I preached this sermon on April 5, 2026, my first Sunday as the commissioned pastor at Christ Presbyterian Church in Milford, Ohio.
The lectionary text is John 20:1-18 – The Empty Tomb & Jesus Appears to Mary Magdalene,
Mary Magdalene remained in the garden. She stood, she wept, she was in mourning. She didn’t understand the angels, she didn’t understand the resurrection, she didn’t even recognize Jesus, her Saviour; yet in the end, her message was the greatest proclamation of all.
The Gospel of John builds us up to this proclamation, not just in today’s reading, but throughout its entirety. Our lectionary started us in January with John’s Prologue where we learned Jesus is the Word of God, that He is a partner in the very creation of the world. We’ll get to come back to that a little later.
The next ten chapters of the gospel list the miracles that Jesus performed, signs that have deeper meaning than simple miraculous activity. From his very first sign – turning water into wine – to healing the blind and raising the dead, Jesus is showing his divine identity.
Interspersed between the signs, John writes long dialogues that Jesus has with the widest range of characters you can imagine. These characters include the Pharisee authority, Nicodemus; and the Samaritan woman at the well, a person a Jew would never associate with. In all these conversations, John explains more of who Jesus is, more than any of the other gospel writers.
Starting with chapter twelve, Jesus’ public ministry ends, and John starts writing about Jesus’ anticipated death. John frames this death as a “glorification,” as it was always the destiny of Jesus to die for our sins. [SLIDE] John 12:23, “Jesus replied, ‘The time has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.”
Interestingly. John writes very little about Jesus foretelling His resurrection. In this gospel, the disciples didn’t seem to be expecting more. Even with the fourth gospel’s focus on the crucifixion and death of Christ being the glory for our salvation, the gospel continues with the resurrection story that we heard today. That’s where things make a decided change of pace, if you will, in all four gospels.
A unique aspect of the resurrection story in all the gospels is the act of running. Nowhere in the four gospels do the disciples ever run except in the resurrection story. In all the narration of the disciples, they seem to stroll unhurriedly from town to town. I don’t get the impression that they try to reach their anaerobic heart rate. Pilates Pontius Pilate
In fairness, “fleeing” or “fled” is a verb that is used a few times and is similar, but not quite the same as running. Their level of fleeing might be similar to what happened in the Boston Molasses Disaster of 1919, when a holding tank of syrup collapsed. You can just envision the cry from police, “Walk, walk for your lives!” Okay, 21 people didn’t stroll fast enough and died, so it wasn’t that harmless. A century later and we are entitled to giggle a little at the optics of the situation.
Let’s list those instances of running from the resurrection story, including the women who were an important part: [SLIDE]
· John 20:2 – Mary Magdalene ran to the two disciples to tell them the tomb was empty.
· John 20:3 – Peter and the beloved disciple, which tradition has it is John himself, ran a race to the tomb to see for themselves.
· Matthew 28:8 – The women ran to tell the disciples what the angel told them.
· Luke 24:12 – Peter ran to the tomb by himself to confirm what the women had told him.
· Honorable mention is Mark 16:8 – the women fled the tomb after hearing from an angel.
As you can tell, all four gospel writers were portraying a sense of urgency in the revelation that Christ had risen, and running helps with that narrative.
There was a cultural context of the time about running that needs to be understood. In the ancient Near Eastern culture, running – especially for an adult male or teacher – was often viewed as undignified or a sign of extreme urgency or distress. There were still the ancient Olympic Games and the Isthmian Games for the elite athletes that included running, but I doubt they had a local Turkey Trot or the Mary Miller Memorial 5k (see details in the monthly newsletter). Perhaps the Jerusalem Jog for families to participate in?
One of the few references to running in the gospels, other than the resurrection story, is in Luke, the parable of the Prodigal Son. One of the man’s sons takes his inheritance early, leaves, spends it foolishly – hence the title ‘prodigal’ – and returns to his father as humble as one could possibly be. A very meaningful part of the parable is when the father runs up to the returning son to embrace him. He didn’t care about being viewed as undignified; he cared about welcoming his son – once dead to him – back to his family. He said, “For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.” //\\
In similar fashion, Jesus was dead to the disciples, Peter and the beloved disciple, and when Mary ran to tell them that Jesus was lost, no longer in the tomb, they ran like the father in the parable of the Prodigal Son. They needed to see for themselves, though we still aren’t sure what they were expecting. This fourth gospel shows how they weren’t prepared for the resurrection.
