New Life in Wilderness – John 20

Hear now the word of the Lord from John

20:es 1-18.

Early on the first day of the week,

while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene

went to the tomb and saw that the stone

had been removed from the entrance. So

she came running to Simon Peter and the

other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and

said, "They have taken the Lord out of

the tomb, and we don't know where they

have put him." So Peter and the other

disciples started for the tomb. Both

were running, but the other disciple

outran Peter and reached the tomb first.

He bent over and looked in at the strips

of linen lying there, but he did not go

in. And then Simon Peter came along

behind him and went straight into the

tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying

there, as well as the cloth that had

been wrapped around Jesus' head. The

cloth was still lying in its place,

separate from the linen.

Finally, the other disciple who had

reached the tomb first also went inside.

He saw and believed.

They still did not understand from

scripture that Jesus had to rise from

the dead. Then the disciples went back

to where they were staying.

Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying.

And as she wept, she bent over to look

into the tomb and saw two angels in

white seated where Jesus's body had

been, one at the head and the other at

the foot. And they asked her,"Woman, why

are you crying?" "They have taken my

Lord away," she said. "And I don't know

where they have put him." At this, she

turned around and saw Jesus standing

there, but she did not realize that it

was Jesus. And he asked her,"Woman, why

are you crying? Who is it you're looking

for?" But thinking he was the gardener,

she said, "Sir, if you have carried him

away, tell me where you have put him and

I will get him." And Jesus said to her,

"Mary."

And she turned toward him and cried out

in Aramaic, "Raboni," which means

teacher. Jesus said, "Do not hold on to

me, for I have not yet ascended to the

Father. Go instead to my brothers and

tell them, I am ascending to my father

and your father, to my God and to your

God." And so Mary Magdalene went to the

disciples with the news. I have seen the

Lord. And she told them that he said

these things to her. This is the word of

the Lord. Thanks be to God.

Well, friends, if you are expecting that

this is the part of the service where

I'm going to neatly explain what all

this resurrection business means,

you have come to the wrong place.

Uh listen, I've been a Jesus follower my

whole life. Uh I have studied our faith

and theology and holy scripture uh both

pastorally and academically for over 25

years. And I will be perfectly honest,

I am far less certain about all of this

today than I was when I started out.

So if you're sitting here and you're

hoping I'm going to clear it all up for

you, as much as I hate to say it, I'm

sorry. That's just not going to happen

this morning.

Welcome to First Presbyterian Church,

where we're becoming more and more

comfortable being less and less certain

all the time.

Now, I don't mean to say that we don't

take things seriously here. We do. I do.

But there are all sorts of mysteries

that make up the Christian faith. Things

like the virgin birth, the resurrection,

what happens to us when we die.

that frankly they're just above my pay

grade. Only God knows those things. Only

God knows. And I think the best that we

can do is get really honest about all

the things we don't know, but we really

hope and believe to be true because of

this God we love so much.

This God who we love and promises to

bring us life can be trusted. That's

what faith really is.

But sometimes our words just won't cut

it.

I I think it's what Episcopal priest

Barbara Brown Taylor means when she

writes this. She says, "I cannot say for

certain. When my reliable ideas about

God began to slip away, but the big

chest I used to keep them in, it's

smaller than a shoe box now. Most of the

time, I feel so ashamed about this that

I do not own up to it unless someone

else mentions it first. And then we find

a quiet place where we can talk about

what it's like to feel more and more

devoted to a relationship that we are

less and less able to say anything

about.

And that's that's really it. We're more

and more devoted to this relationship

with our God. But there's not always

enough language to make sense of all of

this, especially when we're talking

about something as mysterious or day,

dare I say, absurd as dead things coming

back to life.

And so, if you've got questions today,

yeah, me too. Me, too.

Uh, as Mike said earlier, over this past

Leton season, we've been traveling quite

intentionally a wilderness journey here

at First Press. And so on Ash Wednesday

over 6 weeks ago now, um we entered

willfully into the wild and desolate

places that so many of us find ourselves

in as people trying to follow Jesus. And

we've been naming honestly this painful

reality that frankly our most um

profound seasons of spiritual growth and

maturity, they really just don't often

happen to us when everything's going

very well in our lives.

when all the tools in our tool belt,

they work every time. When life feels

easy.

No. Often, I think we do our most

significant spiritual growth, our

deepening of souls, when we're out in

the wild.

When things go badly,

when we fail miserably,

when we experience a dark night of the

soul and we can't feel God, when we're

in seasons of grief and we feel like

we're walking through the valley of the

shadow of death,

when all the things that we normally can

rely on to make us feel better, they

just don't work.

