Come and See.
When the first disciples followed Jesus, Jesus asked them: What are you looking for? Jesus answered: Come and see. Throughout the Gospel we heard this Easter morning, we met people who came but did not see. They cannot see because they are in the dark.
When Mary Magdalene leaves her home on that first Easter morning, it was not only dark because the sun had not risen. Mary’s vision is darkened because of her grief. The Gospel tells us Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. Mary comes to the tomb and sees that the stone has been removed with the eyes of her body. But she does not see with the eyes of faith. Her eyes see the empty tomb but her faith does not understand that Jesus has been raised from the dead. She is still looking for a dead Jesus whose body she supposes was stolen by grave robbers.
On the cross, Jesus has been glorified, has been lifted up, and through the cross has returned to the Father. Now that Jesus has been glorified, how will he be present to his disciples?
Mary continues to look for Jesus in a dead body. We see the depth of her love for Jesus in her deep lament. Let’s face it, if we were to look into an empty tomb and see two angels where the dead body had been, we might have understood something has been transformed. Even when Mary turns from the angels and sees Jesus, she does not recognize him. He speaks to her but she mistakes him for a gardener. The turning point of the story happens when Jesus calls her by her name: “Mary.” She then turns, the Gospel tells us, and we know she has turned to face Jesus, but now she turns in her heart so that now she truly sees. She sees Jesus and calls to him: Teacher.
Something more is happening here and we know that something more since the tomb is in a garden. We all know from Sunday School that the first creation happens in a garden. God places the first humans in a garden. So we are invited to connect that first garden of creation with this new garden of the new creation.
Perhaps more importantly, the other place we hear of a garden in the Hebrew scripture occurs in the Song of Songs. The bride’s words could easily be spoke by Mary to Jesus: “I sought him whom my soul loves; I sought him, but found him not.” (Song of Songs 3:1) Jesus could also say the words of the bridegroom: “I come to my garden, my sister, my bride.” (Song of Songs 5:1)
Jesus, in speaking Mary’s name, reminds us what we also heard from this Gospel, that Jesus is the shepherd who “calls his sheep by name” (Jn. 10:3) for he knows his own and his own know him. (see Jn. 10 14)
We are like Mary in so many ways. We are suffering a deep loss with Covid 19. Some of us have lost friends and family members. All of us have had our lives disrupted and regular patterns overturned. We lament the ways we were accustomed to interact with one another. We lament the loss of our accustomed religious lives. We lament the sustained fast from the Sacrament of our Lord’s Body and Blood.
In the midst of our sorrow, can we look and see that the Risen Christ is coming to us? The Risen Christ already dwells with us. Jesus tells us: “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.” (Jn. 14: 23) If you want to discover the Risen Christ, look in your heart and there you will discover Christ speaking your name. Calling you by your name to turn and see Christ.
There, in the garden of your heart, you will find yourself made a new creation. You will discover Jesus coming to you as the one whom the Book of Common Prayer calls the Lover of our souls.
Your desire for Christ comes from Christ, your desire is the stirring of the Holy Spirit within you, and your desire meets Christ’s desire for you in a wonderful union of souls. That union is made real when you will receive Christ in Holy Communion, when the grace of that communion nourishes a deep union of hearts, when you hear your name called.
Your encounter with the Risen Christ does not end in a feel good time with Jesus. Jesus has work for you to do. You noticed that after that moment of encounter, Jesus sends Mary Magdalene to tell the other disciples that he is risen. You too are commissioned to go out and tell others, in the words of Mary Magdalen, “I have seen the Lord.” (Jn 20:17)
Our Easter is more than chocolate bunnies and jelly beans. Our Easter involves unexpected meetings with the Risen Christ. Our Easter sends you out as heralds of that encounter with the Risen Christ.
Taste the one who loves you, who speaks your name, and then share that news with a world which like you, hungers for a God who loves us deeper than any pain, deeper than any virus, deeper than any loss. You who have come and seen, now see and go. And run, run like some love filled child, run and let everyone know, Christ is alive, Christ is alive in you, and Christ is making you and all this creation new.
Alleluia.