Easter Day 2020

Easter Day 2020 feels like no other I have experienced. I am not yet feeling an overflow of Easter joy as I have experienced on some Easters in the past. I am feeling tired and conscious of others I know who are completley exhausted. I am feeling grief, some of it is my own and some is the grief of others who are recently bereaved. These feelings will pass, the long period of lockdown, of hiding away at home, will pass. There is hope.

 Once again, I am drawn to my favourite gospel account of the resurrection of Jesus, from John's gospel. I am struck again with the emotions which are there or implied - fear, bewilderment, grief. And then the slow dawn of recognition, that something not yet understood has changed. Death does not after all have the last word. Even through tears it is possible to see Jesus and know his prescence and love.

"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. So 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.’ Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went towards the tomb. The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. Then the disciples returned to their homes.

But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; and 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.They 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.’ When she had said this, she turned round and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping? For whom are you looking?’ 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.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Mary!’ She turned and said to him in Hebrew, ‘Rabbouni!’ (which means Teacher). Jesus 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.” ’Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord’; and she told them that he had said these things to her." John 20: 1 - 18


He blesses every love that weeps and grieves
And now he blesses hers who stood and wept
And would not be consoled, or leave her love's
Last touching place, but watched as low light crept
Up from the east. A sound behind her stirs
A scatter of bright birdsong through the air.
she turns, but cannot focus through her tears,
Or recognize the Gardener standing there.
she hardly hears his gentle question, 'Why,
Why are you weeping?' or sees the play of light
That brightens as she chokes out her reply,
'They took my love away, my day is night.'
And then she hears her name, she hears Love say
The Word that turns her night, and ours, to Day.


In spite of everything. Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! And even through tears - Alleluia!



Image Credit: Photo of a detail of a mosaic in the Resurrection Chapel of Washington National Cathedral shows Mary Magdalene meeting the resurrected Jesus in the garden. Tim Evanson on Flickr, CC License

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