You're still looking for a body. He said your
name. Turn around. It's still dark when she starts
walking. The kind of dark that holds on to Friday
longer than it should. The city's quiet, the
stone's already been rolled, and Mary's carrying
spices for a body she's certain is still dead.
She's not looking for resurrection. She's looking
for where they had put him. And even when the
tomb is open, even when the linen's folded, she's
still standing there with Friday in her chest
until a voice says her name and the whole world
turns. And wherever you are right now, maybe
it's your truck, your kitchen, your headphones
in the quiet. It's Easter morning for us in our
little small town church here in Oklahoma. The
lilies are out, everything draped in white, and
the long road through Lent has finally broken
into the dawn. The stone's been moved, the name's
been spoken, and we are about to step into it
together. And I will see you on the other side.
She's walking while it's still dark. And that
needs to sit with us right off the bat here for
just a second, because... The gospel writer John
doesn't waste details. And he wants us to know
what time it is before he tells you what happens.
It's the first day of the week. The sun has not
come up just yet. The city is still asleep. The
whole city, both versions of it. The one that
waved the palms. And the one that built the cross.
All of them sleeping. And one woman is already
moving. And Mary Magdalene isn't moving towards
something she expects to find alive. Let's be
completely honest about that. She's carrying
burial spices. She's walking towards a sealed
tomb in the dark. To finish the work of death.
The last kind thing you could do for a body that
isn't breathing anymore. Wash it. Anoint it.
Say goodbye with your hands since your mouth
has run out of words. She saw where they put
him in. She watched Joseph wrap the linen. She
saw the stone roll shut. She went home Friday
night, and then she sat through all of Saturday,
that long, silent, endless Saturday. The bread
was in the ground, and the morning didn't come.
And the very first thing she does when the Sabbath
lets her move again is walk right back to the
grave in the dark before the sun, before reason,
before anyone tells her to go. Her body is carrying
something her mind hasn't caught up with just
yet. And the stone is moved. rolled politely
aside, not open like a door, moved like something
behind it, got tired of waiting, and the rock
decided not to argue. And she doesn't go in,
not yet. She runs. She runs back to Peter and
to John, the other disciples, and says, they
have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don't
know where they have put him. Now listen to that
sentence, because it tells you exactly where
her head is. She's not thinking resurrection.
She's thinking theft. Somebody has moved the
body, even now. Even standing in front of an
open tomb on the third day, she is still operating
inside of Friday's logic. That the body is dead.
The question is, just where did they put it?
Peter and John run. They see the linen lying
there. The face cloth folded. Folded, not thrown.
Not scattered, not thrown into a corner. Folded.
The way you fold something when you're done with
it. And they go home. The text says, They go
home. They saw the evidence, and they went home.
And Mary, Mary stayed. Friends, attune your ears
and your hearts to the reading of Holy Scripture
this morning. Our passage comes to us from the
gospel account of the beloved, John. Chapter
20 of his gospel account, beginning verse 11.
But Mary was standing outside of the tomb weeping.
So as she wept, she stooped and looked into the
tomb. And she saw two angels in white sitting,
one at the head and one at the feet, where the
body of Jesus had lain. They asked her, Woman,
why are you weeping? She said to them, because
they have taken away my Lord, and I don't know
where they have laid him. When she had said this,
she turned around, and she saw Jesus standing,
and didn't know that it was Jesus. Jesus said
to her, Woman, why are you weeping? Who are you
looking for? She, supposing him to be the gardener,
said to him, Sir, If you have carried him away,
tell me where you have laid him, and I will take
him away. Jesus said to her, Don't hold me, for
I haven't yet ascended to my father. But go to
my brothers and tell them, I am ascending to
my father and your father, to my God and your
God. Mary Magdalene came and told the disciples
she had seen the Lord and that he had said these
things to her. The sins. Reading of Holy Scripture
this morning. One word, the angels ask her a
question and she answers it. A man she thinks
is the gardener asks her the same question and
she answers that too. Two conversations, same
grief. Same logic. Same Friday, running the show
in her chest. She is talking to the resurrection
and she doesn't know it because she's still looking
for corpse. And then, and then he says her name.
