Neill Morgan
Sermon Delivered March 23, 2008
20Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. 2So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” 3Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. 4The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. 6Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, 7and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. 8Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; 9for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. 10Then the disciples returned to their homes.
11But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; 12and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. 13They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” 14When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. 15Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” 16Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher). 17Jesus said to her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” 18Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”; and she told them that he had said these things to her.
Don’t Hold on to Me
“Do not hold on to me,” Jesus said to Mary.
It sounds so harsh. The most extraordinary man she had ever met, the man she loved so deeply she had risked her life to come and anoint his body, had died. He was truly dead. Mary had watched as he was nailed to the cross. She had watched as he struggled for breath for hours as his muscles weakened and he could not longer breathe. She had seen him take his last breath when his lungs and heart filled with fluid. She had seen the soldier thrust a spear deep into his side, had seen the bodily fluids gush out of him.
Mary watched through her tears as Jesus’ lifeless body was sealed in the tomb. No funeral. No ritual of mourning. No final words over his grave. All that would have to wait until Sabbath rest was over.
Jesus was dead. He was truly dead. Given what Mary Magdalene had seen, we can understand how confused she acted as the first witness to the resurrected Jesus. When presented with something so unexpected, she could not see what she was seeing.
After Tyco Brahe invented the telescope, and astronomers began observing the movement of the planets, they recorded observations that could only be explained by the fact that all the planets revolved around the sun, rather than the sun, the stars, and all the planets revolving around the earth as they had been taught.
Their observations, all their data, told them the facts. But the facts did not match their expectations, so they invented a “correction factor” to account for the difference, assuming that the telescope must have a built-in error. Galileo came along and said, “No, what you see is what you get! Look how it all comes together when we realize that the earth and all the planets revolve around the sun!”
Do you think they said, “Oh! Now we see!”?
Of course they didn’t. They had him tortured and locked up until he recanted.[1]
The astronomers could not see what they saw. They needed new eyes before they could recognize what was in front of them.
Mary knew that Jesus was dead. She knew that death could not be undone, could not be reversed. So, even though Jesus stood in front of her, spoke to her, she could not see what she saw. She assumed he was the gardener. She needed to see with new eyes.
Have you been there? You’ve heard the story of resurrection. You’ve perhaps heard since you were a child the story of the empty tomb, the announcement of the angels, the surprise of Mary, the joy of Jesus’ disciples.
Great story, but it doesn’t match what we have seen. Those we love whom we have seen die are still dead. Death is a one-way process. Nature is brutal. Death is final.
We may deny death. We may be able to exert enough mind control not to think of it so much that it distracts us from enjoying life.
But, Resurrection is not about denial. It’s about defiance.
Resurrection faith is not about refusing to think about death. It’s not about refusing to attend funerals because we only want to remember our loved ones in life and not have the reality of death intrude on our pleasant memories.
Resurrection is not denial. It is defiance. Resurrection faith defies the power of death to rule our lives. It defies the power of death to lead us into despair.
Jesus gave Mary new eyes when he called her by name.
“Mary.” He had said, “the sheep follow [the good shepherd] because they know his voice.”
That’s the only way we can live in resurrection faith: When we hear Jesus call our name.
When the body of Christ on earth, the church, calls us by name, gives us new eyes, stands with us when we grieve the death of loved ones, lifts us up when we celebrate the marriages, births, and milestones of God’s grace, we defy the power of death.
And even then, our desire is to hold on to it as though it belongs to us. This faith is ours. It is precious. As we feel about everything precious, we are loathe to give it away.
But, Jesus tells us, as he told Mary, “Do not hold on to me.”
Remember that rich man who asked Jesus, What must I do to inherit eternal life? Jesus challenged him to go, sell what he had, give to the poor, then, Come, follow me. In other words, begin living in the kingdom right now. Don’t wait. We’re not living right in order to earn our way into God’s kingdom. We’re beginning to live in God’s kingdom right now, in this life, getting a foretaste of the eternity God has in store. We’re not inviting folks into despair in this life in order to have joy in the next. We’re inviting people into the joy of God’s Kingdom right now so the transition won’t be so traumatic.
We cannot keep it to ourselves. When Jesus told Mary, “Don’t hold onto me, but go and tell the other disciples,” he made it plain: the gospel is not for us to own. It is for us to give to others.
We’re hardwired as human beings to own things, to hold things close, not let them go. Think of the first words a child learns: Mama, Daddy, No! Yes! MINE!
