Christ is Risen!  [Christ is Risen Indeed!] Alleluia!

We have journeyed together throughout Lent this year as witnesses to encounters with God; encounters that happened through temptation, through blessings and promises, through living water, through anointing and restored sight, through renewal and the restoration of life, and through the celebration that came with Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem.  Today, we witness encounters with God again through a celebration that comes only after betrayal and heartache.  It is a celebration that is an outpouring of the hope offered to us in the witness of an empty tomb and through an encounter with the risen Christ – a celebration that is a simultaneous experience of fear and exhilaration.

I would guess that most of us have had a moment or two in our lives that have brought together fear and exhilaration in a visceral way.  One such moment happened to me the fall after I graduated from college.  I had spent the summer working several jobs and saving up every penny I could in order to travel around Europe to see, in person, as much of the great art as I could that I had learned about in my undergraduate art studies.  The result was a two month backpacking trip with two friends and on a fall evening in Switzerland my friend Jen and I were on a train heading to a small town near Wengen, Switzerland, home of the infamous Swiss Army Knife, and also the genealogical home of our traveling companion Lonny Wenger, who had gone on ahead a few days earlier to spend some time in his ancestors’ land.  Jen and I had spent the earlier part of the day touring the Lindt and Sprungli Chocolate factory, the place where those luscious lindt balls come from.  A place that makes the air of the surrounding streets smell of chocolate all day long, a lovely smell to those of us passing through, but probably an exhausting smell to those who actually live and work there.  After our tour of the factory and some time spent walking through town eating roasted chestnuts, we decided to head towards Wengen to meet up with Lonny a day earlier than expected.

We hopped on a train in the afternoon and rode for a long time. After a longer time we realized that we had come to a stop they were announcing as the final destination of this particular train, but it was not in fact our final destination.  Jen and I looked at each other bewildered and then asked one of the attendants where we were. He pointed on a map to the town we had entered, a town that was located almost entirely across the country from where we were supposed to be.  We asked him what we had done wrong and he told us that we should have switched trains an hour and a half earlier in order to catch a train that would take us into a station that would then take us, on yet another train, into the valley though which we could reach Wengen.  He then pointed us in the right direction to catch a train back the way we came from and get us on our way again.

Needless to say, this event set our travel schedule for the day considerably back and we didn’t actually make it to the station at our final destination until about 10.30 that evening and by that point, I had to use the bathroom. We got off the train and, oblivious to the rest of my surroundings, I quickly scouted out a restroom.  A sign hanging from the roof over the platform pointed around the side of the building towards the restrooms, which were kind of outhouse type stalls in back of the station.  I found an empty one while Jen kindly stood outside with our luggage awaiting her turn.  As I exited the stall, I heard cows lowing and a low tone bell softly ringing in the distance.  Just at that moment, as I stepped out of the stall and was enjoying the subtle sounds wafting on the air, the full moon came out from behind some clouds and showed me my first ever view of the Swiss Alps up close…and I screamed.  These were the biggest mountains I had ever seen and I had no idea that the small town we had come to was nestled right in a tight valley between several of them.  It was gorgeous, and frightening. I felt as if those mountains looming over me in the moonlight might just jump right on top of me.  I was simultaneously filled with fear and exhilaration.

Moments of simultaneous fear and exhilaration are most often prompted by an unexpected event and during such moments each emotion tugs back and forth within us, vying for control over our response to the situation at hand. It’s like riding the ultimate roller coaster, where your screams waiver between screams of terror and tremendous joy as your body flies up and down, round and round and then changes directions and starts all over again, up and down, round and round.  I can only guess at the depth of emotional whiplash that Mary and the other disciples must have experienced as they journeyed through the week that brought about the death and resurrection of their beloved Jesus.

In each of the Gospel accounts of the resurrection we find a variety of responses to the incident – Matthew speaks of fear, awe and great joy, Mark tells of bewilderment, amazement, trembling and silence, and in Luke the women find themselves at a loss and terrified.  In the John text which we heard today Mary of Magdela, in her first encounter with the empty tomb is full of confusion and fear – she runs to Simon Peter and another disciple and tells them that “The Rabbi has been taken from the tomb! We don’t know where they have put Jesus!” This report alarms the disciples who go off running towards the tomb to investigate this claim – their first encounter of the news of the empty tomb is doubt and a need to see for themselves.

