Hello, Originals. I'm so glad to get to be a part
of your Easter weekend and to celebrate, Jesus, resurrection
with you and what that means. For our lives.
Sometimes the experiences of Our Lives can cause us to lose sight
of what Jesus is, resurrection actually means for us and
because of that, it's so important that in each part of
the Christian celebration and Year, we get to consider again
what it means for Jesus to be with us through different
seasons and experiences of our life.
Every Gardener knows that there are seasons of productivity and
then seasons of wrist that there's seasons of quiet and
then seasons of great fruitfulness and the Splendor of
the garden, the seasons can come and go and we count on them.
However, there Also seasons of Our Lives where we can feel
disrupted by famine by pestilence or even by death.
And when those Seasons come, it's really difficult for us to
see this Garden as a place of Life instead.
It becomes a reminder of our defeats of our Despair and of
death. It becomes so disorienting to
us. Us.
Interesting enough. John reminds us that what we're
about to experience, and the story of the resurrection of
Jesus is actually occurring in a garden.
Jesus was bound up for his arrest, in a garden, where he
had been praying. And then, after the crucifixion,
Jesus was bound up in the grave clothes and laid in a tomb.
That was in a garden. What can happen in the garden of
our defeat? It's seen here in what happens
in the garden of Jesus's, defeat, and how its transformed.
So let's read together from John chapter 19, and I'm going to
read all the way into John chapter 20.
We're going to see Joseph of Arimathea.
We're going to see Nicodemus and we're going to meet Mary
Magdalene, who all had great Devotion to Jesus as disciples.
Our Focus will be Mary Magdalene and her experience of this
transformation that occurred in the new reality of Jesus as the
Risen Lord. And so follow with me as I read
from John chapter 19, this incredible, text on which all of
the history of humanity hinges. Later, Joseph of Arimathea asked
pilate for the body of Jesus. Now Joseph was a disciple of
Jesus, but secretly because he feared the Jewish Leaders with
Pilots permission. He came and took the body away.
He was accompanied by Nicodemus, the man who earlier had visited
Jesus At Night, Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and
aloes about 75 pounds, taking Jesus.
His body, the two of them wrapped it with spices in strips
of linen. This is was in accordance with
Jewish burial Customs at the place where Jesus was crucified.
There was a garden and in the garden, a new Tomb in which no
one had ever been laid because it was the Jewish Day of
preparation. And since the tomb was nearby,
they laid Jesus there. 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 looked into the tomb.
First, he bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying
there but did not go in. Then Simon.
Peter came along behind him and went straight into the tomb.
He saw the strips of linen lying there as well as the cloth that
had been wrapped around Jesus head.
The cloth was still in its place 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 the scripture that Jesus
had to rise from the dead. Then the disciples went back to
where they were staying. Now, 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. He asked her woman.
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 Horton toward him and
cried in Aramaic. Rabboni, which means teacher.
Jesus said do not hold on to me for I have not yet ascended to
the father go instead to my brothers and tell them I am
ascending 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. Defeat disgrace, despair death.
It can be so disorienting. For Mary Magdalene and The
Disciples of Jesus. It truly was disorienting.
It was a moment of their shared defeat.
I think any one of them would have said this was our defeat
all of the hopes that we had put in Jesus now seemed to have
dissolved into nothingness. But Here, In This Moment, Mary
is transformed. She is turned into what Pope
Francis and 2016 called the Apostle to the apostles.
He was reflecting and much older.
Reference to Mary Magdalene Mary, the Magdalene came from
magdala a small village on the Sea of Galilee and Luke chapter
8 were told that she was in the company of disciples and was
listed with women. Who supported Jesus and the
ministry from their own material means from their own
possessions. Here?
She is the first to witness the Risen Lord, Jesus, but earlier,
she had been a first-hand witness to the power of Jesus.
The Holy One for, in Luke 8. It also tells us of Mary that
Jesus had driven from her seven demons these forces of death.
These evil spirits. And sickness had been driven
from her. He had freed her from their hold
in the gospels. The Demonic powers are not
powers of Temptation. They're actually powers of
subjugation. That is they would torment and
lay hold of people and physically.
Disable them. They were seen as a power of
impurity not of holiness. Jesus was recognized by these
Powers as the Holy One of God, and he had the power to drive
them away and Destroy them. Mary Magdalene became a devoted
disciple of Jesus and she was able to firsthand testify once I
was bound up, but now I am free. The power and authority of Jesus
over these defiling powers. She was also a witness to the
crucifixion of Jesus. It must have seemed like a
terrible. Defeat, a terrible disgrace.
The Despair and disorienting that came from that moment had
been with them all weekend. Even as they tried to celebrate
the Passover. So, on this first day of the
week after Jesus death by crucifixion, she comes to this
Garden of defeat. What heaviness would have
weighed her heart for any of us who've experienced death of a
loved one, or a great defeat or have experienced such shame and
disgrace of those we considered close.
The mind puzzles over that trauma, you know what?
It's like we walk around in the waves of grief would come or we
walk around and we try to figure it or our body for a time.
Seems to shut down as we try to make sense as we try to ask why.
