Trinity Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

Sermons 

Do you suppose that Mary Magdalene

told the other disciples the whole story,

or just those simple words, "I have seen the Lord."

Do you suppose that she admitted,

"I have seen the Lord,

but I didn’t recognize him at first!"?

"I have seen the Lord,

but I thought he was the gardener!"?

Or did she just say "I have seen him,"

and leave it at that?

It is interesting that in so many of Jesus’ appearances after the resurrection,

people don’t know who he is at first.

And so there has been speculation through the centuries, such as,

well, did he somehow look different?

Or perhaps, in some mystical way,

he deliberately kept people from recognizing him?

I suspect it’s much simpler than that.

Surely we have all had it happen,

that you’re some place like the grocery store,

and you see a person whom you know that you know,

only you can’t think who it is.

Now if you were both at work,

you would recognize her instantly as

the assistant vice-president of the sales division.

Or if you were both at the Village,

you’d know immediately that he’s

that nice maintenance guy who fixed your A/C

the last time it went on the fritz.

But out of context, in the grocery store,

you simply can’t make the connection.

And no, it’s not simply a forgetfulness-thing,

and we can’t blame it on middle-age or older-age.

It has to do with the way our brains file information.

Things that are associated with one another get filed together.

So I think that a large part of why people didn’t recognize Jesus at first

is simply that he showed up in places where they weren’t expecting him.

That is, he showed up among the living,

when everyone knew that he was dead.

He appeared standing up and walking around

when everybody knew he was in the tomb,

with a big ol’ stone rolled across the entrance … or exit.

At any rate,

the question that Jesus asks Mary

is one that we have heard him ask before.

"Whom are you looking for?" he says to her,

hoping, perhaps, that when she gives the answer

her eyes will be opened.

She doesn’t answer the question, though, does she?

Already overwhelmed in her grief,

and still assuming, of course, that the dead stay dead,

she jumps to the only logical conclusion:

If Jesus’ body is gone,

this stranger in front of her must be the one who took it away.

Whom are you looking for?

Where else have we heard that question?

We only have to look back a couple of chapters,

to the eighteenth chapter of John’s gospel,

to find the same question asked

in a very different setting.

It is after the last supper with the disciples …

Jesus has gone to the garden to pray,

and here comes Judas along with soldiers,

and police from the chief priests and the Pharisees,

and they’re invading the quiet garden with lamps and torches and weapons …

and Jesus, already knowing the answer, asks them,

"Whom are you looking for?"

In fact, even though they answer him, "Jesus of Nazareth,"

he has to ask a second time,

because it seems that they are hesitant

and don’t really know what they’re supposed to be doing.

"Whom are you looking for?"

"Jesus of Nazareth."

"I am he."

In this instance,

as with Mary at the tomb,

Jesus already knows the answer to the question:

she is looking for him; they are looking for him.

Why ask, then?

Why does any teacher ask a question

that he or she already knows the answer to?

It’s because the hearer needs to learn something, isn’t it?

The question is designed to make the respondent

stop and think.

Whom are you looking for?

Case #1 … in the garden.

Whom are they looking for?

Well, actually, they’re looking for a troublemaker.

Remember that these are soldiers and police,

accustomed to dealing with conflict and violence.

What they find is a group of men

hanging out in a garden,

perhaps praying,

perhaps resting after a long meal and long conversation.

Judas has led them there,

just like he was paid to do,

only they don’t see anything particularly suspicious going on.

"Whom are you looking for?"

Well, sir … we’re supposed to be looking for

this guy who’s been stirring the people up,

challenging the authority of Caesar,

putting all of us at risk.

Name of Jesus of Nazareth.

Seen him around anywhere?

"I am he," says Jesus,

at which point they all, except for Judas, step away from him.

He has to ask them again,

because they’ve been so confounded by

what he actually is as opposed to what they thought they would find,

that they can’t even react for a few moments.

Not only that, but instead of running away,

or ordering his friends to fight,

he simply admits who he is

and stands his ground.

