Sermon by Pastor Mike Buttonnn

No Going Back
Text: John 20: 1-18

NRS John 20
Early 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.⁴ The 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; ⁹  for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. ¹⁰ Then 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. ¹⁵ Jesus 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." ¹⁶  Jesus 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.

            Sisters and Brothers in faith, may the Lord grant us to rise with Christ so that we may live to the glory of God; for the sake of Jesus the Messiah.  Amen. 

            When Mary Magdalene first lays eyes on the Risen Jesus, she initially mistakes him for the man who tends the garden where her master’s tomb is located.  Clearly distraught and likely disoriented, Mary still doesn’t recognize the Lord even when he asks, “Woman, why are you weeping?  Whom do you seek?”  Instead, she pleads, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away” (v. 15).  But when Jesus calls her by name, “Mary,” all the lights suddenly come on, and Mary blurts out, “Rabbouni,” that is, Teacher. 

            And here I can see Mary running to embrace her all-conquering Lord.  Here I can see Mary pressing her tear-stained face to his broad chest.  Here I can see Jesus assuring his faithful follower, “It’s all right, it’s all right,” and as he wraps his mighty arms around her slight frame, I can see the dawn’s first light breaking the darkness while the screen explodes in a Technicolor sunrise and in elegant script the words, “The End.” 

            That’s the way Hollywood would do Easter, and left to my own devices, that’s the way I would probably write the story, too.  I’d cast Michelle Williams as Mary Magdalene, and as Jesus, maybe Leonardo DiCaprio.  With a score by John Williams and a supporting cast of Brad Pitt as Simon Peter and Matt Damon as the Beloved Disciple, the chemistry would burst from the screen. 

            Except, of course, it didn’t happen that way.  John’s Gospel never suggests any “chemistry” between Jesus and Mary, and although Mary surely rushed to embrace her Lord, Jesus does not return the hug.  But rather, Jesus answers her show of devotion with, “Do not hold on to me,” or as that phrase translates literally, “Don’t touch me” (v. 17).

            So what is that?  Was he radioactive or something?  Or was he now so elevated that his former disciple could no longer approach him?  No, of course not, but Jesus is changed, because the Resurrection changes everything. 

            In the movies, you know, a happy ending is when everything goes back to the way it was.  The lovers are reunited, the prodigal returns, the guilty repent, peace is restored and the old comfortable order of ages past is once and for all re-established.  But Easter is not just another Hollywood happy ending.  It’s not good guys win, bad guys lose.  It’s not guy gets girl, guy loses girl, guy gets girl back.  Easter is not a going back to the way things were.  It’s a going forward to the way things will be, to the way we will be.  

            Mary cannot grasp Jesus, physically or spiritually, in the way she once beheld him, any more than we can turn back the hands of time or make any moment last forever.  That’s like seeking the living among the dead.  As hard as we might try to hang on to our memories and preserve the past, we cannot go back.  And as desperate as we sometimes are to get back what we’ve lost or squandered or had taken from us, we can never get back to how it once was.  That’s gone, and however Mary once knew Jesus, that’s gone, too.  St. Paul himself tells us, “even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way” (2 Corinthians 5:16). 

For Jesus is risen, and he rises not to be our charm, our get-out-of- jail card, our rabbit’s foot or free pass.  Jesus rises not for us to hold on to him, but for him to hold on to us (Craig Barnes, The Christian Century, March 13-20, 2002, “Savior at Large” page 16), for him to raise us as he rises to glory, for him to bring us to his Father and our Father, to his God and our God.  We know him no longer from a human point of view, as a figure receding in our rear-view mirror, but as one who rises calling us forward, opening for us a future, or in other words, giving us hope. 

            A wise man once wrote, “Take away a person’s memories, and they become anxious. Take away a person’s hope, and they become terrified” (Kennon Callahan, Effective Church Leadership, page 124).  I suppose that as long as we live in this flesh, we’ll inevitably struggle with our share of anxiety.  So long as past devours each successive present, and while at our backs we constantly hear “Time’s winged chariot hurrying near” (Marvell), then surely we’ll have our moments of fret and frustration.  But we are not doomed to lives of hopeless terror.  For Jesus is risen, and by that rising we have a sure way to go forward, a way to keep us from being lost in remorse and regret, a way for us to live in hope.  I like the way St. Paul put it:

⁸We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair;
⁹persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed;
¹⁰always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies.  (2 Corinthians 4)
Because Jesus is risen. 

            In the Name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.