Sermons from Commons Church. Intellectually honest. Spiritually passionate. Jesus at the centre. Since 2014.
Welcome to the commons cast. We're glad to have you here. We hope you find something meaningful in our teaching this week. Head to commons.church for more information. In this moment, we stare directly into the center of the Christian tradition.
Speaker 1:For those of us on the way, this is the hinge point in history. There was a before and an after. There was a time leading us to Jesus, and we are now, all of us, alive in the long shadow of resurrection that has followed. Everything changed on that first Easter morning. And so one of the oldest traditions of the church is that on this Easter morning, I would say, He is risen, and you would say, he is risen indeed.
Speaker 1:You guys are way ahead of me on this one. Alright? I know we do this every year, so you remember, but let's give this a try. He is risen. He is risen indeed.
Speaker 1:Amen. And with that, we have now joined our voices, not only to what is happening here in this room today, and also to churches across the city, and communities across the country, to gatherings all across this world, and even to all those who have come before and called on the name of Christ. Christ is risen, and not one dead shall remain. Now, we have already sung our hearts out today, and we have listened to stories from our community. We have shared together at Christ's table.
Speaker 1:Now we have one last chance to remember the story today. And so would you stand with me as we read John's account of the resurrection? This is starting in verse 11 from chapter 20. Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. And as she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb, and saw 2 angels in white seated where Jesus' body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.
Speaker 1:They asked her, woman, why are you crying? They have taken my Lord away, she said, and I do not know where they have put him. At this, she turned around, and she saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was him. And he asked her, woman, why are you crying? Who is it that you are looking for?
Speaker 1:Thinking he was the gardener, she said, sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will go and get him. But Jesus said to her, Mary. And she turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, Rabboni, which means teacher. Remain standing as we pray. Father of all life, Son of all grace, Mother of all peace and comfort, God who comes to find us this day and every day.
Speaker 1:Lord, of such great surprise as to put a catch in our breath and wings in our heart, we praise you for this joy too great for words and for this new world unleashed in us around us today. Today there are no more dead ends. And in this resurrection wonder which is so much wiser than we, we see how truly great you are. We have journeyed towards you this day. From Jesus' entry into Jerusalem a week ago where we celebrated your coming to Friday where we rehearsed your death and final hours we grieved your passing.
Speaker 1:And now we have arrived at Easter, At resurrection, at life, at goodness, at truth. And so would you remind us today that resurrection is happening all the time all around us? As life returns with the spring, as hope is renewed within us, as you continue to repair your world piece by beloved piece. And so, Spirit of God, be with us today in this moment. Breathe new breath into dry lungs and pump fresh blood into tired hearts.
Speaker 1:Bring us new vision to old eyes that have become too dull to see the beauty that surrounds us always. May we celebrate resurrection wherever it finds us. And, in the strong name of the one who died and who rose to new life, we pray. Amen. You may be seated.
Speaker 1:Today, we are gonna start with Mary, and we are gonna end with Thomas. And hopefully, we will come to see something of ourselves in both of these characters. But first, some parenting tips, or not so much tips actually, as much as observations. I have a 9 year old son, and I have a 3 year old daughter. And one of the things that I find endlessly fascinating about my kids is that they are endlessly fascinated by life, like just life in general.
Speaker 1:Right? Now don't get me wrong, my kids get bored, and they ask for their iPads and grumble when their screen time is up just like every other child, I know. But I do find my kids, all kids' ability to discover something new in things that I walk blithely past every day inspiring. When my son was 3, he used to like to collect rocks, every pocket full of rocks, every laundry load full of rocks. This kid should have been hired by Maytag for their ads.
Speaker 1:The repairmen would have loved him. Is Maytag still around? Who knows? But my kid loved rocks. He still does, although thankfully at 9 his pockets are not full of them anymore.
Speaker 1:My daughter is now 3 though. And while she is in love with rocks, she does not fill her pockets the same way. What she likes is walks around the block. Now, we have a very tiny house, We have a beautiful backyard, and we spend a lot of time out there as a family. But for my daughter, the gates to our fenced yard are like the barriers to a fantastic world of mystery.
