"She is venerated as a Saint in the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, and some Protestant
circles. She is also depicted as a reformed prostitute and penitential sinner. Mary Magdalene has thus been venerated
and denigrated throughout the ages. Yet, despite numerous challenges to her status in the first century of the Christian
church and since, the tradition honoring Mary Magdalene as the first resurrection witness has remained unshaken over time."

Happy Easter! Welcome to the celebration of rebirth and resurrection that this day commemorates. This is the beginning of a new season in our liturgical year. (I'm sure you're all very excited about that!) I have also designated today "learn a new word day." And our new word for the day is "Mystagogia." It refers to the joyous mystery of our experience of the Risen Christ in our midst. The Easter season or Mystagogia is a time to celebrate, to reflect upon, and, most importantly, to experience the Risen One in our own life.

The idea of resurrection is ancient, it predates the life of Jesus, and many religious traditions have a festive celebration of new life and rebirth at this time of year. Springtime is one of the times in which it's hard not to notice the cycle of life as nature springs forth with all kinds of new life. It is a reminder that death is how life renews itself. The seeds that laid buried in the earth through the winter are sprouting to life in the spring; the leaves that fell to the ground in the fall are decomposing and nourishing the new roots that are reaching down into the fertile earth. Even the cycles of nature celebrate the sprouting forth of life from death!

Our religious celebration of Easter as a time to celebrate growth, renewal and rebirth. Through the metaphor of resurrection we witness the rebirth of the community that formed around Jesus, his teaching and healing, and the inclusive table fellowship he initiated. The real miracle that the early followers of Jesus experienced wasn't the resuscitation of a dead corpse, but the rebirth of their faith in God after the oppressive Roman Imperial system had executed their teacher and prophet. And it was the women who led this rebirth of faith.

As we explore John's account of the resurrection bear in mind that John was a master at the use of metaphor and poetic imagery. This account, and others like it, were written in a particular manner to express a theological, rhetorical, and sometimes political point of view. Behind the literal words there is always a metaphorical meaning.

John's account of the resurrection:

There are two main types of resurrection accounts that are found in the gospels: the empty tomb accounts and the appearance stories. In John's gospel Mary is the first disciple to experience either. Let's consider the empty tomb account as a symbol and metaphor.

Space - Open - Empty

Egg shell left behind after a chick hatches

Molted skin left behind by a snake

Open space where the body,

Where life, used to be.

Wide, open country

An empty slate

A blank canvas

Invitation to create

In poetry, painting or song

An expression of the essence

Of that which lives on.

An open future

The emptiness and openness of the tomb invites us to participate in creating new life.

Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza reminds us that the ambiguous openness and emptiness of the tomb is a call to look for the Risen Christ's presence in the ongoing struggle for justice. Fiorenza writes,

The open space of the empty tomb becomes the open road and their/our open future.

This leads back to the question of who we are called to be and how we are meant to live together in the world. It causes me to wonder what it might mean for us as a church today to live Easter rather than merely celebrate it? What would that look like? What kind of living would we create in our open future?

Today as we celebrate Easter let us also enter into that sacred, open, empty space that offers us the invitation to create ever new and ever more abundant life for ourselves, our community and our world. Then we will know the presence of the Living One in our midst and the earth shall be glad.

On Sunday, by the half-light of early morning, Mary of Magdala comes to the tomb - and sees that the stone has been moved away. So she runs and comes to Simon Peter and the other disciple - the one Jesus loved most - and tells them, "They've taken the Master from the tomb, and we don't know where they've put him."

So Peter and the other disciple went out, and they make their way to the tomb. The two of them were running along together, but the other disciple ran faster than Peter and was the first to reach the tomb. Stooping down, he could see the strips of burial cloth lying there; but he didn't go in. Then Simon Peter comes along behind him and went in. He too sees the strips of burial cloth there, and also the cloth they had used to cover his head, lying not with the strips of burial cloth but rolled up by itself. Then the other disciple, who had been the first to reach the tomb, came in. He saw all this, and he believed. But since neither of them yet understood the prophecy that he was destined to rise from the dead, these disciples went back home.

Mary, however, stood crying outside, and in her tears she stooped to look into the tomb, and she sees two heavenly messengers in white seated where Jesus' body had lain, one at the head and the other at the feet.

"Woman, why are you crying?" they ask her.

"They've taken my Master away," she tells them, "and I don't know where they've put him."

No sooner had she said this than she turned around and sees Jesus standing there - but she didn't know that it was Jesus.

"Woman," Jesus says to her, "why are you crying? Who is it you're looking for?"

She could only suppose that it was the gardener, and so she says to him, "Please, mister, if you've moved him, tell me where you've put him so I can take him away."

"Mary," says Jesus.

She turns around and exclaims in Hebrew, "Rabbi!" (which means "Teacher").

"Don't touch me," Jesus tells her, "because I have not yet gone back to God. But go to my brothers and tell them this: I'm going back to my God and your God."

Mary of Magdala goes and reports to the disciples, "I have seen the Master," and relates everything he had told her.