Relentless
John 20:1-18
Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, ‘They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.’ Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went towards the tomb. The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. Then the disciples returned to their homes.
But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. They said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping?’ She said to them, ‘They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.’ When she had said this, she turned round and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping? For whom are you looking?’ Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, ‘Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Mary!’ She turned and said to him in Hebrew, ‘Rabbouni!’ (which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, ‘Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” ’ Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord’; and she told them that he had said these things to her.
“Before you see any trace, the bud lies in there, caught in relentless hope. The sap sings its way up and down root to branch. Look beyond the visible with your hope burning, like that.” This is from a series of little vignettes of sorts by writer Dee Dee Risher. That concept of relentless hope really spoke to me— especially during this time of year. I was even just saying to Chris the other day, “I wish the buds on the trees were out. That’d make things so much nicer.” But the buds are there, they’ve always been there—waiting for the right time to make themselves known inviting new and old life back—and it takes relentless hope to remember that; and it takes looking beyond what’s visible to remember that. And neither of those things are easy.
This idea of relentless hope and looking and thinking beyond what’s visible is especially apt for John’s version of the resurrection story. Strangely enough, John isn’t actually super concerned about the resurrection—he much more emphasizes what’s to come—the ascension—the time when, after Jesus finishes his last bits of business on earth, he will rise and sit on the right hand of God in heaven. But now that Jesus is ascended, we can’t see him anymore. Now that Jesus is ascended, we have nothing to prove the triumph over death that we’re celebrating today actually happened. But… do we need that? Do we really need that proof, or do we really need to physically see? Or can we look beyond what’s visible?
When Mary goes to the tomb alone and see the stone removed, she immediately tells some of Jesus’ disciples. When Peter and the unnamed beloved one hear this strange and troubling news, they race to the tomb, they see it’s empty and they believe… but they do not understand. They see; they believe; and yet they don’t understand. And so despite them being able to see the emptiness of tomb with their own eyes, they just… go home. They don’t understand what’s to come. They don’t understand what comes next. Whatever hope they may have is apparently not so relentless.
But Mary… Mary stays. She stays to weep and be with her grief and her desperation. And she is rewarded for this innate understanding that the story is not yet over by the appearance of two angels, and then by the appearance of Jesus himself, risen from his violent death. She turns and looks at the man who asks her, “…why are you weeping?” For whom are you looking?” And despite seeing, she does not yet realize who is actually in front of her. Maybe it’s the tears obscuring her vision, maybe it’s the sheer unbelievability that her savior she watched die is here, walking the earth again; but regardless, her eyes don’t do the work. The visible is not what is important here. It’s when she hears her name come from his mouth—“Mary!” And she knows. It's the love and the hope she hears when being directly addressed by her beloved Jesus that brings her back, that makes her realize the prophesy has been fulfilled and death has indeed been defeated. Her resurrected savior stands before her. He is risen indeed!
I wonder why Mary stayed at the tomb. When her two friends didn’t even both to comfort her, and just went home. I wonder what made her want to sit with her grief, I wonder what let her know that it wasn’t time to go yet, or to give up yet. I wonder if Mary had some relentless hope in her, some relentless hope that, at the very least, she could recover Jesus’ body and return him to the peace he deserved. And when she sees Jesus, she assumes that he is the gardener. And church—what takes more relentless hope than gardening? What takes more looking beyond the visible than gardening? What takes more faith that the weather will be just right, that the soil conditions will be just so, that the work you put in will be just delicate and precise enough that it will all come together so that the earth will be reborn with beauty and sustenance? How appropriate that Jesus is mistaken for the gardener—the man who just went through so much torment and despair, having that faith and relentless hope that despite it all, he would come out the other side.
How often must we put our faith in things we cannot see? How often must we have that relentless, persistent faith and hope that sucks all our energy, that defies all rationality?
Church, I confess—last year I was having a hard time feeling the spirit of resurrection. Last Easter, as some of you may know, as I preached on April 17th, 2022, I was thinking of the fact that that was my expected due date for the baby I loved and lost that 4 months prior in December at 22 weeks. It felt like a cruel joke, to have the expected due date of what turned out to be a doomed pregnancy land on Easter. But I stand before you today, able to feel the spirit of resurrection once again. That is very much thanks to the fact that I stand before you 29 weeks pregnant with what so far is a healthy and active baby. I feel that spirit of resurrection in every kick and punch deep in my guts. But it took a year and half of relentless hope to get here. It took a year and a half of trusting, in spite of my history and my losses, that my body was doing all the things it’s supposed to do, all the things that are so far beyond the visible. It was not an easy journey, and it’s still not. But my hope was relentless. I couldn’t shake it. I couldn’t shake that optimism, that hope that I would get the baby I so dearly wanted, that I would feel that new life inside me once again. There were times when I wished I could’ve given up, when that would’ve felt so much easier. There were times when I wished that hope would, indeed, relent and I could just move on with my life. But it was relentless. That relentless hope has led me to this place—this place of finally being able to feel the spirit of resurrection again, this place of being able to believe in new life and new possibility.
