Rabbouni!
John 20:1-18
The Easter Season and Holy Week are weird times for me. In 2016, I received a call from my sister at about 3am in the morning on Wednesday of Holy Week telling me that my dad had died unexpectedly. That was in the month of March at the time, but given the oddities of grief, I find myself reminded of this time in my life more strongly during Holy Week than on the specific date when my father passed away.
And in a strange turn of events, I find myself currently waiting to hear from my family about my step-mother who is—as best as we can tell—only days away from her own death. She has Stage 4 cancer, and barring some miracle, she will likely die today, or in the next few days. And, like my dad, I will be officiating the funeral for our family when that time comes. She is an incredible woman, a mother who invited me into her life, and became my mother when I was a teenager struggling with feelings of abandonment, weight, behavioral issues in school, and a lot of rage. When the time comes, I know it will be hard to do this funeral as it compounds with the memory of an Easter Season six years ago where I lost my first parent.
Is Easter a Season that we should only make room for expressions of praise and joy for our story of a risen Savior who has defeated death? Is there only room for pastel colors, bunny rabbits, egg hunts, and the hope of better weather coming with Spring during Easter? Do we try to force happiness and joy too strongly and not allow room for everything else that can happen at any time that might "spoil all of the fun”?
We get the full range of emotions in John's rendition of what happens on Easter morning. Instead of a joyful discovery, we are met with a scene that starts out devastating. Something truly horrifying has happened: someone stole Jesus' body. Someone violated the body of the disciples’ beloved friend. It's like having the funeral of a loved one, watching the coffin or urn descend into the ground, only to visit the graveside three days later with flowers to see the ground ripped up and the tombstone shattered. A violation.
In John's story of the resurrection, we notice two different reactions. Mary (that woman of valor!) and the male disciples. The male disciples, after seeing the violation almost seem to shrug as if there was nothing left to do and leave. Meanwhile, Mary stays. (It even says, frustratingly, that one of the disciples believed. Believed what?!)
But Mary didn't hide from her grief. She stayed and wept. She didn't turn from the discomfort of her sorrow, or from the scene of violation. Jesus was not just her rabbi, Jesus was her friend. I like to think that the difference Mary has with the disciples in this story is her strength and her steadfastness in remaining to face her grief head-on, rather than give up and move too quickly past it. And she was rewarded, at the end of it all, with a glimpse of her friend--even if she mistook him for the gardener at first!
This year, I feel pretty distracted from the "celebration" of Easter. I find myself more in a chaotic emotional place for many reasons. But I do know one thing that is universally true, on Easter and all days: God is with me, I am not alone.
Whether I am celebrating or grieving, God's presence is neither increased nor diminished. God's love for me does not change because I feel it in me or not. That is the Easter message—the proclamation that Paul makes in Romans 8—that "neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord!"
God is with us! We are not alone!
May you have a blessed Holy Week. See you on Friday as we observe Good Friday at 6:30pm or, barring that, Resurrection Sunday at 10am!
