“Where Jesus Lives”
A sermon by Sid Burgess with help from Mary Jane Cornell (see
footnote # 3)
Easter Sunday, April 12, 2009
Texts: John 20:1-18
Among the most fascinating sites in Birmingham is perhaps among the least visited. It is the Oak Hill Cemetery, just north of the Civic Center. It was a burial ground even before the founding of Birmingham in 1871. The City’s decision to buy these 21 acres for $50 an acre was controversial because some said it was simply too far from town to be accessible. Oak Hill is the final resting place of a host of Birmingham notables--city founders, former mayors and governors, early industrialists, bankers, and retailers. A number of Confederate veterans are buried there, but interestingly enough there is a monument in the Oak Hill Cemetery honoring veterans of the Union’s Grand Army of the Republic. Among my favorites is the monument to Louise Wooster, the famous Birmingham madam whose nurture of the sick and dying during the devastating cholera epidemic of 1873, endeared her to the Birmingham community. Legend has it that Louise Wooster was Margaret Mitchell’s inspiration for the character Belle Watling in “Gone with the Wind.”
Which bring me to the leading character in John’s version of the Easter drama--Mary Magdalene. Louise Wooster, Belle Watling, and Mary Magdalene? What could these three women have in common? Sadly, this: Church tradition in the Western world has pinned the label of harlot on Mary. For centuries, Mary has been confused with the anonymous, sinful woman in chapter seven of Luke’s gospel--the woman who bathed Jesus’ feet with her tears and anointed him with oil. In the sixth century Pope Gregory I made this assertion in a sermon, and it stuck. Since early in the 20th Century biblical scholars, both Protestant and Catholic, have worked to break this association and restore Mary’s integrity, but popular imagination still hangs a cloud over her head.
Why would we do this? Why would the world diminish the single most important witness to the Risen Jesus? “ . . . a woman of substance, brave and smart and devoted, who plays a crucial — perhaps irreplaceable — role in Christianity's defining moment.”1
Some say the Medieval church was just trying to put names with faces to help foster the devotion of the faithful. Some say it was a conscious or unconscious move by the male-dominated church to disempower a feminine religious figure. “Whatever the motivation, the effect of the process was drastic,” and for women, “tragic.”
Mary Magdalene's witness to the Resurrection, rather than being acclaimed as an act of discipleship in some ways greater than the men's, was reduced to the final (scene) in a moving but far less central tale about the redemption of a repentant sinner.2
Consider the biblical record for this remarkable woman. She is mentioned first in every listing of the female disciples in the NT Gospels. She seems to have been the leader of that group of women who ‘followed’ and ‘served’ Jesus constantly from the outset of his ministry in Galilee. Luke says Mary is among a small number of people whom Jesus “healed of evil spirits and infirmities”--a sign, some say, of “perfected status” among Jesus’ followers. She remained loyal to the bitter, brutal end--the crucifixion. The Gospel of Luke has Mary among the women at the tomb who witnessed his body being laid to rest.
But now it is early on Easter morning, and we’re back in the Gospel of John. Mary has come all alone to that same dark, cold tomb. Suddenly, she sees that something is terribly amiss. She finds that the stone covering the entrance to the tomb had been removed! Assuming the worst--that Jesus’ broken body had been stolen--she runs to tell the others.
Two of the men quickly come and confirm that the tomb is open,
and the body is missing.
They don’t know what to make of it, so they go home. Only Mary
remains, “weeping outside the tomb.” Perhaps it took a while for her
to summon the courage, but eventually she bends over to look inside
the tomb. There she sees two angels, one who asks: “Why are you
weeping?”
