Easter 2026

John 20:1-9

The revised common lectionary was developed by scholars from many different denominations working together.  The whole three year cycle was actually based on the revised Catholic lectionary which was put out in 1969 after Vatican II.  So much of the year we will be hearing the same readings as our Episcopal and United Church friends. But this year on Easter Sunday we hear what we just heard, which comes from the original Catholic lectionary, and the people down the street will hear the rest of the story -- when Mary Magdalene returns alone to the tomb, meets Jesus after mistaking him for the pardner, and at his command going to tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead.  So I wondered, why don’t we get the whole story?  Why stop our reading with Peter and John witnessing the burial cloths folded neatly, and walking away wondering what it all means. 

The author of this gospel, John, is writing toward the end of the first century, sixty or seventy years after Jesus' crucifixion.  John’ gospel is organized very differently from that ofMatthew, Mark and Luke, who all follow the same time line; and John tells of miracles that are not mentioned in the other gospels, like the raising of Lazarus or the wedding feast of Cana.  And John at the end of his gospel tells the reader why he is writing -- not to give a history, but so that the reader may believe.  John is always concerned about belief -- which for him is the decision to base one’s life on something, even though you don’t have certainty about whether that is true or false.  So with that being said, the reasons our church doesn’t give us “the rest of the story” on Easter Sunday, but unfolds it during the following week, probably has to do with faith.

The story we just read emphasized the Resurrection as a mystery.  The early church quickly recognized that despite the evidence, the meaning of the resurrection required faith to grasp.  Even if you had been one of the 500 or so people who saw Jesus after his death, you would still need faith to see how this mystery applied to you.  John emphasizes Mary, Peter and the beloved disciple as grieving, anxious and uncertain.  The resurrection is not primarily something we see with our eyes, it’s a spiritual reality for you and I, who like Jesus’ first followers takes a while to become real to us.

It reminds us that the mystery of the resurrection is ongoing, as we’ll see during Easter Week.  If you were to read the gospels for the weekdays you’d see this unfold.  The mystery is still ongoing, we are still people who work to see what the resurrection means to us.  Finally, by leaving the reader with the disciple’s uncertainty, we are called to trust in the Resurrection as God’s gift;  the empty tomb  is the beginning of the journey of belief that follows the Easter event.  

We are like Mary, Peter and John.  We haven’t met Jesus in the garden; we haven’t walked with him to Emmaus; we haven’t seen the wounds in his hands and feet or eaten the fish he prepared on the lake-shore for his disciples.  We only hear of these events that convinced the first Christians to risk their lives to spread the news, to go happily to a martyr’s death, to transform the world with the good news that death was not the end.  But like them we can have their kind of faith, faith that informs all our actions, faith that preaches the gospel to everyone we meet, faith that assures us that we are loved unconditionally by so great a Father.  So on this Easter Sunday let us continue the journey into faith, the continuous effort to see how the mystery of the resurrection applies to you and me.  Happy Easter!