Easter - April 4, 2021
Deborah Laforet John 20:1-18
Something Old, Something New
This week, I’ve been thinking about that old adage that we hear at weddings - “Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue.” It describes an old tradition of what a bride wears on her wedding day. Specifically it's the "something old, something new” on which I’ve been thinking. On wedding days, it’s appropriate as the marriage is creating something new. It brings two families together and two people committing to each other to become one. They are still separate families, and the couple are still individuals, and they bring all of the “old” with them, but there is this new entity created where a couple join as one, where families build new relationships, and where new stories being made.
As we stand here on this Easter morning, in the building here at St. Paul’s United Church in Oakville, I engage in a tradition of preaching that has been occurring for 65 years here, but today it’s new because it’s being live streamed and you are watching from home.
Throughout this pandemic, people have been eager for everything to go back to normal, while others have said that things will never be normal again, but it’s both. We’ll have our normal again, but it will look different. It will be new.
Our experiences change us and although it’s true that you can never go back, it’s also true that you never leave your past behind you. Every day is a new day but we bring our past days with us; they’re a part of who we are. Something old; something new. Just like the bride, we carry both with us.
There is a Japanese art called Kintsugi. It’s where melted gold is used to put together broken pottery. It’s a great example of something old and something new. Cameron Trimble, a theologian from the states who I quoted last week, wrote in her blog this week, “Easter is a story of how God took the brokenness of crucifixion and transformed it into new life through resurrection. God made something new, something even more beautiful in the Risen Christ. We can trust God to do this with us. This season, where everything is off and you may feel broken to your core, consider that God is creating within you someone more beautiful for having been broken.”
Something old; something new. Something broken into something beautiful.
In our story today, we read about Mary of Magdala, a follower of Jesus. Before Mary met Jesus, she was demon-possessed, whatever that meant two thousand years ago. She was healed by Jesus and became one of his main disciples. She is mentioned and highlighted in every Easter story, in every gospel, as one of the first to notice Jesus’ body missing from the tomb and one of the first to see him risen.
In the story we heard today from the gospel of John, we hear her grief. Imagine losing someone you love, with whom you have spent so much time over the past few years, who was taken in such a violent way, and then discovering someone had stolen their body for who knows what purpose. Mary is beside herself and she is sobbing at the empty tomb. Even talking to two angels sitting in the tomb does not comfort her. Maybe it’s because of her tears, but when she looks up and sees Jesus, she does not recognize him. Maybe it’s because he’s the last person she expected to be standing there and talking to her. Instead she takes him for the gardener and wonders if he might know where to find the body of her teacher. Mary does not recognize Jesus, even when he talks to her and asks her, “Why are you weeping? For whom are you looking?” This man, who she followed and who she loved, was unrecognizable to her.
There are other stories in the gospels of people who walked with Jesus after his death but did not recognize the risen Christ, so my assumption is that he came back different somehow. Jesus went through a lot in his last few days. Betrayed, rejected, beaten, nailed to a cross, and then died and placed in a tomb. I think Jesus came back transformed, the same but different. In these stories, it’s not until Jesus does something he has done in the past, that they recognize him. In our story this morning, Mary recognizes Jesus only after he says her name. In another story, it’s when Jesus breaks bread. In another, it’s when he invites the disciples to fish on the other side of the boat. It’s like they need to recognize something familiar in order to recognize the new.
When we all gather again in this space, we may not recognize everyone. We may have a few new additions, including some new babies. Some of the children and youth have grown up a lot this past year. Some of us have gained some weight, gone a little greyer and gained a few more wrinkles. It may take a moment for recognition, but when we break bread together, when we shake hands, when we name each other, when we say, “Peace be with you, friend,” we will know that this is part of our body, a part of the body of Christ.
Our community will not be the same when we return. It will be changed. It will be transformed; but our friends will still be here. We will still gather for worship, we will still be a community that shares with one another, we will still be disciples of Christ in the world. And we will take all that we have learned over this past year, and grow from it. We will take all that has broken and, with a little gold, bring healing, new life and beauty. We will be transformed. We will be resurrected.
As the pandemic and the Ontario government bring us back into the grey zone, back into stricter restrictions on how we gather, it almost feels like going back into the tomb, like we’re postponing Easter, and staying longer in our Holy Saturday. We tend to gloss over Holy Saturday. We go from Good Friday to Easter Sunday, without acknowledging the transition time between, the time when we wait, the time when we grieve, the time it takes to adjust to brokenness and learn to live in new circumstances. The disciples were lucky that Easter Sunday came so soon, but for most of us, we wait longer and sometimes we go back and forth, like we’ve been doing through this pandemic.
Our time of Easter will come. Our ‘something new’ is waiting for us. And it’s hard to be patient, but out of the brokenness will come beauty. I have faith in that. I have hope in that because I know the dawn always follows the night. I know the sun follows the rain. I know that spring comes after a long winter. I also know that nighttime brings beauty, rain bring flowers and winter brings stillness. Something old; something new. It’s the cycle of life and I’m looking forward to what comes next. I’m looking forward to using a little glitter to mend the brokenness. I’m looking forward to looking up through my tears and seeing the old transformed. I’m looking forward to breaking bread with you and seeing in you the risen Christ. Thanks be to God and Hallelujah. Amen.