Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don't know where they have put Him!" So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. Then Simon Peter, who was behind him, arrived and went into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, as well as the burial cloth that had been around Jesus' head. The cloth was folded up by itself, separate from the linen. Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. (They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.) Then the disciples went back to their homes, but Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus' body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot. They asked her, "Woman, why are you crying?" "They have taken my Lord away," she said, "and I don't know where they have put him." At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus. "Woman" He said, "why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?" Thinking He was the gardener, she said, " Sir, if you have carried Him away, tell me where you have put Him, and I will get Him." Jesus said to her, "Mary." She turned toward Him and cried out in Aramaic, "Rabboni!" (which means Teacher.) Jesus said, "Do not hold on to Me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to My brothers and tell them, "I am returning to My Father and your Father, to My God and your God." Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: "I have seen the Lord!" And she told them that He had said these things to her. (John 20:1-18)
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We live in a society which many people say is biblically illiterate; where people don't know the basic stories of the Bible or the faith anymore. In some respects I suppose that's true, and yet there are still signs of a lurking familiarity with what Christian faith is about. Christian themes often fill secular movies for example. I think back to James Cameron's blockbuster “Titanic.” Near the end of the movie is a scene in which Rose is clinging to what appears to be a headboard, while Jack hangs on the the headboard in the water. As he tries to climb on board, the headboard begins to tip, almost spilling Rose off into the frigid North Atlantic. Not willing that she should perish, Jack sacrifices himself, staying in the water until he froze to death, in order that Rose could live. There's at least a nod to Good Friday, as Jesus gives Himself for the world. Then, in the last scenes of the movie, Rose (now elderly in the present day) goes to bed. It's a bit of an open question whether she falls asleep and has a dream or whether she actually dies in her sleep. I prefer the latter, to be honest. As the famous song by Celine Dion (My Heart Goes On) plays, suddenly Rose is reunited with Jack on the famous staircase of the Titanic, in the place she had always wanted to be, in the place where she was happiest – a nod this time to life overcoming death, and the promise of eternity free from the troubles of this world; an assurance that the challenges she had faced as the ship sank and Jack died would be overcome. A classic Easter theme, in other words.
The church of 2014 is facing more than its fair share of challenges. I don't know that anyone with eyes to see would possibly be able to deny that. The society in which we live is very different from the society that greeted the first Easter morning two thousand years ago, but in some respects that only serves to confirm the truth of the old saying, "the more things change, the more they stay the same." Living with challenges of one kind or another has always been a part of the Christian experience, it seems. Think back with me for a few moments to the situation that faced the disciples as the first Easter dawned.
It was a pretty bleak situation. The disciples of Jesus had committed their lives to Him. The disciples of Jesus had given up everything to follow Him. And where had it led them? To the foot of the cross, where the One they had chosen to follow had been put to a gruesome death. Except that it hadn't even led most of them to the foot of the cross. From what we read in Scripture, all the disciples (except for some of the women and John) had fled long before Jesus' death. They found themselves faced with a hopeless situation, and - terrified - they had fled. They had no hope. All that mattered to them was gone. Then, as the morning came, Mary Magdalene approached the tomb - but without hope, expecting that she would find nothing more than a dead body in a tomb. The other Gospels suggest to us that Mary Magdalene wasn't alone; that some other women had come to the tomb with her - but still with no hope, planning only to prepare Jesus' dead body according to Jewish custom. The stone being rolled away didn't seem to change much. Mary Magdalene ran to tell the men, but Peter and John seemed confused more than hopeful, not understanding what had happened, leaving the tomb probably scratching their heads at the mystery but not seeming to have grasped what had happened. And, finally, Mary Magdalene took centre stage again, still without hope, still simply wondering where the dead body of Jesus was, still so lost in her grief that she couldn't even recognize Jesus standing in front of her. All these are scenes of hopelessness - total and abject hopelessness. We think of Easter morning as the greatest festival of our faith - a day of joy and hope. We forget that we do that only because we know how the Easter story turns out. At its start, the first Easter morning had dawned as bleakly as the days preceding it. The Christian faith was born not in glorious light, but in the pit of despair.
Now, we fast forward two thousand years. We're part of a church facing many challenges. Sometimes things seem pretty bleak. We offer a lot of laments about our situation and we sometimes seem to fear what the future holds, and at times we feel pretty aimless, wandering with little sense of purpose and questioning whether God has a role for us to play; maybe - dare I say it - wondering if God is even with us anymore; possibly (in our deepest moments of doubt) even wondering if God really is! And it's not uncommon for people to come to me and ask "what's the greatest challenge facing the church today?" And my answer often surprises them.
You see, people have certain expectations of what I'll say when I'm asked that question. Some assume that I'll say it's declining attendance. Some assume that I'll say it's an aging membership. Some assume that I'll say it's our finances. These are the things we talk about on a regular basis. These are the problems we try desperately to solve; the challenges we try frantically to overcome - but are any of them our greatest challenge? I'd say not. So, back to the question - what's the greatest challenge facing the church today? Simply put - it's the lack of something that an Easter people who follow a risen Lord should never lack. The greatest challenge facing the church today is a loss of hope; a belief that things can't change - except for the worse: a sense that we're in a downward spiral that we can't climb out of.
But how is that possible for the followers of Jesus? How can those who follow Jesus (who died and was alive again) possibly lose hope? We allow ourselves to be so easily overwhelmed by the challenges that face us - but Jesus died. That was truly overwhelming for His followers. But then came the moment. "Mary," said the resurrected Jesus. And light shone, and hope was born anew, and Mary finally saw Him. She knew that Jesus had told them the truth. "I am with you always," He had said, "to the very end of the age." And Mary ran and told the others, "I have seen the Lord." And that small group, who not long before had been totally bereft of hope, went on to change the world.
It seems to me that when Mary cried out, "I have seen the Lord!" she was saying it as much to us as she was to the disciples of her own day. It's a reminder to us that we can experience the presence of Jesus just as much as those first disciples, and if we can be as convinced as they were that Jesus died and then rose again then how can we be without hope? We have our challenges to overcome, and they can seem daunting. They had their challenges to overcome, and no doubt they seemed daunting. But challenges fade away when we choose to reclaim the hope of the resurrection.
The church needs to reclaim hope, and that shouldn't be that hard. Those of us who dare to proclaim that we follow Jesus - Who died and rose again - should never be without hope; we should be the most hopeful of people; the first to believe that any challenge can be overcome. This is the effect Easter should have on us! This is the difference Easter should make to us! The Book of Hebrews says that "we have this hope as an anchor ... firm and secure." The author wasn't speaking of Easter. He was speaking more generally of God's promises, but God's promises culminate in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. When we proclaim that "Christ is risen" - we're not stating a point of doctrine to be debated. We're proclaiming the great hope of our faith. The One Who overcame death can also overcome any challenge we might face, no matter how overwhelming the challenge might seem - even the greatest challenge we might face. So, yes - Christ is risen! As His people, may we live always in the hope of resurrection!
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