2025-04-20 Easter at Trinity
John 20:1-18
20:1 Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb.
20:2 So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him."
20:3 Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb.
20:4 The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first.
20:5 He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in.
20:6 Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb.
He saw the linen wrappings lying there,
20:7 and the cloth that had been on Jesus' head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself.
20:8 Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed;
20:9 for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead.
20:10 Then the disciples returned to their homes.
20:11 But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb.
As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb
20:12 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.
20:13 They said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping?" She said to them, "They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.
20:14 When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus.
20:15 Jesus said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?" Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away."
20:16 Jesus said to her, "Mary!" She turned and said to him in Hebrew, "Rabbouni!" (which means Teacher).
20:17 Jesus said to her, "Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father.
But go to my brothers and say to them, 'I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'"
20:18 Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, "I have seen the Lord"; and she told them that he had said these things to her.
Something That Was NOT In The Bulletin
Consider the humble Bulletin.
A mere single sheet of 20 pound, 11 by 17 paper, yet it contains all the information you need for Christian, Presbyterian worship.
Marked also with a rich assortment of vital announcements, attractive graphics, and hieroglyphic QR codes understandable by 14 year-old STEM students.
Birthed each week by Our Lady of the Front Office, the Blessed St. Wendy, as she tends to each jot and tittle as if it were a personal offering to God.
And yet, we hand them out, email them out, liturgically dance them out (that's still in development) FOR FREE!!!
We just GIVE them away, as freely as the love of Jesus.
Take two if you like.
God is so good.
Which is to say, The Bulletin is important, if not almost essential.
We could shine everything up on screens.
But then we’d be Baptist.
Unless you’ve worked in a church office you have NO IDEA.
You have NO IDEA how much work goes into the six days of Bulletin creation.
Each week, the office combs through a mountain of emails and phone calls and Post-it notes on the door.
And that’s just the ones from Jean, and Craig, and me.
Then add all the last-minute announcements that require immediate release.
It’s a labor of love.
And it is good.
But, after all the assembly, all the proofreading – The Bulletin's only human.
There might still be typos.
Still be omissions.
Misspelled names, wrong times, grammatical errors.
Praise Jesus we don't print the sermons.
We try.
We try hard.
To be perfect.
To get it right.
To provide The Bulletin's short life its due respect, before its end comes, and we bury it in the Recycle Bin.
Or delete.
Or abandon, all alone, in a pew.
--
I heard this a long time ago and I wish I could remember the particulars.
There was a well-known Black preacher, with a big bass voice, who would ascend to the pulpit on Sunday mornings.
Take a deep breath, and begin the service with a prayer:
“Lord, let something happen today -- that isn’t in the bulletin!”
There are things that can't be contained in words.
You see, Easter morning – is proof beyond proof –
that in spite of ALL our plans and preparations –
despite ALL our proofing –
despite ALL our confidence –
despite all our hard work and fervent hope that WE –
are getting things right,
that WE are preserving the right things,
that WE are creating accurate, memorable, and world-wide-accessible, decent and orderly --
LIVES of worship and praise –
something always goes wrong.
One thing we can be certain of –
especially on Easter morning –
is that God does NOT –
stick to our bulletins.
Because no matter how hard we try to predict, to direct, to agendize, to tame the wild beast of the Holy Spirit, God will always – ALWAYS...
Surprise us.
Just when we think we know how the story ends.
Just when we think we’ve seen it all before.
Just when we think we are certain –
we know the script –
we’ve made the plan –
we have created perfection –
in our print material, in our lives, in our words and actions – Exactly then,
at that moment,
God throws open the door, flips on the lights, jumps out from behind the couch, and shouts,
“Surprise!”
Easter morning is proof.
That we are assembled here today is PROOF that God’s calling card, God’s Standard Operating Procedure – is SURPRISE.
--
Isaiah 55:9 tells us, God’s ways are not our ways.
Amen.
Life is not merely OUR way or the highway.
There is always a THIRD way, a divinely off-road way -- that we can NOT predict.
A way that we never see coming.
GOD’S WAY.
I don’t know if God LIKES it that way.
Or if we’re so certain of OUR WAY.
But 100% of the time, in the Bible, and in our daily life –
God’s way comes with a mind-blowing...
surprise.
So like that preacher whose name I can’t remember, I pray.
