“Early Sunday morning, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and found that the stone had been rolled away from the entrance. She ran and found Simon Peter and the other disciple whom Jesus loved. She said, ‘They have taken the Lord’s body out of the tomb, and I don’t know where they have put him!’ Peter and [John] ran to the tomb to see.” (John 20:1-3)
The first day of the week is coming, and it doesn’t matter how great – or how lousy – your weekend has been. On Monday you go back to work. It doesn’t matter that your team lost in the NCAA finals. It doesn’t matter that you didn’t get anything checked off your to-do list this weekend. The weekend ends, and Monday comes.
The Gospel of John tells the story of the worst Monday ever. Except that the ancient Jewish week started after the Saturday Sabbath. So instead of manic Mondays, the Hebrews suffered sadistic Sundays.
And this has not just been a bad weekend, but one of those “worst-holiday-evers.” For Peter and John and Mary Magdalene it has been a devastating Passover. The last thing the disciples did Friday night was to seal the crucified, lifeless body of Jesus into a tomb.
Then they spent all of Friday night and Saturday observing the Passover Sabbath in mournful gloom – unable even to have a funeral. The first day of the week came, as it always does, without mercy or compassion. Why did the sun bother coming up? What were they supposed to do next, these followers of a man who now lay three days dead and cold in the tomb?
Well, they did what you always do after a disaster… or after any weekend. The first day of the week comes. The heartless world wakes up and goes back to work. Since there’s nothing else to do, you get out of bed, eat breakfast, and walk out the door to face the day.
For Mary Magdalene and the apostles, this terrible weekend is followed by what starts out to be an even more awful weekday morning. Mary goes to the tomb in the dark hours before dawn and finds her friend Jesus is gone! Has the grave been robbed? Fearing the worst, Mary runs to tell the disciples.
Peter and John run to the tomb and find it empty. Jesus’ body is nowhere to be found. Empty… except for the grave clothes, neatly folded. John and Peter walk out of our story, still perplexed, still not understanding what has happened.
Mary remains, weeping, blinded in her grief. She meets Jesus, but her tears blind her to him. He is probably the gardener, come in the wee hours to start the week’s work.
The next moment is beautiful. John 20:16 tells us, “Jesus said to her, ‘Mary.’ She turned toward him and cried out ‘beloved Teacher!'”
Jesus gently calls her by name, and as if her grief-blind eyes are healed, she can see Jesus!
Mary Magdalene came to the garden that gloomy first day of the week, expecting the worst. But in a heartbeat, Jesus called her name and her attitude turns from gloom to glory! Mary Magdalene becomes the very first witness of the Good News, the very first preacher in all of Christianity. She goes and tells the disciples: “I have seen the Lord!”
This is still what we are called to do today: We are to turn from sin and recognize our Savior, Jesus Christ. And once we have seen the risen Lord in our lives, we are to witness about the good news to others.
Truth be told, many are the Mondays when we feel like Christ is gone again, when the resurrection seems so long ago and so far away, when life seems darkest and we are blindest and we don’t recognize Jesus standing right in front of us.
But when we are deep in our Monday moments, blindest and most lost… Jesus calls us by name! Often it is the quietest of calls at the most unexpected of times. The miracle is a new miracle each time: the mud falls from our eyes and we see Christ in our lives.
If this worst of Mondays could turn into the best of Sundays, the very first Easter Sunday, then you can surely expect resurrection days in your life. Monday will come. And it might be a good day, or it might be the most terrible of Mondays. But take heart – when the morning is darkest, when we are blindest, Christ calls our name once again. And once again we see the Easter miracle.
Pastor Park