Easter C – George Yandell
“Now I lay me down to sleep…..” How many of you recited that bed-time prayer as children? I don’t know about you, but I never dwelt on “If I die before I wake, pray the Lord my soul to take.” Some say Jesus was praying a bedtime prayer on the cross, psalm 22- we’ve been reciting Psalm 22 on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, but we’ve left off the last stanzas, which are uplifting. They are vindication for the one praying the psalm, where God has forsaken him. Hear some of those stanzas:
“To God alone all who sleep in the earth bow down in worship; my soul shall live for God, my descendants shall serve God; they shall be known as the Lord’s forever. They shall come and make known to a people yet unborn the saving deeds that God has done.” If Jesus did pray those stanzas, he was doing much the same that many of us did- he was taking solace from familiar bedtime words. Almost foretelling that his ministry, his life would continue and thrive after his death. And then, Easter morning:
Resurrection!! Jesus rose from death before anyone else knew of it. He rose alone, long before dawn, on the first day of the week after Passover in 30 a.d. It was a new day, a new week, a new creation. God had raised him, not taking his soul, but re-creating Jesus, a new man.
The idea of resurrection was known first in the mind of God. The unfathomable, impenetrable mystery of the mind of the Lord of all creation- Resurrection first generated in God’s unknowable consciousness. The resurrection of Jesus occurred beyond our world, first. The bond of Father to Son, Son to Father, reknit itself after 3 days, and an eternity, of death. Then, flesh, holy flesh, lived; a new body, a new Self. Jesus stretched new sinews in the dark, cool tomb- and all the hosts of heaven simply shouted in victory!
What was the first action of Jesus on that Easter morning? We have a tiny, often overlooked clue- it is mentioned only in the gospel of John; but to me it is today’s symbol of the Son of Mary, the Son of God, risen in new, victorious life. The first thing Jesus did was to practice the ritual he’d learned as a child- he made his bed.///
John says, “Mary came to the tomb when it was still dark and saw that the stone had been removed. She ran and went to Simon Peter and said, “They have taken him out of the tomb and we do not know where they have laid him.” “Peter went right up to the tomb and went in. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself.” The small humeral cloth, carefully folded and placed, speaks to me– of simple rituals enacted by people everywhere– tiny gestures of order on first waking– the Son of God arose, removed his burial linens, and neatly folded the cloth of linen that had been placed so lovingly over his face. Placed by friends who were heartsick and horribly afraid. Jesus, with tender care, folded the cloth and placed it aside.
Then later in the morning at dawn, Mary Magdalene was again at the tomb. She found it open and vacant. She ran to tell the disciples, and they had come and found the cloths, and Jesus gone. Then Mary came back to the tomb, she stood at its entrance, weeping. When she looked in, two angels in white sat where Jesus had lain, and asked her “Why are you weeping?” She said through her tears, “They have taken my lord and I do not know where they have laid him.”
When she said this, she turned around and saw Jesus but did not recognize him. Jesus asked her, “Why are you weeping?” -the same question the angels had asked- and she asked him, thinking he was the gardener, “Where have you taken him?” And Jesus simply said to her, “Mary.” And she was undone!
Another very simple act- Jesus spoke lovingly, directly to the first human who knew him as the resurrected Jesus that morning- he spoke to end her tears, but I would guess they flowed over then- for simple unbelieving joy, not fear. These are simple morning actions- making one’s bed, quietly greeting the first friend you meet, concerned about their well-being- yet this was RESURRECTION!
We can’t know the way, the mechanisms God used to raise his Son from the dead. We hear that the familiar was still familiar to Jesus, but he himself was changed- not recognized immediately by those who loved him best. We don’t hear details we’d like to hear- about what Jesus experienced in death, about his private conversations with all the disciples. We have only glimpses, little vignettes, about Jesus. But we know why he was raised- to renew all creation- to raise us with him into the life with God we were created for, and redeemed into anew. Easter is the giddiest, the wildest celebration the world has known. In the immensity of all space, all time, a dark earthy tomb held, and then could not hold, our Lord. Sing with the angels and remember- the impeccable care of Jesus folding his burial veil- that care is now lavished on you and me!