St. John’s United Church of Christ

March 23, 2008

A Sermon by the Rev. John Krueger

The Similarity Between Gardeners and the Risen Christ             

                                                                                                John 20:1-18

Its Mary’s fault, isn’t it.  She was the one who wasn’t paying enough attention.  She was too preoccupied, too distracted, too caught up in her own grieving.  On that first Easter Sunday morning, she meets the Risen Christ at the empty tomb and mistakes him for the gardener.

We wonder why she was so mistaken, why she was so slow to make the connection.  We may think that perhaps someone else would have gotten it right the first time, recognized Jesus for who he was, when she didn’t.

But perhaps the Risen Christ is NOT an exact photo-copy of the Jesus who had been with them, walking around Galilee.  Perhaps resurrection changes a person.  Perhaps the visual representation of the Risen Christ is somewhat, or markedly, different from the Jesus who healed the leper, spoke in parables, ate with sinners and preached about the Realm of God.

If that is true, then of course Mary would not recognize the Risen Christ, for perhaps the Risen Christ can look exactly like anyone, even a common cemetery gardener.  Perhaps the Risen Christ can look exactly like the village blacksmith, or the neighborhood welfare mother with those three children, or the teenager with the piercings who has had a scrape with the law, or the confused, elderly woman in the nursing home.

What if the Risen Christ is here, among us, and we haven’t singled him out yet and invited him to our Easter brunch?  What if we haven’t given him a place of honor because we haven’t figured out just who he is among all the rest of us?

Note that Mary doesn’t catch on until she hears her own name spoken by the Risen Christ.  When she is addressed generically as “woman,” she doesn’t understand.  When she is addressed specifically by her name, “Mary” it becomes clear to her.  Then she calls him “Rabbouni,” or Teacher, the way she had known him before.

What I take from this story is this:  God has acted mightily in stepping into the very middle of human history.  God has interrupted the normal flow of events that we know so well.  God has intervened in the usual process of life and death, birth and decay, and raised Jesus Christ from the dead.

No wonder Jesus didn’t look quite the same, after all he had been through those last days.  But instead of looking like a slightly transformed Jesus, the same person with just a few cosmetic touches, the Risen Christ looks just like the ones for whom he died and was raised again to new life.

He died for the disciples, those fair-weather followers who should have had an inside track to the whole plan but missed it completely.  He died for Mary Magdalene, the one Mark says had been healed by Jesus of seven demons, and who was with Mary, Jesus’ mother, all through the terrible time of crucifixion.  He died for the cemetery gardener, nameless in the story, someone who worked among the dead and the grieving, certainly far down the line of jobs you would want for one of your children.

Now either Jesus looks like one of them, or they begin to look like him.  Either way, the result is the same.  We and the Risen Christ are so united, so bonded to each other, so joined by the grace of God, that we have become one with God in God’s Spirit.  God has gifted us with this Resurrection Miracle so that death cannot hold us as death could not hold Christ.  And every day we live a day close to that promise. 

So there is this Similarity Between Gardeners and the Risen Christ, this similarity between each of God’s children and the Risen Christ.  The glory of the Risen Christ is in you, each of you.  And yes, you resemble the Risen Christ enough that the power of the resurrection can be seen in you.  If someone would happen to confuse your life with the joy of the new life in the resurrection, then to God be the glory.  If someone caught a glimpse of a loving, forgiving, gracious-to-a-fault God by watching you live a routine day of life, then to God be the glory.  If the redeeming presence of the Risen Christ became more real for someone else because of something you said, or did, or embodied, then to God be the glory.

Mother Teresa has become the epitome of a Christ-like life for me.  She and members of her order have rescued more than 60,000 people from the streets and slums of Calcutta, India, providing clean beds with encouraging words and the love of Christ to those in greatest need.  When someone asked her why she worked among the poor and the dying, she responded, “They are Jesus to me.”

So the Risen Christ is everywhere.  The members of your family, even the troublesome ones, are Jesus to you, the Risen Christ, because they are the ones Christ died for and the ones he was raised for, the ones who are offered the gift of eternal life.

Those who make up this community of faith are the Risen Christ personified, the old-timers and the new comers, and also those kids, as are the members of every other church.  That is also true of store clerks, work companions, students and teachers, neighbors, even the difficult ones, spouses, parents and children.  We represent the Risen Christ to each other.  We can even resemble God Almighty.  We can extend the Spirit of grace to every place where one life meets another life, where one child of God intersects with another child of God.

Mary didn’t recognize the Risen Christ until she heard her own name spoken, not until she understood that she was not just a number, not just part of the crowd, not a generic cipher.  She was Mary, Mary from Magdala, the Mary claimed by God in Jesus Christ.

On the one hand we flirt with the danger of thinking too highly of ourselves, as if we have a higher claim on God’s attention than the other mere mortals who live around us.  Mega-maniacs have caused all kinds of havoc in this world, and God save us from becoming one of those.

But the opposite is also a problem, thinking too little of ourselves.  Can we look in a mirror and see in that image the image of God?  Are we really worthy of God paying attention to us?  Could we be so special that not a hair can fall from our heads but God knows it, that sort of intimacy with the God of this universe?

Your name is not just a simple collection of syllables.  Your name identifies you as a unique person, the only one like you who has every existed, and the only one like you who will ever exist.

Yes, God does call you by name, you.  God claims you, testifies that you are worthy of forgiveness, and redemption, and salvation, all the gifts a gracious God can offer.  By accepting those gifts, you and I become the Risen Christ to each other, and to this world.

Even cemetery gardeners take on the characteristics of God With Us, Immanuel.  It is this Christmas reality, God With Us, that is now hammered out through death to life, life eternal.