Easter Sunday, April 17
New Life Out of Death
Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”; and she told them that he had said these things to her. —John 20:1, 15-18
I’m a plant killer.
I kill plants. I don’t mean to. I just have a remarkable ability to make sure plants do not live. I either over water them or under water them. I either smoother them with love or neglect them for too long.
So it should come as no surprise to you that I am not the gardener in our family. Ben and Julian maintain a little herb garden in our backyard, and I do my best to stay out of the way.
It was in a garden that Mary Magdalene meets Jesus on Easter morning. The Gospel of John even tells us that Mary thought Jesus was the gardener.
What an apt place to experience resurrection – in a garden. What an appropriate place to meet out resurrected Lord. In the garden, a place where things that had once seemed dead in the winter, that had once seemed dead on Good Friday, now explode with life. The garden is a place where seeds are buried in the ground, in the hope and faith that they will rise.
But if we didn’t know better, we might think that digging down, and placing the seed in the ground would be burying it – not planting it. If we didn’t know better, we might think that that seed – that potential for life – was gone permanently.
Certainly that is what the disciples must of have thought when Jesus was crucified and his body was placed in the tomb. And then…Boom! Somewhere out of nowhere pops a bit of green through the soil…and then a bit more…then a flower…then a fruit. New life springs forth!
And just like that – RESURRECTION!
From the “death” of the seed will come new life. Transformation. Life from death. From the darkness of the grave, a stone rolled away. Resurrection! Life from death.
There may be times we feel like we are being buried…buried in too much work, a schedule too full, in a mountain of grief, in pain, loneliness, or loss…but the transformation is happening, the green shoot of the plant is forming and resurrection is coming.
Today we celebrate the resurrection of our Lord. There is new life out of death! There is hope for all of us. Resurrection is here!
Lord of Life, Open us to the power of your resurrection as we celebrate it anew this day, that we too might rise to new life in you. Amen.
Rev. Lane Cotton Winn
Lead Pastor, St. John’s United Methodist Church