Believing Is Seeing (Easter)

John 20: 1-18
Roger Lynn
April 4, 2021
Easter
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“While it was still dark.” That’s the way John’s Gospel begins the story of Easter morning. And the darkness which John references was about more than simply the fact that the sun had not yet risen. Darkness had filled their lives for three days. All meaning and purpose had been stripped from their existence. The most important person in their lives had been taken from them, and all their hopes and dreams for the future had been shattered. Jesus was dead, and for all intents and purposes they might as well have been dead too.

But then something extraordinary happened. The God of Light and Life found them and brought them out of their darkness and death. It didn’t happen all at once. Faith is often an emerging process. But light was dawning in their darkness. It was not seeing that helped them believe, but rather believing that helped them to truly see. And even their believing was not their own doing, but was itself a gift from God.

After running to tell the other disciples about the empty tomb, Mary returns, but waits outside, crying. Even her brief encounter with a pair of angels does not help her to recognize the light that is shining into her world. She is seeing, but not believing. Not even when she finds herself face to face with Jesus does she recognize the truth. She thinks him to be the gardener. But then (and this is one of my very favorite moments in all of scripture) he calls her by name. He calls her back to her true self – the self that God created her to be – the self that is capable of seeing a world beyond the darkness – a world which is filled with the light of new life.

2,000 years later our lives continue to be described by phrases such as “while it was still dark.” Over the past year, in many and various ways from the pandemic to racial tensions to political turmoil, our lives and our world have been filled with darkness. We still have need for the light of God to drive back the shadows. We do not have the opportunity to run to the empty tomb, at least not literally. But that doesn’t really matter. Those first witnesses to the resurrection had no real advantage over us. For them, as for us, it is faith which is required to truly encounter the risen Christ and experience the power of God’s new life in our lives. And it is important to remember that even faith comes to us as a gift. We need not (indeed cannot) conjure it into being by sheer force of will. All that is necessary is to be willing to receive the gift. God’s light is shining in our lives even now, and we are being called by name. We are being called back to our true selves. May our hearts be opened and our lives be filled as we allow ourselves to receive God’s gift of faith. May we discover God’s presence which has been here the whole time, just waiting for us to notice.

Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed! Hallelujah!