I love the response Mary Jane Cornell of Atlanta Presbytery imagines Mary giving: When the angel asks, ‘Why are you weeping?,’ “Mary might well have asked the angel, ‘Why not?’” From there, Mary Jane imagines Sister Mary going on a tear:
If you're not weeping, she says to the angel, you haven't been paying attention. Don't you read the papers, listen to the radio, watch the evening news? Haven't you noticed? The principalities and powers of evil are running rampant.3
Violence and brutality rule the day. Betrayal and greed have eroded the public trust. When voices of protest have been silenced, there is nothing left but to weep.
What a contrast to the world Jesus has dared his followers to imagine.
A world where masters wash the feet of servants; and the winner is the one who comes in last, a world where the myth of scarcity (is) proven false by a 5,000 plate banquet served from the contents of a little boy's lunchbox . . . . A world where, instead of survival of the fittest, wolves and lambs (are) sitting side-by-side at the table, and homelessness (is) unheard of. 4
But that was then, this is now, and Mary stands weeping beside an open tomb, surely feeling helpless and hopeless. While standing there a stranger approaches her. Mary assumes he is the groundskeeper, the grave tender. Through her tears she pleads for help. Then he calls her by name, “Mary.” The sound of her own name on the lips the Master brings instant recognition: “Teacher,” she exclaims.
The Atlanta pastor whom I referenced just a moment ago tells a wonderful story about taking her young children out to the cemetery. Her mother has just died and been buried. Mary Jane thought her children too young for the funeral, but wanted them to see their grandmother’s grave. As she drove out to the cemetery, she tried to explain where they were going. And she told them grandmother was now with Jesus, fully aware that the squirming youngsters were only half listening. When they got out to the cemetery, her boys didn't linger long beside the grave. They were soon running around, as children will, playing in the cemetery, marveling over the variety of old tombstones. Suddenly, her three-year old pointed at an especially large sepulcher--one that looked almost like a house. "Look!" he exclaimed with a broad smile, "That must be where Jesus lives!" 5
We had thought the children were too young to understand, Mary Jane writes, but perhaps they caught a glimpse of the truth-- the truth that is sometimes hard for us older folks to see.
The hope of the resurrection is that this world is not just where Jesus died-- this world is where Jesus lives! And because Jesus lives, because God has broken the power of sin and death, we have been set free to live as well. Sometimes that is hard to believe. The principalities and powers of evil often appear to be in control. Some days it is hard to see with eyes of faith. That is why we need the church, so that in those times when our sight is blinded by tears, we can hold on to (one) another's faith.
That is why we need the meal we call the Lord's Supper. This sacrament might seem like child's play to the world. Dipping bits of bread into cups of wine--to a casual observer it would appear a harmless tea party. But when we look with eyes of faith, when we listen with ears of hope, in this bread broken, this cup poured, (in this community, coming two-by-two down the center aisle) we discover anew Mary's gospel: I have seen the Lord! When we eat this bread and drink this cup, we dare to imagine . . . 6
. . .that this is the world where Jesus lives. This is the world where Jesus “lives as God with us, touching all of human life with the presence of God.” Therefore, on this Easter morning we declare that Jesus is Lord.
His resurrection is a decisive victory over the powers that deform and destroy human life. (To be sure) His lordship is hidden. The world appears to be dominated by people and systems that do not acknowledge his rule. But his lordship is real. It demands our loyalty and sets us free from the fear of all lesser lords who threaten us. We maintain that ultimate sovereignty now belongs to Jesus Christ in every sphere of life. 7
Jesus is Lord'
He has been Lord from the beginning.
He will be Lord at the end.
Even now he is Lord.
1 Van Biema, David, “Mary Magdalene, Saint or
Sinner?”, TIME Magazine, August 11, 2003. See
http://www.danbrown.com/media/morenews/time.html
2 Ibid.
3 Cornell, Mary Jane, “Set Free,” a sermon preached on
Day 1 (formerly, The Protestant Hour), April 16, 2006. See
http://day1.org/986-set_free
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid.
6 Ibid.
7 “Declaraton of Faith,” IX, 5, PCUSA, 1977, 1991.