Not a title, not a theological declaration, not
I am the resurrection and the life. He already
said that back in Bethany. Here in the garden,
in the first light, he just says, Mary. And she
turns. And I need you to feel the weight of that
turn. Because everything changes in the space
between one word and the next. She was facing
the tomb. Now, she's facing him. She was looking
at absence. Now, she's looking at presence. And
the thing that turned her around wasn't an argument,
nor was it an angel or a piece of evidence. It
was her name in his mouth. And you know what
this is like. You've been looking in the wrong
direction, staring hard at the place the thing
you lost used to be. So locked in on its absence
that you missed what's standing right in front
of you. And then somebody says your name, not
your title or role, not the thing you do for
people. Your name, the one your mama gave you.
And something in you turns before you decide
to. Now I want to show you something about this
garden that will change the way you hear this
story for the rest of your life. And I need you
to pay attention because the church has been
stepping over this for 2 ,000 years and I'm not
going to let us do it again today. Not in this
room. Not on this morning. Because Jesus is alive.
The tomb is empty. Death has been undone. And
the risen Christ, the Son of God standing in
a garden with dew still on the grass and the
first light just breaking over the Mount of Olives,
the risen Christ has a choice to make. The most
important message in the history of the world
needs to be delivered. I am alive. Death is finished.
Go tell them. And he can appear to anyone. Peter's
in the city. John just left the tomb. The Sanhedrin
just a short walk away. Imagine the look on Caiaphas'
face. Pilate is still in Jerusalem. The Roman
garrison, the temple guards who fell asleep at
the tomb, he could have appeared to any of them.
He could have appeared to all of them. He has
just conquered death. Every door in the world
is now open to him. And he chooses Mary. He chooses
a woman in a world. Where a woman's testimony
didn't count. And I want you to take your 21st
century hat off for one second. I want you, I
need you to hear this the way it would have sounded
in the first century. Because the truth of the
matter is, we have sanded off the edges of this
story and made it feel gentle. And it is not
gentle. This is a thunderclap. Under Jewish legal
tradition, the same tradition that built the
courthouse system, the same law that required
two or three witnesses to establish a truth,
the same law designed to protect against false
accusation, under that system, a woman could
not serve as legal witness. Her testimony was
inadmissible, not because she was dishonest,
but because the system had decided her voice
didn't carry enough weight. And the risen Christ
looked at that system, the system that had used
false witness to convict him 72 hours ago. The
system that dressed up injustice and put it in
legal clothing and called it due process, he
looked at that system and handed the most important
testimony in human history to the one person
that system said couldn't testify. And that's
not an accident. That's not a coincidence. John's
not telling you some heartwarming story about
a woman who loved Jesus a whole bunch. John is
telling you that the very first act of the risen
Christ is to demolish every system that tells
the wrong people that their voice just doesn't
count. He says her name. That comes first. Before
the commissioning. before the instruction, before
the go tell them. He says, Mary, named before
she is sent, known before she is useful, and
then go to my brothers and tell them. That word,
tell them, in the Greek, the root underneath
it. We're not doing vocabulary today. It's the
same root that gives us the word evangelion.
That's Greek. It means gospel. It means the good
news. She's not being asked to pass along a message
like a note in class. She's being commissioned.
This is the first proclamation of resurrection
in the history of the world. And it is given
to a woman whose testimony wouldn't survive a
single courtroom in Palestine. And she goes.
She doesn't argue. She doesn't say, Lord, they
won't believe me. Send Peter instead. She doesn't.
Ask for credentials or authorization. Or some
letter of introduction. She turns from the garden.
And the text says. She runs. The first sermon
ever preached. Preached by a woman. Commissioned
by the risen Christ. And inadmissible. In any
court in the land. And it changed the world.
