Easter Vision

[00:00:01] Speaker A: Dear Heavenly Father, we gather here together in your name to celebrate and thank you and bless you for sending your Son to lead us out of the darkness and the misery of this world into your kingdom. We thank you for leaving us the Bible and the Holy Spirit for guidance, and we ask that you will continue to help us as we strive to live as you will have us live. Give us your blessing, your strength. Today we need much courage to follow you. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. The reading this morning is from John 20. As Mary Magdalene comes to the tomb, she's weeping outside the tomb of Jesus Mary Magdalene. 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've taken away my Lord, and I don't know where they have played him. When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she didn't 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. She turned and said to him in Hebrew, rabboneh, which means teacher. Jesus said to her, don't touch me, because I've 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 all that he had said all these things to her. This is the word of the Lord. [00:02:06] Speaker B: Thank you. Back in the 1970s, a psychologist named Ulrich Neisser conducted a famous experiment. He filmed students that were passing a basketball back and forth. And after filming this, he invited test subjects to try to count the number of times the basketball got passed from one person to the other. But what he didn't tell the test subjects was this. That partway through the video, he'd superimposed on top of this initial video another video of a girl carrying an umbrella. Then he asked, after the test subjects had finished viewing the video, he asked them, not only how many times had people thrown the basket from one person to another, but after they'd answered that, he asked, did you notice anything unusual, like, say, a young woman with an umbrella walking into the middle of the screen? Well, 8 out of 10 said, no, they didn't see what was right in front of their eyes. Well, some years later, two psychologists thought they would up the ante. And this time, instead of putting a woman with an umbrella right in the middle of the scene, they would rather put a woman in a gorilla costume in the middle of the screen. And this gorilla would show up, not partially transparent, the way the woman with the umbrella had been in the original video. Rather, she would be completely visible. She would bang her chest and show up for a full nine minutes and then, or nine seconds rather, and then leave the scene. Surely people would see this. Right. Again, test subjects counted the number of times people would toss the basket back and forth. And afterwards they were asked, did you see anything unusual? And 50% said, no, no gorilla. So some years later, one of these psychologists thought, I gotta try this again. So he this time put the gorilla in again. But he made another change. There's a background curtain that you can see throughout this video. And he changed that curtain during the video from orange to red. And then he asked test subjects again to view this video. Now, many were wise to the famous gorilla experiment by this point. So they were looking for the gorilla. And of those who were actually looking for the gorilla, had heard about the gorilla experiment. They proudly said, oh, of course I saw the gorilla. 100% of those who thought they would see the gorilla did. But you know how many of those also saw the curtain change from orange to red? Only 1 out of 10. Only 1 out of 10. Even when they were paying close attention. Look for the gorilla, and you might miss something else, like the curtain Chang. In today's passage that Darlene read, many have wondered, how could Mary Magdalene not have recognized Jesus when he was right in front of her? How could she think she was seeing a gardener? Might tears or grief have been blurring her vision? That's possible. And some have wondered if that was the case. Might the transformation wrought by crucifixion and resurrection have so changed Jesus that he was unrecognizable? That's possible, too. Might the Fourth Gospel be riffing on a theme common in Greco Roman literature, where the deity shows up incognito and then reveals themselves at a crucial dramatic moment? Well, all of those are possible. But let me suggest today that we take an insight from cognitive psychology and note that as many as nine times out of ten, we human beings miss seeing what is right before our eyes. Might be a gorilla thumping her chest or a curtain changing color. Or it may be something so impossibly good our eyes Miss it because we weren't looking for it. We were attending to something else entirely. And so we failed to see. In all four of the Gospels we read of women approaching the tomb of Jesus on the first day of the week. Not to attend to the living, not to find the risen Jesus, but rather to attend to the dead. They bring spices to anoint Jesus dead body. In Luke, these women are simply referred to as the women who had come with him from Galilee. In Mark, three women are named Mary Magdalene. Mary the mother of James and Salome. In Matthew, only two women are named Mary Magdalene and the other Mary in John. It's like the camera hones in on just one person, Mary Magdalene, that we might see what takes place through her eyes. We might follow the journey of pre resurrection to post resurrection through one person and so live it in a way with her. It's a way of telling the story that invites each one of us to see with her. Or rather to have the question posed to us as it was posed to her. Do you see or do you have eyes but fail to see? When Mary arrives at the tomb, she sees that the