John 20:1-18 Pastor Nathan P. Kassulke
Easter Sunrise Sunday, April 17, 2022 “Understanding Easter”
What happens when you don’t understand Easter? That seems like a pretty strange question to be asking right now, doesn’t it? After all, you got up early this morning to make it to church for this service. You have already sung praises, joined in prayers, and heard quite a bit about Easter. And it seems likely that you have done all of that because you understand Easter. But we’ve also come and gathered today to understand Easter better, haven’t we? We are here to be renewed and to be strengthened in the joy that Easter brings. And Easter does that best when we understand it best. So we are going to take these few minutes this morning to continue to consider the events of the first Easter Sunday morning. As has already been noted, we will do so based on the way that God led John to record those events in his Gospel. And that account includes a phrase that I find quite curious. That phrase is: “They still did not yet understand.” That’s what is said of the disciples right in the middle of the action on that Sunday morning. We’re going to walk with them for a little while. We’re going to consider three steps suggested by our lesson. These three steps will certainly move us toward a better understanding of Easter. Step one is: see the empty tomb. Mary did that first. She is the one our verses focus on first. Mary Magdalene was headed to the tomb where Jesus had been laid the prior Friday afternoon. The men who had buried Jesus then were in a hurry. Everyone rested on the Sabbath day. On Sunday, Mary and other women were planning to pay their respects and to honor Jesus by bringing more spices and perfumes. But she noticed that the heavy stone that had been rolled in front of the opening to the tomb had been removed. I don’t know if she was able to see into the tomb at that point or not. She may have made an assumption based on the stone. In any case, she went and told two disciples about it. They were Peter and John. John doesn’t call himself by name in his Gospel, but he’s the one who outsprints Peter to get to the tomb. When John arrives, he looks inside but remains out. He’s trying to take it in. He’s trying to figure things out. Then Peter arrives and rushes past. He’s in the tomb. John follows him in. They see the same thing. Jesus had been there before. He had indeed been dead and buried. They knew that. And they knew now that the tomb was empty except for the linen cloths that were lying there. In other words, they saw a tomb that was empty of the thing that tombs were meant for. But what they saw was not the crime scene of a grave robbery. The cloths were left behind. They were laid neatly aside. And when Peter and John had seen the empty tomb…they went back home. Doesn’t that seem anticlimactic? There is no mention of talking to Mary to compare notes about what they saw at the tomb. There’s no mention of doing something else important or sharing news with anyone. They just went back home. It gives the sense that this was perhaps an unfinished Easter. John writes about himself that he believed, but it doesn’t seem as though either Peter or John is fully aware of what that empty tomb means. Do we sometimes have Easters like that? We come to church. And maybe we’re a little more like John and like to sit in the back or find a quiet corner, more comfortable just holding back a little bit. Or maybe we’re more like Peter and we want to rush into the conversation and the activity. Sure, we might not be the first, but once we’re there, we’re engaged. Or maybe we’re even more like Mary and we want to get other people involved, see what they suggest. And whatever our approach, what do we notice? Is that breakfast I’m smelling? I love these hymns! Isn’t the music great? Yes, there’s a trumpet playing again! And there’s still an Easter Concert and a Festival service to come! And then? We go home. And if that’s how our Easter goes, we have missed something, haven’t we? Mary didn’t go home. She’s going to show us the next step in understanding Easter. At that point, she understood it even less than John, perhaps less than Peter, too. She sat outside the tomb weeping. She was feeling the pain and the loss all over again. She saw that the tomb was empty. She wept about that. And then she looked again, and this time the tomb wasn’t empty. Jesus wasn’t there, but two men were—right where he had been. Apparently they seemed nice and friendly to her—or perhaps she was just ready to look anywhere for comfort. She answered their question to her: “Why are you weeping?” She explained right where her mind was at in all of this. She had seen the empty tomb and didn’t know where Jesus was.