E-mail: lowell“at”revlowell.com

  Date:      Easter Sunday

Texts:

Acts 10:34-43 or Jeremiah 31:1-6

Colossians 3:1-4 or Acts 10:34-43

John 20:1-18 or Matthew 28:1-10

Psalm 118:14-24

  Theme:      The resurrected Jesus greets Mary Magdalene and makes a claim upon her

life—as he does upon ours.

  Subject:      grace, unexpected miracles

Title:

Mary’s Miracle

Our Great and Gracious God:  we wait with eager ears to hear your truth through the drama

of the Easter story. Let us hear, let us be moved, let us respond.  Amen.

Something happened that day.  Something so breathtaking, so unbelievable, that the

sighs of those who witnessed it echo and shudder through twenty long centuries.  Even

we can hear it.

On this holiest of holy days, we listen in wonder to a story.  A story that does not

make complete sense to us, but a story of such beauty and power that even the most

cynical and rational among us, still our breathing to hear.  And even the most believing

among us, find our breath taken away.

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

to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb.

Why did she come? Why was she here?  She came to attend to the unfinished busi-

ness of grief. Mary, remember, was one of Jesus’ closest friends, probably a wealthy

patron of his ministry.  Only she could have afforded to buy the perfumed oils and

ointments that were used in biblical times to anoint the bodies of the dead.  Mary came,

her hands heavy with spices and oils, her heart heavy with sorrow.

She came to the tomb while it was still dark.  It was still dark.  Was she restless? 

Couldn’t sleep? Was she afraid to be seen performing loving rituals for one who had

been executed for blasphemy and high treason?

She found the doorway gaping open.  Something was wrong—terribly wrong.  The

expensive flasks of oil slipped from her limp hands and shattered on the rocks.  With-

out a word, she turned and ran to get Simon Peter and the unnamed disciple whom

Jesus loved. She wrenched them out of sleep, crying, “They have taken the Lord out of

the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him!”

They reached the tomb, breathless, and Simon Peter crawled inside.  John tells us that

“he saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not

lying with the linen wrappings, but rolled up in a place by itself.”  Why has John

recorded such careful detail about these burial wrappings?  Did the shocking contract of

rumpled white cloth against empty gray stone sear forever in Peter’s memory this

image—to be told, and told, and told again, like a ghost story?

Or was John trying to tell us something about how Jesus left?  That his departure was

not sudden or dramatic but rather, unhurried?  Leisurely? Plenty of time to roll up the

linen wrappings and tidy up the place?

Peter scrutinized the scene, but didn’t get the point.  The other disciple took one look

and understood everything.  John tells us that he believed. No wonder this disciple was

so beloved by Jesus. No wonder Peter so often disappointed Jesus.

Peter and the disciple made their way back home.  To bed? To tell the others?  We’re

not told.  But Mary stayed behind.  The disciples’ footsteps grew more distant and the

stillness gathered around her.  Quietly, slowly, she fell to pieces.  What has happened? 

What has happened?

She walked over the tomb and bent over to look inside.  At first, she saw nothing—

darkness against darkness.  But as her eyes began to adjust, she could just make out two

white shapes. Blinking her eyes, she finally saw them—two angels sitting where the

body of Jesus had been lying.

The angels spoke. “Woman, why are you weeping?”

All the exhaustion, the rage, and the ache, closed down over Mary, and the words

flowed out like a lonely, mournful wail—“They have taken my Lord away, and I don’t

know where they have laid him!”

And for one breathless, excruciating heartbeat of a moment, they stood there togeth-

er in silence.

“It’s no use, no use,” she thought.  “He’s gone.”

“It’s no use,” he thought.  “She’ll never know it’s me.”

“Mary,” he said.

He called her by name.  Just as he had done a thousand times before, he called her by

name.  And something happened inside her.  In the time it takes to say one word, she

suddenly saw things in a new and startling way.  All that she had ever heard about life

and death and the ways of God’s love just fell into place with the shuddering sound of

her own name. “Mary,” he said.  And the word hung in the air between them, shimmer-

ing in the twilight of dawn.  And she knew in her heart.

There are times in our lives when we stand, like Mary, suspended somewhere between tears

and laughter, somewhere between death and life.  Times when a person comes into our life like a

gift, and speaks our name, and calls us into hearing, into understanding, into living.  Times

when we hear, in the calling of that name, a claim on our life.  And we know beyond all knowing

that we have been in the presence of Christ resurrected.

Mary walked home that morning, just as the sun was breaking over the Judean hills. 

Most of Jerusalem was still asleep.  Only the sounds of animals stirring, the crackle of

breakfast fires, the echo of her quickening footsteps.

When she saw the house, she started running.  She threw herself against the door,

and pounded with both fists, and called out, “Wake up!  Wake up!”

They came to the door at once, and flung it open, and squinted out with sleepy eyes. 

There was Mary, laughing like a madwoman, tears streaming down her cheeks.

“It’s a miracle,” she gasped.  “My name is Mary!  Mary!  He called me Mary!”

Something happened that day.  Something so breathtaking, so unbelievable, that the

sighs of those who witnessed it echo and shudder through twenty long centuries.  Even

we can hear it.

Christ is risen. Christ is risen indeed. Alleluia.

--Elizabeth Chandler Felts

[987 words]

[10 minutes]