“Edging into Easter”

Scripture with Reflections Based on John 20:1–16, 18a

and an Order for Easter Communion

© Rev. Dr. Nancy Cocks, Medicine Hat, Alta., 2017, 2021.

For local congregational use only.

Please make sure copyright credit appears on every full copy or any part of the script reproduced from the master copy. If a bulletin or screen resource is prepared for the service, please add credit to Nancy as author and copyright holder. Thank you.

First Reading: John 20:1–2 (NRSV)

Reflection: Edging into Easter – Part One

In the opening scene, it is still dark.

The gospel writers do not rush us into Easter.

Mary Magdalene sees that the stone blocking Jesus’ tomb has been rolled away.

Something has happened. This she knows for sure.

But what it is, she cannot yet say.

“They have taken the Lord out of the tomb and we do not know where they have laid him.”

Easter opens with a puzzle.

With Jesus’ friends & followers, we must edge our way toward the truth.

Truth is something precious.

God will pull back the curtains on truth for us

but often we must wait for truth to emerge.

The most important truth for our lives begins in mystery.

On Easter morning while it is still dark,

we wait for the truth of our future to become clear.

All: God of mystery, we have made it here on Easter morning, seeking to find you.

We know the Easter story, yet we do not always understand what is happening.

When your truth is not yet clear to us, give us courage to keep seeking that truth.

So may our hearts learn to sing your Easter promise:

Hymn #523: Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.

Second Reading: John 20:3–10

Reflection: Edging into Easter – Part Two

Just like a pair of athletes on the same team,

Peter and John compete with each other to find out the truth first.

At least we assume it’s John with Peter.

This storyteller does like puzzles.

This “other” disciple runs the fastest.

He wins the race—

as if it’s a race for disciples to show our loyalty to Jesus.

But he cannot find the courage to do anything more than peek into the empty tomb.

Do we blame him?

Few of us look into a grave eagerly.

Then Peter arrives, a little out of breath, and edges past John.

Is he impatient?

Determined not to lose his courage?

Eager to show up his friend?

Peter enters the tomb; sees the bandages rolled up, tossed aside.

Then John has to squeeze in beside him.

He doesn’t want Peter to know something he doesn’t know.

“And he saw and believed;

for as yet they did not understand that Jesus must rise from the dead.”

The puzzle continues.

What did John believe if they did not understand that Jesus would rise from the dead?

What we believe and what we understand

are not exactly the same thing when it comes to Easter.

There will always be a tension between what we believe and what we can understand.

What we believe, we take on trust because we cannot fully explain it.

We cannot fully explain Easter morning.

So there will always be a mystery to draw us to the empty tomb one more time.

And we have to take it on trust that the world, our world, was changed that day.

We have to take it on trust that God’s love is afoot in our lives once again.

All: God of mystery, we confess that faith doesn’t come easy every Easter.

We know the Easter story, but we do not understand how things happened

as that day dawned. Help us trust the faith of those who first believed.

Ease our doubts and fill our hearts with faith that blossoms in hope as we sing:

Hymn #523: Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.

Third Reading: John 20:11–16, 18a

Reflection: Edging into Easter – Part Three

The picture of Mary weeping in the garden is very moving.

All of us who have been touched by grief can feel what she’s going through—

the sorrow, the confusion, the feeling of despair.

She sees Jesus and she doesn’t even recognize him.

So often grief is disorienting.

We can’t remember things; a familiar name just disappears from our lips.

In her grief and uncertainty, Mary starts to argue with the gardener.

Her grief edges into anger that the body of her beloved Jesus has disappeared.

“Sir, tell me where you’ve laid him. I will take him away.”

She’s saying, “He belongs to me. I want him back.”

Mary’s grief and loss echo at the heart of John’s Easter story.

She speaks of our grief and loss,

and of our anxiety,

which can edge into anger when we’re at a loss for words.

When we’re sad or anxious, when it’s hard to see any joy on the horizon,

we can only edge into Easter.

In one sense, this year we are edging into Easter.

The weeks and months of pandemic drag on.

Threats from new variants are alarming

and we can’t be sure just what hope we can put in vaccines.

Some feel anxious because further lockdowns cause their own kinds of loss and grief.

None of us is sure what next Easter will look like.

But in truth, we never know exactly what comes next.

And so we have to take it on trust that Easter will come again,

with its puzzles and its promise.

We have to take it on trust that our future is in God’s hands.

We have to take on trust that the love which changed the world that first Easter

will continue to shape and reshape our world.

For just at the most anxious moment in the story, Jesus speaks.

Mary.

He calls her name.

How do you hear it?

(Note to the Reader: Try to say the name differently each time!)

(Mary – a little disappointed in tone) Mary, don’t you recognize me?

(Mary – quite tender in tone) Mary, don’t be so sad. I’m here with you.

