Matthew 28:1-10
Mary and Mary Magdalene were not fools. Or rather, they were fools, but the kind that we all become when we love fiercely and completely. These two women were disciples, students of Jesus who had followed him on his journey from town to town. They had witnessed his healings and miracles, they had heard his sermons and teachings and they had asked him questions around the fire late into the night. They were there when Jesus said he would die at the hands of empire, and when it came to pass they did not run and hide like their brother disciples. The women in Jesus’s life followed him to the cross just as they had followed him on the long road to Jerusalem, watching and listening and learning from his word and example. And when they witnessed his death, when his body was taken from the cross and laid in a tomb, they marked the time and the final words and the location of his burial. They kept the Sabbath and grieved with their fellow disciples, and on the first day of the week they rose early. They went to see the tomb, to look for signs that their Lord’s promises had not been broken. Some might have called them fools for hoping to find anything but a sealed tomb, a closed door. Perhaps it felt a little foolish, even to them, a fool’s errand to bargain with the crushing reality of death.
But then all heaven broke loose. The earth itself shook. The great stone was rolled away, exposing the darkness of the tomb to the dawning day. An angel of the Lord, clad in blinding white and a face like flashing lightning, stunned the men guarding the tomb so badly that they passed out cold. To Mary and Mary Magdalene, the voice of the heavenly messenger confirmed their wildest and most foolish hopes. He is not here, he has been raised, as he said. The women saw for themselves the empty tomb, illuminated by the face of an angel. Impossible. All of this, impossible. Minds still reeling from the impossible truth, Mary and Mary Magdalene heeded the instruction to get on over to Galilee. They ran with racing hearts and burning lungs, minds tumbling with the fear and joy of impossible things and kept promises.
Suddenly, as Mary and Mary Magdalene ran, they were greeted with the one voice they should never have heard again. The voice they last heard crying out to God in anguish and pain, now greeting them with gladness. They must have laughed. It must have burst out of one of them, half laughter half sob. Tears turned to laughter and back again as they clung to him, to the body that was dead and is, praise God, alive. Fools, all over again, but in the best way, kneeling in the dusty road clinging to the feet of the Lord.
Mary and Mary Magdalene went to see the tomb, and they saw an angel. They went to Galilee, and they saw Jesus on the way. Notice the place they went to look for Jesus, and where they actually found him. Jesus was with them on the way. Not in the solemn expected place, but on the long dusty road. Mary and Mary Magdalene were the first witnesses of the resurrection, the first to preach the Gospel, and Jesus found them when they were breathless, with tears running down their cheeks and exhaustion clouding their vision and grief and doubt weighing down their limbs. Jesus came to them when they were on their way to find him, he met them where they were.
We like to know that we will meet Jesus here in church, where we expect him, where we look for him and where we are prepared to find him. We are okay with him showing up in our Bible studies, in our hospital rooms and doctor’s offices and recovery groups. We try to remember to call him when we need him, and maybe we bring him up when someone we love is going through a tough time or when a little one has questions about the world. But the resurrected Christ has a habit of showing up where we don’t expect him, usually when we’re on the way to someplace else. Encounters with the risen Lord are almost never as neat or tidy as our bedtime prayers or our table graces, and we’re almost always in some kind of hurry. In fact, we might not even recognize him, if we’re moving too fast or looking too hard at the same vacant tombs. When we find Jesus, it will be because he has already found us, right where we are. When we run into God on the road, it will be because God has never left us to walk alone. And no matter our destination, we can trust and believe that the Spirit of God is already at work there. We will make fools of ourselves from time to time, looking for what others believe to be long dead. We will be in good company. Come and see. Go and tell. Easter will happen along the way.
Mother A Writes 