Move Through the Tomb with Christ

John 20:1-18

Alleluia! Christ is Risen!

He is Risen indeed, alleluia!

Today is our church’s day of great celebration! The Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ! Alleluia! And we come to know Jesus’s resurrection story because Mary Magdalene goes back to Jesus’s tomb the day after the Sabbath, what we now call Sunday, and encounters the first, alarming Easter morning.

We aren’t told why Mary goes back to the tomb. Maybe she wanted to finish anointing Jesus with the traditional oils, ointments, and balm? Perhaps, she just wants to sit there at Jesus’s grave and be in her grief at losing a friend. In any case, when she gets there, panic sets in! John’s Gospel says, “She sees the stone had been removed from the tomb. So, she turned around and RAN! She went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, and said to them, “They’ve taken the Lord… and we do not know where they laid him!!”  Mary is alarmed, she’s shocked! On Friday afternoon, they laid Jesus, a well and truly dead Jesus, into the tomb and rolled a stone in front of it. Now, three days later, Jesus isn’t there.  They don’t know why! Of course, dead men don’t just get up and walk away! So, Mary assumed that he had been taken. Stolen. Grave robbed. And this alarmed Mary to her core.

Because had been through enough already! Her beloved friend, and teacher who she believed to be the Messiah, was tortured instead of revered by the crowds that welcomed him with Hosannas into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. Her Messiah was crucified not crowned. Her Rabbouni, her teacher, was killed not followed. And now rubbing salt in her wounds, the ultimate act of defilement: Jesus was taken from his eternal resting place.

And John’s Gospel, wasting no time, brings a new set of characters into the story when Peter and an unnamed “other disciple” literally run into the Easter story together. They reach the tomb and see the linen wrappings that had bound Jesus’s body, carefully placed about the tomb. Our scripture tells us that the “Disciple whom Jesus loved” believed at that moment, but did he merely come to believe that Jesus had been taken, as in he now believed what Mary said – or, did he remember what Jesus taught and so he believed that Jesus had risen?  

If he had believed in the resurrection, don’t you think this Disciple would have talked to Mary? Wouldn’t he have helped to remind her what Jesus said about his resurrection?

Maybe he did. But, I think Mary, in her grief and alarm, just couldn’t move beyond the tomb at that moment. The place where life is finished, where the aura of death stifles out all life.

Who can blame Mary for this? She just lost her friend. She’s just being a normal person who’s overwhelmed by the specter of the tomb. It’s hard to shout alleluia’s when you’re overwhelmed by the tomb.

And today, on our great day of feast and celebration – I wonder if many of you might have come to church feeling a sense of your own personal “tomb.” Tombs like: grief, stress, overwhelm, sadness, loss, or worry. You may be celebrating Easter for the first time without a beloved family member. You may have just found out someone in your family has been called up to serve in war. You may have lost a job recently. You may be suffering illness and so can’t make it here to church today. We’re all bringing something with us that we’ve perhaps pushed away for the day and suppressed just for the Holiday -  because we’re celebrating! We’re supposed to be shouting alleluia!  Right…?

You and Mary Magdalene come to Easter Sunday similarly. It’s stinkin’ hard to get beyond the tomb.

But, you know, the tomb can also be a place where there’s quiet. It’s a dark and sometimes scary place, but it’s a place where we can put the sweet-smelling oils, ointments and balms on our wounds which help us begin to heal.

It’s also a place where God is with us. Good Friday reminds us that Jesus went into the tomb after the Cross and Jesus is part of the Triune God so, we know God has gone into the tomb. And so we know that God is with us in our tombs too.

So, our Easter celebration is not made hollow because we acknowledge our own tombs. Instead, Easter is made real for us because we honestly face our tombs. We look straight into our tomb, facing it head on, just like Mary Magdalene and the disciples did in our Gospel text and guess who meets us there? The Resurrected Jesus – Jesus who is alive who has gone through the tomb and lives!

Christ went through the tomb and conquered it! Christ goes with us through our tombs journeying to the other side where there is new life - resurrection life - where the angels are singing along with us: Alleluia Christ is Risen! The New Creation has dawned! Where bells peal, streamers wave, and trumpets sound! And where new life is lived because we’ve made it through the tomb with Christ a different people!

Alleluia, we are risen with Christ! We are resurrection people!

We are people who know there is life beyond the tomb! There is life through the tomb. Easter Sunday, The Resurrection of Our Lord, promises us new life.

At the end of our Gospel text for this morning, Mary is still in her tomb. And she encounters Jesus there. But she’s so stuck in her tomb-thinking that she doesn’t even look up at him. But, you know what, Jesus is persistent and calls to her shouting, “Mary!” and she finally looks up… She sees that it’s Jesus! Jesus had been beside her the whole-time walking with her through her tomb.

So, I wonder if Easter this year might a little wake-up call! Let’s listen together… Do you hear Jesus calling us out of the tomb with him?  “Mark!” “Julie!” “George!” “Ann!” “Sue!” “Lisa!” “Elaine!” “Logan!” “Bill!”

Jesus is snapping you up out of your tomb today! Christ is Risen! The New Creation, New Life has begun! There is life beyond the tomb! You are being called to witness to it today! To be comforted by it today. To have faith that our tombs are indeed behind us on Easter morning! Let’s shout Alleluia! Let the music play triumphantly and gloriously as we celebrate this promise of Resurrection Life!

Alleluia! Christ is Risen!

He is Risen Indeed, Alleluia!

Amen.

Rev. Ryan | Easter Sunday | April 5, 2026