Reading the Gospels for Lent

 

Read John 20-21

 

Everyone, sing with me, “Christ the Lord is Risen today, Alleluia”…now just the women…now cue the trumpet!  Why do I think I am singing by myself?!? 

 

On Easter, we preach and proclaim that God’s love wasn’t defeated at the cross, God’s love arose and is still rising in our midst to this day.  Every Sunday is Easter Sunday.  Every Sunday we bask in the brilliance of the One whose grace and love will never let us go even when we are betrayed, denied, deserted, and put to death.  Love never ends.  What you will read in all four gospels (spoiler alert here) is that Easter isn’t Easter without the courageous women going to anoint the body of Jesus.  The women, or in John’s case, singular, Mary Magdalene, comes to the tomb with a cloud of grief and fear and praying, “Why, O God, have you forsaken me.” Easter starts in darkness before the first bright beams of sunlight peak over the horizon. Easter starts in sorrow-filled silence.  Easter starts not with fragrant flowers and singing “Alleluias,” but the souls of the disciples and Mary sagging.  In John, Mary sees the stone has already been rolled away.  Did she think Jesus’ body had been taken?  If you read all of 20, there is some evidence of that when she says to Jesus, thinking him to be the gardener ~ hold that, “If you have carried him away, tell me where you laid him.” (John 20:15). Then, Jesus speaks her name.

 

Wait. Don’t miss that.  Pause with me.  Knowing that Jesus/God/Spirit whispers your name today.  God calls you, “Beloved,” that is your first, middle, and last name.  Hold that beautiful mystery with me.

 

Mary thinks Jesus to be the gardener.  If you go back to the mediations from last week, we named that in John 1, the writer borrows from the creation poem of Genesis 1.  Here at the end, John returns to Genesis, the first book in the Bible.  Who are the first gardeners?  Adam and Eve.  Where is all this taking place?  In a garden!  Easter is about a new creation ~ within us and around us.  A new creation that we are tending the soil of our souls to receive during Lent.  We read the gospels, the good news that sets us free from all the binds and confines us, to taste God’s love for us in real ways.  So, my invitation is go outside…or at least go stand by a plant inside or window looking out… and read that God’s love is found in a garden.  Read how God rolls away stones that block us from life – maybe naming a stone blocking you right now.  Hold these truths as part of your story on this Tuesday in March.  May the Easter-ing love of God plant itself deep in the garden of your life today. Amen.