© 2024 Evan D. Garner
Audio of this sermon can be heard here. Video can be seen here.
I’ve got some really good news, but you’re not allowed to tell anyone. Is there anything more frustrating than that? Your boss lets it slip that your best friend at work is getting a big promotion, but you’re not allowed to tell her because he wants it to be a surprise. You’re the ultrasound technician at an OB-GYN’s office, and you can see that everything looks good on a particular scan, but you’re not supposed to say anything, even though you know it would be a relief to an anxious mother. You learn that a world-famous musician is planning to play at Razorback Stadium, but you can’t say anything because negotiations are still taking place and you don’t want to mess them up.
Good news is supposed to be shared, and keeping it to ourselves is hard, especially when the news is good not just for you but for other people, too. Sometimes, though, we have news that we’d like to share but our concern for what other people will think or say gets in the way. “What if people think I’m bragging or gloating?” we ask ourselves before sharing something on social media. Or what if someone responds to what I say with something even better and it makes me look foolish? Or what if I tell someone my good news and it turns out that they just received the worst news of their life? What if my good news only reminds them of their grief and loss?
The good news of Easter isn’t the sort of news that we are supposed to keep quiet, and there isn’t any risk that sharing it will make us look foolish or hurt anyone’s feelings because God’s foolishness is what we proclaim, and that foolishness is a message of hope for everyone. When we proclaim the good news of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead, we are not touting our accomplishments or celebrating our worthiness. In fact, Easter is about celebrating the opposite. The Easter narrative is not a story of good people bosting of their holiness but of God’s goodness being bestowed upon ordinary people one proclamation at a time.
Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb. The Bible doesn’t tell us why she came. Maybe she didn’t even know herself. But something stirred within her that led her to come as close as she could get to the place where Jesus’ lifeless body had been laid. But, as she approached the tomb, she was shocked to find that the stone had been rolled away from the entrance. Without stopping long enough to look inside, she ran and found two of the disciples—Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved—and told them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.”
Her confusion and grief instantly became their own, and they raced to the tomb as fast as they could to see it for themselves. The other disciple got there first, and, when he bent down to look inside, he could see the grave cloths lying where the body should have been. When Peter arrived, he stooped down and even crawled inside, where he found nothing except the linen wrappings and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ face. Eventually the other disciple also went inside and saw exactly what Peter had seen. Then, they went back to their homes because there was nothing else for them to do. There was nothing for them to tell and no one to tell it to.
But Mary Magdalene couldn’t bear to leave. She stood there, weeping outside the tomb. She bent down and, through tear-filled eyes, looked into the tomb where, to her surprise, she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been. “Woman, why are you weeping?” they asked her. “Because they have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him,” she replied. In the next moment, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not recognize him. Figuring that he must have been the caretaker, she asked him to tell her where they had placed the missing body so that she could come and take it away. But then he spoke her name: Mary.
In that instant, everything changed. Easter came and found her. The resurrection was made manifest to her. God’s victory over sin and death were disclosed to her. Nothing less than the radical reorientation of the universe back to its sacred foundations was presented to her. And that was good news that she could not keep to herself.
“Don’t hold onto me…,” Jesus said, “But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, my God and your God.’” So she ran, as fast as lightening, and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them everything that Jesus had said to her. Because good news like that can’t be kept quiet, and good news like that is always right for sharing.
Why do you think Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene first? Why didn’t he show up when Peter and the other disciple got to the tomb? Or, to put it another way, if God’s hope for the world is that all people would come to know God and God’s love through Jesus Christ, why doesn’t the risen Lord just take center stage and reveal himself to all of us? Because the good news of Easter doesn’t spread like a viral video or a TikTok trend. It spreads throughout the world as each one of us experiences the presence of the risen Christ and feels the power of the resurrection take hold in our hearts until we are compelled to share that good news with others.
The Easter story isn’t finished when the tomb is found empty or even when the risen Christ reveals himself to Mary Magdalene. It is only complete once she carries the good news that the risen Jesus came and found her and proclaims it to those who needed to hear it.
Easter is a celebration of the good news being passed from one person to another. In John’s version of the Easter gospel, Jesus tells Mary Magdalene to go and tell his brothers the good news. In his speech to Cornelius in Acts 10, Peter describes how, after the risen Jesus revealed himself to them, he commanded that Peter and the other disciples preach the good news to all people. In his first letter to the Corinthians, the apostle Paul calls himself the least of the apostles, “one untimely born,” the last among them to see the risen Jesus. Nevertheless, Paul knows that, because of that encounter, he is called to proclaim the good news to others.
It is a universal truth that anyone who experiences the power of the resurrection—anyone who meets the risen Jesus—has good news to share and that they are called to share it. That includes you. Where have you met Jesus Christ and felt the power of the resurrection in your life? Think about the ways that has God called you back from the dead and filled you with new and abundant life. When have you known without a doubt that nothing can come between you and the love that God has for you? What is your resurrection moment? When did Easter come and find you? And whom will you tell about it?
Many of us have felt the power of Easter become real in our lives, and that means we have a story to tell—our own story of the resurrection. The good news of Easter is not something we can keep to ourselves. The joy of this day is not that the empty tomb might be seen by each one of us but that we might share that good news with each other. Only when we tell others that we have met the risen Jesus can the Easter story be complete.
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