Speaker 1:And so anytime she hears that familiar creak, she is moving as fast as her little legs will take her to squeeze through and out into the open world of the alley. Now, when she's there, still the same alleyway and the same puddles, the same sidewalk cracks and sprigs of grass poking through the same cement as last time. But as far as she is concerned, it does not matter how many times she has seen it. This is what freedom tastes like. And so she will walk and explore and giggle and jump and lament the moment when dad is finally tired and wants to go home.
Speaker 1:And sometimes I wish I had just a little bit more of that. Like, I would love to like rocks. I would like to love the perpetually potholed alleyway that my 2006 Hyundai Accent struggles to make its way out of every morning. And maybe this is something I need to grow in. We started the year off talking by curiosity, and the divine discipline of it, and the work it takes to cultivate.
Speaker 1:So maybe it's on me. This Easter. And every year we return to this same story, it is a childlike fascination that seems like a prerequisite for it. Because not only is the Easter story familiar to us, it in itself is all about looking again. Everything deserves a second look, says Easter.
Speaker 1:Even maybe especially the places where you thought there was death. I mean, that's Mary's story. Right? Now, Mary called Magdalene, she's a very interesting character. Often maligned through history, she became associated with an unnamed woman in the gospel of Luke who had lived a quote sinful life, and who used her life savings to buy a jar of perfume for Jesus.
Speaker 1:Now, that in itself was a beautiful act of generous contrition, but there's nothing to suggest that that story is connected to the Mary who was one of Jesus' most closest and devoted followers. In fact, what we do know about Mary tells us a very different story. Mary Magdalene. Often the assumption is that it is a geographic reference. Right?
Speaker 1:Jesus of Nazareth, Mary of Magdala. One big problem with that, we don't know of any city or town or place called Magdala. There was, it appears, a town called Magadan in the area. And there are actually some later manuscripts from the 3rd century of John that change Mary's name, for lack of a better translation, to Megamagadanian, something like that. Still, all of the earliest manuscripts, all of them suggest that her name was Magdalene.
Speaker 1:And that tells us that probably later scribes who knew of the town of Magadan changed her name to harmonize the text and clean it up a little bit. The thing is, it actually doesn't need to be cleaned up because while Megiddan is a city, and Megdala is not, Megdala is a word, and it means tower. And in fact, there was actually a very specific tower named Mary. Herod the Great had built 3 great towers in the 1st century BCE, and he had them named after the 3 people that he said he loved most in the world. His brother, Phazael, his friend, Hippokhos, and his Jewish wife, Miriam.
Speaker 1:Now, before you give 3 cheers to Herod, he also had Miriam executed. So take his love with a grain of salt. He was not a good guy. But these towers were so well known and so well constructed that some 100 years later when the Romans under Titus destroyed Jerusalem, razed it to the ground, He actually ordered the towers left standing. In other words, while Jesus was around walking through Palestine leading and teaching and healing and moving toward His cross, there stood a tower of Mary, a literal Miriam Magdala, a symbol of strength and stability in an uncertain world.
Speaker 1:Are we really supposed to believe that this Mary Magdalene is a coincidence? Simon, you are my Peter, my rock. James and John, we're going to call you the brothers of thunder. Saul, look. I know we got off on the wrong foot here.
Speaker 1:So let's start over. You're now Paul, and Mary, my tower, the source of stability amongst all of my disciples, we will call you Magdala. Like, this is the most Jesus thing you can possibly do. Right? To look for the thing in you, the gift that you bring to those near you, maybe the thing you struggle to see for yourself and then to name it for the world.
Speaker 1:I promise you, somewhere in His mind that Jesus has a nickname for you. And I know sometimes it takes a long time for us to uncover it or discover it, but promise me, once you do, don't forget it. God sees things in you, things you might struggle to believe about yourself, but that does not make them any less true. And sometimes hearing that named for us by a friend or a pastor or a teacher or maybe simply the Spirit of Jesus somewhere in the back of your mind, that can make all the difference for us. To know ourselves as God sees us.
