Sermon: While It Was Still Dark

John 20:1-18

While It Was Still Dark

James Sledge                                                               March 31, 2013 - Easter

Today is the pinnacle of the Christian calendar. Christmas may have surpassed Easter from a secular standpoint, but today is still the big day for Christians. It’s the Sunday service most of us would hate to miss.  Attendance swells at Easter because we all know, whether we’re deep theological thinkers or not, that everything depends on, “Christ is Risen!”

Given this, I suspect that most Christians have some sort of picture of the first Easter in their minds.  Even many who scarcely know the Bible still know the story of women going to the tomb on Easter morning, finding the stone rolled away, the tomb empty.

What does the scene look like in your mind?  If you were painting a picture of it, how would you depict it?  In my mental picture the sun is still just below the horizon, and a gentle red glow colors the sky. The scene is pregnant with expectation.  Day is dawning. The brightness is about to spring forth and reveal the good news that the tomb is empty.

The synoptic gospels – Matthew, Mark, and Luke – picture it this way as well.  They speak of “early dawn” or “when the sun had risen.”  But John’s gospel says something very different in our reading this morning. Mary Magdalene goes alone to the tomb while it was still dark.

Leave it to John’s gospel, so different in style and tone, to picture Easter so differently. The Sabbath, which had prevented adequate attention to Jesus’ burial, actually ended at sundown on Saturday, but people, especially women, were wary of going out at night, in the dark. And night was a lot darker in Jesus’ day.  No street lights or glow from the city. Yet John depicts a lone woman going out in the dark of night.

Biblical literalists struggle to harmonize John’s gospel with the others, but that seems unnecessary. John isn’t correcting a time error by the other gospel writers.  He is saying that when Mary went to the tomb, all evidence pointed to victory by the forces that oppose God. 

Darkness is a theological category in John’s gospel.  Jesus is the light that has come into the world. But darkness has snuffed out the light, has crucified Jesus, and the world is plunged into darkness. For Mary, and for all Jesus’ disciples, darkness seems to have overwhelmed the light. And who among us hasn’t felt the same way. The world often seems to brim with darkness while the light flickers and seems so faint.

In the darkness, Mary somehow finds the empty tomb, its stone rolled away. She runs and tells the disciples, who come and confirm her finding, but then return home. Yes, the tomb is empty, but it is still dark.

And Mary weeps.  She weeps in the darkness.  She weeps over the darkness.  It seems to me a lament.  Mary mourns the triumph of darkness.  She weeps for what the world could be, for what God hoped it to be. In the darkness, she weeps. 

John’s gospel never tells us that the sun came up, but it does announce the arrival of the light. “Mary,” Jesus says.  The good shepherd calls her by name, and light pierces the darkness.  No wonder people flock to churches on Easter. Christ is risen!  The darkness has not triumphed. Despite all the power and terror of darkness, the light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it.

No wonder Mary grabs hold of Jesus and does not want to let him go. Light has come into her darkness, and she clings to it with all her might.  But Jesus says no.  “Do not keep holding on to me.”  For Jesus’ work to continue, he must become present to all through the power of the Spirit.  “Do not keep holding on to me,” Jesus says.  I have work for you to do.

Christ is risen!  In a world filled with darkness, the light shines.  And like Mary we long to cling to the light, to hold on to the wonderful feelings of this day, to the joy and the beauty and the flowers and the brightness. But we cannot linger too long here.

In a world awash in darkness, we must proclaim the victory of light.  In a world that armed to the teeth and convinced that might makes right, we must proclaim and model the way of peace.  Amidst darkness that creates fear and polarizes people, that calls forth shrill voices labeling all who disagree with them an enemy, we are called to proclaim and model love for all, even those who truly are our enemies.  In the darkness that insists you must take care of yourself first because no one else will, we are called to proclaim and model self-giving that offers itself for the other.  In the darkness that isolates people, we are called to proclaim and model a community of love that welcomes all, that embraces and cares for all.

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb.  And the darkness enveloped the world.  It was suffocating, and it mocked those who had followed Jesus, laughing at their foolishness for believing in him.  But then Jesus spoke, “Mary.”  And the light shone in the darkness.  The darkness had not overcome it.  And Jesus said to Mary, and says to us, “Go.  Proclaim light into the darkness of the world.  Go.  Teach the world how to live in the light.”