(Mary – with a little challenge in the tone) Come on, Mary, it’s me, Jesus.

We could hear that name said in a dozen different ways,

depending how we have edged into this Easter morning.

Hear that name spoken as a gift—

a gift of Jesus’ love for Mary,

a gift of their deep friendship.

For friendship embraces all those anxious moments we are facing just now.

Friendship will bring tenderness and challenge into our lives

to call out the best in us.

The Risen Christ edges into our lives in friendship

to receive us as we are in our grief and uncertainty, in our hope and commitment,

to call out the best in us.

To assure us we can take it on trust that Christ is risen

And that we can face our future unafraid.

It is in the hands of the Risen Lord.

So now imagine yourself in that garden.

Listen as Jesus speaks your name…

How will he say it?

With a smile? In tenderness? With a challenge?

Jesus speaks our names to reassure us, to encourage us, to dare us to be his witnesses.

Hear him speak your name today in friendship

as we proclaim with Mary:

I have seen the Lord!

All: God of mystery, we know the Easter story and we are glad to be caught up in its joy. You call each of us by name because you love us.

So may we live our love for you gladly as we sing with Easter joy:

Hymn #523: Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.

John20,1-18,2021

On that Sunday immediately following the crucifixion of Jesus Mary Magdalene went to the tomb

She talked with Jesus even before she recognized him

He poses a question “Who are you looking for?”

The question “Who are you looking for?” is similar to the question posed in John 1:38 when Jesus asks John and Andrew who they are looking for

The ensuing conversation between Jesus, John and Andrew results in these two men becoming disciples

It is a call story

In this case a call is an invitation to join

This is the call of the first two disciples

Years later, at the tomb on the first Easter morning Mary is asked the same question

“Who are you looking for?”

This too can be understood as a call story

Mary is being called to be a witness, to be a disciple

On that Ester morning Mary is being invited to make a leap

To leave behind the ties of the old life where she was looked down upon and limited

And to completely embrace the life offered by Jesus

She would be recognized as a disciple

She would know that she was a dearly loved child of God

The same invitation is given to us

We too may be known as the ones who are made new in Jesus

The leap is frightening, but when we make that leap, we find ourselves moving from a life that we have to manage and control into the arms of the God who continually offers us grace and peace and mercy and love and life. (“The Waking Dreamer”. Alan Brehm)

This leap allows us to stop worrying about what others do

It allows us to leave behind fretting about how others use their wealth

And it allows us to see that God LOVES us and invites us to leap into the arms of God

Easter is the invitation to a life of peace with God, peace with others and peace with ourselves as we accept the mercy and love of God and leave behind sin and judgement.

Especially in these days of pandemic, we are invited to a life of peace as we find meaning in ways that we maybe over looked before

We are being invited to live each day fully and to walk forward even though the path may be unclear

We are being invited to live with hope even though others do not

We are being invited to be patient and kind in the face of perplexing behaviour

On that first Easter, after Peter and the other disciple go back to their own homes, Mary stays behind weeping

Belief had not yet happened for her

She had seen the empty tomb and she stayed there

When she first sees Jesus, she takes him for the gardener

She speaks to him as if he were the gardener

Sometimes we see what we expect to see

Mary is so intent on finding out what has happened to the body she expected to find, that she asks Jesus himself where the body has been laid

When Jesus speaks her name she finally recognizes him

Expectation can have a powerful effect on our understanding

A few years ago I met up with someone that I knew in Brampton

We had worked together at the Peel Literacy Guild

She recognized me in The Superstore and came over to where I was and spoke to me

She was about the last person that I expected to see, so I didn’t recognize her immediately

She gave her name and mentioned the Guild and the memories came flooding back

The learners we had known

The co-workers

I asked about her household and she asked about mine

And as we talked the memory of her became stronger

It took a little while for recognition to happen for me.

On an even deeper level this is what happened for Mary

She was so consumed with grief that she did not recognize Jesus

She had been at the crucifixion

She knew that Jesus had died on the cross

She knew that the Romans were thorough in this process

If one was sentenced to crucifixion, death was the only result

She went to the tomb to pay her respects and to grieve

Neither Mary nor any of the other disciples expected to meet the resurrected Jesus

And when she did meet Jesus, he had to work to get her attention, because her grief was so deep and strong

Mary’s faith was true but it needed time to come to fruition

She needed the support of community when circumstances were unexpected

And she needed to meet Jesus face to face in order to break through her preoccupation

The men in the story had a different reaction than Mary’s

They did not seem to need the time for reflection as she did

In the account we read in the gospel of John,

Mary saw something at the tomb that was unexpected, and she went to get Peter and the other disciple

They came with her to the tomb

Now which one was more ready to believe that Jesus was alive?

There are those who make a case for each one

Was it Peter the impetuous?

