Sermon: "Good News for Forgetful People" April 4, 2021 (Easter Sunday)

Icon by Ivanka Demchuk

Preacher: The Rev. Ryan Slifka
Scripture: John 20:1-18

A few weeks ago, all three of our children were jumping on our trampoline. The two boys—who are 7 and 11—were, as usual, fighting. I couldn’t tell what about, but I could tell that they were insulting each other and calling each other names. Again, as usual. Then I heard one say to the other, “shut up!” And our youngest—who is three—finally pipes up from the sidelines in her sweet little sing-song voice: “We don’t say shut up in this family!” The fight dissolved, of course. Not thanks to the stern warning, but in a fit of laughter at this little girl so obvious parroting her parents.

It was hilarious, and it was cute. But it also got me thinking. For this three year old, the issue was clearly not just that these boys were intentionally transgressing already established rules and norms. For her, the issue was that they had forgotten something fundamentally important about who they are. She was reminding them of something they already knew. One that would hopefully jog their memories. Snapping them out of their forgetful haze.

It’s easy to forget, isn’t it? Not just simple things, like “it’s not so good to tell your siblings to shut up.” It’s easy to forget even the most fundamental truths.

Today’s scripture begins with this kind of forgetfulness. Before sunrise on the first Easter morning, Mary Magdalene returns to Jesus’ tomb. Mary’s one of Jesus’ disciples. One of the few who didn’t flee as he was crucified two days prior. She arrives, and discovers something disconcerting. The giant boulder that covered the entrance to Jesus’ tomb’s been rolled right out of the way.

No doubt she’s still reeling from the shock of Jesus’ death, her Rabbi, her teacher, her friend. So when she sees this stone rolled away, she runs immediately to Peter, and this other guy known only as “the other disciple.” She tells him how the tomb’s open, and how Jesus’ body isn’t there, the only logical explanation being that the tomb was robbed. All three of them run back, stick their heads inside... Nothing in there but the wrappings he was buried with. No body. Mary’s grave-robbed theory must be true. No other probable explanation.

Except there is another probable explanation. And here’s where memory comes in.

“For as yet they did not understand the scripture,” John says. “They did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead.”

They’d already forgotten that Jesus told them what was gonna happen. In John’s version of the story the clues are a little more cryptic, saying stuff like the temple of his body would be destroyed and raised again in three days.[i] But in the other three gospels Jesus says it pretty plainly like, “The Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.”[ii] Jesus interpreted his own life and ministry as a fulfillment of Old Testament promises to his followers.[iii]

He’d said it enough times to get it into their skulls (and eventually into the Bible). They all knew this. Like my children forgetting over and over and over again that we don’t tell people to shut up in our family. “The disciples return to their homes,” it says. Peter and the other guy head home. And Mary, it says. Mary weeps alone by the tomb. Somehow, when confronted with the empty tomb, when the time came when that memory actually came in handy, they’d suddenly forgotten this crucial, fundamental piece of information. Woosh—gone.

Why is that? Because we forget crucial stuff at the crucial moment all the time. When we’re in the thick of heavy, emotional stuff, our memory’s the first thing to go. Our kids or spouse set us off, and we’re yelling before it even occurs us just how badly the last time went. A midlife crisis erases our wedding vows and years of marital commitment. We get a troubling diagnosis, we suddenly lose our gratitude and forget the love, family and support that’ll help us get through it. Crisis after crisis comes along, and suddenly every success, or victory, or even survival hops right out of our brain and all we’ve got left is anxiety and despair. The last year of COVID-19 sure’s proved that.

 It didn’t occur to Mary, Peter, or the other disciple that Jesus had been raised, despite the fact he drilled it into their heads. Because that’s the way we work. When the goin’ gets tough… we forget. When we’re in the middle of anger, sadness, depression and despair. Every helpful memory goes out the window.

