From the Bishop
Bishop's Easter Message
Saturday 22 March 2008

It tells us in our Easter Gospel that Mary Magdalene burst in on the disciples and announced

“I have seen the Lord.”

It seems to me that there are times when those who translated our bible allow a most powerful image to pass us by. I know that we must only translate what we have before us in the text but I always feel this is one time when the words used don’t reflect the reality of the situation.

Mary Magdalene has seen the risen Lord and is full of awe and wonder, joy and relief.  “I have seen the Lord,” she announced!

I feel it should really say “I have seen the Lord!” she shouted, she exclaimed she yelled. For Mary had just experienced a most wonderfully unbelievable thing.

Imagine for a moment the emotions of Mary on this morning, she full of sadness and grief, trying to understand all the things she has seen, all the things that Jesus spoke about before he died all the seemingly unfulfilled promises. Mary makes her way to the tomb and sees that the stone has been moved, she knows that the authorities may still wish to make further example of Jesus body now that the Passover is complete, it may be that they want to ensure that the body is secure from any talk of coming back again.

Mary sees the stone has been moved and immediately assumes the body has been tampered with, so she turns back to get Peter and John.

They see her obvious distress and run on to the tomb. All is laid out as they had left it, but the body is missing, I imagine they leave in confusion, maybe thinking about what Jesus had said, but I imagine more likely in complete bewilderment.

Mary remains. Distraught with grief, unable to take it in, not only have they broken the body she loved but they have also desecrated his tomb. She peers inside and sees in her grief two figures who ask her why she is weeping, she still doesn’t see beyond her grief, she doesn’t ask who they are she simply says  

“They have taken my Lord”.

At that moment Jesus stands behind her, she does not recognise him; she may not have even lifted her eyes to him. She may have stood dejectedly, saying to the man in charge of the garden 

If you know where he is tell me.

Jesus simply says “MARY”

I imagine he says it with deep tenderness and love, and through the anguish she hears his voice, she hears his love, she hears his promise. She knows, she believes, she reaches out instinctively. He tells Mary to go and tell the others for they need to know and she stumbles and runs until she bursts in on the disciple’s grief, “I HAVE SEEN THE LORD.” Shouting it as much to convince herself as convincing the others.

Mary, who had seen him die that horrible death, had watched them place his battered body in the tomb. Yet she had just spoken to him, and he to her, up there in the garden. She must have been full of all sorts of emotions yet the most powerful one was surely Joy.

I hope and pray that this is what we all feel today, a sense of joy, and a joy heightened for those who have followed the way of the cross through Holy Week. The power of Maundy Thursday as the church begins to feel abandoned. The spiritual emotion as we knelt at the foot of the cross.

As a church we have attempted to witness to Jesus’ sacrifice, many have wept at his suffering, we must now allow his new life to fill us with joy, for we do a great disservice to that sacrifice if we don’t allow it to change our lives if we don’t allow the joy to enter, if we are not the Resurrection church.

That joy must not only be for today, but every day, at school at work at home. Not by forcing our beliefs on others but by living with the joy of Mary visible in our lives.

The joy that also feels uncertainty, the joy that also feels sadness, the joy that also feels lonely, and the joy that seeks companionship and of course the joy that makes you want to shout and sing.

To be a Christian isn’t about being infuriatingly happy all the time, but it is about being joyful in the face of the world, allowing our joy to love and cherish God’s people and God’s creation.

So as we shout Alleluia help us to let it be heard from one end of our diocese to the other, not as the shout of people who have a secret we share, but as the people who shout in exultation at the salvation of God that brings our Lord through death to life so that all people may walk in the light

Alleluia.