"Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? … No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."(Rom. 8:34, 37-39)

At the end of my senior year at seminary I was invited to join a group of people for dinner. We were talking about the various clergy that we know. One of the guests began to laugh and told us this story of a young, new rector. I subsequently confirmed it with the priest, so am convinced that it is not just urban legend.

The priest had been the curate at St. Swithen's for two years. He left to be a rector in a parish in another state. He was called back to St. Swithen's as rector. He was overjoyed to be there and delighted to be able to resume wearing a cope and doing more formal liturgy. Shortly after he arrived, a prominent citizen died. The priest decided to wear said cope to the gravesite. It was a gloomy, rainy day as he rode into the cemetery with the undertaker. The family and other cars were held at the gate until final preparations were made. Unfortunately, no one had told the young priest that the grave was extra wide, and that a good portion was covered with fake, green grass. As he walked to the head of the grave to prepare to conduct the service he slipped into the grave. The undertaker and cemetery director were paralyzed. The priest said: "Get me out of here!" Nothing. Again, he said: Get me out of here!" Again, nothing. The third time he said: "One of you take one arm and one of you take the other, and get me out of here!" Irrepressible as always, as they lifted a muddied, cope-covered priest from the grave he said: "I never ask a parishioner to do anything I wouldn't do myself!" The next day he went to call on the widow. It was a warm day and he could hear her talking to a friend as he stood at the screen door: "I know I should be grieving, but every time I remember the rector rising from that grave I start to laugh." Seems that particular resurrection was witnessed by the family in the first limo! The following Sunday the choir presented him with a cake with a little man emerging – it was the first and last annual "Lazarus Award!"

This story is funny and true…but it points to a serious reality. Death is so terrifying for most of us that we want an experience like that rector had – if we must go in, we certainly want to come out!

Today we read John's story of the resurrection. Mary has gone to the tomb and has found that the stone had been rolled away. Convinced that Jesus' body had been stolen, she ran to fetch Peter and John who, in turn, ran to the tomb. After entering and determining that, in fact, Jesus' body was not there, they believed Mary and probably also supposed that the body had been stolen. They returned home, but Mary stayed, weeping. A man appeared whom she supposed to be the gardener. After some conversation he called her by name: "Mary." At that moment she knew it was Jesus. He instructed her not to touch him, but to return to the disciples and tell them she had seen him. She went and announced to them: "I have seen the Lord."

Mary's story points to the deepest longing for most Christians: to have a direct encounter with Jesus Christ – to be lovingly called by name and then charged to tell the story. One wonders, why Mary? Why was she chosen? Her story gives us some clues.

Mary was possessed by one or seven demons (depending on the version of the story), was from the wealthy town of Magdala, and had probably been excluded from full community because of her illness. She encountered Jesus, was healed and became his ardent follower. She was set free from the chains that bound her and thereafter stood closest to Jesus throughout his ministry. She found wholeness in body, mind and spirit – the freedom to build a new life. Like others cured by Jesus, she had to be willing to be broken open, to surrender completely, and to embrace the ensuing transformation. She is the only one who is named at the foot of the cross in each of the Gospels, the first at the tomb and the first to encounter and interact with the risen Christ. When the women around Jesus are mentioned, hers is always the first in each of the Gospels. Subsequently she would be known as the "Apostle to the Apostles."

In the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, God, pure love, acted. God refused to allow death to have the final answer. Once and for all God affirmed that the only thing of value, the only thing that lasts, is love. Life is found not in power, goods, treasure and prestige, but in agape love for God and one another. Mary is forced to accept that Jesus has changed, that they can never go back to the old ways. She is given the task to go and to tell – that Jesus' God is the God of all, the only one powerful enough to conquer that inexorable enemy, death. The task of Mary and the disciples was to create a new community of believers…and we are members of that community over 2000 years later.

Mary's story is our challenge. Like Mary we are called to bring the stones of our lives to God…the stones of grief, anger, illness, pain, loneliness…anything that hinders relationship with God or with one another. We are to be broken open, vulnerable and exposed. Then, and only then, can we be healed and can embrace the reality that we are loved forever with unqualified acceptance. We then will have the courage to change and help to build the new community. In that process we can let go of our terror of meaninglessness and death.

The Resurrection affirms that death is not the final answer, that love will out. Love forces us to come home to our true selves, and then to bring others to that abundant love. Most of us want new life, but still want the world to stay the way it was yesterday and to be spared the heart-wrenching loss of transformation. William Johnston has said: "Of course we fight against love. And no wonder -- because it transforms us into another person, and we don't like to be changed. We like to stay where we are, for to be changed is to die and rise." (copied)

Easter, the celebration of Christ's resurrection, was both once and for all and is ever-happening. We are challenged to make ourselves vulnerable to God and to one another. We need the courage to seek God in one another, God's other beloved creatures. In that breaking open, as the pains of our lives fall away, we will be able to hear Christ call us each by name and to send us out in His name. Bruce Jenneker has said:

"Easter happens whenever women and men are ready to recognize that the love of Christ has broken their chains and that a new future is breaking open for them. Easter happens whenever the power of darkness, the paralysis of fear and the dread of despair are overturned by rays of hope and transformed by the potential for goodness, truth and love. Again and again, Christ rises from the dead because again and again our collusion with sin and darkness and death crucifies him. But Christ's love conquers sin, his light shatters the darkness and his life triumphs over death. This victory is yours, is ours, and in it the whole universe is restored. Alleluia! Christ is risen."

(The Rev. Bruce Jenneker, "Homily Service," 4/12/98, p. 52)

AMEN