Given our nature, grace is a challenge. We learn that God loves us. We take our first steps as disciples and we find how joyful it is. There’s so much less worry, less anxiety when we live with the sure hope of eternal life. We know that if we live, we live unto the Lord and if we die, we die unto the Lord. Whether we live therefore or die, we are the Lord’s.
Think of what has been accomplished by those who do not fear death. David, without armor, going to meet Goliath.
Martin Luther standing before the tribunal, declaring, “Here I stand, I can do no other.”
Martin Luther King, Jr., and those who marched with him across the bridge to Selma, attacked by dogs, blown off their feet by water cannon, but refusing to retaliate.
Gandhi standing up to the British; Mandela waiting in prison for 26 years before emerging as the new President of South Africa; a lone man, standing in front of a tank in Tiananmen Square, a man whose name we will never know, but who has become a symbol to death-defying lovers of liberty throughout the world;
Tibetans marching today, unarmed against the power of the Chinese army;
Christian mission workers dodging bullets to feed the hungry the Sudan and Darfur and the Congo and in all the places we wouldn’t want our children to go.
And why do we not want them to go there? Because we want to hold them close. We want to keep them safe. We treasure them, they are ours and we don’t want them hurt if they fall into danger.
We treasure the gospel, too. It can happen that we come to think the gospel is ours. We want to hold it close, keep it safe, not let it get into the hands of those who might not value it as much as we do. We may even want to protect it from those we believe do not deserve to hear it.
Around the year 1638, a musician named Gregorio Allegri composed a piece of choir music on Psalm 51. It was first sung in the Sistine Chapel in a Passion week service that began at 3 a.m. Twenty-seven candles were extinguished during the reading of the story of the crucifixion story. When the last candle was extinguished, the choir began to sing this haunting, heavenly, beautiful piece of music that began with the words of King David’s prayer for forgiveness after he had been confronted with his crime of having his lover’s husband killed,
“Have
mercy upon me, O God, according to thy loving kindness:
According unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.
Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.
For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me.”
It was a moment of such profound beauty and spiritual depth that the Pope was moved to declare that Allegri’s setting of Psalm 51, Miserere, could only be sung in the Sistine Chapel, only during Passion Week, during the 3 a.m. service. The sheet music was guarded carefully so that no one could copy it and perform it anywhere else or at any other time than 3 a.m. Holy Week service. He declared that anyone who performed it anywhere else would be excommunicated.
It’s funny how, when we have something wonderful and beautiful, even something that can bring people closer to God, inspire repentance and faith, even that, we want to hold it close, contain it, own it for ourselves.
And so, the church held it close for one hundred and forty years. Like a hidden treasure, it was kept in the Sistine Chapel, performed only during Holy Week, only at the 3 a.m. service.
But faith is a funny thing. As much as we may want to hold it close like a treasure, it’s not ours to own. It cannot be hidden, cannot be extinguished, cannot be held back from those God loves.
In 1771, a 14 year-old boy attended the 3 a.m. service at the Sistine Chapel and heard Allegri’s Psalm 51. He was so moved by it he spent the next afternoon writing down what he remembered hearing. He put his manuscript in his hat and went again the next night to check his work. The second time he heard it he corrected his two or three minor errors that he had made writing it from memory.
That boy who wrote out that first bootleg copy? His name was Mozart.[2]
Once it was out – well, it was out. You can find it now on YouTube.
God’s grace, the resurrection of Jesus Christ, cannot be held like a possession. Mary could not recover the past by holding on to Jesus. She had to go and tell the other disciples.
What Jesus did for you and me on the cross and in the resurrection, Jesus did for that criminal hanging next to him. There is no one on this earth from whom we are allowed to withhold the beauty, the wonder, the love, the grace of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Not the criminal on death row, not the neighbor who makes too much noise; not the in-laws or the out-laws; not the Jew, the Muslim, or the Hindu, the Mormon, the Buddhist or our fellow Christians.
This grace we have received, this precious treasure, this gift of God, when we have received it fully, lives and grows in us. It overflows like a river overflowing its banks. It cannot be held back.
Thank God for grace. We do not have to wait, like the thief on the cross until our dying breath to begin living in the kingdom of God that Jesus proclaimed. We do not have to wait a single minute. The kingdom is here among us, now. It is ours to receive. It is ours to share.
Thanks be to God. Amen.