Sermon Sample

Lord, may we listen with joy in our hearts to receive the good news of the risen Christ, Amen.
  
   Sisters and brothers, it was early.  It was dark.  She went to the tomb.  Who knows what was going through her mind?  She was grieving.  Sometimes when we are grieving, we don’t have a sense of time.  We don’t have a sense even of why.  Some things just come to us, an urgency to do what we can.  Mary Magdalene, led by her own broken heart, went to the tomb to do what she could, to be present with Jesus.  You see, the gospel writer John tells his story differently than the others.  He doesn’t give us an interpretation of the Christ event like Mark and Matthew and Luke.  John gives us scenes and dialogue to tell us his stories about Jesus.  While some of the stories are the same, John also includes some material that is unique to John.  Some say John writes in two parts concerning the resurrection---in signs--and in glory.  Jesus reveals his identity through signs and speech in his public ministry.  When the hour of his death arrives, Jesus’ glory is revealed through those who accept him through his passion, resurrection, ascension and the gift of the Holy Spirit.  The resurrection story is the culmination of John’s gospel because Jesus has been predicting his passion and resurrection throughout his narrative.  He interprets the resurrection before it occurs.  Remember how John’s gospel started,
  “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” 
Clearly, we have been told that Jesus is more than a prophet.  Indeed he is more than a messiah.  Jesus begins in divine status, the resurrection brings about his return to the preexistent state of being with God.  John tells us, Jesus began with God in the beginning.
   John’s characters do not know who Jesus is.  John uses them to draw us, the readers, into his story of trying to understand the Christ event.  How do we make sense of Jesus?   If John is to tell us, he would let us into the story to create faith that leads to life.   
              At the Tomb (Mary speaks)
   Losing someone you love hurts deeply.  Grief takes hold on so many levels.  I felt disconnected and detached from my soul as I came to the tomb in the early morning.  It was still dark--a good thing for me.  I did not come to complete his burial.  My intention was simple.  I was there to  mourn and honor him.  He was my teacher--the only person I had ever known who knew me.  He saw my potential and he encouraged me to learn.  It never occurred to me not to listen to him, not to seek his presence, because he made himself available to all who came.  I needed to go to him.  I needed to be there to tell him what I had never been able to say aloud to him.  I wanted to be with him one last time.  I had to be sure that he knew.                           
  I looked inside and I saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb.  Surely someone had removed the stone, but whom?  I ran to tell the other disciples, or was I running from fear?  There were many emotions cascading through my mind.  I felt many things, fear, surprise, dismay.  I had to have answers.  Frantic and frightened I ran like the wind.  I went to Simon Peter and to John to find answers.  I arrived, out of breath and blurted out,“They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.”  Peter didn’t hesitate to come and look.  John was right behind him.  John outran Peter.  He bent down to look in.  The linen clothes were still in their folds. They looked exactly as if they had been around the body of Jesus.  They resembled the shape of his body, but there was no body. The napkin that had been around his face was folded neatly by itself.  Why the orderly fashion?  Where was Jesus’ body?  Who had taken his body away?  
Peter arrived, and went into the tomb.  He stood there, stunned, with a strange look on his face.  The other disciple went in as well.  Their expressions went from perplexed to excitement, or what was it?  They left and went away.  
   I was alone again.  I stayed, the loss of my LORD left me empty.  Jesus had delivered me from sin.  He had changed my life.  As suddenly as a tsunami  that washes everything away, I felt the gushing power of my own grief crashing in on me.   I was pummeled by aloneness.  He was gone.  I was alone--more than I had ever been.  Tears fell, one by one, and then a whole stream of them burst forth.  My loss was overwhelming.  So much so that I could not
recognize the very Presence of God.
   I bent down to look into the tomb, not at all expecting what I would see.  My eyes widened at the sight of two angels in white, sitting where his body had been--one at the place of his head, one at the place of his feet.  They said,
