Why Are You Weeping?

Propers: The Resurrection of Our Lord (Easter Sunday), A.D. 2020 A

Homily:

Alleluia! Christ is Risen! He is Risen indeed! Alleluia!

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Why are you weeping? That’s the question that Jesus asks of Mary this morning—Mary the Magdalene, Mary the Tower. Why are you weeping? For whom do you look? And the answer, of course, is that she’s looking for Him. She’s weeping for Him. She thinks that she’s lost her rabbi, her friend, her hope, her Lord.

And who could blame her, really? For three and a half years Jesus had wandered the Galilee and Judea, bringing sight to the blind, health to the sick, food to the hungry, wisdom to the foolish, hope to the hopeless, and life to the dead. Indeed, this ministry of His had created something of a furor, with thousands praying, yearning, pining for this at least to be the Messiah, the Anointed One, the true successor of old King David, who would liberate the captives, cast out the invader, and set God’s people free in their own land with their own law.

They had waited for this Messiah for centuries. And not just the Israelites, mind you. The Romans too had prophecies of a Savior from Judea, a Hebrew Child who would silence the oracles of all the old gods. Jesus wasn’t what they were expecting. They’d been looking for a general, a divine warrior, perhaps even an angel come down from Heaven—not a wandering desert rabbi from out in the boonies.

And yet He spoke with such power, and worked such wonders, and everywhere He went He spread life and liberation, and fresh hope anew. Maybe it really was Him this time. Maybe the Christ had finally come. Maybe God had come down to earth.

But that was before the garden, the blood, the binding, the beatings, the show-trials and public mockery, the lash and thorns and cross and spear. That was before Mary and the other disciples watched, horrified, as their hopes were not only dashed to the ground but hauled aloft and tortured to death for all the world to see. And indeed the world itself seemed to join them in horror, the sky turning black, the earth splitting wide. And with a loud cry Jesus gave up His spirit and died.

Yet even that wasn’t enough for the conquerors. Oh, no, they still weren’t finished with Him. They ran Him through with a spear, just to be sure. And a gush of blood and water—likely the peritoneal fluid around His heart—spurt forth. Then His body was pried off the nails, wrapped up in linens, and hurriedly stuffed away in a rich man’s tomb—before the sun went down, before the corpses on the crosses could defile the Sabbath. As though that would be the affront to God.

We aren’t told just how Mary spent the next day, Saturday. But we can well imagine. Any of us who have lost a loved one knows what the next 48 hours are alike. You walk about in a fog, numb, disbelieving, processing, still in shock. You’re not sure if you sleep or eat. You don’t remember, really, who all was around you. You sit there, stunned—maybe quiet, maybe crying. And the world itself seems to have stopped spinning, for you at least if not for others.

The next day, Sunday, as early as she can, even before the sun has risen, Mary sets off with her companions to the tomb, to do the only thing that any of us can do for a loved one we have lost. She goes to care for His body, to wash Him, anoint Him, to wrap Him and perfume Him. The men did such a rush job on Friday evening, hurrying too quickly to do a decent job. But now it’s the women’s turn, and by God, they would do this right. Sometimes the burial is all we have left to express all our love in our grief.

She’d been there from darn near the beginning, as she had been there at the Cross at the end. If Magdala really were the place of her birth—if Magdalene weren’t just a nickname, like the ones Jesus gave to all His closest students—then she may well have grown up near Jesus. She may have known Him all along. Now there’s nothing left she can do for Him, but wash Him with tears and with myrrh, and commend Him to God until that day when the world is remade at the last.

But now—ugh, who could believe it?—one last insult, one last indignity, one final horror. The tomb is burst asunder, and the body is gone. Jesus is gone. She can’t even do this one last thing; she can’t even bury her Lord. And that’s it. That’s the final straw. It all comes crashing down upon her, and she weeps wracking sobs by the tomb. Even as the others leave, even as she’s left there all alone, she remains yet weeping.

But then a voice: Why are you crying? Whom are you looking for? And she turns, vision blurred through tears, and manages to croak out, “Sir, if you have carried Him away, please, just tell me where you’ve laid Him, and I will take Him away.” Please, it’s all she has left. All that she wants is His body, something to mourn, something to care for, something to bury with some desperate shred of dignity.

But then the voice says her name—“Mary”—and an icy bolt sears her to the core. She knows that voice. She knows who it is who calls her by name. But it can’t be. It isn’t possible. She saw! She saw it all—the blood, the agony, the horror. But she furtively swipes the tears from her eyes and then she sees Him—oh, my God, she sees Him—and He’s different, yes, but how could she not have seen it before? How could she not know Him, even for a second? “Rabbouni!” she cries.

And everything she knows—about life, death, God, reality—is now turned impossibly, catastrophically, incomprehensibly, upside-down. Thank Christ.

Why are you weeping, my brothers and my sisters? For whom are you searching on this fine Easter morn? What have you come here to see? Chocolate eggs? An Easter bunny? A fairy-tale from the long ago and far away? No. You came here this morning because you heard His voice, even if you don’t yet realize it’s Him. You came to see the impossible: a love greater than hatred, a power stronger than violence, a life that drowns death and tramples down the grave.

We have many things to mourn, I know: illnesses, fears, job loss, social upheaval. Who would’ve thought that in the twenty-first century the whole world would find ourselves in quarantine, proving bitterly just how interconnected we all are? We have many reasons to weep today, to mourn. And so I have come to preach this day what you have come to hear: that Christ is alive! He is Risen—alleluia! And the power of death and the grave has been broken, irrevocably, forever.

We will know hardship in this life. We will know struggle in this world. But fear not, sayeth the Lord, for I have overcome the world. Death and pain and horror are here, but we know now—we have seen, haven’t we?—that their dominion is illusory. Their power is but fleeting and ephemeral. Christ has conquered, and hell is harrowed. Christ has conquered, and the dead are raised. Christ has conquered, and the tomb is empty, the stone rolled aside, our mourning turned now to sobs of joy.

For we have seen the worst that can happen. We have seen the powers of hell. We saw them at work, the devil, the world, and the flesh, in the crucifixion of Jesus, the murder of God, the darkness beyond us, around us, within us. And Christ has defeated them all! He has forgiven the unforgiveable. He has raised the unraisable. He has liberated all of us from slavery to our fear.

And so whatever may befall us, whatever loss, whatever injury, whatever pain or grief or horror, we are brave now to serve the sufferer, to stand beside the broken, and to proclaim with defiance that the powers of hell are defeated—that Christ’s death has broken death’s back—and that ultimately life and love and mercy will outlive the wretched shadows of cruelty and the grave.

The Resurrection of Jesus Christ is but the firstfruits of the general Resurrection for all of humanity, for all of Creation. The fire set forth from His tomb shall spread until it reaches to every nook and cranny of the cosmos. Then Christ shall return at the end of the age, the dead shall be raised, the Son shall hand over the Kingdom to His Father, and God at the last shall be All in All.

And there will be no more death, no more pain, no more shadows. For the Lord will dry every tear, and mend every wound, and set every godawful tragedy somehow, impossibly, right in the end. That is the promise that rises this day.

Why are you weeping? For whom are you looking? Behind you is Christ. Beside you is Christ. Within you is Christ. And that tomb shall never be sealed again.

Alleluia! Christ is Risen! He is Risen indeed! Alleluia!

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