EASTER - SEEING ANEW

Easter Dawn

Is there anything so sublime as the hope one feels rising on Easter morning?  In childhood one immediately thinks of finding hidden baskets filled with chocolate eggs and bunnies.  The new clothes and hat one will wear to church.  The delicious meal one will share with family.
All beside the point really of Easter's meaning of hope and Resurrection brought though the suffering and blood of Our Lord. But we were too young for that reality, perhaps.  The connection with the cosmic event is made in myriad ways, young as one is, and on through our lives.   It's still mostly chocolate eggs, candy bunnies and jelly beans, marshmallow chicks, don't you find?  Does the Event break through all of this?  Ever?

John 20:1-18 brings us a view of a miraculous breakthrough:

John 20

Resurrection!

 ^1-2 Early in the morning on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone was moved away from the entrance. She ran at once to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, breathlessly panting, "They took the Master from the tomb. We don't know where they've put him."
 ^3-10Peter and the other disciple left immediately for the tomb. They ran, neck and neck. The other disciple got to the tomb first, outrunning Peter. Stooping to look in, he saw the pieces of linen cloth lying there, but he didn't go in. Simon Peter arrived after him, entered the tomb, observed the linen cloths lying there, and the kerchief used to cover his head not lying with the linen cloths but separate, neatly folded by itself. Then the other disciple, the one who had gotten there first, went into the tomb, took one look at the evidence, and believed. No one yet knew from the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead. The disciples then went back home.
 ^11-13But Mary stood outside the tomb weeping. As she wept, she knelt to look into the tomb and saw two angels sitting there, dressed in white, one at the head, the other at the foot of where Jesus' body had been laid. They said to her, "Woman, why do you weep?"
 ^13-14"They took my Master," she said, "and I don't know where they put him." After she said this, she turned away and saw Jesus standing there. But she didn't recognize him.
 ¹⁵Jesus spoke to her, "Woman, why do you weep? Who are you looking for?"
   She, thinking that he was the gardener, said, "Mister, if you took him, tell me where you put him so I can care for him."
 ¹⁶Jesus said, "Mary."
   Turning to face him, she said in Hebrew, "Rabboni!" meaning "Teacher!"
 ¹⁷Jesus said, "Don't cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go to my brothers and tell them, 'I ascend to my Father and your Father, my God and your God.'"
 ¹⁸Mary Magdalene went, telling the news to the disciples: "I saw the Master!" And she told them everything he said to her.
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Take the above verse by verse and it might just amaze you with a new seeing.  Paul wrote his letters in about 48 AD, Mark 65-66 AD, Luke 70-71 AD.  And here is John writing 90-95 AD, almost 100 years after his Lord made His sacrifice.  John's version differs from the other Gospel writers, though he knew of them as evidenced by some of the things he includes in his Gospel.  But John's scene at the empty tomb is so different from the other Gospels.  What is his purpose?  He takes us into a mystical realm.  There is Mary Magdalene, the one who had seven demons exorcized from her.  A woman alone at dawn in a quarry- a notoriously nasty place to begin with, to mourn as is the custom.  She 'bends over' to  look into the tomb through an opening usually 2' by 3' feet. This is not the picture we artists have depicted of a grand tomb, with a great stone covering the opening.  This is a niche hollowed out of limestone as would be in a quarry.  Mary Magdalene sees angels, one at the foot and one at the head of where Christ's body should have been in this small space.  The angels ask her, Woman why are you weeping?  In keeping with John's paralellism Jesus asks her the same question.  It's an important question and one we all must answer.
Mary is in a state of practical, ordinary reality, one might say- roughly analogous to our chocolate bunny and jellybean state perhaps?  Jesus calls her name, Mary!  And she sees.  Really sees!  She is close enough to God to touch Him, hold onto his body, embrace Him.  Jesus has to explain to Mary what has and is happening, to alert her to the great fact that will not only change her life but the life of the world.   She does what we are asked to do. Go tell!

John has bidden us all to see anew, to visit again the mystical realm where in grateful prayer Christ Jesus is truly met.