Early in the morning - cold - dark quiet… a few sounds from households as people begin to stir.
* * *
Two days ago Jesus was crucified.
Mary Magdalene - Jesus’ friend - a female disciple, saw it all happen; and she had remained, to the end.
She came face to face with the ugliest side of humanity; saw it with her own eyes. The brutal murder of someone that she loved.
And there was nothing she could do to stop it... to cry out to the people to stop what they were doing would have achieved nothing.
Crying out against a frenzied crowd would probably result in her own death.
She could only watch - helpless - from a distance.
* * *
I imagine that she - and the other disciples - were absolutely destroyed by the events of the week.
If they had slept at all they would have woken up in a cold sweat - nightmares of the events playing back in their minds.
* * *
Mary and the disciples had been on a rollercoaster journey. Jesus - a miracle worker, a teacher, someone who had lived great hope and filled his disciples with similar hope was dead.
* * *
What hope he had spoken of seemed in vain…
His ideas, about turning the other cheek, blessing the poor, accepting the rejected… all seemed like pie in the sky.
This dreamlike journey which Jesus had taken them on had come to an abrupt end. It seemed as if there was no hope left.
* * *
A preacher (Sarah Dylan Beuer) spoke of a member of her congregation who had a smirk on his face during her sermons. He grinned at her when he shook her hand at the end of each service.
One day she asked him why he always grinned - his reply was that she always spoke about heaven - not this earth. There’s no way you could end poverty - stop war - find a cure for AIDS - stop political corruption in this one…
He found her sermons amusing - hopeful - yet unrealistic.
* * *
And I guess that would be a description of Christianity if there were no Easter.
Amusing - hopeful - yet unrealistic...
For Mary on that frightening Easter morning - Jesus teaching must have seemed hopeless and unrealistic…
Jesus was not an easy Rabbi to follow; he had called his disciples to give a lot up in order to follow him… their sources of income, the homes that they knew, their status in the community…
Their religious cleanness - he put them in contact with all sorts of people they shouldn’t have touched or spoken to - he took them to parts of the country no self respecting Israelite would go.
The stigma of following Jesus is so great that even Mary Magdalene (although we don’t know it for sure) has often been branded as a prostitute.
And the disciples main source of hope, the man who spoke with authority - who challenged the status quo, who opened up their eyes to a totally different idea of what God was like - and inspired them to be more than they were - the one who inspired them to believe that the world could be a better place for everyone - was gone.
* * *
Without hope Mary goes to the tomb.
Jesus is gone. The stone is rolled away.
She calls the disciples - they too see the body is gone.
Mary stays at the tomb - weeping - this is too much - it was enough to torment him, punish him, kill him - but to desecrate his grave too?
* * *
On that dark morning, without hope, Mary Magdalene - through her tears - was the first person to see what God was doing in the universe that morning.
She saw someone she thought was the gardener - but when he spoke to her - called her by name - she knew...
It was Jesus.
* * *
The hope he had spoken of - the ideas that he had proclaimed weren’t just hopeful, amusing, yet unrealistic…
They were real.
She turned to him and said “Rabboni!”
Which the gospel tells us - is the Hebrew word for teacher.
Rabboni - the title a disciple uses for the one they are discipled to.
Rabboni - which means that she (as his student) will submit to his authority - obey his teaching - and do as he does.
Mary’s word of hope in a broken world.
* * *
Jesus instructs Mary to go to the disciples and tell them what he has said - he is returning to the Father - “my Father and their Father, my God and their God.”
Mary becomes the first preacher of the resurrection.
The rest - as they say is history.
* * *
We are people of little faith - we wonder if Jesus rose, if this all means anything to us… philosophers and theologians argue - did Jesus rise again?
Doing some research into the matter - the strongest argument that I have come across is this: The disciples, at great risk to themselves carried on preaching Jesus message - some of them dying because of their faith in him… and the record of history is quite clear about what they suffered.
* * *
I ask you - this Easter morning - in faith - in response to the resurrection of Jesus - to make yourself a disciple, as Mary did… to call Jesus Rabboni - my teacher and my master.
* * *
I invite you to join this bunch of disciples here as we figure out together what it means to follow Jesus in Paarl / Franschhoek today.
* * *
Someone has said: “We are called to be Easter Christians in a Good Friday world.”
I believe that when we commit to being Jesus’ disciples - to live as he has taught as to live, we will begin to see the
Amen.
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