Reflection by The Rev'd Dr Deborah Broome

The beginning of something totally new

After this, when Jesus knew that all was now finished, he said (in order to fulfil the scripture), ‘I am thirsty.’ A jar full of sour wine was standing there. So they put a sponge full of the wine on a branch of hyssop and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the wine, he said, ‘It is finished.’ Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

John 19:28-30

What if the darkest day in history was actually the most glorious?  That’s the conclusion John’s Gospel leads us to.  What’s happening, in all its pain, is part of God’s greater plan – several times we’re given scenes where what’s happening is seen in the light of the Hebrew scriptures as fulfilment of divine predictions.  God is in charge, and we’re drawn into a profound mystery.  In John, Jesus goes to the cross at the very moment when the Passover lambs were being slaughtered.  Jesus – as God and as human being – is the means by which we’re set free from the sin and the systems that oppress us, and from the fears that trip us up.  He’s the one who holds out to us the possibility of freedom and wholeness.  But in order to do this, he had to die – a death he freely chose.  The “hour” for which he came is an hour of glory, not suffering, and so he dies with a cry of victory on his lips.  He says, “It is finished.”  

“Finished” can mean a lot of things.  Jesus’ life was over: he was dead.  We sell Easter short if we gloss over the death.  If we skip from the excitement and rejoicing and palms of one Sunday to the excitement and rejoicing of the following Sunday without going through the torture and death and silence and grief of the intervening days we’ve missed the point.  The culture that surrounds us tries to deny death.  We use strange euphemisms: “passed away” “lost” – anything to shy away from the reality of death.  The Gospels don’t.   They make it clear that Jesus died.  He was dead.  His life was finished.  But when Jesus says “finished” and dies it’s with a sense of accomplishment.  “I’ve done what I came here to do.  Because of this, others will have life in my name.”

And then what was finished turns into something truly new.

Early 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 removed from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, ‘They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.’ … But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. They said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping?’ She said to them, ‘They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.’ When she had said this, she turned round and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping? For whom are you looking?’ 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!’ She turned and said to him in Hebrew, ‘Rabbouni!’ (which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, ‘Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” ’ Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord’; and she told them that he had said these things to her.

  John 20:1-2,11-18

It’s really clear, in all the Gospel accounts, that none of Jesus’ followers were expecting him to rise from the dead.  Well, who would have expected that?  Resurrection faith came hard to the disciples, because it was the last thing they were expecting.  That morning was dark, and chaotic, and Mary stands weeping outside the tomb.  And she turns, and sees Jesus standing there, but she doesn’t know it’s him.  And Jesus asks her why she’s weeping and whom she’s looking for. 

Mary can’t work out what’s happening.  It’s only when Jesus calls her by name that she begins to get it.  It’s only when he says “Mary” that she recognises him.  And Jesus gives her a job to do: she has to go and tell the others.  From very early on, Mary Magdalene is called “the apostle to the apostles” – she is the one sent (that’s what the word apostle means) to tell the others, who were also sent, to pass on the good news.

Easter was the beginning of something totally new, something totally radical.  In Easter God surprises us all with unlooked-for joy, calling into question our preconceptions, our old ways of doing things, the well-worn pathways of our minds.  A world in which Jesus could be raised from death, a world in which Easter could happen, is a world ripe with possibilities.  For Easter is when all our broken dreams meet the amazing power of God.