"Whom are you looking for?" he asks again,

and even then, they don’t seem to know what to do

until Peter draws his sword and lops off someone’s ear.

Then, finally, Jesus is arrested and bound and taken away.

Case #2 … in a garden of a different sort,

a place where the dead are laid to rest.

Mary has come looking for one of those dead,

only he’s not there,

and the huge stone that was in front of the tomb’s entrance

has been rolled off to one side.

She goes to get a couple of the menfolk,

who come back to the tomb with her and find that,

yep, he’s not there.

Just the linen cloths that were used to wrap the body.

But Simon Peter and the other disciple return home,

thinking heaven only knows what,

leaving Mary behind with the empty tomb

and whatever ghosts her imagination is conjuring up.

As she is weeping, and looking into the tomb,

Jesus sort of sneaks up behind her,

so that when she turns around, there he is.

"Why are you weeping?" he asks her.

"Whom are you looking for?"

Just like the soldiers in the garden,

she is looking for Jesus,

and doesn’t realize that he is standing right in front of her.

After all, that’s not what she expected.

She expected, first, a closed tomb with a body presumably still inside it.

The other gospels suggest that she had come to anoint Jesus’ body,

but John only says that she came to the tomb.

When she finds a tomb that has been opened,

her expectation shifts:

now, she figures that someone has stolen the body,

or at least, moved it for some reason or another.

Perfectly logical.

Whom are you looking for?

I’m looking for Jesus, who has been in this tomb since Friday.

Who else would I be looking for, you silly gardener?

Please tell me where you have taken him.

"Mary," says Jesus,

and finally it dawns on her.

She has found the one she was looking for …

but it’s not what she thought.

Whom are we looking for?

When we come to church at Easter,

when we come to church on a "regular" Sunday,

when we pray at miscellaneous times during the week,

when we read our Bibles …

whom are we looking for?

Are we expecting to find a Jesus

who’s really still pretty much dead?

That is, a Jesus who was relevant two thousand years ago,

but only marginally useful now?

If we turned around, right this minute, and he said our name,

would we recognize him?

Whom are we looking for?

Are we looking for a radical Jesus,

who is constantly challenging the authorities

and calling to account anyone who acts unjustly?

If so, will we recognize him as the calm man in the garden?

Or are we looking for a Jesus

who stays calmly in the garden, and prays a lot,

but never challenges the social order?

If so, will we recognize him overturning the tables in the temple?

Whom are we looking for?

Are we looking for a Jesus who blesses our way of life,

likes the same people we like,

and opposes the same people we oppose?

Are we looking for a Jesus who condemns other people’s sins,

but leaves our own unchallenged?

Will we recognize Jesus even in the face of those

we think of as enemies?

Can we see him in the face of people

who seem to us to be pretty spectacular sinners?

Do we find him even in the face of others

who speak hatefully and oppose us?

Whom are we looking for?

No matter what it is that we look for in Jesus,

he is more than that.

The question for our Easter faith is quite simply,

will we continue to accept him only on our own terms,

or will we try to move toward his?

Will we look for him only in the old, familiar places,

where we have indeed found him in the past,

or will we look in new places as well?

How will we respond when he shows up in ways we weren’t expecting?

Will we react like the soldiers,

moving ahead with our plans regardless of what we have learned?

Or will we react like Mary,

believing something unexpected that changes everything?

Jesus cannot be confined in our neat categories and boxes

any more than he could be confined in a tomb.

He is always going to roll away whatever stone we have placed

to try to keep him in,

and demand new responses from us,

and commitment to a future we have not yet seen.

Whom are you looking for?

Assuming that the answer is Jesus,

how will you know when you have found him?

What if he takes you by surprise?

Will that be good news or bad news?

Christ is risen,

and he is looking for us.

Whom are we looking for?

Amen.

© 2007 Julie Adkins (e-mail: DrJAdkins@trinitypresdallas.org)