Early on the first day of
the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb… While it
was still dark…
John’s
Gospel is very specific about the time when the empty tomb was first
discovered. The other Gospels say that
it was at daybreak, but John tells us that it was “still dark”.
I don’t know about you, but there have been quite a few days recently when I have woken while it’s still dark. We’ve all had a lot on our minds. I feel like I know too well those hours before the first glimmer of daybreak is visible. Often the birds have started to sing, as if they know something we don’t, but it is still as dark as midnight outside. When it comes, the dawn comes fast, and the shadowy shapes outside become the familiar ordinary landscape, but at that moment it’s all hidden in darkness.
That’s
the moment, says the Gospel, when Mary came to the tomb.
Darkness
and light are very important in John’s Gospel. It begins by telling us that
Jesus is “the light that shines in the darkness and the darkness does not
overcome it” (Chapter 1) It tells the story of Nicodemus, the Jewish leader, who
comes to Jesus “by night” (Chapter 3), not only because he doesn’t want to be
seen, but because he feels as if he is in the dark. He can’t figure out who
Jesus is, and wants to know more.
At the
end of the Last Supper, when Judas goes out to betray Jesus, the Gospel says
starkly, “and it was night”. It’s not just a reference to the time of day, but
to the sense that from now on, this will be a story set in the darkness of
hatred, pain, sorrow, fear and despair. When
Mary sets out to go to Jesus’ tomb on that Sunday morning, she is still living
in the darkness. She can’t see a way
forward. She can’t see a future. She’s lost sight of hope.
When
she gets to the place where Jesus was buried – where she herself had seen him
buried– the stone has been rolled away. She fumbles around in her own mind for
an explanation – she’s still in the dark. The body must have been stolen! That’s
all she can imagine. It’s a reasonable guess. There would be plenty of people who
wouldn’t want Jesus’ tomb to become a rallying point for his supporters. But it’s
only a guess, the first thing that comes to her mind.
She
runs to tell the disciples what she has found. Peter and another disciple run
back with her, to see for themselves. But none of them is any the wiser for all
their running about. All they can see is a tomb - the word “tomb” occurs eight
times in the first eleven verses of this reading just to rub that in. It is all
about the tomb for them, the place where Jesus’ body had been. No one can see
beyond that tomb. The “other disciple”, unnamed in the Gospel, but often
assumed to be John, sees and “believes” but we’re not told what he believes. Is
it that the tomb is empty, or is something more than that? Whatever it is, it isn’t enough to keep him
there. Along with Peter, he just goes home – what else is there for them to do?
Only
Mary remains - weeping. And that’s why she’s the first to encounter Jesus himself.
She doesn’t realise it’s him for a while. The darkness she arrived in is very
slow to disperse. She only recognises him when he says her name. When someone
calls us by name, we know that they know us – we know we must already have a
relationship with them, even if we can’t remember who they are or where we know
them from. As soon as Mary hears this man call her by name, she knows that this
is someone to whom she matters, and in an instant she knows who this must be. . This
is the moment when the light dawns for her, and the darkness starts to melt
away. This is the moment when she stops seeing the tomb and is able to say to
her friends “I have seen the Lord”.
But
she only had this encounter because she stayed around, because she was prepared
to stand there and weep and wait. If she hadn’t done, if she had gone home with
Peter and the other disciple, she would have missed this moment.
We’re
all doing a lot of waiting at the moment, and perhaps some weeping too. We’re
in the dark, we don’t know how our current crisis will end. No one wants to be where
we are – least of all, of course, those who are ill, or who have watched their
loved ones suffer, and in some cases, die, or the healthcare professionals
working on the frontline. But this is where we are, in the dark, often
wanting to weep, or actually doing so. It doesn’t feel much like Easter, if we
mean by that a time of joy and fun, fluffy bunnies and chicks and chocolate. It
can feel strange to even try to do the things we’d normally do.
I
had a dilemma about this service today, though to be honest, it’s probably the
kind of dilemma that only a priest would struggle with. What should I do, I
wondered, about the lighting of our new Paschal Candle? In normal times, a new candle is brought into
church on Easter Sunday morning, and lit at the beginning of the service with
blessing and ceremony, and the lighting of everyone else’s candles from it. But
obviously we couldn’t do that this year, and even if we could, should we?
Perhaps,
I thought, we should leave it until we first meet again in church. Perhaps we
should just delay Easter until better times. But, as I read this Gospel passage
to myself I knew that this year, lighting that new Paschal candle was more
important than ever. The time when we
most need light is when it is still dark, as it is for us at the moment, as it
was for Mary when she came to the tomb. Jesus
didn’t rise in the blaze of noonday, when everyone had their lives sorted out,
and understood what was going on, and had everything under control. He rose when
no one had a clue what was happening. He came to his disciples, calling them by
name – Mary, Peter, Thomas…He knew them, even though they couldn’t recognise
him in the darkness that surrounded them. And the same is true for us.
Today
on this strangest of Easter Sundays, we may be in the dark, but Christ still comes
walking towards us, calling our names, meeting us wherever we are, telling us
that here, even here, especially here, he is risen, bringing hope that is
stronger than despair.
May
we hear that voice, calling to each of us in the darkness, bringing the light of
his presence which we so desperately need. May the risen Christ find each one of us
today, and remain with us always.
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