Sermon Easter Sunday 2022

Luke 24. 1-12, Cor 15. 19-26, Acts 10.34-43, psalm 118 1-2, 14-24

Those on the margins are given the good news, how is that good news for us?

 When the women go to the tomb and find it empty, they are scared and confused, yet the angels tell them to remember what Jesus had done while he had been with them to help them realise what his resurrection means.

 There are many aspects about this short conversation that are interesting. Firstly is the fact that it is the women who are there and are told to go and tell others. They are the first proclaimers of the good news, the women who would have been on the margins never in the forefront of things that happened. Secondly, for the women to remember it means they must have been there.

So often in the stories of what Jesus does the phrase the disciples is used and this makes us automatically think of the twelve, yet disciples would have referred to more than just them, and if the women are being asked to remember, the likelihood is they were also present. So when we think back on events such as the last supper bear in mind that the women were also present.

 Over Holy Week there has been a podcast called the Women of Holy Week, which reflects on a set of stories written by Paula Gooder. I’d like to read you one of those stories.

 Once when I’d been out walking off my restlessness, I met a man sitting on the shores of the lake talking to a large crowd of people. Something came over me. I knew I was talking, shouting and shaking, though I’d no idea what I was saying, and then, all of a sudden, a wave of peace washed over me, the veil lifted and I was myself again. The man – Jesus they said his name was – smiled at me and signalled to the people around him that I should sit at his feet, like a real disciple. I held back for a moment – it wasn’t seemly for a woman – but he signalled again and I couldn’t resist, so I sat and I listened and listened with the whole of my being. He was talking about being the good shepherd and calling his sheep, and them knowing his voice and following him. I smiled at that bit: I knew how true that was. But then when he’d talked about knowing the sheep by name and calling their names, I chuckled to myself. He’d clearly never been around sheep much. I mean, who in their right mind gives a sheep a name? It was a nice idea, though. From that moment on I followed him, me and a number of other women, like Susannah and Joanna and a handful of other Marys. So I was there when they killed him; we women clinging together in horror as the unthinkable happened before our eyes. We watched where they buried him – hastily because the sun had begun to dip below the horizon, announcing the start of the Sabbath day. We sat together that day, barely moving or speaking. The shock had rendered us senseless. Then, as the sun dipped again, marking the end of the Sabbath, I sprang to life. We had to do something. We’d agreed between us that we would return to anoint his body for burial.

I wish I’d kept my jar of nard now,’ said Susannah, wretchedly, ‘I had no idea we’d need it so soon.’ ‘Sweet girl,’ Jesus’ mother said from across the room, stirring herself from her grief-ridden stupor, ‘You honoured him in life: no gift is greater than that. We will find the spices we need.’ She was right. We did. We spread out across the city, begging, borrowing and buying what we could. In the early morning, when we met together and compared our haul, we had (we thought) just about enough. We went, carrying large water jars between us to bathe his poor battered body before anointing it. By the time we got near the place where the tomb was, the sun had just risen, casting eerie, early morning shadows over the whole area. We’d been talking as we went about how we’d move the stone that they’d rolled across the entrance. ‘That’s strange,’ Salome said as we approached. ‘The way the shadows fall make it look as though the stone has gone.’ We looked, all of us straining to see through the early morning light. ‘That’s because it has,’ said James’ mother. Our footsteps faltered, but then started again: we couldn’t bear to see what had happened now, but also we couldn’t bear not to see. We peeped in through the entrance and there, right inside the tomb – sitting as comfortable as you like – was a young man, his robe gleaming white. ‘Don’t be alarmed,’ he said. Salome let out a sound, halfway between a laugh and a scream. ‘He is not here, he’s been raised. Go tell the disciples – especially Peter – tell them that he’s going ahead of them to Galilee.’ We turned and ran, we ran and ran and ran, dropping the water and the carefully gathered spices as we went, never pausing for breath until we reached the safety of our rented room. In the end, I did tell Peter and the other disciple. I broke into his room weeping with the news of another disaster. Now, on top of everything, they’d taken his body as well. The shock of it was enough to jolt Peter from his misery and they ran back with me to see the empty tomb. They got there first. Their legs were longer than mine. By the time I arrived panting and out of breath, they’d seen for themselves that his body was gone; the linen wrapping lying there empty. After they left I stood outside the tomb for a while, my eyes blinded with tears, wondering whether I could salvage some of the ointment we’d dropped in our terror a few hours earlier. I leant against the entrance and let my grief and my weariness take hold of me. After a while I felt the overwhelming urge to look in the tomb one more time, so I bent and looked in. The young man had now been joined by someone else, and they were sitting at either end of the ledge. ‘Why are you crying?’ they asked. I’d opened my mouth to answer, when a voice behind me asked the same question. ‘Why are you crying?’

A tumble of words burst out of me. When I told people about this later I tidied up my words into a coherent, comprehensible sentence, but the reality is I babbled on a tide of tears and snot about ‘my Lord’ and ‘his body’ and ‘it was gone’ and ‘I don’t know where’ and ‘I didn’t know what to do’. He waited quietly for my gibbering to fade away and then he said just one word. ‘Mary.’ The good shepherd had called my name, and I knew his voice with every fibre of my being. Later, people would ask us – those of us who’d met the risen Christ – what he said that made us believe it was really him. Thomas would tell his story of Jesus’ wounds and of being asked to put his hands in them. Peter would tell his story of Jesus asking if he loved him. And then they’d look at me. ‘Mary met him first,’ they’d say. ‘What did he say to you?’ they’d ask. ‘He said “Mary”,’ I’d tell them. ‘Is that all? Did he say anything else?’ They’d look a bit disappointed. But I wasn’t. Not for a moment.

What does it mean for the women to be the ones sharing the good news for the first time? I believe it means that we all get to hear the good news, not just the privileged few. As women they would have had to work hard to make themselves be seen or heard, so they were less likely to discriminate who heard the good news they had to share. They also had the courage to share what they had seen and heard, where as the other disciples had hid for fear of being put to death as Jesus had been.

That God chose the women to be the first to see that Jesus had risen from the dead also meant that they knew that God valued and trusted them. Jesus as the Good Shepherd knows each of us by name and values who we are. Jesus only needed to say Mary’s name for her to understand, which gave her the courage to share the good news.

Throughout the gospels Jesus has been telling his followers who he is, but they hadn’t fully understood. It will in fact take them a bit more time to comprehend the impact that Jesus death and resurrection will mean for the whole world. I believe that having these women as the first Evangelists is good news for all of us, because it means we know Jesus’ death and resurrection is for all of us. No matter what has happened in our past, what gender we are, what sexuality we are, what colour we are. Everything about us is of great value to God and God wants us to know that we are valued. That is why the first to see Jesus and to know of his resurrection were the women. The women who so often had their names left out of scripture were all known and each of their names were valued by God, just as each of us is known by name and valued by God.    

Amen.