That's when we grow.

That's when we learn to hear the voice

of the spirit and to trust God more

fully.

It's when we're often forced to rely on

our community to make it out alive, too.

And as tough as those wilderness seasons

are, I think we all know that it's often

the very place

where we experience the kind of growth

that we actually are desperate for. The

kind of transformation we know we need.

Because I can tell you something, you

will head out into the desert one way,

but you are not coming back the same.

You will be different after being in the

wilderness.

And I sincerely hope and pray for the

those of you who especially this morning

still feel like you're wandering out

there somewhere that you will be able to

catch even just a glimpse of the person

you're becoming

of who God is transforming you to be.

I want you to know you will not be in

the wilderness forever.

Your God is with you in the wild and the

Holy Spirit will lead you out. And of

that, I actually am entirely certain.

The text we just read, we see that John

begins his account of the resurrection

in the dark. in the dark with Mary and

Peter and this unnamed disciple who are

running back and forth in fear and in

grief.

There's no glorious organ or brass

playing on that morning. There's no

bright lights streaming through a

resurrection window.

There's definitely no flowers adorning

the cross that Jesus was just brutally

murdered on.

No, it's dark and it's terrifying and

it's confusing for these disciples.

Their friend Jesus, the one they believe

was going to change everything, is dead.

He's been intombed a couple days

already.

Mary's grief on that morning, it's so

visceral, it's so intense that she

literally initially cannot even

recognize that there are angels talking

to her or Jesus himself.

She's got all her wailing and tears

masking her ability to see clearly.

I mean, her Messiah has been killed and

and then it appears that the very worst

has happened. Someone has stolen that

body and desecrated this grave. What on

earth are they supposed to do now?

Maybe you can relate.

Maybe it's even easy for you this

morning because of your own experiences

of grief and loss to imagine how these

disciples must have felt on that dark

morning.

I mean, how many of us can relate to

Mary's messy grief because we too have

thrown ourselves on the ground and

sobbed at the graveside of someone we

have loved and lost.

I'm sure that there are many of us who

can relate to the confusion and the

questions of Peter because we too have

been left with doubts and fears after

the death of a best friend who was gone

too soon.

And you know, I know that there are even

some of you sitting here that know

something of this mysterious belief

that we hear about in this unnamed

disciple that Jesus loved because we too

have felt something shift in us. We've

experienced something we can't explain.

Some mystery after losing someone,

someone we love has crossed over to the

other side.

Biblical scholar Dr. Caroline Lewis, she

argues that the author of the Gospel of

John, he actually intends that we all

read ourselves into the story here. That

actually that's the whole point of

leaving one of the disciples unnamed.

The unnamed disciple. It's just a

brilliant trick of the pen.

It's a literary tool that's supposed to

allow you to read yourself into the

story.

And so, who is this unnamed person?

You are.

Who is this unnamed disciple that Jesus

loved? You are.

And apparently, you're faster than the

other disciple. So, congratulations.

And you know, you're not just here at

the end either.

You are also there at the last supper in

chapter 13, leaning against Jesus and

confused about this meal.

You're the disciple who stood under the

cross in chapter 19.

And you are most especially this morning

the disciple who runs breathlessly

racing to the tomb on that dark morning.

The disciple that we are told saw those

grave clothes lying there and believed.

Now what exactly this beloved disciple

believed, we don't really know actually.

In fact, the author tells us in the very

next verse that they didn't yet

understand from the scriptures that

Jesus had to rise from the dead.

But let's be clear, as if like knowing

the right Bible verses would have made

the resurrection of your rabbi who you

just seen be murdered a couple days

before make any sense at all? I don't

think so. I mean, Jesus tried to spell

it out for his disciples several times,

we're told. And in every gospel account,

we are told that they do not get it,

that they can't understand. Not yet.

Not until they lived it.

Not until they lived it could they

believe it. They had to encounter the

risen Christ to understand the

resurrection.

Now friends, I think that is absolutely

the same for us. I really do. Memorizing

scripture, doing religion like the right

way. I'm just not sure that's ever going

to get us where we want to be.

No, I actually think the scriptures are

great. They offer us stories and

prayers, metaphors, teaching. But not

even the Bible can do the work of belief

for you. No,

you have to live out belief for

yourself.

You have to run toward the mystery.

You have to race out in the dark to the

point of breathlessness.

