I have seen the Lord

John 20: 11-18, NT page 114-115 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 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!” 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. Sermon Some amazing things have happened in Columbia Tennessee in the last week. Trees were blooming as though it were spring while snow was falling as though it were winter. But what got more attention than the weather was the long awaited grand opening of Puckett’s restaurant downtown. I think everyone in Columbia must have known about the grand-opening. The count-down has been going on for months. It’s been all over the newspaper, and last Wednesday morning there was even a news crew from WKRN channel 2 in Nashville filming as the first official meal was served at 6:00 AM. This restaurant opening has been highly anticipated. We now have a great new restaurant with plenty of space for big events and live music, and because of its location it already has and is sure to continue attracting new businesses and new customers to our historic downtown. But some people say we may be expecting too much of Puckett’s. The excitement has been so all encompassing that it’s been all I wanted to talk about for the last couple of weeks. I asked a friend if he’d like to go, and I told him how excited I was. But he looked at me real concerned, knowing that I’m easily excitable, and that on Wednesday I ate breakfast there twice. “Now what exactly are you expecting to happen at Puckett’s Joe? The blind to regain their sight? Lepers to be healed? Captives set free, debts forgiven? So what if they use gravy for their eggs benedict, it’s only a restaurant.” Maybe he thinks I’ve been hoping for too much – but maybe we haven’t hoped for enough. Mary stood outside the tomb weeping: “They have taken away my Lord and I don’t know where they have laid him.” Her hope, her greatest hope, was to find his dead body – to hope for more would have been to hope for too much. But who stood before her other than Christ himself, and she did not see him for her grandest hope was so much less than seeing him alive and standing there in front of her. Sometimes it’s wise not to hope for too much – after all, hope is a fragile thing it seems. Here it is, Easter Sunday – and aren’t we bold enough just to hope for getting the kids out of the house with their Easter outfits on. Then maybe we aspire for a nice lunch after. Or, we may be so bold to hope for taking a picture all together in front of a blooming tree – but for those of us with young children, surely to hope for a picture like that with both kids looking at the camera at the same time aspires for far too much. Mary, just in hoping to find his body may have felt as though even that were too much. You don’t just go up to grave robbers and ask them to please return what they’ve taken. Once a corpse is gone it’s gone for good. But she hopes maybe the gardener just moved it. Even in this small hope, still she hoped for a miracle – only the miracle that she hoped for blinded her to what was right before her eyes – a miracle bigger than anything she dared imagine. There is a story I heard once that I’ll try to paraphrase, about a chief who looked out on the sea one morning and he saw something he had never seen before, something he didn’t even have the words to describe. So he called to his people and they went with him out to the beach, only they didn’t notice anything exceptional, and slowly left the beach and went back to whatever they had been doing before. The chief was confused, so he sat there on the beach, rubbed his eyes, assured himself that what he could see was still out there, and tried to think of a way to help his people see what he could see. By this time waves were coming in to shore, waves bigger than normal created by whatever it was that was out there, so he called to his daughter, and showed her the waves and she saw the waves and noticed that they must be created by something out at sea. Then her father, the chief called her by name and she looked up and out on the ocean and she could see the ships, who by this time were close enough to shore that she could see that they were filled with Europeans coming ashore, believing that they had discovered a new world. He called her by name and Mary looked up, and then she saw something beyond her imagination, beyond her greatest hope. Can you see him now? Can you believe it? Or have your hopes been too small to recognize what God has done? So often that’s how it is with us – the most we dare hope for is a good deal on a pretty Easter dress and maybe a picture in it before it’s dirty – but do not let this small hope blind you to what this day really means. We hope for a honey baked ham – maybe a nice nap and a peaceful afternoon. Maybe we hope for a winning bracket for the basketball tournament, a few extra bucks with our tax returns, and the chance to bring grades up before the school year is over. Or maybe we hope for a new job, a life free from addiction, a day when chemo therapy will be no longer needed. Have you hoped for too much? Or have you not hoped for enough? Christ stands before you because death is gone – love prevails – he is risen. Amen.