B Cycle – Easter 24

Jn. 20:1-9

For the gospel today I am using the mass of the day option which has Mary Magdala discovering the empty tomb.  If the crucifixion of Jesus was not enough of a shock to His believers, the empty tomb was another disaster.  Someone has stolen the body! What else could happen to further confuse and anger His followers? The scriptures are clear, they did not yet grasp the fact that Jesus would rise from the dead as He said He would. 

But let us take a step back to Friday and their reactions to His arrest and passion were varied. The disciples fled and were in hiding. The crowd which cheered as Jesus entered Jerusalem were now shouting to crucify Him. Pilate was trying to find a way out of this and still maintain Rome’s confidence in his ability to rule Judea.  The Roman soldiers were mocking Him, and the Pharisees were finally satisfied this heretic and blasphemer would be silenced.  The disciple John did show up at the cross up but was it to help Mary or was it something else? We do not know but it seems to be an effort to help Mary endure the horror of crucifixion.    

But there were two individuals who stood out among the crowd.  The centurion and the thief on the cross.  The centurion was stationed at the base of the cross and watched every move and heard every utterance of Christ as He hung there for six hours.  This centurion, whose faith was in the Roman gods, ultimately declared Jesus to be “truly the Son of God.”  It is a shame we do not have any other indication of how his life was impacted by that moment. But we can speculate, or I can speculate from my own encounter experience when I acknowledge Jesus as Lord.

We know nothing about the thief.  We know nothing about his faith or his crime except his own acknowledgement that he deserved his punishment.  We know he must have known about Jesus and who He claimed to be because he asks for Jesus to remember him. How typical of us humans.  We seem to have this problem of settling for less than what is promised to us – redemption. 

Total and complete restoration of all the damage done to us by ourselves and by others who sinned impacted us.  “Today you will be with me in paradise” is more than a definitive statement by Jesus. It is a declaration of what the gospel tells us.  God so loved the world that He sent His Son, so that those who believe in Him will have eternal life. Can it be so simple? 

But there is a common thread in those two men and Mary Magdala. Each of them had an encounter with Jesus and acknowledged who He was.  Simon the Cyrene makes no such declaration and sadly we do not know if he was changed by his encounter carrying the cross of Jesus.  But since the scriptures tell us nothing more, I suspect he like the Pharisees who also encountered Him were not impacted by their encounter.  

How many encounters did Jesus have with people between His last supper and His death?  His disciples had their feet washed, heard His teaching, ate with Him, and went to the garden with Him.  There was Judas and the crowd that came to arrest Him. There was an encounter with the religious leaders, the battalion of Romans who mocked Him and beat Him.  Pilate, Barrabas, the crowd who watched and shouted, the people along the way to Calvary and those on calvary. The women who wept at the foot of the cross. 

Hundreds of people encountered Jesus, but only the centurion and the thief are mentioned in the scriptures as publicly acknowledging Him as the Son of God.   

But back to Mary Magdala who had an encounter and followed Him to the cross.  When He healed her and now when He reveals Himself to her.  Today’s gospel unfortunately ends before she goes to the tomb the next morning and found the tomb empty.  She runs to the disciples and announces, “they have stolen His body.”  Peter and the other disciple run to the tomb and finding it empty leave confused and disillusioned.

Mary remains at the tomb and goes inside only to encounter an angel who asks her why she is weeping.  But then she notices a man near her whom she believes is a gardener and inquires if he knows where the body has been taken.  But instead of answering her, the person spoke her name – Mary.  At that moment she recognizes Jesus and embraces Him.  Another encounter, another person changed forever. 

What about us?  We are told by God that we have been called by name and we are His.  With the privilege of looking backward and having our faith formed by thousands of years of theology, dogma, and tradition we still are lacking one thing. That is our own encounter with God who calls us by name.   It is critical for us to seek that encounter for without it we are dependent on a faith that is in our heads not our hearts. 

An experience with the Risen Lord is transformative and leaves us with a faith that is no longer dependent on belief alone. It is based on knowing Jesus is with us and for us and seeks to continue to transform us.  I invite you to seek that encounter so that when Pentecost comes you will have your moment of feeling the love of God poured upon you and into your heart.