Peter had been bold to say that he would stand by Jesus

Then Peter was the one to deny knowing Jesus

When the two men went with Mary to the tomb Peter got there second

We are told the other disciple bent down and saw the grave clothes but Peter upon arrival at the door of the tomb went in

Peter was a man of action

Then the other disciple went in too

The other disciple believed

One old commentary gives this interpretation

The younger disciple outruns the older; love haply supplying swifter wings. He stoops, he gazes in, but enters not the open sepulchre, held back probably by a reverential fear. The bolder Peter, coming up, goes in at once, and is rewarded with bright evidence of what had happened. (Jamieson Fawcett and Brown)

I don’t know that there is any advantage to any of the ways that the three in this story came to recognize the risen Lord

They each had their way of knowing who Jesus is as do we

Some of us are like Mary

We need time to spend in quiet and alone to see Jesus clearly

We sit and wait to hear Jesus speak our name.

Others of us are like the other disciple

We see and believe.

Others are like Peter

We get it

We rush off to tell others about Jesus

We forget

We make mistakes

We get it again and are thankful for the patience of Jesus in helping us to relearn.

However it is that we experience and realize our faith connection to Jesus we know that we do not have to all be the same

God speaks to each one of us as is needed

The Easter story tells us that from the old will come something new

That death will be replaced by new life

That resurrection is possible

The parables of Jesus told us that as well

To use an analogy from the parable of the sower, the human being is the sower, the seed, and the soil – all three. As the sower, we scatter our seed (creativity). As the seed, we need to be willing to allow the husk of the seed (our personality) to be cracked open. We need to be willing to die to all that is keeping us from life in every moment. As the soil, we need to be actively cultivating our inner life so that we can be fertile ground for the evolutionary process to continue through us.~ (The Way of the Wind by Bruce Sanguin)

A grain of wheat, or a seed falls into the earth and dies

It then gives growth and bears much fruit

In the same way

When we allow ourselves to die to the old nature

We are then able to come to life

To be reborn and given life the is full and abundant

Christ is risen

Christ is risen indeed!!

Invitation to the Offering

On Easter Day, we celebrate God’s most precious gift to us in Christ’s dying and his rising. As we present our gifts to God this morning, may our generosity reflect God’s goodness to us, and the hope we have in Christ Jesus, our Risen Lord.

Prayer of Dedication

God of Resurrecting Hope, we thank you with grateful hearts, recognizing how much you have given us in Christ, and what his gift has cost. Bless the gifts we bring so they may help spread the hope and joy we feel today in the world you love so dearly. In the name of your greatest gift, Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.

Teach response for pastoral prayer - Resurrect, renew and revive your people, O God. Hear our prayer.

Prayers of Thanksgiving and Intercession

God of new beginnings,

Break into your church with resurrecting power.

Where congregations have drifted apart through months of distancing,

re-energize the connections and commitment needed for ministry.

Where divisions and disagreements hinder mission and service,

reconcile people and personalities with a sense of common purpose.

Where gathering resources or finding new leaders present challenges,

renew trust in your faithfulness and hope that remembers the empty tomb.

Resurrect, renew and revive your people, O God.

Hear our prayer.

God of new possibilities,

Break into our relationships with resurrecting power.

Where they are vibrant and life-giving, nurture and sustain them.

Where they are marked by memories of hurt or current misunderstanding,

refresh them with forgiveness and reconciliation.

Where they are neglected or taken for granted,

open eyes to the great gift we offer each other.

Resurrect, renew and revive your people, O God.

Hear our prayer.

God of new opportunity,

Break into the governance of your world with resurrecting power.

Stir the minds and hearts of leaders

to work for justice, understanding and the equitable sharing of resources.

Where laws are unjust, or those who enforce them corrupt,

call those in power to account and lift up the voices of protest.

Where the pandemic presents new problems and complicated decisions,

bring wisdom, compassion and cooperation to all in authority.

Resurrect, renew and revive your people, O God.

Hear our prayer.

God of new life,

Break into situations of illness, pain, grief and loss with resurrecting power.

Where there is sickness of body, mind, or spirit,

bring healing and hope.

Where people mourn the loss of relationships or dreams,

bring comfort and courage to go on.

Where those who serve and care and maintain our common life are exhausted,

bring rest and renewal.

Resurrect, renew and revive your people, O God.

Hear our prayer.

God of Easter Day,

Break into moments of celebration and joy.

Give us gratitude, the impulse to share,

and a spirit of grace and understanding.

Resurrect, renew and revive our spirits.

Hear our prayer.

God of New Creation,

Break into the circumstances, places and lives that we name in the silence of our hearts…

(Hold a silence)

Resurrect, renew and revive your people.

Hear our prayer.

Now we pray in one voice in the words that Jesus gave:

The Lord’s Prayer