4/20/25 Easter Sermon

Our Gospel reading this morning comes from John 20, verses 1 through 18. It’s John’s version of the resurrection—not filled with dramatic signs or angel choirs, but told as a quiet, deeply personal moment between Mary Magdalene and the risen Jesus.

To set the scene: Jesus has been crucified. His body was placed in a tomb before sunset on Friday. Now the Sabbath is over, and it’s early Sunday morning. The disciples are in hiding. Grief is heavy. Hope feels lost.

Mary comes to the tomb while it’s still dark. And that detail matters—not just as a timestamp, but because in John’s Gospel, darkness often points to confusion or uncertainty. What happens next is a slow movement out of that darkness and into light—not just in the world around her, but in Mary’s heart as she comes to recognize Jesus.

John’s account is noticeably different from the other Gospels. In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, it’s a group of women who come to the tomb, and they’re met by angels with bright clothes and big announcements. But here, it’s just Mary. No earthquake. No glowing messengers. Just an empty tomb and a lot of questions. The focus is less on drama and more on relationship—on a moment of recognition that changes everything.

And it’s worth pointing out: Mary doesn’t just see the risen Jesus—she becomes the first one he calls by name. The first to be sent. The first preacher of resurrection. So this story doesn’t just tell us that Jesus is alive—it shows us what resurrection looks like: personal, intimate, and deeply human.

Let’s listen now to the Gospel of John, chapter 20, verses 1 through 18.

Early in the morning on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. She ran to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said, “They have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we don’t know where they’ve put him.”

Peter and the other disciple left to go to the tomb. They were running together, but the other disciple ran faster than Peter and was the first to arrive at the tomb. Bending down to take a look, he saw the linen cloths lying there, but he didn’t go in. Following him, Simon Peter entered the tomb and saw the linen cloths lying there. He also saw the face cloth that had been on Jesus’ head. It wasn’t with the other clothes but was folded up in its own place. Then the other disciple, the one who arrived at the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. They didn’t yet understand the scripture that Jesus must rise from the dead. Then the disciples returned to the place where they were staying.

Mary stood outside near the tomb, crying. As she cried, she bent down to look into the tomb. She saw two angels dressed in white, seated where the body of Jesus had been, one at the head and one at the foot.

The angels asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?”

She replied, “They have taken away my Lord, and I don’t know where they’ve put him.”

As soon as she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she didn’t know it was Jesus.

Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who are you looking for?”

Thinking he was the gardener, she replied, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him and I will get him.”

Jesus said to her, “Mary.”

She turned and said to him in Aramaic, “Rabbouni” (which means Teacher).

Jesus said to her, “Don’t hold on to me, for I haven’t yet gone up to my Father. Go to my brothers and sisters and tell them, ‘I’m going up to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”

Mary Magdalene left and announced to the disciples, “I’ve seen the Lord.” Then she told them what he said to her.

WORD OF LORD

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was formless and void—chaotic, dark, and empty. But the Spirit of God hovered over the face of the deep. In the midst of that terrifying darkness, God did something powerful and new. God spoke.

"Let there be light," God said. And light broke through. God separated the light from the darkness, and God called it good. Then God kept creating—sky and sea, sun and moon, birds and beasts, seed-bearing plants, seasons and stars. God created it all and blessed it. And finally, God created us—humanity—formed in God’s own image. And God blessed us too.

That’s how the story begins. Not in sin. Not in shame. Not in separation. But It begins in blessing. But so often, we skip ahead. We begin the story in exile -kicked out of the garden. We start in the Fall, with shame and separation and sin. But that’s not where our story starts. In the beginning, there was no separation. No condemnation. No shame. In the beginning, God saw creation—saw us—and said: this…this is very good.

There was closeness. There was connection. There was blessing. And maybe that's still how God sees us. Maybe that's still how God longs to be with us. Not from a distance. Not with anger. But with the intimacy and tenderness of a parent gazing on their newborn child. If we’ve forgotten what it feels like to be blessed—what it means to be held in that kind of love—it helps to return to something we don’t just understand, but something we’ve seen, something we've felt, something we've experienced.

Not theology. Not doctrine. But the lived experience of blessing. Maybe you’ve witnessed it—or remember it yourself: the sacred moment when a newborn is placed into a mother’s arms for the first time. The cries subside. The room softens. The world pauses. And in that fragile, holy stillness, something deeper than words unfolds. A blessing. A bond. A beginning.

That’s the kind of closeness God had with us. And the kind God still longs for. There is a closeness, a bond born of breath and blood and love. A bond that mirrors the tenderness of our Creator toward creation. And I imagine God looked upon creation the same way a mother looks into the eyes of her newborn: with awe, with tenderness, with all the hopes and dreams of a lifetime wrapped in a little blanket.

In the beginning, life is precious. Life is full of wonder and hope and infinite possibility. In the beginning, we were known. We were loved. We were blessed.

John begins his Gospel with the same three words: "In the beginning." But this time, it isn’t the beginning of soil and stars. It’s the beginning of something even more mysterious—the divine Word: spoken from eternity, woven into flesh, and shining in the darkness. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."

