Visiting the tomb
A sermon preached by the Revd Canon Dr Alison Joyce
on Easter Day, 4th April 2010
Out in our Garden of Remembrance is a plot containing the ashes of the woman who was my oldest friend. She and I were at school together, and because our birthdays were ten days apart, we held a joint eighteenth birthday party. In the Autumn of 2008, I took her funeral here in this church, and subsequently buried her ashes out in the churchyard.
And from time to time I visit her plot, and spend some time there – although interestingly, my reasons for doing so are not always the same. Initially her grave served as a very concrete reminder of the sad reality of her death. And for me that was a very important part of the process of coming to terms with the fact of her loss: there is something very non-negotiable about the sight of a grave. And then, there have been the special occasions: her birthday; the anniversary of her death, which I have marked by taking her flowers. And there have been times when it has simply felt appropriate to spend a few moments remembering her at the place where I still feel I can be closest to her. I feel drawn to go there to honour her memory, and to let her know that I have not forgotten her. Despite the fact that she is no longer here, in some inexplicable way, our friendship feels as if it has not entirely come to an end.
So I wonder what it was that drew the women in the Gospels to the tomb of Jesus on that first Easter morning? Interestingly, although the stories that they tell are broadly similar, each of the four gospel writers gives us a slightly different answer to that question.
For example, St John tells us that it was Mary Magdalene who came to the tomb; she came completely alone and she came while it was still dark. No actual reason is given for why she did so – perhaps it was nothing more than the simple human need of a distraught and traumatised woman to be close to the man to whom she was so totally and utterly devoted; the man who had rescued and redeemed her, whom she had witnessed die a terrible and tortured death. She cannot rest; she cannot sleep; tormented by grief, all she can think of doing is going to the tomb so that she can be near to him. And that is what she does in the darkness of that first Easter morning
By contrast, in St Mark’s account, Mary Magdalene is not alone in her visit to the tomb; she has a companion: Mary, the mother of James and Salome. And Mark tells us that the women went to the tomb for a very specific purpose: to take spices with which to anoint the body of Jesus. There is something immensely touching about that detail. Those women had seen their Lord die an agonising and barbaric and humiliating death. And now, they are resolved to restore to him at least a measure of dignity, by honouring his broken and shattered body with due burial rights. It is an act of great tenderness, and great love, born of terrible grief and despair. Despair because, Mark tells us, they went to the tomb knowing that they had no means of moving the stone that sealed it. To that extent their visit was doomed to end in yet more heartbreak and frustration. And yet, still they went.
St Matthew, on the other hand, likes high drama – he always likes to present stories on a grand scale, with as many special effects as possible. So in Matthew’s account of the women’s visit to the tomb we get the full Cecil B. de Mille version of events, with earthquakes and angels descending from heaven, and much else besides. But why do the two women, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary, go to the tomb? Matthew (who is very familiar with St Mark’s version of events) clearly finds Mark’s suggestion that they went to the tomb to anoint the body, despite knowing that they wouldn’t be able to get access to it, unconvincing. So, according to Matthew, the women go there simply to see the tomb. Nothing more than that.
And then, lastly, we have St Luke’s account, which we heard a moment ago as our Gospel reading. Of the four evangelists, Luke is arguably the best story teller of all, in that he really does inhabit each episode imaginatively; he thinks through each scene, and the human characters within it, and he sets out his story very carefully. So Luke retains the important idea the idea that the reason why the women went was to take spices, which they had already prepared, in order to anoint the body of Jesus. But, unlike Mark’s gospel, it is not just two women who go – it is a whole group of them; the women of Jerusalem who have earlier featured in Luke’s account of the crucifixion. The point being that, presumably, if there are a whole crowd of them, there will be enough of them to move the stone themselves.
So, four rather different accounts of who went to the tomb on that first Easter morning, and why. And yet, despite their differences of detail, all four versions of the story have some very important things in common.
The first is that it the first visitors to the tomb on that Easter morning were female: whether a single woman, as in John’s gospel, or a whole crowd of them, as in Luke. Interesting, isn’t it. Throughout the rest of the active ministry of Jesus it is the male disciples, the twelve, who are the key players. And, when they saw Jesus arrested, and humiliated, and crucified, all their hopes and their dreams were shattered with him. The one they had come to believe was the true Messiah; the long-awaited Saviour of Israel, was, it turned out, nothing of the sort. He was, after all, just one more failed pretender. The men are too busy inhabiting their own sense of loss and devastation to look beyond it. It is the women, whose sense of grief and desolation draws them to the one they have lost, who feel compelled to go to the tomb.
Secondly, what do the women see when they get there? The answer is the same in all four gospels: the stone is rolled away; and the tomb is empty. I am trying to imagine what it must be like to visit the grave of someone you have loved deeply, and to find, to your shock, and horror, and distress that it is open and empty. Appalling; sickening; who would do such a thing? Who has taken the body? Why have they taken it? Where have they taken it? No wonder St John describes Mary Magdalene weeping saying in despair, ‘They have taken away my Lord and I do not know where they have laid him’.
Thirdly, in all four Gospels, the women are then told … by Person (or Persons) Unexpected … what has happened. In Mark there is a young man in a white robe inside the tomb, who tells the two Marys that Jesus is not there; he has risen; and he will go before them into Galilee. In Matthew (the Cecil B. de Mille version, remember), it is a terrifying angel descending from heaven who both rolls away the stone before their very eyes and then tells the terrified women that Jesus has risen, and will go before them into Galilee. In Luke’s version there are two men in dazzling apparel who appear beside the group of women, and tell them the news. And, of course, in John’s gospel the person who gives the news of the amazing thing that has happened is Jesus, the Risen Lord himself, whom Mary Magdalene mistakes for the gardener. Despite their differences, the core truths within all four gospel accounts are identical.
