Mary The Tower Weeps

 

¹¹ Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb ¹² and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot. ¹³ They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?”  “They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” ¹⁴ At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus. ¹⁵ He asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?” Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.” ¹⁶ Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”).

 

The mystery and marvel of Easter can never be confined or contained within one day; there is a whole season of prayerfully seeking to be an Easter people.  For fifty days, we explore and experiment with what it means to “Easter” as a verb in our lives.  This is even more important as the memory of the empty tomb fades into the background and the world moves on.  Tending and keeping Easter is important, as each day the stories we absorb offer us more evidence of how far we must go for the resurrection realm to interrupt and intercede in our world.  The headlines you read this morning were more than enough to convince you that there is still too much brokenness in our world.  Wars.  Famine.  Dehumanization.  Political bickering rather than dialogue.  Systems breaking down, hurting people, and treating the earth as a means to money rather than God-crafted and created.  And you have evidence in your own life that resurrection didn’t magically make everything better.  Your own struggles and stress: physically, emotionally, spiritually, and relationally.  We want to shout, “Come on, God!  I sang with all my heart at the top of my voice, “Christ the Lord is risen today!”  Please!!”  I return to this image of Mary the Tower weeping outside the empty tomb.  Hold this.  Step into the scene.  Mary shows us that before we can encounter the mystery of resurrection, we are invited to be honest with our grief.  Grief can make us feel lonely, lost, and isolated.  Mary is alone.  Peter and the Beloved Disciples failed Pastoral Care 101 when they just left her there to deal with her own emotions.  It breaks my heart that two of the disciples of Jesus forgot their connection to Mary.  To be sure, part of the suffering in our world has always been our denial and dismissal of seeing each other as fully reflecting God’s image.  Racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, economic oppression, and cultural wars are all based on a us-versus-them way of the world.  Much of our world and ways of being are based on scarcity, that there is not enough for everyone, so some of us have to, must, need to get ours while the getting is good.  What you read this morning is evidence of a world that worships at the altar of individualism.  Is the war impacting me and my wallet?  Is this famine close to me or do I have a comfortable distance?  Is it someone I love who is losing his/her/their rights? 

 

Mary wept.

 

I weep this morning for a world of disciples who continue to refuse to see that resurrection isn’t about personal belief, but about communal lament, healing, reconciliation, and living differently.  What griefs do you carry this morning?  Name, notice, and join Mary outside the tomb.  Reach out to me and others so that we might weep together.  May God’s love enfold and hold us as we continue to live into a life where resurrection and Easter-ing are what guide and ground us.  Amen.