But it goes so far beyond what I want in my personal life, what any of us want in our personal lives. That relentless hope and seeing beyond the visible is necessary every day in this world so that we don’t fall into pits of despair or cynicism. It’s necessary so that we can really try to understand the Love and the hope that comes with Jesus’ resurrection, so we don’t just walk away from what we don’t understand like the two disciples from our story today—because I think that’s what a lot of people do these days, and I can’t blame them. Things can just feel so broken because, well… they are. But that doesn’t mean they’re broken beyond repair. They’re just often broken beyond what’s visible, broken beyond any kind of fix that feels attainable to the average person.
The powerful want you to think that it’s broken beyond repair. The powerful publicly killed Jesus so that his followers would give up, so that his followers would shrug and walk away from his empty tomb, not understanding that there is still hope, even after death, even after all seems hopeless. The powerful today want you to think that gun violence is impossible to end, that it’s impossible to truly protect our children, order to keep money in their pockets. They want you to think that our beloved queer and trans siblings are a danger to others in order to keep the status quo and to keep their power. They want you to think that the ever-expanding wealth gap is just the way of our economy and that we have to accept that manufactured scarcity and struggle. They want you think that we shouldn’t have any control or autonomy over our bodies so that they can keep their power over us. The Romans were scared—they saw what Jesus was doing, that he was riling up the misfits of the world, showing them that they didn’t have to take their oppression, that they deserved the same comfort and safety and stability as the powerful Romans—that they, along with everyone else, deserved acceptance. Equality. And Love.
All those things feel so out of reach right now, all that equality, all that possibility of a better world, but it’s not—it’s just far enough away that it’s beyond what’s visible, and so it’s hard for us to truly believe that it’s possible that we can really create a better world, and earth as it is in heaven. That’s where that relentless hope comes in. That tired, draining, but persistent hope in what we can’t see but what we can imagine. And for me, that hope is even more relentless, now that it seems I truly am bringing a child into this strange and broken world. I have no choice but to imagine and work for a better world, a more just world, for the thousands who will come after me.
Mary, is overwhelmed with emotion when she realizes it’s Jesus in front of her, not a gardener, and so Jesus can see right away that she wants nothing more than to embrace him and to know that he’s real, to know that he is indeed standing in front of her— and so he warns her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended…”. The story isn’t over yet. Things have changed and they will change further. Jesus then commissions Mary to go and tell the news—not the news that Jesus has been resurrected and is walking amongst them again, but the news that he will soon be ascending.
He's letting the world know that though he was resurrected and that is indeed something to celebrate, as we are today, they must still begin to get used to the idea of a life without him being physically with them. They must get used to a life in which they hold onto relentless hope that he will come again, that the world can be better thanks to Jesus’ example, but they’ll have to look beyond the visible to do that because Jesus won’t be here anymore. They’ll have to carry on the work of their beloved savior after he’s gone.
And so Jesus commissioned his disciples to carry on the work, and so we, therefore are commissioned to carry on the work. We are commissioned to do the work of justice in this world. And to do the work of justice is to have relentless hope and to be able to see beyond what’s visible. To do the work of justice is to know that there are buds waiting to explode from the trees, to know that the bulbs are waiting to burst from the ground, to know that it’s all there, waiting, as long as we carry on the work of Jesus, as long as we know that the Holy Spirit remains with us, beyond the visible.
There is new life inside each one of us, hope beyond the visible, burning to make itself known and do the work of Love in the world. After Jesus made himself known to Mary, he commissioned Mary to go out into the world to tell the disciples what was to come. She ran and told them “I have seen the Lord!” Maybe we can’t say that out in the world since Jesus has since ascended—but we can make it known what Jesus wants for this world, for all of us, for every human being. We can make it known that Jesus lived and died and was resurrected in order that all people have unconditional Love and freedom, that all people can live safe and secure lives. In the midst of division and hatred and violence, that can seem out of reach, our of our field of vision. But that’s where that relentless hope comes in. So I ask you, this Easter—look beyond the visible. With Hope burning. Amen.
