Christ is Risen

A Sermon for the Sunday of the Resurrection: Easter Day
April 9, 2023

Text: John 20:1-18

Now, O Lord, take my lips, and speak through them. Take our minds, and think through them. Take our hearts, and set them on fire. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

“I have seen the Lord!” These are the first words spoken by Mary Magdalene to the disciples soon after she discovers the risen Christ and runs to tell them the wonderful news.

“I have seen the Lord,” she says.

You can imagine the excitement in her voice when she announces to the disciples that Jesus has returned. Jesus—their friend and master who was crucified—has triumphed over death and risen from the grave.

But, if we back up a bit in our Gospel lesson for today, Mary Magdalene’s first encounter with the risen Christ isn’t very exciting.

In fact, she doesn’t even recognize Jesus at first. She sees and talks with a man who she assumes must be the gardener. Now, I don’t really know why she assumes that Jesus is the gardener, and the Scriptures don’t really provide us with any other details.

All we know is that, when Mary turns from the two angels sitting in the empty tomb, she sees a man standing in the garden. The man asks Mary, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?”

Assuming that the man has done something with Jesus’ body, Mary says to him anxiously, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.”

Mary’s love for Jesus is strong. It’s obvious in the way she cares for him, even after his death.

As readers of John’s Gospel, the author has given us a special insight into the story.

Unlike Mary Magdalene, we don’t have to guess the identity of the man in the garden. We already know that it’s the resurrected Jesus, and so it’s no surprise to us at all when Mary finally discovers the truth.

Like the Good Shepherd who calls out to his sheep, Jesus calls out to Mary by name, and in that moment, she knows exactly who he is.

“Mary!” Jesus says.

She turns at once and, in Hebrew, responds, “Rabbouni!” which means, “master.” For Mary, this wasn’t just a title of respect for Jesus but also a term of endearment. This was the man who welcomed her into the sheepfold, the one claimed her as one of his own.

For the author of John’s Gospel, the point of this Easter story isn’t to prove that Jesus died and rose from the tomb.

As Christians, we already know this and believe it to be true. No, the point of this Easter story is that, when Christ calls us by name, like Mary Magdalene, we are changed forever.

When Christ calls us by name, we are claimed as his own and drawn into a new way of life—a resurrected life.

In the Church, we have a way of celebrating this new way of life and welcoming new Christians into the Body of Christ. We call it the sacrament of Holy Baptism—which is the sacrament of new birth.

Since the earliest days of the Church, Christians have been using the time leading up to Easter—the forty days of Lent—as a time of preparation for those seeking to be baptized.

So, there really is no better time to be baptized than Easter.

And, for those of us who’ve already been baptized, Easter is also a good time to remember the vows we made in our Baptism. And that’s exactly what we did last night at St. Mary’s during the Great Vigil of Easter.

Last night, after we heard stories told from the Hebrew Scriptures, recounting the history of our salvation, we recommitted ourselves to the work of the Gospel by renewing our own baptismal covenant.

We vowed, with God’s help, to continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of the bread, and in the prayers.

We vowed, with God’s help, to persevere in resisting evil and to repent and return to the Lord when we fall short of our calling.

We vowed, with God’s help, to proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ.

We vowed, with God’s help, to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbors as ourselves.

And finally, we vowed, with God’s help, to strive for justice and peace among all people and to respect the dignity of every human being.

Through the waters of Baptism, we are buried with Christ in his death and raised to newness of life in his resurrection. We are sealed by the Holy Spirit in Baptism and marked as Christ’s own forever.

Nothing can ever change that.

Like Mary Magdalene in our Gospel lesson for today, Jesus calls each of us by name, and we are his. In my opinion, this is the real miracle of Easter. Of course, we love to hear the story of the resurrection on that first Easter Day, and we rightfully should. But, the real miracle, dear friends, is what Easter means for us and for all who believe in Christ.

Through his sacrifice on the cross and his glorious resurrection, Jesus has opened for us the way to life and peace with God. Sin and death no longer have dominion over us. It is no longer we who live but Christ who lives in us. 

In a sermon that she once wrote, Barbara Brown Taylor once described Easter as “the unnatural truth.”

She wrote, “To expect a sealed tomb and find one filled with angels, to hunt the past and discover the future, to seek a corpse and find the risen Lord—-none of this is natural. Death is natural. Loss is natural. Grief is natural. But those stones have been rolled away this happy morning, to reveal the highly unnatural truth. By the light of this day, God has planted a seed of life in us that cannot be killed, and if we can remember that then there is nothing we cannot do: move mountains, banish fear, love our enemies, change the world.”

My brothers and sisters in Christ, we are resurrection people, and it’s our call to live as resurrection people, transformed and made new for the work of sharing the Good News of God in Christ with the world.

The Easter proclamation, “Alleluia, Christ is risen,” isn’t just something we say on Easter to make ourselves feel better, and it isn’t simply a reminder of an event that happened long ago.

It’s our proclamation to the world that what was once cast down has been raised up. The dead live again. There is victory for those who believe. The same is true today as it was yesterday and forever more. Christ is risen. The Lord is risen indeed! Amen.