“After the Sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb.” We need healing reunions, rituals. And reconciliations. We need to light candles, lay flowers, call friends, and keep the sabbath. There is healing in risking rejoining community. Mary and Magdalene share their grief, they carry it together. I hope a sensitive rabbi knew the headlines, saw the tears, and read Psalm 77. We need to know we are not alone, other faithful souls have known our grief, doubt, and fear.

I cry to God, aloud to God,
Amid the trouble I seek the Lord;
I pray all night,
but my soul refuses comfort.

I think of God and I just moan;
I meditate and my spirit faints.
I can’t blink. I have no words….

Will the Lord spurn us forever?
Has the steadfast love of the Lord ceased?
Have God’s promises come to an end?

I call to mind the deeds of the Lord;
I remember God’s wonders of old.
How the way was through the churning sea,
Your path lead us through the roaring waters,
yet Your footprints were unseen.

Matthew tells us Mary came with Magdalene to the garden. Mark adds Solome. Luke adds Joana and other women. They keep their membership vows upholding each other with their prayers and presence, surrounding each other with forgiveness and love. They brought fragrant oils, water and towels to clean up Jesus’ wounds, wash his bloodied hair and anoint Christ with oil. Is it a surprise that those practicing compassion are the first to experience Christ’s Resurrection?

Suddenly there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. The Bible sees no need to describe Jesus’ looks: height, hair style, or eye color. Jesus could be any of us, anywhere. But the angel looked otherworldly, a little scary, like lightning clothed in a white suit. The Police, the agents of Good Friday’s injustice, shook with fear and fell to the ground like dead men. (That could be a sermon, but we will save that for another week) Into this jarring scene the angel whispers “Do not be afraid…”

“Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. Jesus is not here: Christ has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where Jesus lay. Then go quickly and tell these disciples, ‘Jesus has been raised from the dead, and indeed Christ is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.’ This is my message for you.”

I hope one Easter Sunday all churches will heed the angel’s message and start ordaining women. How do people read “go tell my brothers, Jesus is Risen” and tell women to be silent in church? Not only does the angel select an all female ordination class, “Suddenly Jesus met (Mary, Magdalene, Salome, and Joanna) and said, “Greetings!” And the women came to Jesus, took hold of his feet, and worshiped. Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers and sisters to go to Galilee; there they will see me.” Not only are women the first Easter Preachers, they are the first Apostles! And unlike the Apostle Paul, the women saw more than a blinding light. (Acts 9) Unlike Paul, they did not need to ask “who are you Lord”. No,these female Apostles knew Jesus, hugged the Risen Lord, and worshiped Jesus. They had heard Jesus preach, witnessed the crucifixion, experienced resurrection, and then they went and woke up a sleeping church!

The angel outlines a 3 point sermon for Apostle Magdalene and Pastor Mary
1)Christ is risen
2) Christ is going ahead of you
3) You will see Christ
Christ is Risen is good news, but maybe it is better news is that Christ is going ahead of us, you and I will see God out there, over there and all around us.

Every Sunday night, Belmont’s youth group passes around a candle and answers the question: “Where did you see Christ this week?” Each week, they see Christ in others, in nature, in acts of mercy, moments of compassion, and visions of hope. Christ is not here, Christ is Risen. Christ is going ahead of us. Christ is making all things new. The Apostle Paul said “In Christ we are a new creation, everything old is passing away, behold, all things are becoming new. ( 2 Corinthians 5)

The Bible tells us Christ appeared to Magdalene, Mary, Salome, and Joanna; then Peter and John, then ten disciples, then Thomas, then as many as 500 people. Years later the Apostle Paul adds,“and last of all Christ appeared to me, as if I were born at the wrong time.” (1 Corinthians 15) Paul is not claiming to be the last Apostle or the final word on Jesus, no in Ephesians 3 Paul : “I pray that God’s Spirit may strengthen and empower you so that Christ may dwell in your heart, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” Christ is always going ahead of us, empowering us, opening our eyes to see, softening our hearts to serve, grounding us in love, and drawing us deeper into God’s boundless love.

But do we notice that the Risen Christ is changed? How could crucifixion and death, not change even God? Sometimes, I have gotten so caught up in earthquakes, frightened soldiers, lightning-like angels, and rolled away stones that I have failed to notice that the angel announced Jesus as: “Jesus who was crucified”! What does it mean that “Jesus who was Crucified” goes ahead of us?

I wonder, would God end all suffering without experiencing it? Could God heal us without knowing our wounds? Could God “reconcile all things on earth or in heaven” ( as Paul claims) without enduring our unforgiveness, rage, and recrimination ? (Colossians 1)

In The Wounds are the Witness Yolanda Pierce writes “Even after Jesus had defeated death, he appears to the disciples as a man with wounds….. Jesus makes it clear: he has experienced the fullness of human suffering unto death, and that kind of suffering leaves you marked and changed. Wounds, too, are a part of the divine story…. (if) the wounds of the risen Christ do not immediately close, why do we expect our own wounds to heal in such a hurry? …The risen Savior, who had been abandoned, denied, betrayed, and crucified, doesn’t hide his wounds or rush their healing. As wounded people encased in the frailties of human flesh, can we, too, summon enough grace and kindness to acknowledge that our own very human wounds need time to heal?” The Risen Christ is changed by crucifixion- a wounded healer. Our Crucified Lord is not aloof or “unable to sympathize with our weaknesses”, but having experienced every human test goes before us with compassion, mercy and grace. (Hebrews 4)

Father Richard Rohr suggests that when we ponder how the Risen Christ is the Crucified Lord, we begin to find compassion for ourselves and for others. (The Universal Christ) Perhaps Christ did not suffer to fulfill some blood covenant, but so that our image of an angry God might die? Boundless Love is not subject to rules around payment for sins. Such a God is too small. But God knows our woundedness and goes ahead of us, beckoning us to rise, to live, to forgive, heal, reconcile, give and to love. When we see our Crucified Lord going ahead of us, we more easily see the image of God in all people, including ourselves, and perhaps especially in those who are despised, rejected, wounded, judged, excluded and condemned. Indeed, by Christ’s wounds we are made whole, for Christ does not come to dominate but to liberate, not to judge but to heal, not settle a score but to make us whole.. (Isaiah 53)

Christ is not here
Our Crucified Lord is Risen
And going ahead of us
You will see him

Love is going ahead of us
Making all things new
Resurrecting, reconciling, reimagining
Embracing, accepting, forgiving
Changing our plans, our desires, our future

Through wounds Love heals us
Through Love God unshackles our deaths-dealing past
With Love God liberates, releases, lifts up
With Love God Love heals, saves, empowers, perfects
Through Love Christ makes all things new

Christ is not here,
Christ is Risen
And going ahead of us,
You will see God, making all things new. Amen