Texts: Colossians 3:1-4 and John 20:1-18
A HOMILETIC STUDY AND REFLECTION ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN
By Norm Wright
STUDY
On this holiest of days, we turn to the story of Jesus’ resurrection as told in the Gospel of John. I wasn’t planning on a study portion for this day but as I started writing, it became apparent that I needed to. The Gospel of John is not my favorite Gospel to preach on because it is difficult to unravel this complex Gospel within an eight to ten minute homily without resorting to platitude.
Personally speaking, there is nothing easy about Easter. I avoid watching all the movies or documentaries trying to replicate this deep mystery or explain it, which, in my opinion, merely end up reducing the inexplicable to a “dramedy” or a one-off phenomenon that holds no relevance to our world today. The Resurrection of Jesus is perplexing.
To start with, the resurrection of Jesus presents the greatest conundrum of all. All of the Gospels have their own way of presenting it and before getting into John’s presentation, I feel compelled to demonstrate this conundrum by way of how the resurrection of Jesus is presented in the earliest Gospel, the Gospel according to Mark.
The earliest known manuscripts of Marks’ Gospel end oddly:
As they [the women] entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.” So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.* [Mark 16:5-8]
That’s it. That’s how the earliest manuscripts end. Hardly the joyous occasion we think of as Easter. It was a terrifying experience, and all of the Gospels in their own way capture a sense of this terror but none as explicitly as Mark.
Why terror?
Because the Resurrection presents a conundrum, and it is not a conundrum involving Jesus only, it is conundrum involving us.
The Gospel of John cannot be dealt with in a piecemeal fashion. It has to be taken and understood as a whole; as an intricately interwoven, theological work. To get at the meaning of Easter found in John 20, we must turn to John 2. John 2 begins with the story of Jesus turning water into wine at the wedding feast at Cana. After that event, Jesus goes up to Jerusalem and cleanses the Temple, which, in the Synoptic Gospels, takes place immediately before the Last Supper, located near the end of those Gospels. In John, this event takes place early on and is used to set the stage for Jesus’s resurrection.
After Jesus turned over the money changers’ tables, those present ask him for a sign of his authority to do so. Jesus cryptically replies, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it up in three day.” Just so we get the meaning, John adds an editorial comment that Jesus was talking about the temple of his body, which brings us to today’s Gospel lesson.
To review, the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD was experienced as an extremely disorientating event by all Jews; those who followed Jesus and those who didn’t. In this resurrection story, we find that the temple is revealed in the resurrected presence of Jesus as the Christ. This is the context in which John casts Jesus’ resurrection.
Everything said in the Gospel of John has a meaning behind it. In today’s lesson, we start with who is involved, Mary Magdalene (mentioned in all the Gospels), Peter, and an unnamed disciple described as the disciple Jesus loved. Most Biblical scholars and theologians cast this unnamed disciple as the namesake of this Gospel, Jesus’ disciple John, but we shouldn’t be too hasty with that conclusion.
The fact that this disciple is left unnamed is suggestive. Just when one thinks one knows what John is talking about or where John’s author is leading us, unless the author is presenting an editorial clue, things left undefined are defining. This beloved disciple suggests anyone called to be a disciple of Jesus, a catechist for instance, might be considered beloved of Jesus and in that suggestion find him or herself a participant in this story.
What is interesting in this Gospel is that these three individuals approach the tomb with a certain degree of reticence. The tomb is found open by Mary who runs to tell Peter. There is a suggestion that Mary was not alone; that there were other women present as implicated in her comment to Peter, “… we don’t know where they have laid him.”
Peter and the unnamed disciple run to the tomb. The unnamed disciple reaching it first does not enter. Peter bends down (a sign of reverence) and then the unnamed disciple follows. Then Peter enters the tomb followed by the unnamed disciple. This supports the suggestion the unnamed disciple is symbolic of the (as yet unbaptized) catechist who cannot fully understand the mystery of Christ Jesus and merely follows the example of the fully initiated symbolized by Peter.
What Peter and this unnamed disciple see is merely an empty tomb and the burial cloths lying on the stone slab where Jesus’ corpse was placed, noting that the cloth covering his face was rolled up in a place by itself. That’s it. Once again, John points out that sight, as mental comprehension, is not sufficient by itself to grasp the mystery of the empty tomb, the mystery of the Risen Christ.
An opened tomb, in itself, may result in a reticent approach, but one suspects that mention of it here is meaningful. What all three individuals cannot (understandably) conclude at that point is that Jesus is risen. There is always another step in this process, according to John: Jesus must approach and reveal himself.
What is stressed in all of the Gospel accounts is that women are the first to arrive and are the first to receive and believe the message that Jesus is risen. This is not meant to be sexist. Rather, what we see are two principles at work in these Gospels; and in particular, the Gospel of John.
Pragmatism is frequently portrayed as a male principle; the seeing-is-believing type of reasoning, whereas intuition, insight, and wisdom are frequently portrayed as a female principle where, in Christian theology, understanding is apprehended through faith rather than intellectual belief. We see both principles played out in all the Gospels.
What brings Peter and the (not fully sure of himself) unnamed disciple to the tomb is curiosity which appears satisfied with the certainty of the fact that Jesus is not there. What brings Mary back to the tomb is uncertainty and a nagging doubt about the facts filtered through the dim hope of finding out where Jesus is. In essence, John is explaining that there is an element of doubt essential to faith.
When Mary Magdalene bends over to look in the tomb, things become extremely mysterious as she sees two angels sitting on the slab of stone, one where Jesus’ head was and one where his feet were. What is being described is something that would have been familiar to Jesus’ early Jewish followers. Two angels one at the head and one at the feet is a description of the Ark of the Covenant where, on the lid of the Ark, were seated two angels facing each other, one at each end of the Ark.
