Easter Sunday 2022

This sermon was given on Easter Sunday 2022. The Gospel was John 20:1-18. Happy Easter to you!

In the beginning, the very beginning, the world was without form, and darkness covered the face of the deep.

God spoke something different into that formless void, into the literal chaos. God spoke a word, and the word was light. In naming it, it came into being.

On the first morning of the new creation, the world was dark. The sky had turned black on the Friday, and it was still dark when Mary came to the tomb.

We expect great new things to start with a fanfare; with fireworks and a party. They don’t. Things start in the dark. That’s when most births happen – for humans as well as animals – when it is night time and the sky is black.

The world may seem a dark place today. It is still Easter; Easter always starts in the dark.

The light of Easter 

The thing about darkness, is it hides what’s really going on. Mary got to the tomb in the dark, and – although she could see the stone was rolled away – she could not perceive what had already taken place; the earth-shattering miracle that had already happened. She assumed grave robbers, and ran to tell the other disciples. And when she returned with them, and they entered that dark empty tomb, they too saw – the absence of a body, and the folded grave clothes – but they did not see. Instead, they believed Mary’s account, and they went back to their homes, leaving Mary alone, weeping for her lost friend.

But, as she wept, and the day began to break, Mary noticed in the early morning light that the tomb was not as empty as it had previously seemed. Two men, robed in light, were sitting inside. “Why are you crying?”, they asked her. But still, she did not see.

And then, she turned around and there was a man; the gardener.

In the beginning, there was a garden. And in that garden was a man, and a woman. They had been spoken into life by the Creator. The man tended the garden, and in his own turn, he spoke words to it. In speaking, he named the many, many things in the garden.

The man in the garden of the new creation and the empty tomb also spoke, but he named only one thing. He named the woman; “Mary”, he said. 

And then, in the beautiful, bright light of the new first day, as the gardener spoke her name, she saw.

She saw the truth of the resurrection through the light of the Christ who had called her. And she saw that these things that had seemed so ordinary under the cover of darkness – a stone, a grave, some folded clothes, two men, a garden, a gardener and a weeping woman – had been, all along, the signs of the miraculous. But this is the way of God; miracles are not made with spell-books or magic wands, but with the ordinary; a garden, a manger, mud and spit, a wooden cross, and bread and wine, and people – ordinary people called by God by name. Your name.

So often, we try to contain God; to fence him into his place and compartmentalise our lives. “God belongs in the church, at the altar. He is for Sunday mornings, and baptisms and funerals.” We hold onto the thought that some things are sacred and some are secular, and that we must maintain this distinction.

But this is not the case. Easter proves this is not the case. 

The temple could not contain God; it was too small and he broke out. 

The cross could not hold God; he gave up his body and he was cut down. 

The tomb could not contain God; the stone was rolled away and he walked out of his grave. 

Hell could not contain God. 

Even Jesus’ body could not contain God – “do not hold onto me”, he says to Mary. “Do not try to keep me contained.”

These things are all too small; too prescribed. God is bigger. The life of God cannot be contained. God is in the whole of the garden, in the whole of the world. He is in the miracle of the ordinary day-to-day. Every day. He is in all things that he has brought into being, and without him, not one thing has come into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life is the light of all people.

And that light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

Easter always starts in darkness. But when the sun rises – and the son of God rises – the dazzling light of Christ shines upon the whole world, and we finally see that the cross is empty, the grave is empty, Hell is empty; and that the whole of the new garden of all of creation is full of the light of life, and the life of light.

And, tending that new garden is a gardener. If you listen, you can hear him speaking. He only needs to say one word. Listen; does it sound like your name?

Amen.