to see Thee more clearly, to Love Thee more dearly, and to follow Thee more nearly, every day. Amen