The space between them was known as the Mercy Seat, where the presence or glory of God dwelt, in Hebrew the glory of God is called the Shekinah. Notice that in this resurrection story, the angels speak in unison, with one voice.
With regard to the cloth that had covered Jesus’ face being “rolled” up and put in its own place, two possible meanings come to mind: The rolled up cloth is reminiscent of a scroll representing the Torah or the scrolls of the Tanakh, the Hebrew Scriptures; as in, the law and the prophets are fulfilled. It is also reminiscent of the veil Moses used when he left the Holy of Holies of the Tabernacle, where the Ark of the Covenant was kept, to hide the glow of God’s glory on his face. In this context, the rolled up cloth signifies that the glory of God is revealed in the face of Jesus; that there is no need to hide that glory because, as Jesus remarked in John 17, Jesus is bestowing that glory on his disciples.
When the angels sitting on the empty slab where Jesus’ body was laid see Mary weeping, they ask with one voice, “Why are you weeping?” She responds, “They have taken my Lord away and I don’t know where they have laid him.” No one in John’s Gospel gets things immediately. They must be drawn into understanding slowly because in John’s presentation things are not as they seem to be; that life on the surface is an illusion.
Mary then turns away from this mysterious encounter and sees Jesus standing there, but does not see him as Jesus but as a gardener - a suggestive reference to Jesus being the new Adam tending a new creation. Again, for a second time by the supposed gardener, Mary is asked, “Why are you weeping?” Mary again gives a similar answer as she did to the angels, but with an ironic twist, suggesting the supposed gardener of taking Jesus’ body away, which in a paradoxical sense is true, in part. It is only when Jesus says her name, “Mary” that she recognize him.
It is only when Jesus reveals himself in a direct approach that individuals can identify him as the Christ. As we have seen before, when things happen in pairs in John’s Gospel we encounter a unifying principle, used here as a form of transference of the Shekinah residing on the mercy seat of the Ark of the Old Covenant to Jesus who is the New Covenant, the resurrected Temple of God.
John ends this account as mysteriously as he started it. When Mary realizes Jesus’ presence, there is an implication that she reaches for him as suggested in Jesus’ command, “Do not hold on to me because I have not ascended to the Father.” The fact is we don’t know if Mary tried holding on to him. That Jesus makes a point of not trying to hold on to him, implies that the risen Christ is not something that can be grasped in a physical/rational sense, and is suggesting that the presence of the resurrected Christ will be transferred (upon his ascension) to those called to follow him, as revealed in the final chapter of John’s Gospel.
REFLECTION
“LIFE FROM DEATH"
The death and resurrection of Jesus casts this life; life lived on the ice-thin surface of an illusionary reality, in a parabolic light; as in, things not being what they seem to be. As such, I find the earliest manuscripts of Mark’s Gospel that end with the women being seized by terror at the discovery of an empty tomb and hearing that Jesus had risen a credible portrayal of what it must have been like for them and what it would have been like for us in that situation.
In John’s Gospel, the Resurrection is depicted in what mystics and theologians like Rudolph Otto describe as the “wholly other;” a mysterium tremendum et fascinans, a mystery that both terrifies and fascinates. (Rudolph Otto was German theologian and philosopher who wrote “The Idea of the Holy” in 1917)
In John’s Gospel, we approach the empty tomb of Jesus as Mary Magdalene did a second time; with the dread of uncertainty and a nagging but fascinating element of doubt that things are not what they seem to be, which paradoxically opens the eyes of faith.
Life is not as it seems. The moment life emerged from death eliminated the conundrum of Jesus’ death and burial and cast Jesus’ resurrection as being a deeply parabolic moment; exposing the paradoxical reality presented in this life that could not have been grasped without its occurrence: Life comes from Death.
Life from death is not easily grasped. The risen Christ is not easily recognized in an illusionary reality that blinds us to the truth that we are part of something much larger than any one of us can comprehend; something larger than the whole of us and larger than the whole of creation. We cannot conceive of such things by our own power and strength.
In Jesus, we see the power and the glory of God’s creative, kenotic love in action; that love poured out in the act of creation, in what we experience and see with the naked eye as the universe; that incomprehensible reality that can only be appreciated and viewed partially through the dark lens of night.
By God’s grace and love, Jesus became our exemplar. “What is true for Jesus is true for us!” In Jesus’ story, I find my story. In Jesus’ story I find our story. That Jesus lives means I live! That Jesus lives means that we live and that there is more to life than this life.
At a time when the world is walking through the valley of the shadow of death; dealing with the conundrums caused by a pandemic, we find ourselves, on this day, peering reverently into an empty tomb and hearing the words, “He is not here. He is risen.”
In the midst of this uncertain time, we are reminded that there is a lifeline running through the valley of the shadow (the illusion) of death we call faith and hope in the love of God, whose covenantal promise is to raise up a new creation in the Resurrected Christ, in whom we are embodied and who we embody as Body of Christ on earth.
On this day, we see the terror of death replaced with the tremendum et fascinans of an empty tomb
As Paul said in our first lesson, “Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, [Get beyond the surface story of life] for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God [that Being in which we live, move, and have our being - Acts 17;28]. When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory.” * [What is true for Jesus is true for us.] (Italics my paraphrase -nw)
May the Love of God experienced in the Risen Christ shield us from the illusions of this world and preserve us from all fear and hopelessness.
AMEN
* New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the national Council of Church of Christ in the USA.
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