From Grief to Joy: A Message for Easter Sunday - John 20:1-18

Grief is an unpredictable thing. We know that when there is death there will be grief, but we can’t know who will experience it the most, or how grief will affect them. I have conducted over a hundred and fifty funerals, served as a hospice chaplain, a pastor, and a teacher of chaplains. I have experienced grief first hand through the death of friends and family. Even so, grief mystifies me. 

You never know who will experience grief the most. The people you think will be the strongest can fall apart. The people you think won’t be able to take it may come through the grief stronger than they began. You never know who or when we will feel it, and when it will hit the hardest. 

The unpredictability of grief has to do with several factors. One is our inability to read the heart of others, or even ourselves. We think we know ourselves and others, because we know only what’s on the outside. We confuse the outer expressions of grief with inner feelings. People can successfully mask their grief, even from themselves. If we aren’t aware it’s there, it can burrow deep and do a lot of damage. People don’t get the help they need, because they deny they have a problem. Grief is like a burrowing worm that can easily be taken off our skin, but if we don’t acknowledge its existence and deal with it early, then it can burrow into our psyche and cause great damage. That is why it’s important to appropriately express our grief in words and tears, so we can get rid of it.

Another complication is compounded grief. Griefs piggyback on other griefs. A person who loses one loved is more likely to have trouble if they are also grieving other losses. If we are struggling in other areas of life and we haven’t resolved those griefs, it makes the new griefs worse. Residual griefs from other losses hide within us and can sometimes come out years later amid other griefs.

All this makes comforting the bereaved a challenge. We want to give them advice on how to live, or words of comfort from the Scriptures. We give them platitudes that mean a lot to us—statements like “It’s God’s will” or “He’s in a better place.” But this may not be where the grieving person is, and they may not be ready to hear it.  Despite how well-meaning our words, we can easily say things that are resented by the mourner and can often be misinterpreted. The best approach when comforting the bereaves is to preach less and listen and cry more. 

It’s challenging to know who needs the most comfort at a funeral. Is it the next of kin, or that little nephew who’s crying in the corner?  Is it the friend who came to support, but unexpectedly relives pain of his own mother’s passing? It’s often impossible for us to know who needs our attention first. We just trust God.

 The story of Good Friday and Easter can be read in many ways. At its heart, though it is a story of grief and comfort. Imagine yourself in the upper room in Jerusalem on the night after Jesus’ death?  Looking around the room, who do you think needs comforting the most. Or imagine yourself on the other side of that mourning, on Easter at sunrise.  Who needs to hear the good news of comfort first?  Suppose you were Jesus, fresh from the tomb. Who needs to see you the most?

If I were Jesus, I would have picked mother Mary. She was the next of kin. Or maybe I would have picked Peter. Peter absolutely fell to pieces after His death. Or maybe it would have been John, who called himself, “The disciple whom Jesus loved.”  John was the only disciple who saw Him die. But when Jesus first rose from the dead, he appeared first to a former prostitute who had no blood relation to Him, and who he had known for less than three years. Jesus chose her to comfort first. Why?

Modern historians and writers have attempted to reconstruct the common view of Mary Magdalene and who she was. Many writers have balked at the idea of Mary being a prostitute. While we have nothing in the Bible that says what she did for a living, I believe that prostitution is her most likely profession. Mark and Luke both record that Jesus cast seven demons out of her, which implies that before her conversion, she must have been pretty bad. His home town Magdala was the port where the fishermen gathered to preserve and sell their catches, which means that it was probably a rough town. There were probably a lot of loose women around the town, and it is very conceivable that Mary was one of them. 

Any attempt to defend Mary’s reputation totally misses the point. God doesn’t favor people of good reputation. Sinners often become closer to God because they are repentant. Those who think they have a good reputation usually miss the sinfulness of their hearts, and never learn to depend on him. People of good reputation crucified Jesus, not so-called “sinners”.  All that really matters is that Jesus freed her from a terrible life. There is no shame in what we were; but joy and hope in what we can become.

Try to imagine what Jesus meant to Mary.  There is a woman imprisoned by seven demons, living in shame. Every man she ever knew used her.  Every love she had was just a cover for lust or manipulation. Then she met Jesus, who did not see her as a slave or sex object. He set her free from her inner demons. He demanded nothing, asked nothing, but gave her freedom and respect. Nothing in Mary’s life was ever so beautiful as His love. 

