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Easter Message
Pastor Lisa Horst Clark
Easter Sunday
April 1, 2018
John 20: 1 – 18
Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!”
So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. Then Simon Peter came along behind him and went straight into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, as well as the cloth that had been wrapped around Jesus’ head. The cloth was still lying in its place, separate from the linen. Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. (They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.) Then the disciples went back to where they were staying.
Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot. They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?” “They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus. He asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”
Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.” Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”). Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them that he had said these things to her.
MESSAGE
Children at times have nightmares where in the dark, staring in the corners of the room, they may cry at things unseen: dark corners of worry made real before them. And I know from my own nightmares how real they can seem. What an urgency a dream’s demands can hold: I am there in the halls trying to find a class that has an exam and that somehow I haven’t known I’ve been signed up for and in all of my incessant knocking no one seems to know the answer to where I’m supposed to be. I’m fleeing from a figure, unknown and unseen but present and foreboding, the boogieman of my dreams right behind me. Or perhaps I, in the midst of sleep, picture a loss that is so visceral and real that even asleep my heart is breaking and all is lost. Within my heart and my chest it is a relief to hear a voice calling my name, “Lisa, Lisa, wake up,” in the middle of the night being called from the terrors of slumber into a place of presence and of safety and so, wiping the sleep from my eyes, calls my name, “Lisa, Lisa, wake up.”
And I can’t help but see in Mary’s frantic search for the body that wasn’t where it was supposed to be the frantic search that is answered only by her name, “Mary.” And suddenly the world she has known has changed around her; she has been called by name into a world where her terrors have fled. And so, this Easter let us sit in the place where the nightmares of your life may gather and listen to the words that call us by name and proclaim that the tomb is empty.
Our names a
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By First Congregational Church, BellevuePastor Lisa Horst Clark
Easter Sunday
April 1, 2018
John 20: 1 – 18
Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!”
So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. Then Simon Peter came along behind him and went straight into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, as well as the cloth that had been wrapped around Jesus’ head. The cloth was still lying in its place, separate from the linen. Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. (They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.) Then the disciples went back to where they were staying.
Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot. They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?” “They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus. He asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”
Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.” Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”). Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them that he had said these things to her.
MESSAGE
Children at times have nightmares where in the dark, staring in the corners of the room, they may cry at things unseen: dark corners of worry made real before them. And I know from my own nightmares how real they can seem. What an urgency a dream’s demands can hold: I am there in the halls trying to find a class that has an exam and that somehow I haven’t known I’ve been signed up for and in all of my incessant knocking no one seems to know the answer to where I’m supposed to be. I’m fleeing from a figure, unknown and unseen but present and foreboding, the boogieman of my dreams right behind me. Or perhaps I, in the midst of sleep, picture a loss that is so visceral and real that even asleep my heart is breaking and all is lost. Within my heart and my chest it is a relief to hear a voice calling my name, “Lisa, Lisa, wake up,” in the middle of the night being called from the terrors of slumber into a place of presence and of safety and so, wiping the sleep from my eyes, calls my name, “Lisa, Lisa, wake up.”
And I can’t help but see in Mary’s frantic search for the body that wasn’t where it was supposed to be the frantic search that is answered only by her name, “Mary.” And suddenly the world she has known has changed around her; she has been called by name into a world where her terrors have fled. And so, this Easter let us sit in the place where the nightmares of your life may gather and listen to the words that call us by name and proclaim that the tomb is empty.
Our names a