ウィスパリング同時通訳研究会コミュのEaster 2020: Easter Sunday Traditional Service

Colonel Winsome Merrett | April 2020 John 20:1–18
Have you ever thought: “Wow, that’s an opportunity I
missed”? Perhaps it was the opportunity to connect
with a long-lost friend, climb a mountain, grab a oneoff bargain or attend a significant event. Today we will
consider some potential missed opportunities relating
to Mary’s seeking after Jesus.
Mary misread the rolled away tombstone. Mary is looking for a body.
She had seen Jesus die. She had seen where they laid him in the
tomb. The rolled away stone meant his body had been removed. No
other possibility occurred to her.
Sometimes we are perhaps looking for a specific answer from God and
fail to see the response he is providing to our prayers or our needs
because it lies outside our expectations.
Mary Magdalene’s life had been transformed through her relationship with Jesus. This
Scripture tells us she was on her way to the tomb very early in the morning. John’s
gospel references it as still dark. Mary was going to anoint his body, to offer one last
act of love for the one who had changed her life and given her a future.
Mary is walking towards a place connected with death, a place associated with grief
and sorrow. She does so in the dark, also symbolic of her night of mourning and the
darkness of her unillumined understanding.
Little did she know that as she walked in her darkness and in the dark towards a place
traditionally connected to grief – her world was about to be brilliantly overcome with
the light of the resurrection reality.
There are a number of opportunities presented to Mary in these next few hours for
her to begin to sense this new reality. I see four opportunities for Mary to begin to
sense a new reality: that the body she was searching for was no longer a body, but a
resurrected Saviour.
Even today, God in his grace, gifts us varied opportunities to grasp the depth and
breadth of what it means to live in the reality of the resurrection presence of Jesus.
How often, like Mary, do we miss these opportunities to point us to the presence
of a living Saviour because we are looking for the wrong thing or because we are
consumed with the struggle of our own circumstances and concerns.

Mary misread the rolled away tombstone. Mary is looking for a body.
She had seen Jesus die. She had seen where they laid him in the
tomb. The rolled away stone meant his body had been removed. No
other possibility occurred to her.
Sometimes we are perhaps looking for a specific answer from God and
fail to see the response he is providing to our prayers or our needs
because it lies outside our expectations.
Mary Magdalene’s life had been transformed through her relationship with Jesus. This
Scripture tells us she was on her way to the tomb very early in the morning. John’s
gospel references it as still dark. Mary was going to anoint his body, to offer one last
act of love for the one who had changed her life and given her a future.
Mary is walking towards a place connected with death, a place associated with grief
and sorrow. She does so in the dark, also symbolic of her night of mourning and the
darkness of her unillumined understanding.
Little did she know that as she walked in her darkness and in the dark towards a place
traditionally connected to grief – her world was about to be brilliantly overcome with
the light of the resurrection reality.
There are a number of opportunities presented to Mary in these next few hours for
her to begin to sense this new reality. I see four opportunities for Mary to begin to
sense a new reality: that the body she was searching for was no longer a body, but a
resurrected Saviour.
Even today, God in his grace, gifts us varied opportunities to grasp the depth and
breadth of what it means to live in the reality of the resurrection presence of Jesus.
How often, like Mary, do we miss these opportunities to point us to the presence
of a living Saviour because we are looking for the wrong thing or because we are
consumed with the struggle of our own circumstances and concerns.
1
Mary misread the rolled away tombstone. Mary is looking for a body.
She had seen Jesus die. She had seen where they laid him in the
tomb. The rolled away stone meant his body had been removed. No
other possibility occurred to her.
Sometimes we are perhaps looking for a specific answer from God and
fail to see the response he is providing to our prayers or our needs
because it lies outside our expectations.
2
The second opportunity is missed because it appears that the
disciples, who Mary ran to speak to upon discovering the tomb
stone rolled away, did not share their insights with her after they had
entered the tomb. We read that Peter and John sprinted to the tomb,
where they discovered the grave clothes lying neatly folded in a way
that left them wondering – perhaps a mystery, yet to be explained.
There is no sense that in their observation of the unusualness of the
way the grave clothes had been left, that they said anything to Mary.
Sometimes people may miss out on the good news of a living Saviour
because we remain silent instead of engaging in conversation. Even
when we don’t have clear answers, our entering into the struggle with
others to express our faith in difficult circumstances can point others
to a compassionate, living Saviour.
3
The third opportunity comes as Mary looks into the tomb. Two angels
are now present and ask why she is crying. In her grief and inability to
see anything except that Jesus’ body is missing, these messengers
of light do not have any impact. Mary doesn’t miss a heartbeat in the
face of two angels speaking to her, but stays focused on finding Jesus’
body, so she can anoint his body and assuage her own grief.
Sometimes, it is like we don’t hear God even when he metaphorically
“shouts” at us for attention. We remain focused on our personal
agenda, missing the wonder and mystery of the message of a risen
Saviour walking each day with us.
We are not so unlike Mary: followers of Jesus as she was, serving him,
involved in doing good deeds, perhaps proving our love for him, but
overwhelmed with care and anxiety and grief.
But in attending to our personal agendas and busyness in life, we miss
opportunity after opportunity to grasp the reality of the presence of
the resurrected Jesus among us in our lives and circumstances.
Mary missed three opportunities which pointed towards a new reality.
And except for the intervention of Jesus, she would have missed this
last opportunity as well.
4
After missing the significance of the angels, Mary turns and sees a
person she assumes is the gardener who asks her two questions. But
Mary, instead of directly answering those questions, responds with her
request for him to show her where he has put Jesus’ body. She doesn’t
recognise Jesus.
Another, more obvious opportunity almost missed.
But Jesus simply says her name: “Mary!” Jesus’ tone and his use of
Mary’s name strikes a chord of recognition and familiarity within Mary.
Someone has said that the word, “Mary” is the shortest sermon ever
preached.
What did it convey? Hope, love, redemption, grace, a future, life.
It conveyed personal relationship, it conveyed the reality of the
presence of Jesus.
Mary has found the one she had been seeking – despite the missed
opportunities – and in doing so found so much more than she
expected. In reality, Jesus found Mary.