stone door had been rolled away. And she assumes that someone had taken Jesus dead body away. She runs to tell Peter and the beloved disciple. Those two men then run to the tomb. The beloved disciple gets there first and looks in and sees the linen wrappings that had surrounded Jesus body. Peter then arrives and he actually enters the tomb and he sees more. He sees the cloth that had been on Jesus head rolled up. Then the beloved disciple goes into the tomb as well. And the beloved disciple we read believes. If that's a reference to believing in resurrection, then the beloved disciple is the first to believe. Even though he has not seen the risen Jesus. He's just seen the signs and connected the dots and believed what Jesus had said. And that was enough. Well, the two men exit the tomb and return to their homes. And Mary is left alone in front of the tomb, weeping. She bends over to look inside and she sees something the men had not seen. Now, was it there all along and they just hadn't noticed it? That's possible. Often we don't see things right in front of our eyes. Mary sees two angels and they greet her. Not only her ears, but her eyes. They ask, woman, why are you weeping? She tells them they've taken away my Lord and I do not know where they have laid him. She can sense these angels not only with her eyes, but her ears. And yet she's focused squarely on finding the dead body of her Teacher. And then Mary makes the first of two successive turns. As the gospel story tells it, she turns first to face the risen Jesus, but she doesn't see the risen Jesus. You might say she's counting basketball passes, but not expecting to see a gorilla. Or she's looking for a gorilla, but not expecting the curtain color to change, not expecting the color of the very fabric of the universe to change. She asks him, who she presumes is the gardener, if he might have taken the dead body of her teacher. And if so, where, she asks, has he laid him? She is looking for the dead. And then we read of a second turning that Mary Magdalene undergoes. Mary had first turned to face Jesus, but had not seen the risen Jesus. Now she turns a second time to Jesus, but this time she sees. And what. What prompts this second turn? What opens her eyes? Is it. Is it Jesus saying Mary? And she realizes that this voice is familiar to her. Is it something about his voice? Or was it the revelation that this man knew her name? As he says Mary? Was it the fact that he called her by name, the way Jesus had said? The good shepherd calls the sheep by name, and they know the sound of the shepherd voice, the good shepherd. We aren't sure what about that word. Mary did it for her. But we know that her world shifts on its axis. She sees something no one before had ever seen. She sees the very teacher who had suffered persecution, betrayal, denial and crucifixion standing before her alive. And she names what she sees with a word, rabuni, which means teacher. And with that recognition, with her eyes now open, the question is then posed to us, the readers, the hearers. Do we see it too? Do we see it too? Do we see how this world of death and destruction has been filled with God's work of resurrection life? Or do we too, like Mary did at the first turn, see or look but fail to see? I love how so many visual artists try to capture this second turn that Mary makes, this world shifting moment in how these artists invite us to try to see it, too. Here's how one artist imagined that second turn Mary makes. Jesus face is not shown, you'll notice, but we see Mary experiencing the moment, eyes opened and the world around her now bursting with color. Here's how another artist imagined it, where a kind of heavenly wind fills Mary as she recognizes who it is standing before her. And she takes that wind, that breath of God, that sight of her Lord in. Here's how Rembrandt imagined Mary's second turn. And it's like A light was turned on from off in the distance, and Jesus form is illumined for her. The light hits Mary's face as she is turning, and there's also light of a new day behind Jesus that's also now visible to her, a day she can now see as she turns from the shadows, from the angels in that grave area and looks instead at the glory of resurrection breaking in. It's like Rembrandt is asking you and me the same question John's gospel is asking us, do you see that new day, or do you have eyes but fail to see? Now, to be clear, as Mary sees Jesus, the world she had known before her of death and shadows was not erased. There are still shadows upon plenty in her world. Even when her eyes are opened, there will still be the shadow of death and persecution and evil in the cruel hand of despots at work in her time, all the way to our time. Seeing the risen Jesus doesn't remove those things from our sight. It didn't remove it from hers, nor does it from ours today. But what she does see, grasps, is who it is that stands before her is now with her. This Jesus came into this world of shadows and horrors, of plenty, and brought another power and presence at work. Another force has been unleashed in his resurrection, the stuff of eternity. A power greater than death, greater than hate, greater. Greater than any evil this world can throw at us or that we can throw at one another is alive and stronger even than death. And it's as real as Jesus standing right before Mary and calling her by name. Well, after seeing Jesus, really seeing Jesus, she clings to him. She wants to hold on to him. And that moment, that presence that she now senses might even accompany her even through the valley of the shadow of death. She wants to hold on to that. And I would too. But Jesus says to her, go. Go tell others. Tell my brothers, like Peter and the