April 5 2026
John 20: 1-18
The Lord is Risen! The Lord is risen, indeed! Praise the Lord, it was finished upon the cross, and today we celebrate this new beginning that we enjoy because Jesus has defeated death! Once again, we listen to those early accounts of how the disciples ran to the tomb because they have heard that their beloved Jesus is nowhere to be found. We are right to wonder if they had indeed listened to Jesus when he told them directly, that, yes, he was going to Jerusalem to suffer and die on across but three days later, he would rise from the dead. He told them this simple truth, not once but three separate times, yet on this first day of the week, there seemed to be nothing but surprise in the reactions of those who followed Jesus.These disciples represent us all, do they not? You see, every year we come again to the tomb and we too may be surprised by this announcement that something new has indeed happened. Over the course of a year we all grow quite familiar with the same old, same old, so much so that we begin to believe that perhaps there is really nothing new under the sun, as we are told in Ecclesiastes. We are right to wonder, if indeed we too are caught off guard, just like those first believers, by this something new that has indeed happened? Are we amazed at the good news that someone who was dead, for some three days, has now got up and walked out of his grave? Into a world that grows too familiar and too predictable over time suddenly the news reaches us that something new has broken into a world that had forgotten how to be surprised.
Now, the stories of the resurrection of Jesus are some very strange tales, admittedly. I mean, what do you expect from those who had witnessed the impossible. Yet, as we read along in the account written for us by John, we might be caught off guard by this conversation the risen Jesus has with Mary Magdalene. Mary is distraught that she has come to the tomb to care for the body of Jesus but his body is nowhere to be found. As she turns to leave the tomb she is suddenly aware that someone is there with her. This person asks Mary why it is that she is weeping? Just who is it that she is looking for? At this point in the conversation, John tells us that Mary now assumes that Jesus is the gardener. This seems to be a bit of a reach, doesn’t it? I mean, why would Mary think that this stranger to be the one who tended this garden where the tomb had been built. But knowing that John is always pointing us to the bigger picture, it is easy to believe that by referencing the garden, John desires that we remember another garden from a much earlier time, the garden known as Eden. We are to perhaps hear the echo of words spoken in the fifteenth verse of the second chapter of Genesis, where we are told that the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden to work the garden and keep the garden, in other words, Adam was to be the gardener of Eden. So when Mary supposed Jesus to be the gardener, we are to understand that perhaps here in the resurrected Jesus is the new Adam. This aligns with what Pontus Pilate declared about Jesus, that here was one who had no guilt, so that Pilate could say about Jesus, “Behold the man”, or better, “Behold the Adam”. Here before Pilate was Jesus, the man, the Adam, for here is one who unlike the first Adam, for this new Adam had no guilt for he had no sin.
So while the tomb spoke of endings, when learn of that there is a gardener, we are now attune our hearts to new beginnings, a new creation, that is now being cared for by the one Mary has mistaken for the gardener. Yet it is only as Mary hears this one speak her name, does she suddenly realize this voice. Mary now is certain that this voice is the voice of her Teacher, the one she calls her Rabboni, or Teacher. This is the voice which taught her the blessings that her teacher had brought from the Father. This is why we can understand why Jesus gives Mary this blessed assurance that now his Father will also be known as being her Father as well. Jesus wants everyone to understand that now the Father of Jesus is to be known as being the Father of all those who have heard the voice of Jesus and obeyed his teachings. So when we are certain that we are now the very children of God then we do not fear this new thing that has been brought about by Jesus being raised from the dead. You see, most of us don’t like to deal with life when it involves the new and improved. We much prefer the old and familiar to that which involves us learning new ways of doing things. Yet with the resurrection of Jesus, with this strange new world that we now face because death is now defeated, and sin therefore has also been condemned, we can still have certainty because this new reality is one where we are known by our Heavenly Father. This is what our teacher, our Rabboni, named Jesus has been preparing us for. You see, the resurrected life is a life of pure goodness, a life where no evil remains. So, when we do the good that Jesus expects, then we begin to experience for ourselves the life of new creation which is ours when we place our our faith in Jesus Christ.
This means that we will know that this life beyond the pall of death is going to be a life where all will be equals before the throne of Jesus because Jesus taught us that this is indeed the good life. All who believe in Jesus now share in the life-giving unlimited love that once was only experienced by the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. What an absolutely new experience for us yet one that will also seem strangely familiar. You see, this eternal life that Jesus ushered in for us on that first day of the week, is a life where we know God, where we know Jesus the one sent to us from the Father. When we listen to the voice of our Teacher, and we obey him, this is how we come to know him, this risen one who we encounter there in the garden.
