A Sermon for Easter Sunday

John 20:1-18

Peace be with you. It is Easter Sunday morning. As I have prepared for this day, I have asked myself, “How can we celebrate Easter in the midst of a pandemic? How can we shout Hallelujah when thousands have died from COVID-19 and the death toll continues to rise? How can we celebrate, isolated as we are?”

As I have read and reread the Easter story in the Gospel of John, I have become convinced that tears are as much a part of Easter as any shouts of Alleluia. Easter does not require us to be other than we are, it does not need us to be happy, it does not ask us to pretend everything is okay, it does not even depend upon us leaving our houses. Easter comes to us, comes to our tears and our isolation, comes to our fears.

In the Easter narrative we read this morning from John, Mary returns to Jesus’ tomb alone, and she stands there crying: “But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. They said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping?’”

The angels ask, “Woman, why are you weeping?” They don’t tell her to stop weeping; don’t tell her to wash her face; don’t tell her to behave as though her world is not crumbling and things will never be as they were. “Why are you weeping,” they ask, and she tells them: “They have taken him away. I don’t know where he is.”

After this explanation, she turns away from the empty tomb and sees a stranger, the gardener, she assumes. She is still crying. The seeming stranger asks the same question as the angels, “Woman, why are you weeping.”

She explains that Jesus is missing, and then he says her name: “Mary . . . Mary.” Hearing her name, she knows this seeming stranger to be Jesus. Like the angels, Jesus doesn’t ask her to stop weeping. No one in this Easter story tells her to stop weeping and there is no suggestion that she stops.

Jesus says her name and she knows him. Rabbi, Teacher she calls him. “Do not hold onto me,” he responds.

“Do not hold onto me.”

These words take on new meaning in these days of social distancing. We are not holding onto anyone outside our own houses which for some means there has been no physical touch: not a hug, not a handshake, not a pat on the back, no physical touch for weeks.

“Do not hold onto me.”

We walk to the other side of the street if a neighbor is walking toward us. We wait for someone else to finish shopping before we enter the aisle. In public we cannot even see friendly smiles, veiled as they are behind masks.

“Do not hold onto me, because I have not yet ascended to my heavenly parent. But go to my disciples and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my heavenly parent and your heavenly parent, to my God and your God,’” Jesus tells the weeping Mary.

And then he asks her to go to the disciples. To tell them her experiences. While our scripture reading stops at Jesus’ request that Mary preach the good news to the disciples, the story does not end here, it continues: “When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’ After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the heavenly parent has sent me, so I send you.’ When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20:19ff).

It is the evening of the first Easter and the disciples are afraid. So afraid, they are locked in a house, shut in together. They are not going out and they are not letting anyone in. Into their fear and isolation, “Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’”

Holy peace makes its way inside. Their fear and their isolation are not barriers to holy peace. This is the promise of Easter. Easter finds a way. Easter sees the graveyard, the isolation, the fear. Easter sees the despair and uncertainty and it moves through any boundary to bring holy peace.

“Peace be with you.”

The disciples need not go anywhere to receive this peace. The door can stay locked. They can remain isolated even while they begin to experience anew that they are not alone.

May it be so with us this Easter Sunday. We cannot touch Jesus. We cannot hold onto each other. We are separated into our houses.

And that is not the end of the story. Easter comes with holy peace into each space and every place. It comes no matter where we are. It comes shining hope into every corner. It comes even when we don’t feel ready, perhaps especially when we don’t feel ready. That first Easter, they were not ready. The flowers were not decorating the sanctuary; they hadn’t dressed in their Easter best; they were certainly not prepared for peace, no, they were afraid, prepared only for death. They were holding tight to what they experienced with Jesus, unsure of how to consider new possibilities. Jesus seems to tell them what he told Mary, “Do not hold onto me.”

Perhaps this has been part of his message all along – do not hold onto my earthly body, do not cling to your certainties, your unyielding theologies, your proof-texts. Let me go. We’ve tried to block Jesus, pin him in place with pastors and politicians, guards and soldiers, with tombs covered with stones, with cathedrals and church walls…but nothing has contained him. Not the cross, not the grave, not the church.