beloved disciple, Tell them what you've seen, tell them what you've heard, that I'm ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God. Mary Magdalene becomes right. Then, according to John's Gospel, the first ordained and commissioned preacher of Resurrection, she goes and testifies to what she's seen and heard. And because of her testimony, because of the testimony we're given in the Gospels, testimony that's read and proclaimed 2000 years later, new eyes are opened. Today, new eyes see life bursting into this world of so much wrong. New eyes see a Savior with the power not only to overcome death, but to walk with us through whatever valleys of the shadow of death we might encounter in this life. Praise God for those like Mary Magdalene who've seen and testify to what they've seen. Praise God for those who tell the story then and now so that others can travel with Mary in their mind's eye and have their eyes opened. Praise God for testimony of others who've seen and help us see, too, and invite us not only to see, but believe. Believe. Praise God for others long before us and others alive with us today, even seated here with us, who not only help us see, but help us recover vision when we lose our sight. Now, I don't know about you, but I need help from others sometimes to see rightly. To see what is true, to see what is good. There are days when my vision gets blurry, you know, and maybe it's the tears or maybe it's the grief, or maybe it's. I'm just paying attention to other things and I can miss something right in front of my eyes, like the presence of the risen Christ standing right before me by the power of the Holy Spirit. Some days don't you too fail to see the promise of life made new. Aren't there days when nothing but the shadows of wrong fill your vision? I confess I lost sight some months ago. It was when I drove up to see my neighborhood nearly two weeks after the Eaton fire. The tears blurred my vision long before we reached my former house. They came when I saw the Pasadena Jewish and Temple and center where I had attended several Torah studies with Rabbi Joshua. And I saw it reduced to ruins. Then I reached Mendocino and I saw homes I had walked by so many times, walking, walking my dog, especially during the pandemic. And they were just gone. And then I got to Norwich Place, my street, and I saw a whole community, my neighborhood and a house I had called home, my family had called home for nearly 15 years, reduced to ash. Signs of loss and destruction just filled my senses. And I know you know what I'm talking, talking about, as so many of you have been up there, and it's like that site just spread out from there. I saw the fragility and temporality of houses and even neighborhoods and of life itself. I saw the ravages of climate change, where extremes and weather make tragedies like the Eaton Fire so much more likely, not just in my community, but all over the world. I saw what people in Maui and people in Paradise, California, had known when their neighborhoods were destroyed. And maybe I caught just a glimpse of what it might look like when people in Syria or Gaza or Ukraine, see their neighborhoods reduced to ash not by fires, but by missiles and bombs. I felt in my bones the awesome power of death and destruction. I'll never unsee that it's burned into my vision, but praise God that Jesus opens blind eyes to something else. Praise God for other people like Mary and others who had their eyes opened by our Savior, and help others like me to see it, too. The first time Jill and I visited our street on Norwich Place together, Jill directed my attention to something I had missed when I had been there before. It was like a gorilla on the screen there, but I hadn't seen it. She pointed out a sculpture by our neighbor, Christopher Kitt Davis. Right in the midst of the destruction stood a work of art, a testimony to God's gift of creativity that even a ravaging wildfire couldn't take down. At the end of our little street, there's a cul de sac where members of our neighborhood had so often met in the early evenings for food and drink, especially during the pandemic. But we would often meet post pandemic, and over Advent, we'd even meet to sing holiday songs together. In the middle of that cul de sac is a tree in a brick well. Jill noticed new life in that tree that had marked our community's gathering space. And later, like so many communities of those who've lost homes, we were on text chains and texting each other. And my neighbor Patty posted in our group this photo of blossoming irises right next to that tree. And then my neighbor Luis posted these photos of roses growing in that same circle. And then, best of all, our next door neighbors, another family worshiping at their church this very Easter morning, posted a photo of their infant son. He was born March 25, two months and 17 days after they and we lost our adjoining homes to the Eaton fire. What a beautiful thing to see God's glorious hand at work bringing new life into a world of loss. Well, friends, we have an even greater testimony still. We have seen with Mary, a glorious new day where God can even undo the loss of those dear to us, where death itself will be no more and God will make all things new. We've seen how a power greater than death surrounds us and holds us through any fire or storm or even the ravages of war. We've seen a glorious day breaking in where every tear will be wiped away. So don't lose sight of that, that vision, friends. Especially. Especially in days of so much wrong. Hold it. Tell it to me. I need to hear it, tell it to each other. You all need to hear it too. And go out and tell the world. In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, amen.