John tells us that this Word—this Logos—was with God in the beginning, and through him all things were made. Not one thing came into being apart from him. In the beginning, we were so deeply connected to God that there was no separation, no distance, no life outside of God. And John reminds us: Christ was there. Christ was not only with God—Christ is the source of our being. Nothing exists outside of that Word.

And just as it was in the beginning—when the world was chaotic, dark, and uncertain—God’s Spirit hovered. God’s Word moved. And God brought light. Now, once again, the world is chaotic. Still shadowed by fear, grief, and injustice. Still crying out in pain. And into that chaos, the Word becomes flesh. Not distant. Not abstract. But embodied. Real. Living and moving among us.

Not born into calm or comfort—but into empire and exile. Into violence and suspicion. Into a manger and, eventually, a cross. It’s the same pattern: chaos, darkness, fear—and then, the Word moves. The Light shines. The same Word that hovered over the deep now walks among us. The same Light that broke the primordial darkness now pierces the shadows of human history. The same Voice that once said, "Let there be light," now calls us to follow him. God does not stay above the storm but steps into it. The creative Word becomes a healing presence. The light still shines in the darkness. And the darkness has not overcome it. Just like in the beginning.

But somewhere along the way, we forgot. We forgot what it meant to be close to God. We forgot what it meant to be blessed. We forgot what it felt like to walk with God in the cool of the day, to live in a world where blessing is the first word spoken over us as we awake and the last thing we hear as we fall asleep.

Instead, we’ve told ourselves a different story—a story of distance and debt. We've imagined a God who is cold and calculating, a God who keeps score, a God who demands payment for every wrong. And perhaps worst of all, we've come to believe that this is the God Jesus came to reveal. That the cross was some kind of divine transaction, a blood payment to satisfy an angry Father.

But that isn’t how the story begins. And it isn’t how the story goes. Because from the very beginning, God’s desire has not been retribution, but restoration. Not punishment, but presence. Not fear, but fellowship. What Jesus reveals—what the Word made flesh makes unmistakably clear—is that God would rather die than lose us. God would rather endure the cross than let the separation stand. God would rather literally descend into the depths of Hell than remain apart from us.

The resurrection isn’t a reset button or a legal loophole. It’s the triumph of love that refuses to be walled out. It’s the return to relationship. The return to the Garden. And the good news of Easter is this: the exile is over. The distance has been closed. The walls of separation are torn down. The Word that was with God in the beginning is with us still.

We are not alone. And if that sounds familiar—if it stirs something deep inside you—maybe it’s because we’ve heard it before. In the beginning, God walked with us. In the beginning, God called us by name. In the beginning, God blessed the world and called it good.

And now, in a different garden—this one outside a tomb—the story starts again. Because the resurrection doesn’t just undo death. It opens the soil of a new creation. That’s why the resurrection takes place in a garden. Because this story isn’t just about death and life—it’s about new creation.

It begins in a garden where God formed humanity from the dust and walked with us in the cool of the day. And it begins again in a garden where the tomb lies empty, where Christ rises not only from the grave but as the first sign of something new altogether. This isn’t just a return. It’s a transformation. Not a reset, but a rebirth. Not Eden restored, but creation renewed.

And Mary? She mistakes Jesus for the gardener. But perhaps that moment is more than a misunderstanding. Perhaps it is the Gospel in miniature. Faith is never born out of mere observation. It's not seeing that brings belief—it’s hearing. It’s encounter. It’s when the Word calls you by your name that your eyes are opened.

Mary doesn't recognize Jesus by sight—she recognizes him when he speaks her name. That’s the turning point. It's the existential and phenomenological moment: the moment when the individual is summoned by the Word and responds in faith. So maybe Mary’s mistake is also her revelation. Maybe she sees more than she realizes. Because Jesus is the Gardener.

The true Gardener of a new creation. The one who tends to life where death once reigned, who sows mercy where judgment once took root, and who calls each of us by name to step into this new beginning.

So maybe the Garden never really left us. Maybe we’ve just forgotten how to hear our names spoken in love. Maybe resurrection isn’t only about what happened to Jesus, but what’s happening in us—right now.

Because Easter tells us: creation is still unfolding. God is still speaking light into darkness. And the blessing spoken in the beginning is still being whispered into the soil of our lives today.

So here is the Gospel: In the beginning, God blessed the world. And through Christ, God blesses it still.

And now God blesses this world through you—when you forgive someone who doesn’t deserve it, when you welcome the stranger and the foreigner, when you comfort the grieving and the persecuted by our society, when you say, with your life, “You are not alone.” God blesses this world through you because you are a new creation. You are not a bystander, but a bearer of light. You are not a mistake, but a miracle of grace. You are not just redeemed, but replanted—meant to grow blessing wherever you go.

So may you walk in this world as if it were a garden again. May you live as if the voice that called light from darkness is calling your name, even now. May you believe the tomb is empty not just to prove a point, but to open a path.

A path back to blessing. A path back to God. A path back to the Garden.

Because as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be—a world still being made new, a garden still being tended, a blessing still unfolding in us.

Christ is risen. He is calling your name. He is walking with you. And the world will never be the same.

Alleluia. He is risen. Alleluia. Amen.