Catherine Toon—Year A Easter 1

Anthony: So, let’s be liberated by God through the Scriptures. That’s why we’re here. So, let’s turn our attention to the first pericope of the month. It’s John 20:1–18. I’ll be reading from the New Revised Standard Version, the updated edition. It is a Revised Common Lectionary passage for the Resurrection of Our Lord, Easter Sunday, April 5, and it reads:

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. ² So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” ³ Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. ⁴ The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. ⁵ He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. ⁶ Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, ⁷ and the cloth that had been on Jesus’s head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. ⁸ Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed, ⁹ for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. ¹⁰ Then the disciples returned to their homes. ¹¹ But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb, ¹² and she saw two angels in white sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. ¹³ They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” ¹⁴ When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. ¹⁵ Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” ¹⁶ Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher). ¹⁷ Jesus said to her, “Do not touch me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” ¹⁸ Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord,” and she told them that he had said these things to her.

So, Catherine, if you were sitting having coffee or tea or whatever you enjoy drinking with a dear friend who’s unsure about God’s love for them, and you had this text open, what would you say from the text? And it’s just an opportunity to herald some good news.

Catherine: Yeah. Thank you. There are multiple things in here that are going on. When you look at the “characters” in the story and marrying the story and the other disciples, they are traumatized.

And it’s interesting because Jesus had mentioned his resurrection coming multiple. I need to, I will die, I will be resurrected. We can only receive to a certain point. So, he had prepared and they were yet not fully prepared. And so, this is what they come to and she sees this tomb.

And when you think of it, you think of the places that have represented death in our own lives, right? Loss in our own lives. And I love the way there is such a tender ministry that’s going on that starts with the angel, starts with the angelic, and they have the perspective of Jesus, the Christ as he is resurrected.

And so, meeting us in our humanity, we’re weeping because all we see is loss. Everything I put my hopes, my life, everything that was good died in that tomb. And died on the cross rather, and was put in that tomb. And then to have the humiliation of that body being taken away, all of that. She is traumatized.

And so, the angelic meets her with this question, why are you weeping? And it seems so obvious, right? I’ve lost; we’ve lost Jesus. They’ve taken away my … we don’t even have his body. It’s been desecrated. And then very personally, Jesus meets her in her trauma and there’s no condemnation.

But there’s that question, why are you weeping? He’s asking her like, duh, okay. In our place of weeping, there is a limited perspective. And then he adds what the angels didn’t. Whom are you looking for? And so, she’s looking for her Lord that she thinks is dead. She’s looking for the body.

And he’s veiled to her. And in so many places, God is veiled to us in our weeping, right? He’s with us in our weeping, he weeps when we weep, right? It’s very tender. But he’s also bringing us in the place of something bigger going on that will dry all those tears.

And the thing that prompted the veil off her eyes to be lifted, is when this beautiful God who is meeting her right where she’s at, with no condemnation, says her name. And there’s something about our God saying our name to us, we are known. And that’s when she was able to recognize the one she loved, right? That was when she was able to see the teacher.

But the one that she had followed and based her whole life off of. And he reveals something so tender to her in this, do not touch me because I’ve not yet ascended to the Father. This is revelation. Wow, you’re going back to the Father. And I love this. I’m ascending to my Father and your Father.

Anthony: Amen.

Catherine: That he accepts you are not an orphan. I may physically be leaving, but you’re one, you’re accepted and it’s personal to my God and your God. You know the humility of that with Jesus saying Father is my God and he’s your God. We are included in the fullness of his relationship with his Father in the Holy Spirit.

And so, this did something to her soul, that she was able to be the apostle to the apostles and proclaim the risen Christ. And because her heart was, she could see it now and she didn’t need to weep. And what does that mean to us personally? Number one, he knows our name. And says our name tenderly and draws us up out of our limited perspective to see that we had everything in him as the risen Christ and that we are one with our Father, one with him, one in the Holy Spirit. We have all things and everything that maybe was destroyed, a loved one dying, or whatever was lost, is all bound up in him. He loses nothing. Every fragment of our souls that feel shattered, he’s got them and he knows how to bring it together. Because if he can be the resurrected Christ coming from where he came from, he can resurrect things in our lives that seem hopelessly broken and lost.

Anthony: That’ll preach on Easter Sunday for sure. Thank you.

It strikes me that this had to be a day of extreme highs and deep lows for Mary. So, let’s spiritually imagine for a moment what this Jesus meant to her. You’ve alluded to it but tell us more.

Catherine: Yeah. Her very world hinged on him. This is why it was so traumatic, because her whole world hinged on this one that she knew as Messiah, and it is mind blowing to imagine him being taken away, but much less with crucifixion and everything that she actually witnessed.

And so, everything in her world hinged on this one, and it made no sense. She was with him to witness all of these things. And so, if Jesus is your everything and there’s a revelation of him that she didn’t know, and honestly, we don’t know. We’re all growing in wisdom and revelation that our whole being, the whole cosmos, everything that matters is connected to, is upheld by this one.

And so, you go from this complete desolation, you go from — it’s amazing the amount of trauma that these disciples did — and the ones that particularly could handle it and stayed faithful with him in this process and witnessed the whole thing, but not understanding the other side.

But this is — their everything was in context of Jesus. And so, for him to be resurrected means that everything, all things are possible. Truly all things are possible. What is impossible? That God is faithful being himself but not violating anything in his own ministry. Because he said, “I give you a new commandment, that you love as I love.”

And so, his being willing to bow down to human rage and bow down to death and bow down to all these things so that he could consume it in himself, on our behalf and be resurrected and resurrecting us with him. Of course, she didn’t have that revelation yet, but this was everything. She had a revelation of something that is so huge, that yes, this is the one, this is the one we’ve set all our hopes in. We put all our eggs in the Jesus basket, right in the issue with the basket. And he did not fail us.

Anthony: No ma’am. Grace was lavished on us, and he took us with him. Oh, it’s such a …. For me, Easter Sunday, it’s like this wonderful time to proclaim the good news, but it’s also can be a, like, how do you say it all? Like, how do you encapsulate what has transpired here? It’s so awesome. But it’s my prayer that as we come together as brothers and sisters in Christ and hear this word proclaimed, we will be once again filled with awe and wonder of this amazing God revealed in Jesus. Amen and amen.

Catherine: Amen.