Risen Love!

SCRIPTURE TEXT:  John 20:1-18; Rev. Monte Marshall

Let’s pray:  God of the empty tomb, roll away the stones that prevent us from beholding your glory.  Unlock our capacity for resurrection.  Accept our intentions to live in your liberating love and empower us with your grace.  We open the doors of our lives to your healing, inspiring and sustaining Spirit, as we pray in the name of the One who is our threshold to new life.  Amen.

John’s gospel, in no small measure, is a love story.  The word “love” first appears in John’s gospel in a familiar verse: “For God so loved the world.” 

Later in the gospel, John notes that Jesus loved Lazarus and his two sisters, Martha and Mary.  Immediately before Jesus washed his disciples’ feet, John writes that Jesus “had always loved his own in this world.”  The foot washing demonstrated “how perfect this love was.”

In John’s gospel, Jesus speaks of love.  Jesus said, “’This is why Abba God loves me—because I lay down my life.’”  Jesus said to his disciples: “I give you a new commandment: Love one another.  And you’re to love one another the way I have loved you.  This is how all will know that you’re my disciples: that you truly love one another.’”  Jesus said: “’As my Abba has loved me, so have I loved you.”   Jesus prayed for his disciples: “’Abba, the hour has come.... I have given them the glory you gave me that they may be one, as we are one—I in them, you in me—that they may be made perfect in unity.  Then the world will know that you sent me, and that you loved them as you loved me.’”

John’s gospel, in no small measure, is a love story, but with a tragic turn that we’ve just recounted over the days of Holy Week.  Judas betrayed Jesus.  Soldiers, temple guards and religious leaders came for Jesus.  Judas led them to Gethsemane.  They came for him with lanterns, torches and swords.  They arrested him.  They examined him.  They humiliated him.  They beat him.  They then handed him over to the Romans for more of the same.  The Roman soldiers mocked him with their words, with a crown of thrones and a purple robe.  Pilate sentenced him to death.  The Romans crucified him.  And once he was dead, his friends buried his body in a garden tomb.

With this tragic turn, it seems appropriate to ask:  What of love now?  When love is betrayed, rejected, mocked, brutalized, crucified, dead and buried, are we then free to hate—to reciprocate—to retaliate—to defend ourselves by any means necessary?  Are we then free to reject all that Jesus said about love?  Should we turn our backs on a God whose love is so puny and ineffectual as to leave us vulnerable and at risk to those who are willing to use their power to harm us and even to kill us?  Why should we love like Jesus when love brought Jesus a cross and a tomb?

But not so fast!  John’s love story doesn’t end with the tragic turn.  There’s more to the story: “Early in the morning on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary of Magdala came to the tomb.”   

This, of course, is the opening verse of John’s Easter story.  And as I imagine the scene, I see Mary’s early morning pilgrimage to the graveyard being motivated by a profound grief born of love. After all, Mary is one of those disciples loved by Jesus and who loved Jesus in return.  In the darkness of that first Easter morning, I imagine that Mary is grieving love crucified—love entombed. 

But as John’s story unfolds, we’re led in a different direction.  All the details that emerge from the narrative—the rolled-back stone, the experience of Simon Peter and the beloved disciple, the empty tomb, the abandoned grave clothes, the divine messengers “in dazzling robes,” the appearance to Mary, the foreshadowing of the ascension, and Mary’s report to the disciples—all are intended to produce the very proclamation of good news that we uttered just moments ago: Christ is risen!  Christ is risen, indeed!  Alleluia!  

And risen too, is love!  The resurrection of Jesus signals the triumph of love.  Crucified love is now risen love!  And Mary of Magdala not only “saw the Teacher” as she told the disciples, she experienced risen love first-hand.  Through her tears, she thought she saw the gardener, but it wasn’t the gardener; it was the risen Christ.  And he called her by name: “’Mary!’  She turned to him and said, ‘Rabboni!’—which means ‘Teacher.’”  The title of a painting by artist Jan Richardson says it well: “And Love Will Rise Up and Call Us By Name.”

Dear friends, love is risen!  And with a risen love, there’s more left behind in the tomb than the grave clothes!  Abandoned in the grave is every instinct to hate, to reciprocate, to retaliate, to defend ourselves by any means necessary. 

Does this mean that we’re vulnerable when we love?  Yes!  Are we at risk when we love?  Yes!  But love is God’s way in the world.  Love is the way of Jesus.  Love is a fruit of the Spirit.  Despite the cross and the tomb, John’s story invites us to believe that love is triumphant.

But here’s the question:  Is love alive and triumphant in us?  The Episcopal Bishop of Central New York, the Rev. Dr. DeDe Duncan-Probe, puts the issue squarely before us.  She writes: “This is a challenging time in the life of our world.  Stories of suffering, violence, isolation, and brokenness are daily companions.  Our communities are increasingly divided, unable to abide difference and disagreement.  This very week, in the midst of Passover and Holy Week, a Jewish community center and a church near Washington, D. C. were vandalized with messages of hate, intolerance and fear.  Facing such situations, how can we refuse the temptation of isolation and division and continue to reach out to others?

“The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, ‘Love is the only power strong enough to make a friend out of an enemy.’  Our Christian call is determined not by what is done to us, but by our response:  our best, next choice.  The truth of our faith will best be expressed in the question: ‘How will we offer the resurrected love of Jesus Christ in this situation?’

“This Easter, I pray we will all go forth as a people willing to choose love and forgiveness over fear and hatred; as a people who seek and serve others, disregarding division, in the name of our Resurrected Lord Jesus Christ.  May the reality and power of God’s love transform you and fill you with the bold, active faith for which our world longs.”[1]  This too is my Easter prayer for each of us.

Hear the good news:  Love is risen!  Love is risen indeed!  Alleluia!