Who is my friend and not a stranger
“Christ Appearing to Mary” by Edward Manigault, 1910.
Manigault, Edward Middleton, 1887-1922. Christ Appearing to Mary, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN.
Sermon for The Sunday of the Resurrection: Easter Sunday (April 9, 2023)
View the scripture readings and the Collect of the Day: The Sunday of the Resurrection: Easter Sunday (Year A) (we read the Gospel according to John)
Preached at St. James’ Episcopal Church in Hyde Park, NY. A video of our whole 10 am service for Easter Sunday (April 9, 2023) is available here.
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…she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” Jesus said to her, “Mary!” John 20:14-16
Edited Transcript
May only truth be spoken here and only truth be heard. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit: One God, Mother of us all. Please be seated.
There's an anthem that starts the Burial service in the Episcopal Church. When we prepare to commit someone to Christ in death, we say this:
I know that my redeemer lives,
and at the last he shall stand upon the earth.
…and in my body I shall see God
who is my friend and not a stranger.
(The Book of Common Prayer, p. 491)
In our Gospel reading today, Jesus reveals himself not only as the one who all the powers of oppression and injustice and evil and death couldn't keep down, but as a friend to the woman who was his friend; a friend to all who were his friends.
Jesus came to show us that God is no stranger to our human life. God is no stranger to what it is to live in a body. God is no stranger to what it means to truly love another human being, to walk your life by their side. God is no stranger to what it is to be small and vulnerable and to need the help of others as a child, as a baby.
God is no stranger to the loss of loved ones. Look how Jesus wept when Lazarus died. God is no stranger to the ways that this human life sometimes seems to be so full of evil and injustice: the ways that we destroy one another, the ways that we destroy all the gifts that God has given us. When Jesus walked this earth with us, he lived all of that. He is no stranger to what it is to be a human being in a body, who does their best to offer themself, and yet sometimes finds that that is not enough to change the way that things are.
Not only did Jesus come to show God as no stranger to being human, but the truth and the fullness of the power of God is revealed first to those who were the companions of God while God lived on this earth as one of us. The reality of God's friendship to us is revealed in Mary Magdalene. She was a true friend to Jesus. She was with him in Jerusalem in his last days. She waited with his mother at the foot of the cross. There was nothing that he went through that she wasn't willing to stick by his side. And even when everybody else had given up, she was still at his side at the tomb on Easter morning. Even when all hope had seemed to be lost, she still went there—maybe not knowing quite what drew her there.
She stuck by Jesus as a true friend, not a stranger. And so she was there to see that quiet and totally disruptive new life springing up where we thought all hope had been lost. Where we were only suffering in grief. Where it seemed that being a true human being and truly loving others ends up having too much of a price to pay, which is that in the end we lose one another to the power of death. But Mary stayed anyway and she wept, and when he revealed himself, she recognized Jesus when he called her by her name: because he is a friend, not a stranger.
And he showed that the power of love, true companionship that sticks through suffering through grief: when we stay by God and answer God's call through both joy and suffering, we see the God who is truly our friend and not a stranger.
[Referring to baby crying in the background] And that is a happy Easter with new life all around us!
It is so, so good for us to be here side by side and to celebrate what God is doing here even now.
And I promise you that on the last day, somehow you will see God—not only by faith through the testimony of the witnesses who have passed down this truth for generations, for millennia—but in your own body, you will see God: who is your friend and not a stranger.
Happy Easter, my friends. Alleluia, alleluia!