If I were to be asked, as I am from time to time, whether I believe that the Resurrection of Christ from the dead really happened, my answer would be both simple and unambiguous: yes; totally; absolutely; no question about it. And the reason for my absolute certainty is that the evidence is totally and utterly compelling. Nobody actually knows precisely what ‘happened’ of course – not even the New Testament tells us that. After all, the Resurrection took place at dead of night, in the darkness and silence of a sealed tomb, far away from public view. It was seen by nobody except God.
But what we do know is this: quite contrary to all their expectations and assumptions and prejudices, the disciples were utterly shocked, and their lives completely turned around, by an experience so extraordinary; so unprecedented; and so utterly unexpected that there can be no doubt that it was completely real. The Jesus whom they had seen arrested, and tortured, and crucified; the Jesus whom they knew without any shadow of a doubt was totally and utterly dead and buried – was dead no longer. Death could not hold him.
But couldn’t they just have been imagining it? Could it not have been some unusual manifestation of post-traumatic shock, some kind of denial of the truth of what had actually happened? After all, dedicated rock ’n’ roll fans in the United States are still claiming that Elvis lives!
No, this was something altogether different and totally unprecedented. What the disciples experienced after that first Easter morning was a reality so powerful and so unexpected that it blew a hole through history: not only were their lives transformed, but the world was, quite simply, never the same again. This was a reality so powerful and so unexpected that the first followers of Jesus were inspired and energised to take its message to the corners of the known world; and more than that, they did so despite having to endure the most savage and brutal persecution as a result. For many of them it cost them their lives. But despite that unbelievably hefty price tag; despite the systematic and concerted efforts of both the Jewish and Roman authorities to stamp it out, the Christian faith spread like wildfire throughout the cities of the Roman Empire. Christianity was seen to be worth living for, because it was seen to be worth dying for.
Indeed, this was a reality so powerful and so unexpected, that the most savage and committed persecutor of Christians was literally stopped in his tracks by an encounter with the Risen Lord – and became, as a result, the most famous ambassador of the Christian faith who has ever lived: Saul of Tarsus, better known as the Apostle Paul.
And it is a reality so powerful and so unexpected that even today it continues to shock the most hardened and most sceptical of cynics into recognising its truth – I know because I myself once was one. Christ was raised from the dead: death could not hold him. Christ endured the wrath and the rage and the hatred and the violence of disordered humanity, and absorbed it into himself, so that we could be set free from its chains. And in the process he opened up a whole new way of living.
Over the years I have been very haunted by a true story that I read some time ago, set in the United States. In a small American town there was a very successful businessman called George. He was shrewd, and hardworking, and had built up his own business very successfully. A very promising and able young man called Martin came to his attention. George took the young man under his wing, paid for his education, trained him up, taught him everything he knew, entrusted him with an increasingly significant role in the management of the company, and treated him like a son.
And then, one terrible day, something unimaginably appalling happened. A troubled accountant asked to see George, and revealed the dreadful truth to him. It turned out that Martin, the young man in whom George had invested so much, had been cheating him. He had been siphoning off money from the business for his own use; he had been investing company money rashly and without George’s knowledge; he had been feathering his own nest at the expense not only of his mentor George, but of the whole business. Worse was to follow: Martin had so damaged and undermined the financial stability of the company that it crashed totally.
As you can imagine, George was devastated; he felt utterly betrayed; and he was very, very angry. So angry that if ever he saw Martin in the street, he would turn and walk away rather than have to look at him.
But time passed, and the fortunes of the two men took very different turns. George, because he was an excellent and hard-working businessman, who was greatly liked and trusted by those who knew him, built up another company from scratch; and before very long it was doing about as well as the previous one. But Martin’s life slowly and steadily disintegrated. He not only found himself without a job, but he could find nobody prepared to employ him. His marriage failed, and his wife left him. His children got into trouble with the police; and finally, he fell prey to a terrible and debilitating illness, that left him friendless and bedridden in a squalid one-roomed flat.
Increasingly George had come to recognise that the anger he felt towards Martin was still burdening him, and eating him up. And he felt, for his own good, he needed to do something about it. So he found out where Martin was living, and one day he went to see him. He was shocked by the state he found him in. And so he went out and he bought food for him; he washed Martin’s clothes and his sheets; he cleaned and tidied that squalid little room. He got onto the phone and arranged for proper medical care for him. And while he was doing this, Martin sat on the edge of his bed, and he cried. He cried out of shame for what he had done, and for the kind of person he had become; and he cried because of the sheer goodness and generosity of heart of the man whom he had robbed and cheated so terribly. And, as a result of that encounter, both men were set free; one from his unbridled selfishness; the other from his consuming anger. That is a new way of living.
We can know the certainty of the Christian hope precisely because it is not a hope to which we cling in order to distract ourselves from the dark realities of life; it is, on the contrary, a hope that reaches out to us from the very heart of that darkness. The light shines on in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. In the words of a hymn that we sang here on Good Friday:
Here might I stay and sing
No story so divine,
Never was love, dear king,
Never was grief like thine.
This is my friend
In whose sweet praise
I all my days could gladly spend.
Alleluia!
Amen.