Happy Easter everyone! I’m so glad you’re here. For decades, the greeting at Emmanuel Church has been, “welcome wherever you are on your spiritual journey.” I’ve been expecting and hoping that wherever you are on your spiritual journey, you might just show up here today and you have, and I am very grateful because we have prepared a place for you. And of course I have some things I really want you to hear, so listen up!

All four Gospels tell different and contradictory stories of what happened after Jesus was crucified and laid in a tomb. Do you know that? But they agree that he was laid in a tomb. It’s a truly remarkable part of the story – highly implausible actually – that Jesus was laid in a tomb. Victims of crucifixion were human billboards of horror not just while they were dying, but after death they were usually consumed by scavenging dogs and birds. They didn’t have people taking them down and wrapping them in burial cloths and laying their bodies gently in a big walk-in tomb. That just didn’t generally happen. But all of the Gospels tell that Jesus was laid in a tomb, and that when the women who loved Jesus went to the tomb after the Sabbath, they found that his body was gone. All of the Gospels tell that it was the women who first witnessed the emptiness of the tomb – different women are named in different Gospels, but all agree that Mary Magdalene was there and Jesus’ body was not.

According to the Gospel of John, Mary had gone to the tomb to weep alone. There was nothing else to be done because, according to John, Joseph of Arimathea had already anointed Jesus with a hundred pounds of myrrh and aloes provided by Nicodemus, and had wrapped his body with linen cloths. Mary had gone to the tomb to weep and she found that the stone covering the entrance to the tomb had been rolled away. She ran to get Peter and the beloved disciple who, in turn, raced back to the tomb and they saw that the tomb really was empty of Jesus’ body. The Gospel of John says a curious thing here: they believed but they did not understand – or know – or comprehend. Whatever believing is, according to John, it is distinct from understanding or knowing or comprehending. John also says that Peter and the beloved disciple, of all people, these two did not yet understand that Jesus must rise from the dead. Here we have Simon Peter and the beloved disciple portrayed as agnostic believers. And then John says, they returned to their homes. They had homes in or near Jerusalem? Huh.

But Mary stayed weeping outside the tomb. The empty tomb was nothing like good news for her. Rather, it added insult to her broken heart. She just wanted to know where Jesus’ body was when she saw others sitting in the tomb. “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him,” she said. Still weeping, she saw the risen Lord and did not know that it was Jesus. She saw and she still did not know – she did not recognize. She persisted in asking her question. Mary is portrayed here as an agnostic seer! And I love that she is asked by two messengers (or angels) and by a man she perceives to be the gardener, why she is weeping. No one tells her not to weep – to quit her crying. No one ever tells her to stop being so sad. I love that because of my own belief in the sacrament of tears – outward and visible signs of inward and spiritual grace.

What she hears through her sobbing is the Risen Lord calling her by name. What she hears is an instruction not to try to hold or cling to his body. What she hears is an assurance that death has not had the last word. What she hears is that Jesus is going up, growing up, arising, ascending into the Holy One – “my father and your father,” he says, “my God and your God,” One and the same. “Go and tell my brothers,” Mary hears the Risen Lord say to her. Go and tell the others. They are in their homes trying to figure out how to put the pieces back together. Go and help them realize that they are the pieces.

You know, Mary Magdalene was present at the crucifixion, at the burial, and at the empty tomb. She was the first to see the stone rolled away, the first to see the Risen Lord, and the first to tell that Jesus was with God and in God. Mary was the first to testify to the power and the possibility of the empty tomb. She was the first apostle – the first one sent to tell (which is what apostle means). Maybe you also know that there is a Gospel of Mary Magdalene, which did not make the Biblical canon. In it, Mary Magdalene is portrayed as the comforter, a prominent disciple, a visionary and a spiritual teacher. According to Karen King, professor over at Harvard Divinity School, the early Church fathers mostly ignored Mary Magdalene in their writings, but whenever they did mention her, they portrayed her in a consistently favorable light. It wasn’t until the fourth century that the facts of her leadership became just too problematic for the patriarchy in the west. (Not coincidentally, that was when Christianity became the religion of the empire.)

By the sixth century, Pope Gregory took care of the trouble with this uppity female role- model once and for all by preaching that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute and an adulteress. (1) But there is no evidence whatsoever that Mary Magdalene was anything but a most constant and devoted friend of Jesus, who provided for his ministry out of her own financial resources, and ensured that his story did not die when he died. She was an authoritative witness and an important leader in the Jesus movement, before and after his crucifixion. So let’s rescue her from centuries of slander, from widespread character assassination. Let’s admire her and emulate her and thank God for her leadership.

What I want you to hear is that we can have different and contradictory stories when it comes to our true experiences of the mystery and mischief of the Divine. The contradictions can be Gospel truths. The contradictions can be within and between our communities, within our families, and most importantly perhaps, within our own selves. “The Gospel Truth” is that not only are contradictions survivable – some even help us thrive!
What I want you to hear is that Biblically speaking, believing is not the same as understanding; it’s definitely not the same as knowing or proving. Seeing is not the same as recognizing. I’m making a case here for the fine and long tradition of faithful agnosticism in Christianity that goes all the way back to the Gospels themselves. Perhaps you’re thinking, this is a strange Easter sermon! And I guess you’re right – I just don’t have you all together very often and I don’t know if and when you’ll be back!

What I most want you to hear is your own name being called by the Risen Lord – even if you haven’t recognized him. I want you to hear your own name being called through your disappointments and devastations, your sadnesses and despairs, your humiliations and losses, the changes and chances of your life, even through the violences and degradations and the hells to which you have descended. Hear that you are called by name to participate in God’s lavish gifts of Life and Love. Hear that death has not had the last word. Hear that you are to go and tell the others.