  “Woman, why are you weeping?”  I told them that someone had taken my LORD away.  I wanted to know where they had taken him.  My eyes were still focused to the physical evidence before me.  All I saw was emptiness.  It did not occur to me that Jesus was alive.  In my weeping, I did realize that someone else was there.  He asked why I was weeping and who I was looking for.  I thought it was the gardener.  So intent was I to learn where Jesus’ body was, I just said,  “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.”  I was so focused on my own grief and my personal need to pay homage to the one I loved, that I did not see.  
   He said to me, “Mary!”  Suddenly I did see--not with my eyes only but with eyes of faith.  This was my teacher.  When he called me by name, I recognized him.  It was the voice of the Good Shepherd, calling to one of his sheep.  It was Jesus!  I moved towards him but he told me that I need not hang on to him.  He was about to step into the presence of his Father.  He wanted me to understand that my story and my experience and his were not anchored to the past.  It is now, unfolding, to this day.  His words were meant to change the picture of life forever.  I was told to go back and tell the disciples that he was about to ascend to the Father.  
   I went to the disciples.  This time I told them what I had seen, not only with my eyes, but with true belief.  Jesus Christ was among us yet not in the same way.
   John’s story is not just about Mary.  It also concerns the male disciples who run like children.  The beloved disciple and Peter run a race to see who will get to the tomb first.  John, arriving first, looked in.  He saw the
grave clothes in their very peculiar fashion and the napkin which once was around his head, rolled up in a place by itself.
   A napkin that is folded or rolled in Hebrew
tradition has to do with master and servant. When the servant set the table for the master, he made sure it was exactly the way the master wanted it.  When the master finished eating he would rise from the table, wipe his fingers, his mouth, and clean his beard, and would wad the napkin and toss it onto the table. The wadded napkin signified, “I am finished.”  If the napkin was folded, the message was different.  It meant,“I am coming back.”  The cloth that had been on Jesus head was left to suggest one thing, “I am coming back.”
   Simon Peter went into the tomb, followed by the other disciple. They saw and believed.  We don’t know how each one processed, but we do know that the inside of the tomb revealed something that proved the resurrection.  What was it?  Catherine Marshall writes from her husband Peter Marshall’s sermon,
“In that manner, the grave clothes were lying, collapsed a little, slightly deflated-
because there was between the rolls of bandages a considerable weight of spices, but there lay the linen cloth that had been wound ‘round the body of Christ.  It was when they say that, that the disciples
believed.”  Marshall goes on to describe seeing as “with inner light that leads one to conclusion.” Peter Marshall calls it    
   “perception
    reflection
    understanding--more than sight.”
   "It is to see, as one who reasons from the effect to the cause.  And when John and Peter reasoned from what they saw in the tomb, they arrived at the conclusion
    the unshakable
    unassailable
    certain conviction
    that Jesus Christ had risen from the
dead.”
   John’s gospel reveals that joy comes in the
morning.  He spins a twofold story of a woman and two male disciples and their discovery at the tomb.  His characters are complex.  Peter runs away and then he runs towards Jesus, perhaps in a hurry to make up for his shortcomings.  John runs too, gets there first, but pauses before the tomb.  Crucifixion shocks both their physical and spiritual systems as they stood in front of the tomb knowing they were supposed to remember something.  Mary is prompted by
Jesus.  She responds to the call of her name and is commissioned to go and tell what she has seen.  It is, in the response of these three model disciples, that God works good, even out of the crucifixion. The tomb is empty but life doesn’t stop when death comes. John moves us from darkness to light. The joy of Easter is that death no longer has the winning hand.  Sin no longer controls our lives.  The stone has been rolled away and the tomb is empty.  Resurrection is God’s final answer.  And God’s final answer changes everything.  He lives!   
   This is the Word of the Lord for this day.



Gerry Adam, John Indermark, Dorothy McRae McMahon, Debbie Payden, Craig Scaub, Sean Gilbert, Christian Batthes, Susan Burt, Lori Rosenkvist, Editor Team: Seasons of the Spirit Congregational Life, Lent, Easter, RCL Year C February 21 to May 23, 2010,

O. Wesley Allen, Jr. Preaching Resurrection , St. Louis, Missouri: Chalice Press, 2000.

David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, Editors, Feasting on the Word, Year C Volume 2 Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009.

Catherine  Marshall, The First Easter, a sermon by Peter Marshall, Grand Rapids Michigan, Chosen Books, 1959.

WEEKLY SEEDS, i.ucc.org