So the disciples go home, and Mary stays. She weeps outside the tomb, forgetting Jesus’ words. Then comes a hint. She peers inside the tomb again and there are these angels just sittin’ there where Jesus’ body was. “Why you crying?” One asks. On one level it’s an honest inquiry. On the other level, it’s an angel. It knows the deal. It’s more like “what have you got to cry about?” Forgetful Mary repeats the probable theory she told the other disciples about someone stealing Jesus’ body. The hint from a heavenly being goes over her head.

Then an even stronger clue. She does a 180. And the text says that Jesus himself is standing there. But she doesn’t recognize him, even then. He asks her why she’s weeping, and who she’s looking for. Thinking that this guy’s the gardener, she tells the same story she told the disciples and the angels. “Look, buddy,” she says. “If you’ve carried Jesus away, tell me where he is and I’ll take him away.”  She doesn’t remember. He doesn’t ring a bell. Jesus is right in front of her face. But she doesn’t know its him. Gotta be the gardener. It’s the only rational explanation.

Mary doesn’t clue in. That is, until he says her name. “Mary,” Jesus says.  The empty tomb, the angels, Jesus in front of her face, none of these could penetrate the fog of her sadness and despair. And then “Mary!” She hears Jesus speak her name. And this is when she recognizes him. Her memory is jogged. “Mary.” The bell rings. “Rabbi!”

It takes Jesus calling Mary by name to remember. To remember his promises. To remember that death wasn’t the end. To remember he lives. To remember that that the story isn’t over.

Which brings me—funny enough—to Easter. Here we are again, celebrating the resurrection of Jesus. For nearly the 2000th year in a row. You’d think that one Easter would be enough to get the point. You’d think once you hear the Good News, and believe the Good News, that’s it. You’re good. Ready to face the world in all of its brokenness and human life in all its pain. You’d think it was like birthdays. The more you have, the less meaningful they are. But here we are. Yet again. Christ is risen. Get it? Got it? Good. You’d think we’d get it by now.

But that’s not the way it works. Because like I said, like Mary, like Peter, like all of Jesus’ first followers, we can hear it over and over again and forget. Because as soon as the cross, as suffering and pain and loss rear their ugly heads every important memory evaporates. Somebody one said I go to church on Sunday because life’s liable to make me forget everything I heard by Saturday night.

And that’s why we’re gathered here again today. Even in this way-less-than-ideal medium. To remember. Not just something that happened to a Palestinian Jew two-thousand years ago. But to remember that in Christ, the penalty for sin has been paid in full, freeing us from all guilt and shame by the power of forgiveness. To remember that in Christ death has been conquered forever, releasing us from the chains of fear, anxiety and oppression. That Jesus lives and reigns and calls us, even now… Calls us by name, out of the tomb, out of the graveyard of sin and sadness, and into the flourishing garden of a whole new creation.

We’re gathered here today to have all our pieces put back together again because in the darkness of this world of ours it’s so easy to forget that there is no such thing as an end too dead, no such thing as a hole too deep, that a life too battered and bruised as to be beyond redemption simply does not exist. Because of who God is and what God has done on Good Friday and Easter Sunday there is no such thing as hopeless anymore.

And that’s not just me saying it… it’s a divine promise… a memo from the Spirit of the living God… one that’s addressed directly to you, right now, by name!

[Insert your name here!]

Whatever deathly thing has erased your ability to recollect this truth, let it be restored once more by God’s life-giving grace!

I’m gonna say it again. I’m gonna say it again, because you and I are so liable to forget it. Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!

Now go and tell the world cause it’s as absentminded as you, and needs to hear it just as badly as you do, too.

Hallelujah! Amen.

[i] John 2:19.

[ii] Luke 9:22. See also Mark 8:31, Matthew 17:22. See also less obvious examples like the “sign of Jonah.” Mark 14:58, Matthew 12:39, Matthew 16:4, and 21:42, and 27:63

[iii] Which scriptures John’s referring to is not entirely clear. Is it a specific passage? Or a number of passages? What is clear is that Jesus interpreted his life in the light of the promises made in Israel’s scripture—what eventually became the Old Testament. For a detailed discussion see Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel According to John, Anchor Bible series, vol. 29A (New York: Doubleday & Company, 1970), 987.