Here, Mary, that's confronted three times by the reality of
the good news of Jesus, but it was through the lens of her
defeat that she was seeing it and she was so disoriented that
she couldn't make sense of the new reality of Jesus, the
resurrected Lord. First, she sees the empty tomb,
the open door a door, which typically could not be opened
from the outside. And so she quickly assumes that
Jesus is body has been taken away and she runs off to the see
the disciples Simon Peter and John and tells them.
They have taken the Lord out of the Tomb and we don't know where
they have put him. She still is seeing this moment
as a moment in formed and shaped by the power of death.
Second. She actually observes inside the
tomb, two angels sitting at the head and the foot of where Jesus
would have been laid in this tomb, had would have been laid
in the Tomb in order to Decay and rot, even though he had been
served up and wrapped up ministered to in death, by
Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus.
With the spices Fit For A King. But he had seen no Decay.
Jesus had been raised. But through her tears.
She tells the the Angels they have taken the Lord away.
And I do not know where And then third, she turns around.
And Jesus asked about her tears, assuming that this person before
her is the gardener. She says, Where have you put
him? And I will get him.
I will carry him. All of her language is.
Speaking of one who is dead, a body that must be carried a body
that must be laid, a body that must be lifted up.
But it was in this fourth move towards Mary.
Where she finally sees? Jesus says her name Mary.
Now the recognition comes and Jesus immediately proclaims to
her. The new reality, this Garden of
Defeat of Despair. And of death is becoming a
garden of New Life. He declares to her the reality
of his kingdom. She must have moved towards him
having called him teacher. She moves towards him and he
says do not hold on to me for I have not yet ascended to the
father go instead to my brothers and tell them, I am ascending to
my father and your father to my God and your god there, Jesus
affirms the direction and meaning of the cross on his
life. The creation of a new family and
a new people in his power in his life.
He sells her that he's going to his father and her father to his
brothers. He uses the words of family here
to describe the new communion made possible through his death
and his resurrection and soon through his Ascension and then
he gives her a new mission to go with the news and tell this to
the other disciples. And so she does, I have seen the
Lord Mary's mission that morning, had been to consider
and to reflect on her devotion and what had happened to Jesus
in his death, but now her mission was to consider and to
rejoice and to Proclaim. Jesus is life.
In between, in that disorienting.
Her Mission had been to recover his body.
To lift it up and replace it, tenderly to its place in a tomb.
But Jesus had no place among the dead, he was among the living.
And so now she proclaimed and lifted Jesus up.
Among the apostles. Afterwards with the gift of the
Holy Spirit, the apostles themselves, Peter and even Paul
declared the meaning of this moment.
And Acts chapter 2, Peter says, but God raised him from the
dead, freeing him from the agony of death because it was
impossible for death to keep its, hold on him.
Paul says in Acts chapter 13 that Jesus says, Resurrection
was the Fulfillment of God's promise that he would not let
his holy one. See Decay, indeed.
Jesus body was buried but it had not decayed there.
And as it laid in that tomb, I'm so Paul goes on and Acts chapter
13 to declare their for friends. I want you to know that through
Jesus. The Forgiveness of sins is
proclaimed to you through him. Everyone who believes is set
free from every sin, a justification.
You are not able to obtain under the law of Moses Easter.
Confronts us with a new reality with a new life.
And with a new purpose, the Lord, Jesus becomes the lens
through which we see The Gardens of Our Lives.
He who was crucified was buried. He who was buried was raised.
He who was raised has ascended, and he who has ascended will
return. And so, though, now we walk
through Gardens, that are sometimes places of death and of
Despair and great disorientation.
The ministry of the spirit of God, and now the people of God
is to call each of us back to our hope to the hope of Jesus
Christ raised from the dead that indeed, we have been buried with
him in baptism, but we have been raised also with him in New
Life. And so now in our common
kinship, We live in and proclaim, the resurrected Lord
Jesus. Who is the Holy one who doesn't
just cast out demons and sickness, but who also has
destroyed death. Though.
We may grieve. We do not grieve as those who
have no hope, in fact, We are able to enter into the very life
and move up discipleship. Jesus said, unless a seed dies
and falls to the ground, there would be no Harvest.
And so Jesus himself became that seed who fell to the ground and
was buried. But he has been raised in order
to create a new family and a new people who will be secured with
him forever. This power of life, this way of
considering, even the oppressive forces of Darkness that animate
people today. Is something that has marked the
church for 2000 years now? I was so moved this past month
and watching sister, Anna Rose new tongue in my Amar.
We got to see pictures of her on the newspaper with her in her
white outfit as a nun, kneeling before soldiers, hands and arms
extended pleading with them, not to shoot the children.
This is what happened when Christian leaders identify with
protesters, identify with people who are pleading and looking for
a better way, for those who are facing the powers and forces of
death. This is what happens when the
church. Would extend and relinquish
itself. Of Earthly Powers, but would
seek the resurrection power of Jesus.
We are able to move in Hope, and in life.
She says shoot me instead. Don't shoot the children.
This Jesus and this Garden of Life.
How do you see him? How do you see this Garden?
Easter is the reminder that Jesus is with us in our losses
and in our griefs, in the disorientation of Defeat of
Despair and of death, Jesus reorients us to himself and the
power of his resurrection, to the Forgiveness of our sin to
The Fellowship of his communion and of his people.
We now would say we walk in a garden.
Where he is our delight, and the resurrected Lord is our life.