You have to struggle with the reality of

death. You have to try and make sense of

everything that's happened to you out in

the wilderness. But more than anything,

I think you have to hear the Savior say

your name

to try and begin to make sense of what

it means to be resurrected.

You have to encounter the risen Christ

if you want to understand resurrection.

And that is what Easter is about,

friends. It's about opening our hearts

and our minds to encounter the love of

the risen Christ as he speaks our name.

And the truth is, it is when we are out

there in the wild, when life is not

going well, that is when we need to hear

our name in the mouth of our God

in the wilderness.

That's when Easter will happen for us.

This past week, I have been by the

bedside for many days of one of our

beloved congregants, Pamela Atkinson, as

she is nearing her her end in her final

days and preparing to die.

Pamela is 93 years old and she has lived

one of the most remarkable lives that

any of us might hope to.

She has been giving her best time and

energy and effort over decades to care

for the poor, advising our governors to

fight for legislation for the unhoused

and the immigrant.

But you know, no matter how good a life

one lives, no matter how strong one's

faith might be,

coming to the end is scary.

It really is. Pamela told me this week

that she feels the valley of the shadow

of death coming closer and closer all

the time, but that it is the hope of the

resurrection that's carrying her through

her final wilderness journey.

It's knowing that her resurrected Lord,

who has guided Pamela through many a

wilderness in her life and work, will be

there as she draws her last breath and

will say her name.

That is where Easter will happen next

for Pamela at least. Easter will show up

when she needs it to.

Listen friends, I need you to understand

something. Easter does not happen under

bright sunshine when everything is

humming along just fine. No, Easter

happens in the hospital room when the

doctor shakes his head and says, "The

cancer is back."

Easter happens in the funeral home when

the first glance of seeing your mom in

that coffin hits you like a Mac truck

and you cannot breathe.

Easter happens in 12step recovery groups

where folks who have spent their life

slowly killing themselves are trying and

failing and trying again to fight for

their sobriety.

Easter happens in nursing homes where

once strongbodied men and women they

watch their friends disappear one by one

and life starts to feel like one march

toward the end. Easter happens in

courtrooms when divorce papers are

signed and the marriage is dead.

Friends, Easter happens wherever death

is

because that's where resurrection is

needed.

That's where resurrection is needed.

That is when we need to hear the savior

say our name.

The reason those early disciples could

believe in the resurrection even though

they couldn't really fully comprehend

it. It is the same reason that so many

of us believe too because we have

experienced the risen Christ. Jesus has

shown up calling our name. God has

broken into our dark, wild places and

has reminded us that new life will

spring forward. We might not always be

able to understand it. We very rarely

can articulate it actually.

But we are here today because Jesus is

alive. And because of that, we are not

the same person we used to be.

That's why we celebrate today. That's

why we do it with joyful singing and

brass and organs.

That's why there's flowers and food.

That's why there's lots of laughter and

Easter egg hunts. All of it. Not because

we believe the world is everything it

should be. Huh? No. But we because we

believe that in Christ it eventually

will be. It will be.

Easter is about believing somewhere deep

in our bones that that goodness is

inevitable,

that it's coming. It's about trusting

that every failure holds the possibility

of forgiveness. That every dream we've

had shot down is somehow being

resurrected just out there on the

horizon somewhere. That every death is

the beginning of resurrection. And it's

perhaps even believing for the very

first time that whatever kind of death

you have experienced in your life,

whatever has brought you grief and loss

and your own wilderness wanderings, it

is not the end.

It was not the end. And it is not the

end.

It will not be the end because Christ

has risen and not one dead shall remain.

What I am trying to say

and the words simply are never going to

be big enough is that God has built into

us this unquenchable hope.

this irresistible sense that we are

created for fullness and life and joy

and a love from which

not even death, the death of Christ, our

own death can separate us.

So no matter how dark it might feel out

there for you today, I stand here to

remind you that God is still bringing

dead things back to life. I stand here

to remind you that Christ is at work

even now defeating evil and making all

things new. And so we sing in the

wilderness. We sing in the very face of

death itself. The same allelujah we sing

here every Easter. Sunday by Sunday,

Easter by Easter. We declare that deep

in our bones, we know that Christ is

alive and still calling our name.

And so may you look to the breaking of a

new day, friends.

May you run toward the mystery.

May you know, especially in your darkest

hour, that Jesus is actually standing

there, even if you don't recognize him

at first.

And may you proclaim with all your heart

like Mary did. I have seen the Lord.

He has said my name.

Christ is risen. He is risen indeed.

Hallelujah and amen.