Speaker 1:Because here's the thing, Mary is the tower, but right now she feels like she's crumbling. And she's the only one to come to the garden this morning. I mean, of course she is. Right? The others don't have her strength.
Speaker 1:They're sad about losing Jesus, but they are also, as the gospels tell us, terrified of the ramifications, too scared to leave the house. So they stay home. But it's Mary's strength that won't let her hide from her pain. And so she comes to mourn and grieve, but she finds the tomb empty. And here, she has a somewhat strange exchange with a somewhat sarcastic angel nearby who can't figure out why she's crying.
Speaker 1:But then I love this moment. She sees Jesus, and she can't recognize Him. People wonder about this. They have for years. Was this some kind of mystical spell that Jesus used to hide His identity?
Speaker 1:Certainly not that He's angelic. Right? He's so unimpressive to life in the middle of a cemetery, that is just chef's kiss. Right? Like, Salt Bae could not make that taste better.
Speaker 1:I mean, why can't she see Him? Are her eyes too swollen from all of the tears? That makes sense, maybe. I think we're meant to read deeper, though, because Jesus speaks to her, and she misses it. But then He says, her name.
Speaker 1:And in that moment, the thing she couldn't believe, the thing she couldn't even see standing in front of her, all of it, all of it becomes real because of her name. And maybe I can say it this way. The things that we really care about, the things that all of us we really hold on to in life, all the things we really need when things are really tough, none of them are dispassionate, or factual, or objective, or transferrable, are they? They're always, at the end of the day, personal, and peculiar, and idiosyncratic. The spaces that know us by name.
Speaker 1:And that's what makes the difference for Mary. It's not mystical, it's personal. It's hearing her name Miriam that makes her Magdala again. And it's okay to hear to need someone say your name today. Any day.
Speaker 1:But particularly on Easter because this is the day when we struggle to believe in something bigger than ourselves. And the truth is, I promise you, you are at least a little bit stronger than you think you are. As to hear your name repeated back to you from the God who created you, this is what brings us back to that truth. Except then, most of us aren't Marys, are we? Right?
Speaker 1:Magdala, that's a lot to live up to. I mean, it might have been nice if Jesus had handed out some less intimidating nicknames once in a while. I mean, rocks and thunder and towers. How about Jeff, the generally adequate disciple? I mean, I would have liked to have read a story about that guy once.
Speaker 1:I think I've told you this before, but, there was a time in high school I tried out for the basketball team. I'm not the worst ball player you've ever seen, but let's put it this way. I didn't make the team. Okay? I did, however, come away from those tryouts with a new nickname.
Speaker 1:It was Slam Dunkin', and that stuck around for a couple months even though I got cut, which, to be honest, was less than ideal. It was, however, certainly better than going down in history as Doubting Thomas. See, I love Mary, but I'm not Mary, at least most days. No. I think doubting Thomas is actually often more my speed.
Speaker 1:Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news, I have seen the Lord, and she told them all about what He had said to her. On the evening of the 1st day of the week when the disciples were together with the doors locked for fear, Jesus came and stood among them and said, peace be with you. But then in verse 24, we read that Thomas, also known as Didymus, 1 of the 12, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. So the disciples told Him, look, we've seen the Lord, and He said to them, guys, I don't know. I mean, I wanna trust you.
Speaker 1:We're friends. We've known each other a long time, but unless I see the nail marks in His hands and put my finger where they were, unless I can put my hand onto His side, I don't think I can believe what you're saying. And this to me feels very honest, doesn't it? I mean, I know it's Easter, and we all want to believe we wouldn't be here if not, but sometimes we just don't. Right?
Speaker 1:2ndhand faith is hard because that's what's going on here. Right? Mary sees Jesus, and she struggles to believe her own eyes, but Thomas is being asked not just to trust His eyes, but to trust His friends. In fact, from the flow of the story, it doesn't even sound like Thomas was there to get to hear it from Mary. He has to hear it from the disciples who heard it from her.
