Resurrection Weeping

“Weeping…it is all that’s left of me. It is all that keeps me connected to this world and what makes me still Me.”

The story of the resurrection is told in each of the Gospels in one way or another. They do not all agree exactly on the details but there are similarities that are shared by all of them. Personally, I appreciate both the similarities and the differences that make them so unique. 

This year we are reading Matthews’s Gospel (28:1-10), but I would like to make a few observations about John’s version (20: 1-31) of the resurrection. In particular, I am taken with the exchange that takes place between Jesus, who is “fresh from the tomb,” and Mary Magdalene who is anything but fresh. In fact, she is a bit bedraggled and has been weeping. No person wants to be seen when they have been weeping. But there’s a moment they both share and we get to peek deeply into this human/divine exchange that both informs and forms our thoughts and beliefs about who God is and who we are.

First, let’s remember that it is early in the morning, “while it was still dark.” says the Bible. Mary notices something is wrong, the stone from the tomb has been rolled away. Maybe she’s just frightened, but her instincts tell her to leave and tell the disciples. We also know Peter runs and gets there quickly with the other disciples closely behind him. What I want to comment on is what follows: when as the text reads, “then the disciples returned to their homes.”

There is this unwritten pause in the text. “But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb.” The weight of the words take a moment to adjust to. What comes next is a snapshot of Mary “bent” over to look into the tomb. I understand how fear and grief can bend a person over, but this seems to be more than just fear and grief. It feels to me more like a moment when a mother has given birth to a child she has long been waiting for hoping to hold her child only to be met by the doctor who informs her that her child has not survived. All the waiting, and hoping gone and nothing to show if all those yearnings for new life.

Then we hear the question; “Woman, why are you weeping?” Who could put all those emotions, questions and fears into words? I know that I couldn’t. Mary amazes me, I believe that she has suspected that she has been witnessing the presence of God in this “Rabbi” but then what does one make of this cruel death? How does one come to terms with the person who performs miracles and turns water into wine and who loves people. All people! Then seems to embrace this sentence of death as if nothing else mattered? 

Did he not realize that his leaving would change everything for those multitudes of people? Did Jesus not realize that I (Mary) would be devastated? Weeping…it is all that’s left of me. It is all that keeps me connected to this world and what makes me still Me. Did he not know?

The voice that breaks this moment is like an echo from a deep underground. As deep as a cave, tomb or grave. Mary! Weeping is the cover for all the death that permeates everything and every breath that could be life if Jesus is not who and what we believe Him to be. 

Jesus is God in the flesh…you heard me. Jesus is God in the flesh touching us and touching our emptiness if it is not possible that God is walking with us and freeing us from the weeping of our souls.

Easter is coming! It is coming soon, and the empty grave will find us weeping but not out of fear but out of the greatest surprise moment ever recorded in history. Jesus’s words striking our ears and we are left without words to speak. “I am going to My Father and your Father, to My God and your God.” 

Silence!