There is one consistent detail that is mentioned. Matthew, Mark, and Luke tell us it was dawn. Light was already breaking.
John tells it differently. Mary Magdalene came to the tomb while it was still dark.
This is not a small detail. In John’s gospel, nothing is accidental. This is the same gospel that begins: “In the beginning was the Word…” Echoing the first words of Genesis: “In the beginning… when the earth was formless and void and darkness covered the deep.”
Pastor Emillie's sermon emphasized that Mary comes in the darkness, and John here is telling us something more than the time of day. He is telling us where Mary was and where we are in times of grief. We are standing at the edge of creation when the world is unmade, when we grieve, and the cross seems to have shattered hope. When she discovers the tomb is empty, nothing makes sense.
The Thanksgiving for Baptism emphasized the John's recurring theme of creation and God's Spirit moving over the water. God has placed us in a well-watered garden. We sang Take Me to the Water in response.
Pastor Emillie preached about what Mary would have felt in her time of grief by comparing it to what Emillie's family felt when her uncle died. Mary stands weeping outside the tomb. The mystery of the empty tomb was too much at first. She then encounters a man she does not recognize. Of course, a gardener, because John is telling us something again about the first creation in a garden.
Once there was Adam and Eve, and through them the world fell into fracture. Now there is Mary and Jesus. A woman and a man in a garden again, but this time, the story is not about grasping or loss. It is about recognition. “Mary.”
And in that moment, everything changes. Light breaks. Not just in the sky,
but in the soul. “Rabbouni.”
Teacher. The Lord of Life. This is the first morning of the new creation. The darkness has not been avoided. It has been entered and transformed. The resurrection is not only about one man rising. It is the rebirth of the whole cosmos. The chaos of Genesis is spoken into order again. The void is filled with life again. The garden blooms again. Pastor Emille preached that Jesus commanded Mary not to grasp this moment, but rather to go and spread the news. The first witness is Mary, who is so excited she must run to announce what all creation longs to say: “I have seen the Lord.”
The congregation responded with the hymn Sing Out, Earth and Skies and the Apostles’ Creed
For Offertory the choir sang Now the Green Blade Riseth, and this familiar hymn landed deeply in continuing resurrection as creation, "life from buried seed."
After We Eat the Bread of Teaching and Taste and See for Communion we departed with a rousing I'm So Glad Jesus Lifted Me. we left as witnesses of the garden restored and where death no longer has the final word.
Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!
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