Easter
Easter Decisions
The first known meeting of the Risen Lord is in very understated circumstances. It’s a gloomy, early morning, still dark and there is one person (only one) that the Risen Lord wants to be with.
The risen Lord makes a conscious, maybe even premeditated choice to be with the weeping Mary Magdalene. This is the first person on His ‘parish to do’ list. This is who He wants to be with.
The setting is also significant. When you are the Risen Christ you can choose to be wherever you want to be, whenever you want to be.
Jesus chooses his own empty tomb and He chooses Mary Magdalene. This is where he wants to be and this is who he wants to be with. These are his Easter decisions. These things matter and to Him, they matter very much.
When you think about it The Teacher could have been anywhere at all. He could have been on the rooftops shouting ‘Hey look at me look at me. I told you so.’ He could have been leading a great parade, or gone back to the temple to kick over a few more tables. But he shuns all that and chooses somewhere else and someone else. He chooses just one person.
And He chooses to show up at the very moment when there is confusion, despair, bewilderment and many unstoppable tears. At a time when it is not only physically dark with an absence of light, when you can’t physically see; it’s also psychologically and emotionally dark. Probably the only thing worse than going to the tomb of a loved one when your grief is raw is showing up only to find that the grave has been disturbed and the body stolen.
But…This is where He chooses to be and this is who chooses to be with. He could have been with Pontus Pilate or a Roman soldier, or Peter, James and John. They will hear the news soon enough and like all blokes it will take them some time to figure it out all out. It took the church a few centuries to understand the consequences of an empty tomb. The Master chooses to be with the woman who had seven demons. The one who is inconsolable with questions and sobbing. The one who just wants to make the wrong thing right. To restore peace and rest.
‘Sir if you have taken him away….etc…’
Having made the decision about where and with whom, The Risen Lord now makes a decision about what to say.
And all He says is one word. ‘Mary’ There is no long theological treatise on how the resurrection happened, or when the stone got rolled away. No step-by-step instructions about how to fold the burial cloths. Nor does he explain what the empty tomb will mean for all time and for all people.
The understanding and the consequences of that first gloomy and bewildering morning would come much later and perhaps like Mary, in our inky black moments, it is better that we don’t understand the logistics and theological niceties. Surely it is enough that we simply listen to the one word HE so long wants to speak to us. Our name. Your name. My name.
The resurrection then is not something to debate in the abstract. Not a theological trinket to be held at arms distance; to be turned over and puzzled about. It is not a cerebral exercise in a carefully crafted essay with lengthy a bibliography, a mark out of ten, the logic of which escapes me.
The resurrection is something we glimpse, live and revel in. The minuscule speckles of gold that we sometimes see in the dirt and slurry of our lives and somehow know that there is much more to discover and relish. The streets of heaven are paved with this stuff and one of these days… Just one of these days.
All this is conveyed in His Easter decisions. Where The Master chooses to be on the very first easter, with who he chooses to be with and what he chooses to say.
His Easter decisions for Mary Magdalene are the same decisions He makes for our first real Easter.
At our tomb, with us, speaking our name. Your name, my name.
Until then we take our lead from Him. We go quietly without hesitation and we stand with the vulnerable and the broken. Like Him, we just stand quietly with them and for them. Our script for healing is just one word. From our perspective, it does not seem like a lot. Our condolences will always feel impossibly inadequate… flimsy and futile. Hopeless in and blown away by the stormy gusts of grief.
But for Mary Magdalene, it was enough and it will be more than enough for those who we tend. And our Easter decision to just show up and be there will be enough. And yes, we will learn when it is our turn, that He speaking our name will be more than enough.
And like Mary Magdalene we are given the joyous privilege to go to our brothers and sisters to share the good news of the empty tomb; with all its puzzles and questions and yes even the angels. So…
Where is it that you need to be this Easter?
Who is it that you need to be with this Easter?
Who's name do you need to speak? Maybe it is your own name.
These are His Easter decisions, your Easter decisions, my Easter decisions. Our Easter decisions.