Woman, Why are You Weeping?

“Woman, why are you weeping?” Why wouldn’t Mary be weeping? She has come in the dark to the rock tomb where Jesus’ body was hastily laid two days ago. She’s alone. She has no women friends with her. Jesus’ male disciples are still in hiding. She’s lost her teacher and dearest friend in the world. She’s lost all the hopes and dreams that she had had, that she had tucked away in her heart, for the new reign of peace, justice, and mercy that Jesus had taught, modeled, and promised.

Scripture tells us little about Mary Magdalene. Her name tells us that she was from Magdala, a fishing village on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee. The gospel according to Luke tells us that Jesus had healed her of seven demons, and that was also one of three independent women who traveled with Jesus’ company and bankrolled Jesus’ ministry. John further adds that she stood at the foot of the cross with Mary the mother of Jesus and Mary the wife of Clopas.

But it really doesn’t matter ultimately who she is. She comes to Jesus’ tomb in the darkness of her grief. She finds the stone rolled away and assumes that the last physical evidence of her friend’s existence, his physical body, has been moved – or possibly stolen. She runs to tell Peter and the beloved disciple. Perhaps they can find Jesus’ body. They run to the tomb, bend over, look inside, and see that, yes, Jesus’ body is gone. Then they turn around and head back into hiding.

Mary is still grief-stricken. The men are no comfort at all. Mary is still mourning, still feeling emptiness, absence, and loss. She is still looking for Jesus. She is still wondering where he is, and wondering where God is.

Are you with me? Have you ever been where Mary is? Who hasn’t been? We have all lost loved ones – some way too soon. Most of the time we at least have a body or ashes that we can lay to rest, a last piece of our beloved to which we can bid goodbye. We can lay our loved ones to rest “with sure and certain hope” that they are now in God’s care. We need that physical evidence of their existence. Those who have lost loved ones in war know exactly what Mary was experiencing. Not for nothing do we flock to military cemeteries and memorials, dutifully searching for our loved ones’ names and honoring their memories. I still remember how moved I was when I laid a stone on the memorial to Holocaust victims at the concentration camp in Buchenwald, Germany.

Yes, we know Mary’s grief, and, for some of us, it may still be as fresh as it was for her that dark morning. We also know those other forms of grief, loss, and absence: the death of relationships, lost friendships, divorce, or estrangement from siblings and adult children. We know the despair of addiction. We know about lost jobs and homes. We know about lost hopes and dreams, and about disillusionment, disappointment, and betrayal. We know about discrimination, injustice, and murder. We’ve all stood where Mary stood, searching for God, seeking consolation and finding none. “Woman, why are you weeping?” Why not?

“Woman, why are you weeping?” When Mary answers the angels, she is still feeling loss and emptiness. She is still asking where Jesus is. And even when the stranger, whom she supposes to be a gardener, poses the question, she still feels her loss. Even then, though it is Jesus himself speaking, she is still mired in grief and fails to recognize his voice. She repeats her plaintive question and is about to walk away.

And then. And then the risen Jesus simply calls her name. She stops in her tracks, the truth breaks into her consciousness, the light dawns, and all she can see is the risen Christ. This is the moment of resurrection for the evangelist! In John’s gospel, there are no angels announcing that Jesus has been raised. Jesus himself doesn’t announce that he has been raised. He simply speaks Mary’s name. This is when she realizes that Jesus is not absent but fully present. This is the turning point in her life. “My teacher,” she cries and reaches for him. “You can’t hold on to me,” he says, “everything is changed. Go tell the others.” She does. She is transformed from a woman in mourning to a woman able to proclaim good news. She becomes, as the Greek Orthodox Church calls her, the “apostle to the apostles.” She is an enduring witness to the call of women to preach and teach in the church.

“Woman, why are you weeping?” Are we also in the garden with Mary Magdalene? We don’t need to weep! In all our emptiness, losses, and griefs, there is good news! Didn’t you come here today to hear that good news? There is good news, and we too can hear it. The tomb is empty not because Jesus is absent, but because he is present, because he is always present to us! We too can hear Jesus speaking to us amidst the losses of our own lives. We too will hear him call us by name. He will astound us: he is alive, alive to us in a completely new and unexpected way. We too will hear his reassurance that we are God’s beloved friends. We too will realize that far from being absent, far from being the object of a search that never ends, that God is always present to us. We too will hear his promise to turn sorrow into joy, and death into life. We too will experience resurrection in our own lives.

Will we recognize it? Sometimes we may have to weep, sometimes we may have to acknowledge that we’ve run out of options, sometimes we have to turn to God and just be quiet before we can hear Jesus call our names. Sometimes we have to accept that God shows up in unexpected places. Sometimes we hear God’s voice in the voices of loved ones, friends, preachers, writers, perhaps even Facebook posts! Sometimes we hear Jesus calling us at the altar, as he nourishes us with his Body and Blood. I can’t count the number of times that I have trudged up the aisle dispirited, grieving, full of regrets, or just plain hopeless, and come away healed, filled, and revived. And sometimes we hear Jesus’ voice when we can finally say, “I’m ready to change.” Indeed, Joan Chittister reminds us that “to say ‘I believe in Jesus Christ … who rose from the dead’ is to say something about myself at the same time. It says that I myself am ready to be transformed. Once the Christ life rises in me, I rise to new life as well…. If I know that Jesus has been transformed, then I am transformed myself and, as a result, everything around me. Transformation is never a private affair. But it is always a decisive one.”

Yes, standing with Mary Magdalene, we hear the best news anyone could ever wish for! Then, having heard Jesus call our names, having known his presence truly, are we ready to share that knowledge? Can we hear Jesus’ charge to “go to my brothers?” Can we too say, “I have seen the Lord?”

You can, if you realize that all of us – white, brown, woman, man, old, young, gay, straight, trans, foreign-born – all of us who profess to follow Jesus are called to share our experiences of God at work in our own lives. This Lent we studied the missionary journeys of Paul by reading Adam Hamilton’s The Call and watching the accompanying DVD. In the last chapter of the book Hamilton reminds us that arguments about faith convince no one. Rather, he says, “the most compelling case I can make for my faith comes from my experience of God and the ways that my life is different as a Christ-follower….”

You can say, “I have seen the Lord” when you realize that all of us also experience grief and loss, if you have seen for yourself that we live in a broken, sinful, warring, selfish, and unjust world – the very same world that crucified Jesus, and that all of us need reassurance that Jesus is alive and present in that world. You can say, “I have seen the Lord,” if you trust with all your heart that God is never absent from us, and that in the Paschal Mystery life always triumphs over death.

Legend says that Mary Magdalene continued to proclaim the good news about Jesus, preaching in towns and villages until her death in Gaul in 72 AD. According to one story, she once brought an egg, symbolizing new life, to the Roman emperor Tiberius and told him about Jesus. “A person can no more rise from the dead,” the emperor said angrily, than that egg can turn red.” The egg in Mary’s hand immediately turned red. “Christ is risen,” Mary Magdalene said.1

“Woman, why are you weeping?” I am no longer weeping. I have seen the Lord. And I tell it out with joyful voice! Alleluia, Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed, alleluia!

1. Sara Miles, “How to be an Evangelist,” Journey with Jesus, 09 April 2017.