Mary’s story is now changed, her agenda is changed, her grief is removed, the
heavy burden she has been carrying is gone. She experiences a new reality in
her world because Jesus, whom she thought was dead, is alive and present and
interacting with her.
In her pain and grief, what broke through was not the angels, nor Peter and John’s
ponderings about the mysteriousness of those grave clothes, not the rolled away
tomb stone, not even, at first, the resurrected body of Jesus. What broke through
her grief and pain was the use of her name by Jesus. In saying her name, he
communicated familiarity, a “knowingness” of Mary, and hope and acceptance.
We, like Mary, may have missed opportunities to grasp the reality of the presence of
the resurrected Jesus at work in our lives and in our world. Our faith might be weak or
our grief might cloud our spiritual vision. We may have a restricted view of God, which
limits our awareness of Jesus’ living presence with us in the here and now.
But those who seek Jesus, even imperfectly, will find him. Because Jesus wants
to be found. There is no “hide and seek” here. Even when we miss the signs of his
resurrected presence among us, Jesus turns up, often when we least expect it.
Today, Jesus answers a prayer, he brings comfort to us through another person, his
Spirit highlights words of Scripture for us, he points us to a magnificent sunset or the
beauty of an opening flower, he challenges our thinking about his work in the world.
He makes us uncomfortable by his Word or the work of his Spirit within our lives. If we
are actively seeking after Jesus, inevitably and ultimately, Jesus shows up.
Today, he says your name …
“I am here. You are loved. You have a purpose.”
Don’t give up seeking the presence of Jesus in your life every day! Every day can be
an Easter morn for the follower of Christ, seeking the presence of the resurrected
Christ throughout our day.
Here’s the postscript to this story of grief and missed opportunities:
The resurrected Jesus gave Mary the message of Christendom to share. The one who
had either missed or misread the signs of his resurrection during that long morning,
this woman with a past (albeit a forgiven one), this woman of faltering faith, to her – not
Peter or John – to her he gave the mission of telling his disciples of his resurrection.
Do we understand how incredible this is? The most important message of
Christendom was given to Mary. What Jesus saw wasn’t her failings, but her devotion,
her persistence in seeking until she found.
May that same persistence mark our seeking after the presence of the resurrected
Jesus in our daily lives.
A personal encounter with the living Christ changes our world. It is not just an
intellectual discovery, nor just an emotional experience, it impacts the essence of who
we are. It becomes a relationship with the living God. The encounter itself provides
the reason for the message. Christ is risen – it’s a message worth living and a message
worth sharing.