"Why are you crying?" We're told that Mary Magdalene was asked this question, as she stood weeping outside the tomb on that first Easter morning. "Why are you crying?" Surely the answer to that question was obvious. Mary had come to mourn at the grave of a loved one, who was now dead.
"Why are you crying?" Like Mary, there are many who mourn in our world today; those who weep for the loss of a loved one. Whether death has come as a result of human conflict or natural disaster, greed or injustice, accidentally or deliberately, or simply as a result of a terminal illness, its effect is the same. Death calls life, love, and everything of worth, into question.
"Why are you crying?" For Mary Magdalene, the past few days must have been full of tears. Like the other disciples, her world had been turned upside down. Although Jesus had often warned them that this was going to happen, the terrible turn of events had been overwhelming. Her hopes dashed, and her heart broken, the only thing left for Mary was to come to mourn in private at the place where the body of Jesus had been laid to rest. But now she was faced with a startling, shocking sight. The tomb had been opened, and the body of Jesus was gone.
As she stood outside the tomb crying, Mary saw two angels in the tomb, and she heard them ask her this question: "Why are you crying?" Her reply was one of utter despair: "They have taken my Lord away, and I don't know where they have laid him." Not only was Jesus dead, but even His body had been removed. Now Mary had no focus for the outpouring of her grief.
Many others in our world today are also denied a focus for the outpouring of their grief. Many have loved ones who have simply disappeared, been taken away, never to be seen again. No body to bury, no grave to mark their resting place. Just a name and a number on a long list of the unaccounted for.
"Why are you crying?" No wonder Mary was distraught on that first Easter day. Death had cut her off from the One who had given her life new hope and meaning. She had watched the One whose love had healed her being brutally executed. And she had been powerless to do anything to help Jesus, except to stand there and watch to the bitter end. Perhaps she found herself asking those instinctive questions, questions like "Where are you, God, in all of this mess?" "Why did you let it happen?" "Why Him?" "Why me?" "What have I done to deserve this?"
Mary's pain and perplexity, her grief and bewilderment, were palpable. But now, through tear clouded eyes, Mary became aware that she was not alone in the garden. Someone else was standing by her. At first, she did not know who it was. Then she heard Him call her by name, "Mary." Was she going mad again? Hearing voices? Or was it something else? A memory of another time when she had been called like that, called by her name? Addressed by a voice of acceptance and love in a way that gave her a new sense of dignity and worth, and that made her stand tall. And then she knew. "Rabboni!" "My rabbi!"
For Mary, the truth had dawned slowly. It was only gradually that she came to recognise the Presence of the Risen Lord through the darkness of her pain and grief. For Mary, Easter was no blinding flash of divine glory. Rather, it was a slow dawning of light in the darkness.
That continues to be true. In our world which so often seems locked into the death, destruction, and despair of Good Friday, the light of Easter dawns slowly. Yet dawn it does, for those who are open to seek and recognise the light of the Risen Lord.
And, once it dawns, once the Presence of Christ is known, His light is to be shared. John's Gospel tells us how the Risen Lord at once gave Mary Magdalene a vital task. She was to go and tell the others "I have seen the Lord!" Mary was to be the apostle to the apostles. "I have seen the Lord!" Mary carried the message of Jesus to the others, news of joy banishing sorrow, the Presence of God's light and life banishing the darkness. Jesus was alive in a new way, death was undone. God's purposes were being fulfilled, and Jesus was going to the Father, just as He had said.
The same message of Easter has been carried to us here this evening. A message of a new reality revealed in Jesus Christ -God's hidden power at work, the dawning of a New Creation. Whatever our circumstances, however dark our world, the Living Lord is present, waiting to be recognised, and His Presence has the power to change everything. For, in the light of Easter, something has altered, decisively, eternally. In Christ, a new world has begun. It is world whose door now stands open to us, as open as the entrance to the tomb that first Easter day.
John Barr
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