Easter Sunday — Tears

Holly Jones. Cecilia Zhang. Rene Charlebois. Anybody recognize those names?

Almost a million graves in Iraq. A half million corpses in Rwanda. The hundreds of thousands of crumpled victims of highway traffic accidents in North America. The crowded, milling entrance to the cancer clinic at Henderson Hospital in Hamilton. And it’s only one of thousands of centres teeming with the victims of cancer.

Do you hear the crying? Can you hear the weeping from all parts of our world? From Brazil. From Madrid. From Israel as another bus full of innocent passengers is blown to bits. From Palestine as another home is bulldozed. Can you hear the crying all around us - in hospitals, in nursing homes, prisons, funeral homes? Maybe at your own kitchen table?

Many times we don’t hear the weeping because it’s silent. Many times we try to hid our tears from others because for some of us in our way of doing things, it’s not proper to show emotions publicly. But is there anybody here who hasn’t had to cry a little bit or a whole lot?

It may be a real downer on Easter Sunday to think about this. But why do people weep? Why do you weep? Why do I weep? Sadness. The loss of loved ones. Sometimes fear. Frustration. The break-up of a marriage. The waywardness of a beloved child. Or worse, the incurable illness of a child. And who will know how many people weep out of loneliness? And in our sober moments, when we think, What’s life all about, anyway? - sometimes then we are moved to tears.

Pastor John Lares’ reflections on John 20 stirred some questions in my own mind. Did you notice that the first appearance of the risen Christ was to somebody who was crying? Jesus appeared first to Mary Magdalene. Why did she weep?

Well, we do know this about Mary Magdalene. Earlier in her life, Jesus had cast seven demons out of her. Who knew what torment went through her life, through her mind, through her spirit because of what the Bible calls, "demons?" Who knows what anguish racked her family and her relationships because of these torments? Whatever they were, Jesus had delivered her life from their control, from their domination. Jesus gave her purpose and meaning and dignity. Now, this man who had been so kind to her, had been publicly humiliated, lacerated, tortured, and killed. We know that she watched it all happen. We know that she stood by and watched as Christ was buried. Some of you have stood and watched as somebody you dearly loved was buried. Because of that, you can imagine the thoughts that raced through her mind as she stood at that lonely cemetery, thinking about what had happened.

Mary came back to the grave in the darkness of the next morning, between three a.m. and six a.m. No comfort there. Because Mary finds that not only is her Lord dead. But now his body is missing. And she slumps and weeps.

There was more than the darkness of night in that place. It was still dark in her mind. Have you known that darkness? You know, the inability to think straight? The inability to believe that this is happening? Christ was alive. Jesus had risen from the dead. But Mary did not have those facts. And when she did get them, she couldn’t believe them. Her first response was just like the others. "Yeah! Right!" She didn’t know how near Jesus was. Even when Jesus spoke to her, she thought he was the gardener, not Jesus.

Jesus said, "Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?"
So the un-tuned-in Mary said, "They have taken away my Lord, and I don’t know what’s happening. Sir, if you can, tell me where he is, and I will get him."

Then see what happens. What are this unrecognized Jesus’ next words? "Mary," he says. He calls her by name. "Mary." Mary, the weeping Mary, her eyesight blurred by tears, her brain fogged with grief, turns. At the sound of her name, she recognizes Jesus. She lunges to grab and to hold on to Jesus.

What happens next? Does Jesus embrace this weeping, distraught woman?

"Don’t touch me!" "Don’t cling to me!" "Don’t hold on to me!" What was that about?

Jesus is telling Mary, the weeping Mary, "Everything has changed. Now we have an entirely new relationship. Now I can be with you at all times. I will always be present." Mary couldn’t understand that then. But Jesus tells her, "Everything has changed now." Jesus wasn’t ditching Mary. That was an assurance. The change was that Jesus would always be near. He would always be present. His help for Mary wouldn’t be limited any more to the times and places when he was physically present.

But did you catch what followed the assurance? Jesus gives Mary an assignment. This is the weeping woman whom others used to think was crazy. Jesus gives her the great honour and dignity to go and tell others. To go and spread the word that Jesus has left the grave, not as a corpse, but as a living, breathing person. She has the privilege of telling others that now there will be unbroken fellowship and constant access to the risen, living Saviour of people everywhere. So the very first evangelist was a woman.

So what about the tears in your world? Don’t they flow because there are people who do things such as were done to Holly Jones, to Cecilia Zhang? When I took my small grandsons to the Exhibition one year, I had to go with them into the washroom. Another man came in with a little boy of about 5 years old. He was ranting and screaming at him, cursing, turning the air blue with profanities and obscenities. He grabbed him roughly and threw him into the stall, yelling at the top of his voice. I caught a glimpse of the little guy’s terrified eyes. My grandson ran to me to hold on. When I think about the countless, unnamed little children here and around the world who have no protection, it’s enough to make me weep that there are people who are not different and better.

So what about the tears in your world? I’ve wept many times because I’m not better, because I am still so unlike my Lord.

Jesus understood Mary’s tears. And he understands ours. It’s quite probable that Jesus’ stepfather Joseph died early in the boy Jesus’ life. Do suppose that Jesus wept at what his single mother had to go through? Jesus wept at the death of his dear friend Lazarus. He cried when he saw what was happening in his city of Jerusalem. And those times when he prayed long into the night hours, can’t we hear his weeping about what people were doing to each other?
I once had an assignment to read Eugene O’Neill’s "A Long Day’s Journey Into Night." The theme of the play is that all of everybody’s life, all of your life and my life is just a journey deeper and deeper into the darkness of despair. According to O’Neill, the longer I live, the darker life gets.

Is that the way it is? Mary came to the cemetery while it was still dark. But it wasn’t just the night-time darkness. It was dark in her mind. It was dark in her spirit. The darkness was there because she didn’t know that Christ was alive. But Jesus spoke her name. Jesus is the Lord of the Universe, and he knows her name. And Jesus says to her, "Don’t hang on to me. Go and tell others. After that, for the next several days, Jesus repeatedly appeared, then disappeared. He would show up with his friends who were huddled behind locked doors. Then he would be gone. He was conditioning them to know what we now know. We know now that Christ is present by his Holy Spirit at any time we turn to him. He will always be there, the Risen Lord.

Were they Mary’s last tears? Not a chance. She went on to know a whole lot of laughter. She went on to live a useful life of dignity and purpose. She went on to know the assurance that all of her sins were forgiven. She went on to know that she could come to God without fear, completely justified in God’s presence because of what Jesus had done that night on the cross. But she also went on to die. Maybe she died young. Or maybe eventually she faced her own old age, and illness and weakness and death. Either way, in tears and in laughter, there was one walking with her, every moment, every day, in every circumstance. It was the Lord Jesus, who knew her by name.

He is alive!