Risen: Easter Sunday

In Israel there is some question about the location of Jesus’ Crucifixion and then His burial--a couple of options, mainly because no searchers on either that first Sunday morning 2000+ years ago or since can find a body in either of them.

And in that detail rests the basis of Christianity through the ages.

Though we often overlook the place of women in Jesus' ministry, it matters that women mattered in His ministry so much. And on that Sunday morning, God chose a woman, Mary Magdalene, to first see a tomb empty, and to run to tell the men.

I love the scene in John's gospel where Peter and John react after Mary's news--John, younger, Peter, so desperately heartbroken after his betrayal of Christ during the various trials the few days before, both race to the tomb to see for themselves what Mary could mean. In his gospel, John never says his own name or uses the word, "I." He cannot help himself, though, and as they near the tomb, he has to let us know, "The two were running together; and the other disciple ran ahead faster than Peter and came to the tomb first;" (John 20:4). Two thousand years later, we know, "I ran faster than Peter; I got there first." Peter did, however, enter the tomb before the younger man, whether John feared what he might find or deferred from respect, we don't really know. First or last, the tomb held only the clothes of a dead man—the body was gone.

Soon after, the Gospels tell us, the risen Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene, she who first announced the news of the Resurrection, then to His Disciples, then to many others. Apparently, Mary grabbed Him, so overcome with joy was she at the sight of her resurrected Lord, her grief replaced with that elation that she must have thought, “You died once, now that You’re here again, I want to be sure You stay!” Gently, He removed her. For some reason, this resurrected body could not be clung to, no matter her happiness. But, no matter her inappropriate reaction, it was to Mary He first showed Himself.

And when she first saw him, the name Mary first called Him that morning, this Lord whom she had followed and served those years of His time here: "Rabboni!" in Hebrew, “Teacher.”  Until Jesus, women could not learn the spiritual lessons He taught. So precious was the teaching they learned, their most beloved title for Him, the one that flowed unprompted from the women's hearts, was Teacher. I have taught school for almost 43 years; those scenes move me every time. Teacher.

The Teacher, whose lessons still resound around the world, lived again, as He had taught them, as, now, some remembered Him teaching, and as His close followers taught to the next followers who taught the next who taught the next. . . . following the Teacher.

The tomb--well, both of the possible ones I know about in that beloved, tiny country--even now contains no bodies. This is the glory and the hope of Christianity. Right away, of course, the conspiracy started, the "cover-up," if you will, with church leaders bribing soldiers to say that unarmed disciples had snuck past heavily armed Roman soldiers--who could be put to death for shirking their duty--while those soldiers, well, slept and shirked their duty and the disciples supposedly snuck that body away. Of course, the Priests promised, we'll make it right with your bosses. So, they spread that story, and, according to Matthew (himself one of the disciples) the story continued “to this day.”

I guess he'd know.

But, for Mary Magdalene and Peter and John and Matthew, all those other folks who SAW Jesus alive after He was dead, those people who themselves died horrific, unspeakable deaths for refusing to say He is not now alive, knowing the truth of that statement, therefore dying either as fools or martyrs, those disciples who started life as pragmatic, blue-collar workers, many fishermen, one a fierce tax collector, women who lived as second class, who could not speak or learn before Jesus elevated their status, those men and women who wanted to overthrow the hated Roman government, but who ended life declaring the man they first thought would bring freedom from Rome but who they died declaring He had brought freedom from death. . . .those men and women and the women and men to whom they have told the Resurrection Sunday story throughout the ages and who tell it now

for them—for us--

the Tomb is empty.

He is Risen.

And if that is not true, then Christianity doesn’t matter.

But, if it is, then it matters more than anything.

Happy Easter, my friends.