Rev. Betsy Aldrich Garland
John 20:1-18
April 4, 2010

Turning Towards Easter

Lent is over. Christ is risen! The rains have stopped, the sun is out, the daffodils are in bloom.

For how many days have we been waiting for this day? How many days are there between Ash Wednesday and Easter? Have you ever counted them? I did: There are 46. So, why do we talk about the 40 days of Lent? Because we don’t count the six Sundays during Lent as part of the 40. Why not? Because, for theologians, every Sunday is a “little Easter.” This means that, instead of one Easter every year, we have 52, something Hallmark and Whitman’s Chocolates don’t know – or we’d have Easter cards mixed in with Thanksgiving and Christmas, and chocolate bunnies beside orange jack-o-lanterns.

We might ask, what is Easter about, anyway? Surely, it’s about spring and new life. And if you pay attention to the hymns we’re been singing this morning, it’s about an empty tomb and resurrection.

The Revised Common Lectionary preferences the passage from the Gospel of John that we just heard, so that, whether it is Year A, B, or C, the Gospel lesson on Easter Sunday is always this familiar text about Mary Magdalene’s coming to the tomb while it is still dark, finding the stone rolled away, and running to tell the disciples, then seeing Jesus whom she thinks is the gardener, and finally, hearing the good news of the resurrection from Jesus himself. This is our classic Easter story.

Much has been preached about this text over the generations – about dark / light symbolism, about how eternal life trumps death, about hope versus despair, about our being faithful witnesses, and, in recent years, about a woman’s being the first witness, an amazing story for the early church to tell in that patriarchal culture. Last Easter, I reflected on the linen wrappings that were left in the tomb, that Jesus needed to be “unwrapped” in order to be resurrected, and asked, what needs to be unwrapped in us – old anger or guilt, childhood abuse or feelings of unworthiness – in order for us to find new life, to experience personal resurrection? It’s still a relevant question!

This year, I find myself intrigued with the idea of “turning.” Mary bends over and looks in the tomb where she sees two angels sitting there. She complains that “They have taken away my Lord and I do not know where to find him.” Then she “turns away” from the tomb, from the revelation that the angels might have provided her. As she does so, she “turns around” to see Jesus standing there, but she does not know him. And, finally, when Jesus calls her name, Mary!” she “turns” to him and knows him, “Rabbouni!” My teacher. With this, Mary is converted to the truth of the resurrection.

This word “turning” has to do with conversion. In Hebrew, the word for “turn” is shub, meaning to turn back, to return. In Greek, it is metanoia, meaning a turning around of 180 degrees, not just of the heart but also of the head. For Mary, her conversion happened in an instant in witnessing the presence of Jesus.

For the other disciples, an appreciation for Jesus’ resurrection took longer: Matthew’s gospel tells of their traveling to Galilee before they see the risen Christ. Mark tells of Jesus’ appearing to two disciples walking in the country, but their news falls on unbelieving ears – until Jesus appears to them later at a table. Luke defers Jesus’ presence until he walks with them on the road to Emmaus. And in John, even though Mary has seen and believed at first light, Jesus needs to appear to the disciples who have locked themselves away, for fear of the religious leaders, and even then, Thomas doesn’t believe until he can put his hands in the nail holes. And later, in Galilee, after the disciples have gone back to fishing, John reports, Jesus meets them on the beach, after a long, discouraging night of fishing, with a ready breakfast of fish on a charcoal fire and advice about throwing the net on the other side of the boat.
In the religious right’s imagination, conversion comes like a thunder-bolt. But for most of us, conversion, turning to Easter, comes over time. Even for Mary who comes to the tomb while it is still dark, dawn comes slowly, and for the disciples, later in the day – or days later. Last November, when I preached to our confirmation class, I reminded them that solving theological questions is the work of a lifetime, a continual turning toward the truth, toward the light, toward the presence of God.

Perhaps another way to understand Easter is that it’s not just an annual event celebrated by the church, but it’s also an ongoing conversion or “turning” toward that which gives us life. We can see examples of everyday Easters all around us.

The other night, Kim and I watched last year’s movie, “The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game,” a true story about a rich, white, evangelical family that took in a Black teenager from the poor side of Memphis, Hurt City. He had been taken away from his mother, drug addict, years earlier, run away from foster homes, slept on the floor at his uncle’s house, had just one change of shirt that he washed out in the Laundromat each night.

Because of his ability with the ball – any ball – Michael Oher – “Big Mike,” 6 foot 4 inches, over 300 pounds – had been admitted to an all-white Christian school where he was befriended by the Tuohy family. From wondering if he will steal from them, to adopting him as their son, the film chronicles the Tuohy’s turning from suspicion, to understanding, to love for this young man who grows into a skilled left tackle for the school’s football team, protecting the quarter-back on his blind side.

When the “steel-magnolia” mother, Leigh Anne, moves Michael into the guest room, he says, “I never had this before.” “Your own room?” she asks. “No, a bed.” The husband marvels, “Who would think that we would take in a Black boy before we ever met a Democrat!” And slowly, Michael grows from wariness, and confusion, and loneliness to turning to the acceptance and help they offer him, eventually realizing that he has become a permanent member of the family. He goes on to accept a football scholarship to Ole’ Miss – since “That’s where all the member of my family go to college.”

Scene after scene, we see Leigh Anne realize her own prejudice and confront that of her privileged white friends. At one point, when they smugly suggest that she is “changing that boy’s life,” she replies, “No, he’s changing mine.” And when her husband asks her why she’s smiling in bed one night, she says, simply, “I’m happy.” Easter comes slowly, but it comes.

We go about our ordinary lives, like Mary Magdalene when she goes to the tomb early on Easter morning to anoint Jesus’ body. She comes with the memories of his hanging on the cross, of his cruel, untimely death, of the so-recent feeling of his firm living flesh when she had anointed him with costly oil, not knowing how else to love him.

And then, in the early light, he speaks her name, and she turns. And he sits at table with the frightened, confused disciples, and they turn. And he appears in the midst of this congregation, and we turn. And he bids us to go and tell, and we turn to the world with the good news that death is not the last word. Love and light and truth live.

In the pre-dawn darkness of this broken-hearted world full of trouble and sorrow, the newly-risen Christ bids us to turn towards Easter.

Christ is risen!
Alleluia! Amen