Upon reaching the tomb the disciples also find it empty and see the remnants of the linen wrappings lying on the ground and the piece of cloth that had been used to cover Jesus’ head rolled up and in a place by itself.  Having seen this with their own eyes, they believe the report of the empty tomb, and while they may possibly have an inkling that God is at work in this moment, they still do not fully grasp the significance or meaning of it.  Without more to go on they take their limited knowledge and head home but Mary stays at the tomb and her encounter of the empty tomb transitions from shock and confusion to sadness and loss.  She stands at the tomb and weeps.

These are the responses of people who do not yet know the outcome of this story.  These are responses that are firmly rooted in the expectations created by the culture of the day.  We live in the luxury of knowing the cause of the empty tomb.  We live in the outpouring of hope that comes from the resurrection of Christ.  We live with the ever present potential of an encounter with the risen Christ and so we read this story with joy and we encounter the empty tomb with anticipation of the forthcoming celebration.  But for Mary and the disciples, their instinct was to suppose that something earthy and political had occurred, that their beloved’s body had been possibly violated and at the very least stolen. There was no cause for celebration in this initial encounter of the empty tomb.

As Mary stands weeping by the empty tomb she catches sight of Jesus but doesn’t know it is him.  He speaks to her and asks her “Why are you weeping? For whom are you looking?”  This question is an echo of the question Jesus asked at the beginning of his ministry when he called his first disciples. In John 1:38 two soon to be disciples are following Jesus after hearing John the Baptist point him out as the Lamb of God and Jesus says to them “What are you seeking?” Jesus continuously invites the participation of those who choose to seek relationship with him, both in his life’s ministry and in the resurrection. Mary, still unaware of who this man is speaking with her, assumes he is the gardener and asks of him where the body of Jesus has been taken.  His response is to speak her name; “Mary!”  In that moment, in the speaking of her name, Mary recognizes Jesus to the core and her fear collides with exhilaration.

I can only imagine that this was one of those moments of visceral emotional tug of war within Mary.  When I experienced the shock of fear and exhilaration at the immensity of the Swiss Alps, there was still a framework of expectation within me that knew deep down that the mountains wouldn’t really jump on me.  But for Mary, the basic framework of expectation had just been shattered. Here she is in the midst of despair and grief at the initial loss of Jesus and in the confusion and fear of what she assumes is his missing body only to find the one she knew to be dead and buried standing before her alive and calling her by name.  As the feelings of excitement that come with exhilaration begin to surge within Mary, she begins to have a new encounter with the empty tomb. Or perhaps we could say she finally got on the right train. No longer is she focused on looking for what she thinks is missing. Instead, she begins to see the fullness of the empty tomb as a witness to the risen Christ and as confirmation that the love of God extends well beyond our human understanding and is in no way bound up in human institutions.

“Rabboni!” Mary exclaims in her moment of recognition. It is an affectionate term and seems to have been accompanied by a natural inclination to reach out and embrace Jesus, for he responds by saying “don’t hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to Abba God. Rather, go to the sisters and brothers and tell them, ‘I’m ascending to my Abba and to your Abba, to my God and your God!’” It is in the resurrection that Jesus confirms that inclusion in the kin-dom of God is fully open to all. We are all children of God – Jesus is ascending to his Abba and our Abba, to his God and our God. Mary goes to the disciples bearing the first witness of the resurrection saying “I have seen the Teacher!”

With Mary’s testimony, the ripples of celebration begin and those ripples continue to this day. Life comes out of death, what was thought to be an ending is now an unexpected beginning – the empty tomb has become a wellspring of hope and possibility.  Our fear turns into exhilaration and we join with the Psalmist proclaiming:

This is our God’s doing,

And it is wonderful to see.

This is the day Our God has made –

Let us celebrate with joy!