Hearing is Believing

Sunday, April 8, 2007
Easter Sunrise Service

John 20:1-18

It is the third day.

For Mary Magdelene and the other disciples
time might have been flying by
or slowly marching onward
as they continued to contemplate
what they had seen and heard over the past week.

How did it all fit together?
Had only a handful of days passed?
Had it all really happened?

How could Jesus,
the one who had healed so many of the sick and lame,
the one who had come into town on a donkey,
the one who had just broken bread with them,
how could that Jesus really be dead?

But he is.
“It is finished.”
His body has even been laid in a tomb.
A stone has been rolled in front of it.

But it is the third day,
and Mary, who has risen while it is still dark,
(much like us today)
is drawn to the tomb.

Perhaps she goes to anoint Jesus’ body with more oils;
or to continue her period of mourning;
maybe she just wants to sit outside the tomb and keep watch.

Regardless, she expects to find death there.
But she finds something that seems even worse –
the stone has been rolled away.


The stone that was supposed to protect Jesus’ body.
Who could have done this?
Who would do such a thing?

Mary turns on her heel and leaves to tell the others.
They are little help.
Simon Peter and the other disciple race to the tomb.

The stone really has been rolled away.
They peer in and see that the tomb really is empty.
But then they return home.

And in the early hours of the third day,
Mary is left alone … outside the tomb … weeping.

For everything she sees points to
a friend who is dead and whose body is now missing:
a stone removed from the tomb;
the linen wrappings lying there;
the cloth that had covered a sacred head there also;
two angels in white.

And it all just adds to her weeping and her grief and her mourning.

Until a word – the Word – shatters the illusion.
“Mary,” Jesus says.
It’s enough to make her turn around
and take a second look at the gardener.

“Mary.”
It’s a voice she knows.
And with that one word, Mary recognizes him.

Suddenly, she knows; she really knows.
It isn’t the gardener standing before her.
This is her Teacher; this is her dear friend; this is Jesus!

And Mary begins to see.
Hearing has helped her to believe.

Jesus is alive!
Christ has risen from the dead!

It wasn’t what she expected, even though he talked about it.
It wasn’t what she anticipated that early morning.
This is something genuinely new and radical,
and only possible with God.

Those things she had seen earlier –
the empty tomb and the linen clothes and the head wrapping –
they didn’t mean that someone had stolen the body.

They were signs that God had defeated death.
Christ had been raised from the dead.
And now that Mary gets it,
she wants to hold on to him.

But Jesus tells her no.
His place is on the right hand of the Father.
And Mary knows that is true.

She sets off to find the other disciples.
To tell them what she has heard,
the thing that has enabled her to believe her eyes:

“Christ is risen!
He is risen indeed!
And he called me by name!

“He knew I didn’t yet understand what had happened;
and he called my name to make sure I got it.
Christ has been raised from the dead!”

Indeed, Christ has been raised from the dead!

And that Christ who appeared in the garden outside the tomb
and called Mary by name that first Easter morning,
is the Christ who still calls us by name.

He is the one who knows his own –
each weeping woman, every doubting disciple;
each tired follower, every joyful worshipper –

Christ is the one who knows each of his own
and calls out to them,
calls out to us.

Christ calls each one of us by name.
And with that single word,
we, who were nobodies, have been named and called anew –
we are children of God.

Children of God who have heard the voice of Jesus –
the voice of the One who knows us and calls us.

Calls us to celebrate and sing and dance.
Calls us to worship and praise and honor God.
Calls us to remember and hear the story anew.

But Jesus does not call us here for just a single revelation;
Jesus also commands us to go and speak –
to become proclaimers of the Word –
like Mary that first Easter morning.

And in so doing, Jesus not only calls us by name, but also calls us on.
Calls us on to Easter living.
Calls us to spread the Good News.
Calls us to tell the story so others may also hear the call,
that hearing may lead to believing.

In the name of our Risen Lord and Savior;
Alleluia. Amen.