Speaker 1:He's now 2 steps removed from Easter. At this point, he might as well be Kevin Bacon. And look, I know Thomas gets his moment. Right? A week later, Jesus appears again, and this time Thomas gets to touch his hand and gets to see his side and gets to hear him speak.
Speaker 1:And honestly, sometimes that just doesn't seem fair to me. And I identify a lot more with Thomas in his doubting, certainly more than I do in his confirmation. Because you and I, we don't get that. We have to keep trusting those who've told us good news. But here's the thing.
Speaker 1:I think that's more true than we know. I mean, sure, there are things we can hold and things we can prove, and I can tell you the temperature right now and you can walk out these doors and experience it for yourself. But sometimes, actually most of the time, the most important things about us are the things someone else has to remind us of. Right? After all, it was Jesus saying her name that reminded Mary she was the tower of strength the disciples would need in their weakest moments.
Speaker 1:And sure, there are moments where we, like Thomas, get exactly what we ask for, but let's be honest, those are few and far between. Most of the time, we have to learn how to become that for each other. And, yes, I can say that you are loved, and I can say that you are valued. I can tell you you are important. I can tell you that the universe is not indifferent to you.
Speaker 1:But for resurrection to arrive at some point, I'm going to need to prove those words to you. On Easter Sunday, resurrection arrived in the world, but for 2000 years now, you and I, we have been tasked with passing it along. And it is more than a story. It's Thomas, it's our loved ones, it's our neighbors coming to us and saying, Prove it. Let me put my hand in yours.
Speaker 1:Let me see what you are willing to give. Help me believe in the beauty of this universe. Gerard Manley Hopkins once wrote that Christ plays in 10,000 places, lovely in limbs and lovely in eyes not His, to the Father through the features of humanity's faces. That is resurrection. The good news that loved 1 now embodied in our posture toward each other.
Speaker 1:Because you are what I have to trust when I'm doubting like Thomas. And you are my Mary when I lose sight of the story. We, together, we are the tower that still stands some 2000 years later to say that life is always stronger than death and that everything deserves a second look. See, resurrection isn't just what happened 2000 years ago. It isn't just what happens after you die.
Speaker 1:It is what we experience together with each other from each other. And once you start to notice it, resurrection in an emotion transformed by something as simple as a kind word. Or a marriage renewed through a commitment to grace. A broken relationship reconciled in forgiveness, maybe just your imagination reinvented by even the possibility of love. Once you notice resurrection in the spring returning around you, sun on skin and rain on faces, the thing is you actually start to notice it everywhere.
Speaker 1:And slowly, steadily, when step after step we begin to believe in the power of resurrection. That what is good does not end. It's only transformed and then passed along in new and surprising ways. See, this is the good news that captures our heart this day, this Easter. Resurrection is all around us.
Speaker 1:Because Christ is risen, and not one dead shall remain. This Easter, this year with this one beautiful and vibrant life that you have been gifted, may you begin to live as if resurrection was more true than you could possibly know. And that you, through your And and where sadness reigned. May Jesus say your name this day. And when you hear it, might you be willing to put your hand in His and trust Him to bring you all the way back home.
Speaker 1:Let's pray. God of Easter, God of life, God of resurrection, who reminds us that life is always returning all around us all the time. That even in our darkest moments, there is hope on the horizon for us. Might we be captured by this moment? And in that, might we hear you say our name, the name that brings us back to ourselves and reminds us of who we are, the nickname that You hold for us, all the good in us that You have placed there for the world.
Speaker 1:And then as life returns to us, may we become aware of your path, the world that Jesus laid out. May we begin to follow it step by step so that we can bring life to those near us. May everything that we do point to the resurrection of the universe and the healing of all things that you have invited us to participate in. We trust that you are repairing all things through your resurrection and that we are being swept up in it even today. May we hear our name and follow you.
Speaker 1:In the strong name of the risen Christ we pray. Amen.