So we must always remember to listen to Jesus. This is what Jesus kept going over again and again on that night when Jesus shared a meal with his followers on that fateful night before Jesus was crucified. When we live in the world we are always in danger of having the pollution of this world to cling to us, to influence us, and control us. But then Jesus calls to come and sit with him at the table so that we once again we remember Jesus and his teachings. We come back to the Jesus whose voice is one that we know and are familiar with. And just what is it that we know of this Jesus? We know that Jesus is the Son who came from the Father’s side. This Jesus took on our flesh so that he might forever prove that he has forever united himself with the broken and crushed people who are used and discarded by this cruel world. If you don’t believe me, just look in the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew, where Jesus clearly says that when we care for those considered to be the least of these, then we have done so unto him. So what we know about God through the brokenness of Jesus is that there is a greater certainty that God will be found among the hurting and suffering of this world then there is that God will be with those who claim to be his own people.
Yet, we also know that Jesus, on that same night he was betrayed, took the cup, a cup which represented his life, a life poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. You see, mercy is the hill on which God is willing to die on, there simply is nothing more important to our God than offering life even if it costs him the life of his Son. So our relationship with Jesus hinges on our willingness to offer mercy in the same measure God first offered mercy to us. This makes sense when we consider that our God is a God of life, and mercy is the continual offering of life to even those who may not deserve life; such is mercy. We grow in our understanding of God only by offering mercy, because mercy is simply the very way of God.
So, if this eternal life which was seen when Jesus stepped out of the tomb is all about knowing God, then we can experience that eternal life right now, by simply working with God so that we learn from him how to live. We are to go and find those considered to be judged by this world as being unworthy of life and offer to them life even if they seem to be so undeserving of such a gesture. When we do so we will begin to know something of the God who has always loved us with just such a love, a love without measure. You see, the moment we begin to work with God, God is found to be at work in us. So, just as Jesus, the Son, offered himself up to the Father through the Spirit, so too we, as the sons and daughters of God, are to yield ourselves to the Spirit and offer ourselves in service to the Father. This means that our worship to God now happens anytime we offer mercy to those in need, for in doing so we have found Jesus himself worthy of our service. This is the new way of living that Jesus lived, the life that death simply cannot destroy.
So, this eternal life is one we can begin to experience right now, right here, just by doing whatever we can to know Jesus and the Father who sent him. When we understand this then we can also understand that a mere statement of faith about the resurrection will never really be enough. No, if we believe that Jesus did indeed walk out of that grave fully alive then nodding our heads in approval of such a statement will not do. No, what Jesus expects is that we would put our money where our mouth is, and invest in this new reality that we have come to know. At least this is what it appears Jesus is saying to us in the fourteenth chapter of Luke. Listen again to what Jesus tells us: “When you give a dinner or banquet, do not invite your friends or your family, nor your relatives nor your rich neighbors because they might invite return the favor to you and then you would be repaid. Instead, when you have a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind. In this way you will be blessed, because they will be unable to repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.” You see, if we really believe in the resurrection then we would get busy doing whatever we could to in order to invest in this new creation that has arrived and is on its way to being fulfilled.
You see, when we give generously without any thought of what’s in it for us, then we have begun to invest in the resurrection which we say we believe in. God promises us a return on our investment in two different ways.The first of these returns happens when we decide to love generously without thought of any repayment. When we do so then we are loving others just as God loves all people. So, when people look at us, they will see that we are united with God in the way that we love others. So through our actions, the reputation of God is that he is known to be a God of love, always and only love. God’s reputation, his good name is that he is and always will be, a God of steadfast faithful love. The profound nature of God is as we hear in the first chapter of John’s first letter is that God is light and in him is no darkness. This is why God alone is holy because he alone is pure light. When God purifies our hearts then we are able to reflect this holy nature of God to all we meet. The importance of reflecting the holiness of God as we love others is as we hear in the twelfth chapter of Hebrews, that in doing so we are assured that one day we will see the Lord. So our reward for striving for holiness now is that we are assured of seeing the Lord in the life to come.
The second reward for working with God, demonstrating his unlimited love to all without thought of any repayment, is that in doing so we are meeting those who will welcome us home in the life to come. Jesus, at the beginning of the sixteenth chapter of Luke, tells us that we are to, “…use your wealth you have stored up to make friends for yourselves so that when your wealth is gone you may be received into your eternal dwellings.” You know, one of the things that may have never crossed our minds is just who is it that is going to receive us into our Father’s house when that time comes. Yet Jesus give us the certainty that one day all of those little acts of kindness that we do without much thought, the gift of food here, the coat we shared with that person or the visit we made to those in the hospital or prison, all of these people we have loved on will one day be there waiting on the porch, waving us home when we enter into that new creation. So, yes, life in the resurrection will be incredibly new, a world where evil and injustice is no more. Yet, even though it is new it will be, at the same time, oddly familiar for we will know the Lord, the one we worked with in this life, and we will know all those we have loved with his unlimited love. Yes, one day, we will hear Jesus speak our name, just as he spoke the name of Mary in the garden, and we will know him just as Mary knew him, as Jesus, our Teacher and friend. Amen!
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