Most people never experience God this way. Most people see God’s love as being like the imperfect love that others have always given them. Human love is a business transaction. We give to God by being moral people, working in the church, tithing, etc. We expect that in return, God will grant us riches, safety, and prosperity. When we don’t get prosperity, we think God has failed us. This is a business transaction not a love relationship. When my kids act out, I don’t stop loving them.  

Jesus may have been the first person in her life that treated her as a friend, not a business partner.  He did not demand her obedience, but she gave it out of her own free will. This was the best relationship of her whole life. Jesus was probably all the family she had left.

So, what do you do, when the person who has given you the only real love you’ve ever known dies?  

 If Jesus stayed dead, the others would be saddened, but they could go back to their old lives. Peter and John could go back to fishing. Mary had other children in Nazareth. But what did Mary Magdalene have? Her life before Jesus was an unbearable mess? Jesus wasn’t just a friend—He was her only friend.

Mary’s loyalty to Jesus is touching. She went with the other women to the tomb, to anoint the body. They couldn’t finish the job on the day Jesus died. So, the first day the gates reopened, they went back to finish the preparation of the body. Mary went, just like she was a member of his family.   

Imagine their surprise when they found the soldiers gone, the door open, and the body missing!  Imagine if your mother died and you went to the funeral, only to be told that someone had come in the night and stolen their body! This is what happened to Mary.

Before the other women could get moving she ran and told Peter and John. “They’ve taken away our lord!” Peter and John had a footrace to get there first! When they arrived, they saw the same thing.

Mary breaks down. She can’t take it, so she sat beside the tomb and just started crying.

Inside the tomb are two men—caretakers, or so they think. They tell her that He isn’t there. But Mary doesn’t hear the rest of what he said. She’s still in shock. The other words they say, “He is risen.” Doesn’t register with her. She’s lost in her anger and grief.

Then she hears a familiar voice call her name--“Mary!”

Often when people experience extreme grief, they have a temporary psychotic break--hallucinations. But this wasn’t a hallucination. It’s Him in the flesh. She knows this, because she throws herself on Jesus. Jesus allows this, but after a while, He tells her to let go. He has other people to see. His body can’t stay with her forever, any more than our loved ones can stay with us in bodily form. Jesus can and will stay with her, but not in the flesh. His Spirit will always stay beside her.

Jesus made His first visit after the resurrection with an ex-prostitute. It’s probably not what we would do, but Jesus isn’t us. He’s God, and His actions and motivations are pure love. He loves us, not because of who we were or are, but because he chooses to love us. 

Now, what is the relevance of this story to us? It is this—God doesn’t love us as part of the crowd. He loves us as individuals.  We have a general playbook on love. He didn’t just say to Peter, “Get everyone together and I’ll tell them all I love then and that I’ve come back.” No, He knows us by name. He senses what we need. He recognizes our heart and makes us all His priority.

Sometimes, our vision of God does more harm than good. We picture God as the grand marshal in a parade, waving at the crowd from a distance. Or we see God as the minister at a funeral. Standing up front he offers generalized comfort from a message he preached a hundred times before. God is all powerful and all knowing, but that isn’t all. He doesn’t stay on the parade float, He jumps off to meet us in the crowd. He doesn’t stay behind the pulpit--He sits beside us and holds our hand. That’s what communion means. God brings His body and blood to you. 

Close your eyes and imagine God coming to you. Imagine you are in your private room, and you hear soft, sandaled footsteps approaching. You slowly open your eyes, and there before you is Jesus.  His brown eyes are staring directly into yours. His calloused hands take your hand. He smiles and utters your name. Then he waits for you to speak.  What will you say to Him?  What will you ask Him? He is ready to hear.

To Jesus, you are not part of a crowd. You are not a client, a parishioner, a giving unit, or even a sinner. You are who you are, and He cares about you. He measures your need and gives to you in the way that will be best for you. He brings you comfort, not ritualized stylized, or even theologized comfort, but the real comfort of a real friend.

I hope you enjoy the Easter celebrations. But more than that, I hope you hear Jesus call you by your name. He is not limited by time and space. He gives you His full attention. The God of Love is reaching out to you. I hope you will respond.