Now, friend, if somebody wants to stand in this
room here on Easter morning and tell me that
women are not called, not commissioned, not ordained
by the risen Christ to proclaim the gospel, they're
going to have to explain to me why Jesus, with
every option in the world available to him, on
the most important moment in the history of the
world, chose the one witness the system wouldn't
count. And they better bring their lunch. Because
I've got a garden and a commission and a woman
who outran Peter to the truth, and I have decided
I'm not leaving this hill. But here's the thing
I really want you to hear. Because this isn't
just about Mary. This is about you too. Because
some of you have been told by a church, by a
system, by a voice you internalized a long time
ago, so long ago you can't even remember where
it came from, where it started, that your testimony
doesn't carry enough weight. That your experience
with God isn't the right kind. She haven't got
the credentials, the training, the background,
the bloodline, the whatever it is, qualifies
a person to say, I have seen the Lord. Mary didn't
have credentials. She had dawn on her face and
dirt on her sandals and tears still drying on
her cheeks. She had a name spoken by a voice
she recognized. And she had a commission from
the only authority that ever mattered. The one
who walked out of his own grave and chose her
first. And if that's you, if you're the one who's
been standing outside the tomb weeping, convinced
the body's been moved, the story's over, And
the best you can do is just anoint what's left.
I need you to hear something. Turn around. He's
standing right behind you. He's been there the
whole time. And he knows your name. Not the name
the system gave you. Not the name the institution
slapped on your life. The name that was yours
before any of that stuff. One that sounds different
when he says it. One that turned Mary around
in a garden when she was still looking for a
dead body. And when you hear it, when something
in your chest shifts and you can turn and there
he is, he's not going to ask you for credentials.
He's going to say, go tell them. and your sandals
are already on. She came to the tomb carrying
burial spices and left carrying the gospel. She
came in the dark and left in the dawn. She came
alone and left commissioned. Somewhere, somewhere
between the weeping and the running, between
the absence and the presence, Between the names
spoken and the feet hitting the road, resurrection
stopped being a doctrine. It started being the
light breaking through again, just like a dawn.
And it wasn't loud. It was one word in a garden.
But it was enough. So go the way she went. with
dust on your feet and the taste of tears still
salty on your lips. With no credentials but this,
I have seen the Lord. Go tell them that the tomb
is empty. Go tell them the bread has a name.
Go tell them the fire didn't go out. Go tell
them the stone has been moved and the gardener
is not the gardener and the morning knows something
that the night didn't. Go tell them, all of them,
especially the ones, and told their testimonies
don't count, that the risen Christ speaks names,
not titles, and that the first word out of his
resurrected mouth was the name of a woman the
courts wouldn't hear. And may the God who calls
you by name send you with a gospel too big for
any courtroom to contain. May you run like she
ran. May you tell like she told. And may the
dawn that broke in that garden break wherever
you carried it. Sandals on, church. He is risen.
Amen. Amen. If you heard your name in any of
this, really heard it. Not a title, not as the
thing you do, but the name that was yours before
all of that noise. Then you already know something
shifted. Maybe just a little. Maybe just enough
to make you turn your head. And that's all it
takes. Resurrection doesn't come loud. Sometimes
it's one word in a quiet place that refuses to
leave you the same. So if you're still standing
there, somewhere between Friday and dawn, Somewhere
between grief and recognition. Hear this. He's
not asking you to have it all figured out. He's
not waiting on your credentials. He's just calling
your name. And that should be enough to turn
you around. And if something in this episode
met you, something new, something old that finally
landed, then go ahead and throw your like in
the offering plate, just like we do down at the
church. No pressure, no sales pitch, just a witness.
A quiet way of saying, I'm here and it mattered.
And if you want to keep walking with us into
what comes after the garden, tithe your subscribe
so you'll know when we're moving again. And until
then, be blessed.