I pray to God.
I pray that the Lord lets something happen TODAY, in THIS hour, something that isn’t in the bulletin.
Something that isn’t in our plans.
Something that isn’t in our human ability.
Something better than good –
something that spins our world around the WRONG way –
something that surprises us –
Because.
Because the Bible tells us so, again and again and again.
It tells us Our SURPRISE is the one, clear, humbling sign – that GOD – GOD is at work.
God is so much bigger than what fits in a bulletin.
Praise.
Praise the Lord for that.
He is not where he should be.
He is not in the bulletin.
He is not in the tomb.
Praise the Lord.
For he is risen indeed.
Surprise.
--
1 Corinthians 15:51, the Apostle Paul writes, “Lo, I will tell you a mystery.”
Today, I say, “Hi. Let me tell you a secret.”
Easter this year is like no other for me.
I never dreamed I would be at Trinity Presbyterian Church.
A few months ago, I didn’t know the church existed.
I never imagined I would be living 20 minutes and two bridges from the Gulf of… Whatever country we’re calling it today.
The fish don't care.
Last week, I was asked by a kind and respectful stranger: “So, Pastor, how long have you been serving the Lord here?”
I said, “Three weeks.”
I still have that new pastor smell.
My wife Kristen, is here today, With our eldest daughter, Emily, and our little dog, too.
He did not come to worship.
Younger daughter Anna is working at Epcot,
and unlike Chick Fil-A, Disney World does not liberate the workers on religious holidays.
Kristen is here. And she can verify this.
Back in January, when I was still looking for an Interim Pastorate, I read through Trinity's information.
I looked at the website.
I saw the location.
I watched videos of Hugh and Jean.
And I thought,
“They're not going to want me.
They want someone...
taller.
They want someone younger.
Someone whose hair doesn’t grow in a reverse fade – you know, skin on top and longer as it goes down.”
Kristen said, “Just go and talk to them, you big dummy.
You don't can't decide for them.”
And, my wife was right.
Again.
Surprise.
This is actually the SECOND time she told me to visit a church despite my resistance.
The last one I stayed at 26 years.
So, she's got a pretty good record.
No surprise at all.
--
In the Gospel According to John, Mary goes to the graveyard.
Mary goes to the tomb.
She goes to the place where they have stuck Jesus’s body and put a rock over it to make sure nobody gets in and he doesn’t get out.
Mary went so early in the morning, it was still dark.
Now, many of us have been to the cemetery to lay flowers and have a talk with our loved ones.
But I can’t imagine many of us have ever made that trip, alone, in the morning, before sunrise, in the dark.
Gospel writer John is seriously into symbolism.
Most of this gospel has more tough layers than Nick Saban.
We know Mary, who was so close to Jesus –
we know she had to be mourning.
We know she had to be grieving.
John imagines her having sunk so deep into the black hole of despair that he says there was not a single ray of light around her.
She is living before sunrise.
Now, remember what we were saying last week.
East, the direction from which the sun rises, is the holiest direction back then.
So this day, when Mary is at the tomb, there is no sun.
Not yet.
The sun has not risen.
Mary is totally, and completely, in the dark night of the soul.
For her, God is gone.
--
They say grief has five stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.
They aren’t kind enough to go in order.
And apologies to Kubler-Ross, there’s probably way more than five.
Sometimes you're in more than one.
The way John writes Mary in this story, she’s in all of them, at the same time.
Except acceptance.
Acceptance sounds peaceful.
Maybe it would be better to say, Acknowledgement.
Acknowledging that yes, Jesus’s death is true.
It happened.
He's in the tomb.
And there’s no denying it.
The rolling boulder of grief has come to rest – smack on top of Mary.
She is crushed.
She is alone.
She is even without God.
--
Grief is hell.
Not because it’s punishing us.
But because grief can convince us that we are alone.
Alone to the point of being alone without God.
Grief steals the ability to imagine light ever coming back to our souls.
In this story, the sun does begin to rise for Mary, but slowly.
And not without her resistance.
Inch by inch it peeks over the horizon, and little by little, she feels the warm hope of holy.
--
God has surprises in store for Mary.
At least three as I count them.
You might find more.
Mary’s first surprise is when she gets to the tomb.
And she sees the stone has been removed.
The prison gate has been opened.
