“I Call You by Name:
Experiencing the Risen Christ”
Resurrection of Our Lord B –
John 20:1-18
Brothers and sisters in Christ, Grace and Peace to you from our Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Christ is Risen! Alleluia!
I’ve titled this sermon, “I Call You By Name: Experiencing the Risen Christ”
You may recall a couple of weeks ago we had a Sunday in our recent stewardship campaign whose theme was “I Call You By Name”. The point of that Sunday was to emphasize how the intimate and personal character of God’s relationship with us moves us outward from “It’s between me and God” to “I am part of God’s people.” God calls us by name not only as a mark of how he knows us, but of how he calls us to know, and care for, one another through his church.
For many, our first experience of the risen Christ is our baptism, when God first calls us by name. In baptism this risen Christ gives us the gift of His Holy Spirit to live within us. Each time we remember our baptism, we remember the dying and rising to new life that Christ gave us.
Each year on this Sunday, we celebrate Christ’s Resurrection. In the telling and hearing of the gospel story, in the proclamation of what that story means, in Holy Communion, you also experience the risen Christ.
Unfortunately, it is also true that we allow this experience to be eclipsed or at least pushed off our Top Ten list of Meaningful Life Events? Is this morning as vivid and exciting as being on a team that goes to state? Is being here among others God has called by name as fulfilling and exhilarating as achieving your best sales month ever? Is the story as memorable as falling in love, or the birth of a child or grandchild?
Honestly? The answer, depending on where we are in our lives, is sometimes, “no.” But the truth is: each one of those events – and all of the rest of the events and moments of your life – big and small, memorable or quickly forgotten – have within them the presence of the risen and living Christ. We just choose not to see him, or we fail to hear the one who makes them all possible. Sometimes, he has to call us by name to get our attention.
To illustrate this, let’s focus on just three verses of our gospel, verses 14-17. Here in these verses comes the moment we realize that this Easter story is no longer about death but about life. And not just any life, but a strange, new resurrection life. We, along with Mary Magdalene, a new life that is only offered to you in your experience of the risen Christ.
Remember, after Mary told Peter and the other disciple the stone was rolled away from the tomb, the two men raced to the empty tomb ahead of her. There they saw only saw the empty tomb: no angels, no Jesus before returning to their homes. For many, the experience of the risen Christ often begins in absence and emptiness – by what is not seen and not heard.
Mary was slower, but more patient. And so the first direct experience of the risen Christ came not to a disciple, but to Mary Magdalene, who had come to grieve, weeping outside the tomb. In the midst of her tears that she sees and hears and then converses with the angels. Our experience of the risen Christ often begins in tears and shadow, loss and grief.
After answering the angels, Mary turns and sees the risen Christ. The tension is thick. This is it. This is the moment. The moment countless artists have rendered over the years in art, literature, and music. I’ve picked one image that captures this moment when the dawn of light and life breaks , when darkness and death fade away. It is a freeze-frame of the moment the risen Christ in our lives appears in our life and we know it is Easter.
The image is a painting by a guy who used to throw some paint on canvas from time to time – his name was Rembrandt. The painting is called “Mary Magdalene at the Sepulcher.”
Pop Quiz. What’s the first thing your eye is drawn to? Don’t think! It’s the circular area of light. Not Jesus or Mary or the angels, but the growing light of Easter dawn spreading over the garden and the nearby city. You can just see Peter and the other disciple in the shadows of the garden making their way home from the empty tomb. Just in time to miss Jesus! Good timing, boys. Immediately to the right of the round light is an similar area of darkness, the tomb, here shown as a sort of cave in a hillside. There sit the two angels, also in shadow.
In the center of the picture are the figures of Jesus, who is standing, and Mary who has fallen to her knees facing the empty tomb. Rembrandt’s Jesus here is literally dressed like a gardener. He’s wearing big red hat on for working in the sun. His garment is hiked up like he’s ready for work. In his right hand there’s a shovel, and a pruning knife is thrust into the belt. No wonder Mary thought he was the gardener! (But does mean that somewhere out in the garden there’s a hatless, tool-less, naked gardener wandering around?)
Mary’s body is still facing the darkened empty tomb, her hands still lifted in prayer. But her head is cranked around to look up at this gardener who appeared out of nowhere. Mary’s and Jesus’ eyes are locked on one another, and he is talking to her. The most telling detail of all? Part of Mary’s face is lit, golden with the light of dawn that is streaming across the front of Jesus body. Not all, only part.
This is where we see ourselves in the picture. Mary is touched by the light, but half of her face and all of her body is still in shadow. She hears a voice, but she sees only a gardener, not Jesus. Mary is in the presence of Jesus, but doesn’t recognize him. She is touched by his gracious light, she believes, she grieves, but she still sees a gardener. She has not yet experienced the resurrected Jesus .
This is the moment in which you and I live most of our lives! In the presence of Christ as healer, teacher, priest, Lord of all Creation – all the great titles – but not as Jesus Christ who is raised from the dead to new and glorious life. Resurrection: the one thing that no healer, teacher, and priest could ever do on their own. The one thing that is not a matter of degree – I’m a teacher, just not as great as Jesus. I’m a doctor, just less competent than Jesus. When it comes to resurrection, there is no more or less: You are or you aren’t. You experience him or you don’t.
Just a heartbeat or two after Rembrandt painted this snapshot, Jesus spoke again. ‘Mary!’” No command, no comment, no “Hey, it’s me, Jesus.” He called her by name. It was enough. She recognized Jesus. She knew who it was who called her by name. But more than that, through his call and her faith in the one who called, she experienced the RISEN Christ. Faith + Call = Experience
The same experience is offered to you. When you peer into the darkened tomb, looking for one who is not there, you fail to see and hear the person who is calling you by name. That person may be dressed as a gardener, a plumber, a professor, or a young child struggling with disease. The one who calls may be named Jesus, or Mary, or Dale, or Corrine. And the name they speak may be any of your names on that bulletin wrap two weeks ago or written on the poster board in the narthex.
For the risen Christ is in all the baptized. He calls you by name to rejoice in his presence within you. He calls you by name, as he did Mary, to turn, to see, to hear and believe that Christ is risen in the heart of your neighbor. In all this you make yourself available to experience the risen Christ here, now, today in this earthly life, that like Rembrandt painting, holds darkness and dawn, tomb and garden, angels and fallen people. But also something completely new: The Risen Christ. Oh, he may look like a gardener, but he has destroyed death just the same.
May the dawn of this new day and the new life it brings fill you with the presence and the experience of the Risen Christ as he calls you by name.
Alleluia! He is Risen! He is risen indeed. Amen.
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