Jesus is not where we expect – we cannot define or contain him, but that doesn’t mean he’s missing. He’s here. Not here in this building, here everywhere. Jesus comes into the locked house where the disciples are closed in fear and says, “‘Peace be with you. As the heavenly parent has sent me, so I send you.’ When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’”

Hold onto my spirit. Here it is breathed on you and everyone else who knew me. Through you, I will be known to those who never met me.

“Peace be with you.”

Jesus is no longer constricted by time and space – Easter is the promise of holy peace available in every time and every place. The peace that Jesus embodied on earth was a peace that knew no limits and no boundaries, broke through prejudices, was withheld from no one. And that peace is loose in the world. That peace is made known again and again.

Holy peace does not end despair, it does not ask us to stop our weeping, it does not offer all the answers. The story of Easter points us to peace -always present always available, ever surprising us in new and unexpected ways.

These days of sorrow are also days of creativity; these days of isolation are also days of radical connection; these days of uncertainty are also days of innovation. Just as peace came to those locked in fear that first Easter, so too it comes again and again in our time, in every place.

Reagan Miller and the stories he told us with his voice and instruments are a part of our story, a part of our sacred story. Reagan once gave a call to confession about one of his guitars. He wrote: “I own a 1943 Gibson LG-2 ‘Banner’ guitar, It’s a mahogany, small body guitar, the ‘L’ stands for ‘Lady’ (Gibson marketed its smaller ‘parlor’ guitars to women) and the ‘Banner’ refers to a decal on the headstock of the instrument which is unique to Gibson guitars made during the war years of 1942-1945, the decal reads ‘Only a Gibson is Good Enough.’ My guitar was made in the original Gibson plant in Kalamazoo, Michigan and based on serial dates, it was likely made in the Summer of 43.” Reagan wrote that for those who know their history, 1943 was a grim year; all nations suffered with shortages and austerity measures.

As American men went off to war, women stepped in to fill in the jobs left behind, such was the case with the Gibson Company. My guitar was made by women. Women who weren’t trained luthiers but mostly housewives who transferred skills developed from crocheting, sewing, and needlepoint to create what some consider the best guitars ever made. Historian John Thomas wrote about the characteristics of these instruments: “The women’s guitars were more refined. Every little plate, every little brace, every little piece of material in the guitar is sanded just a tiny bit thinner, just a tiny bit smoother, and that’s the difference. And I contend that people can hear this. That’s why they sound so great.”

Reagan went on to describe how scarcity of materials in the war years led to design changes that gave his guitar “a distinctive woody growl.”

Reagan concluded: “What captures me about this story is how adversity, perseverance, and everyday hope could create a transcendent object, something with its own unique beauty and voice.”

These days are hard. We have known hard days before. These days will require from us things we did not even know we were capable of. Once again people are turning skills developed for one task into skills for a world in need: sewing face-masks, teaching, shopping for a neighbor already in poor health, restaurants transforming into farmer’s markets, selling their meat and produce, therapists are working with phones and facetime, medical personnel and engineers creating ventilators from repurposed parts – we are adapting just like those women who turned their skill with a needle into skill with a guitar string.

We’ve known many losses this year as a congregation and now, as a world, we are experiencing a staggering loss of life. We are being pushed to our limits and Easter’s promise is much like those Lady Banner guitars, beauty is being created as well. Beauty and new life surround us. Music and poetry shared through social media, families smiling at each other through zoom calls, justice sought and created in ways never before imagined – for those of us who can stay home, our staying is beautiful, it is life-giving, it is an Easter act of hope.

Holy peace finds its way in. It can pass through locked doors. It can make its way into any isolation. The holy peace of Easter flowers beauty, it creates compassion, it inspires creativity.

And so, this Easter Sunday, peace be with you. Alleluia.

Amen.

Laura Mayo
Covenant Church, Houston, TX