[SLIDE – vv. 8-10] They ran to see for themselves what Mary told them. They took turns looking into the tomb, and the text said that when John went inside, he saw and believed. // Believed what? Believed Christ had risen? Believed Mary’s conclusion that someone had taken Jesus’ body?
Verse nine doesn’t give us confidence that either of them yet believed that Christ had actually risen. “(They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.)” Verse ten says, “Then they went back to their homes.” They didn’t continue their run to tell the other disciples the news of what they did – or didn’t – see. They went back to brunch.
The synoptic gospels all include several mentions of the resurrection being foretold by Jesus to his disciples well before his crucifixion. They heard it from Jesus and questioned it and were slowly coming around to the concept of His resurrection. Here’s the tricky part for us today: The writer of the fourth gospel included very little of Jesus foretelling his resurrection. If we were to stay within John’s gospel only, forgetting what we know from the other three gospels, then we would see that Peter and John wouldn’t have had anything more than a veiled clue, barely a hint, that Jesus was going to rise from the dead.
So when the beloved disciple went inside the tomb, and saw, and believed, did he really believe Jesus had been resurrected? Or did he come to believe Mary when she said, ‘They have taken the Lord from the tomb.”
[SLIDE – v. 11-12a] In all the excitement of running here and there, it happened. // Mary took the most faithful step of all: She didn’t leave, she remained. She stood near the tomb and wept. It was finally quiet again in the garden that morning. She could finally see into the tomb and when she stooped to look in, two angels in white were seated where Jesus’ body had been.
The angels chose her to appear to first. They chose her to talk to first. They chose her to ask about her mourning, “Woman, why are you crying?”
And then, the first tangible evidence of the crux of our belief, the cornerstone of our religion, the risen Christ appears to Mary Magdalene. He repeats the angels’ question, “Woman, why are you crying?”
John writes that Mary thinks Jesus is the gardener. Yes, Mary, yes He is. In John’s prologue in chapter one, we know that He was a partner in the Creation, “in the beginning.” He was the Word, through Him all things were made. Through her tear-filled eyes and mistaken identity, Mary takes us back to the beginning, to a different garden, the Garden of Eden.
In fact, this makes a trifecta of sorts, the Garden of Eden, the Garden of Gethsemane, and now the Garden Tomb, three major gardens in the Bible. Adam, in a state of grace and innocence, was the gardener in the Garden of Eden, and committed the original sin. Jesus began his sufferings in the Garden of Gethsemane to undo what Adam had done. And it was in the Garden Tomb that Jesus finished the work of redemption for all of us.
Mary Magdalene, in just a few verses, became part of the greatest story ever told, from beginning to end. She waited faithfully. We can follow her lead, waiting faithfully, listening for angels, watching for Jesus, with the huge advantage of being blessed with the Holy Spirit inside each of us. Let’s do what Mary did. She stopped running, stopped hurrying, stopped jumping to conclusions.
- Mary stood – and the angels appeared to her.
- Mary stood – and the angels spoke to her.
- Mary stood – and Jesus appeared to her.
- Mary stood – and Jesus spoke to her.
- Mary stood – and Jesus revealed himself to her.
- Mary stood – and Jesus commissioned her to give the first Easter message.
Mary Magdalene announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord!” The first Easter message, the first Easter sermon, the news of Jesus’ resurrection, was delivered by Mary, not by the beloved disciple, not by Peter, the Rock, the one Jesus will build his church on, not by any of the disciples. The person Jesus chose to give the first Easter sermon was the one who stopped running, who stood and waited.
I will end MY first Easter sermon, paraphrasing with words from THE first Easter sermon. We can do them responsively:
“Christ has risen!” “He has risen indeed!”
AMEN.
