​Worship
Here is a reflection from our Easter Day Service.
Reflection on John 20:1-18: Easter Sunday 20th April 2025
When we read these words from John's gospel today, it is very easy for us to almost to feel impatient with Mary and the disciples, Peter and John, because they really seem quite slow to grasp the glorious truth of the resurrection, don't they! But let's try for a moment to enter into the situation from their point of view.
For Mary this day begins in darkness and confusion. She goes to the tomb before sunrise. She sees the stone rolled away from the entrance, and the body gone and she goes rushing away to tell Peter and John. But what does she say?- Not 'He is risen!' like the Easter Proclamation at the start of our Easter service, but 'they've taken his body away- we don't know where he is!' She is distraught: Jesus has died; the only thing that is left is his body; losing his body must feel like adding insult to injury- the last straw!
Peter and John race to the tomb. John runs quicker but when he actually gets there, he is a bit reticent- he peeks his head in and spots that the linen cloths are there, but the body is gone. Peter, in true Peter style, elbows past him and barges straight in. We are told that John 'believed', but also that they are puzzled- they go back to where they were staying. They don't really know how to put this all together, they don't know what to make of it.
It's worth us stopping for a moment and reflecting that Easter Sunday doesn't begin for these people with a drumroll, a flash of light or an angelic hallelujah chorus! It begins in the half light of dawn, with a sense of panic, distress, confusion.
And I think there is something quite reassuring, actually about that. Now, if you are coming this morning with a deep sense of joy, of certainty, of purpose, of celebration on this day, that is great, and don't for one moment let me rob you of it. But you know for many of us there doesn't seem much certainty around the future. War in Ukraine still stalks the gates of Europe. War in Israel and Gaza brings horror to our television screens. Trump's tariffs have the power to spook the stock markets around the world.
Closer to home, many of us are weighed down with the stresses of life. We struggle will illness, we are caring for family members, we face stresses at work. As a fellowship we are in time of change and transition. Humanly speaking, we may lack confidence in the future!
Well, we're in good company with Mary, Peter and John. Where we face circumstances which cause us confusion or anxiety or even panic, we are not alone.
So this morning, God might just be saying to you, 'hang on in there'. Remember that just because the disciples didn't understand the situation fully at this point, that doesn't mean it wasn't true- the truth is that Jesus had risen. Just because we don't fully understand everything that God is doing in our lives or in the lives of those close to us, it doesn't mean that God is not in those situations.
So hang on in there. The good news is that we do know the end of this story. Jesus is risen, he is alive, he is with us, we can hold fast to him. He has known suffering, he will journey with us through whatever we might be facing. Don't panic. Don't be anxious. Jesus is alive and he can be trusted. He will bring us through.
Mary sort of does this, she hangs on in there- literally, she hangs around at the tomb- she can't make sense of what has happened so she stays. There's a contrast here: Peter and John rush to the tomb, see exactly what Mary has been, also don't know what to make of it all, and seem to conclude 'right, nothing to see here folks' and disappear again to where they were staying.
Mary hangs around at the tomb. And by hanging around, by persevering, if you like, Mary is the one who receives the revelation.
As we've journeyed through John's gospel over the last term, we've seen Jesus ask people some apparently silly questions. "Do you want to get well?" to a man who has sat for thirty eight years at the side of a pool. Now "why are you crying?" to a woman who has seen the man who had healed her and transformed her life, crucified, dead and buried and who now can't find his body. What a silly question- of course she is crying.
But the question is really a penetrating one. Why are you crying? Where is your emotional response coming from? What do you think you have lost that you can't go on without? Jesus; question pushes us to examine our assumptions and work out where we are missing something.
Mary answers the question: "I am crying because the most horrible thing has happened to Jesus, and the only thing left for me to do was to anoint his body, and now even that has gone and I don't know where it is, so of course I'm upset!"
And then comes the revelation. "Mary" says the figure in front or her, and suddenly she recognises who it is, and her whole world is turned upside down again! The impossible has happened, Jesus is here, right in front of her!
I think Jesus is still in the business of drawing near to us, when we are blinded by tears or confusion, or stress, or grief, or pain. He is there in our situation, but maybe not quite as we expect, and often it takes us time to recognise him.
Where is Jesus in the situations we are facing? Where is Jesus in the situation of change and transition we face as a church right now? Where do we see Jesus in this community, here in Horfield, or Bishopston, where Jesus has placed us at this point in time? Is Jesus in some way staring us in the face, but we are not perceiving him?
When Mary recognises Jesus, her first reaction is to reach out to touch him. Everything is going to be alright! Jesus is alive! Maybe everything can go back to the way it was!
But she receives this puzzling reaction from him- "don't hold on to me. Instead go to my brothers and tell them I am ascending to my Father" - in essence, don't hold on to me, because everything is not going to back to the way it was; everything is going to change again- I'm going away again! You are going to have to get used to the new normal, where I will always been with you, all of you, but not as flesh and blood but by my Spirit".
Mary reaches out, overwhelmed to have him back. But she is told that she is going to have to let go.
What might Jesus be telling us today that we have to let go of? What might is be that we wish would 'go back to normal'? Perhaps something in our personal lives, perhaps some things in our life together as a fellowship.
Maybe there are things that are so much part of our normal lives, or part of our normal expression of our faith, that we can't imagine them changing. But Jesus says 'don't hold on- let go'.
He asks us to do the most difficult thing, like Mary being asked to uncurl her fingers from Jesus' robe, to let go of this flesh and blood, to let go of the way of being with Jesus which she has always known, which she thought was the only way to be with Jesus, and to step away in that moment, to believe and trust that she can embrace a new way of being with Jesus in the future which is even better than before.
This was the greatest day in history. But it started in shock, confusion, anxiety. If that is where we are, then hang on in there, Jesus is the resurrection and the life and he is with you!
This was the great day in history: not the day on which everything was put back to normal, but the day on which everything changed forever. If we are struggling with things changing around us, then hang on in there. Jesus is the resurrection and the life and he is with you.
No one who believe in the resurrection ever has to fear the future.
Barbara Revill 20/04/2025