She and the disciples can look in.
But more, Jesus can come out.
And he has.
He is not there.
Look, Mary.
See.
The sun is starting to inch over the horizon.
Jesus is not where he is supposed to be.
He’s not where he HAS to be.
Surprise. The first.
Mary stands outside the tomb, weeping.
Through the lenses of her tears, she sees angels.
We get embarrassed when we cry.
Especially us men.
Maybe that’s why John has Simon Peter and the Other Disciple turn their faces and run away.
Tears, the Bible is telling us, are nothing to be ashamed of.
In fact, tears may be like the prism that shows us the true colors of the angels.
Mary, left alone, not only sees the angels.
They speak to her.
They say, “Woman, why are you weeping?”
There’s nothing that says you have to be smart to be an angel.
Sometimes, when we’re sad, it helps to have someone brave enough to ask the obvious questions.
Instead of giving us advice.
Instead of trying to distract us from the grief.
Sometimes, like Simon and the Other One, even the greatest disciples run away from what they can’t explain.
Oh, Mary.
Look now! Angels!
Can you feel a little more of the sun from the East?
Can you see the light beginning to dawn?
Surprise, again. The second.
Next, Mary turns around.
Someone’s there.
Who is it? I don’t know.
Maybe...
the gardener? Cemetery staff? Another mourner?
And then, again, the question.
This new person asks, "Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?"
You know the old rule of lawyers and Children’s Sermons: “Never ask a question you don’t know the answer to.”
I’m pretty sure Jesus knows the answer.
You know how it is when you’re really close to someone and you don’t have to speak their name?
If I hear Kristen saying, “James,” it’s usually because she’s having some sort of trouble,
or I’m IN some sort of trouble.
Remember when your mother would call you by your whole name when she was so mad she was checking your birth certificate?
Jesus said to her, "Mary!"
And at that moment, the sun rose.
The light of day shined on her and through her.
And she knew.
She knew it was Jesus.
It WAS Jesus, and nobody else.
She KNEW it was really, truly him.
Surprise. The third.
So then, it doesn’t SAY Mary ran SO fast to tell everybody, but I’ll bet she did.
Wouldn’t you?
I’ll bet she ran so fast to tell the other disciples that her sandals came off.
I’ll bet she ran so hard, the palm branches got shoved aside.
The limbs of the trees cut her face.
She ran and she ran, and John says, she announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord!”
The world’s first Christian sermon.
Preached by a woman.
Surprise!
And it was only five words long! Surprise!
Don’t worry, we men mansplainers, will soon enough make them much, much longer.
No surprise.
--
Easter is the day for making plans.
We figure out ahead of time what we’re wearing.
Some of us buy new outfits.
New spring shoes.
A fancy bonnet.
We dress little boys in seersucker and bow ties and forbid them under penalty of tomb from getting stains.
We go to church.
We take pictures.
We rush to make lunch reservations.
We’re go home and take a big nap.
Or watch the PGA.
Or binge some White Lotus to see why everyone’s saying, “Piper, No!”
We have our plans.
We have our personal agendas.
If we’re really OCD we have a spreadsheet.
Or a whiteboard with different colored markers on the refrigerator.
Which is to say, we all have our private Sunday Bulletins.
They may be on paper.
They may be on our phones.
They may be sent home by our teachers because Monday you have to catch up for daring to have a day off.
Why? It’s in your bulletin.
That’s why.
But I promise you.
If you peek between the shades.
If you look between the agenda items that blind us to what’s really happening --
If you let a little of the Eastern light sneak through --
You may be, probably be, will be – surprised.
Surprised -- by something you DIDN’T put in the plans.
Surprised when something happens even though it’s not in your personal bulletin.
O Lord, O Lord, let that something happen.
And let us see you on this Easter.
Let’s keep praying, together:
Heavenly God, Earthly Lord, Sneaky Spirit – remind us today that we can’t control you.
We can’t predict you.
We can’t hide from you.
When we can’t see you, send someone to ask us why not.
Send your angels to comfort us and to confront us.
Cry with us when we grieve.
Laugh with us when we laugh.
Be beside us when we laugh at ourselves.
Help us to take the care of others very seriously.
Help us to accept your serious love.
Surprise us, Lord.
Because we know you will.
In Jesus’s name.
Amen.
