“I’ve Called You By Name”

The Rev. Dr. Skip Ferguson

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

April 5, 2015

Easter

 “I’ve Called You By Name”

John 20:1-18

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.”

Then Peter and the other disciple set out

and went toward the tomb.

The two were running together,

but the other disciple outran Peter

and reached the tomb first.

He bent down to look in

and saw the linen wrappings lying there,

but he did not go in.

Then Simon Peter came, following him,

and went into the tomb.

He saw the linen wrappings lying there,

and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head,

not lying with the linen wrappings

but rolled up in a place by itself.

Then the other disciple,

 who reached the tomb first,

also went in, and he saw and believed;

for as yet they did not understand the scripture,

that he must rise from the dead.

Then the disciples returned to their homes.

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.

*********************************

She could not sleep.

She had not slept in three days,

not since Wednesday night.

As she lay there in the darkness,

she felt smothered,

lost, alone.

Jesus was dead.

He’d been killed;

executed brutally,

hung from a cross on Golgotha,

like an ordinary criminal.

In fact, he’d been executed with two thieves,

petty bandits who’d come to prey on the crowds

thronging Jerusalem for the Passover.

And then as a final indignity,

they’d had to lay his body in a tomb

without properly preparing it for burial.

Observe the Sabbath, she’d been taught.

Follow the rules.

Alone in her thoughts, she wondered, why?

God himself seemed to have turned away,

and abandoned his children.

With Jesus’ death, hope had died,

hope for new life,

hope especially for people like her,

a woman of intelligence, ability, and faith,

yet a woman who was looked upon as an outsider.

In her Rabbi, her teacher,

she’d found someone who had accepted her

for who she was as a child of God.

He had healed her,

and then he had sought to bring out

the best that was within her.

She’d heard the gossip, the rumors,

about her and him.

She had tried to let the lies run off her

like raindrops,

but still they stung.

People could be so cruel.

Little did she know that centuries later,

she’d still be slandered:

religious leaders would fabricate lies

that she was a prostitute.

In her restlessness that Sunday morning,

she kept looking out the window,

looking for a glimpse of sunlight,

just the smallest hint of dawn on the horizon.

She was desperate to get out of the room,

get out of the staleness,

leave the fetid stench of the crowded city behind.

She couldn’t wait any longer;

She had to get to the tomb.

Better to wait there for sunrise,

than lie in that awful, closed room.

She quietly gathered up what she needed:

spices, ointment, and myrrh,

and then she slipped out into the darkness.

Why is it, she wondered, that the world seems

so especially dark, so utterly forlorn

in that hour before sunrise?

She walked quickly, quietly,

with her head down, her hair covered.

It was still technically the Sabbath,

at least until the sun wiped the sleep from its eyes

and rose from its celestial bed.

It didn’t take her long to get to the tomb,

the tomb that was in a garden,

the tomb where Joseph and Nicodemus

had so gently laid her Lord’s broken, bloody body

on Friday evening, which now seemed so long ago.

She could see little more than shadows,

but even in the darkness she could sense

that something was wrong, terribly wrong.

And then she saw it: the tomb was open,

the stone had been moved away.

She reacted instantly, furiously:

“Those craven cowards!

Did they have to steal his body?

Couldn’t they have let him find peace in death?”

She dropped her potions and ran back to town,

where she blurted out her news to Peter and John:

“They have taken the Lord out of the tomb,

and we do not know where they have laid him.”

The two men looked at one another:

“They”?

Who was the “they” she referred to?

Peter and John didn’t wait for an answer, though.

They were off, racing toward the tomb;

lithe, nimble John ahead of the stocky Peter,

Mary right behind,

all of them running in the darkness.

Mary watched the two men approach the tomb,

and then look inside,

each of them,

silently,

not a word spoken to one another or to her,

as though the very sight of the empty tomb

had stilled their tongues.

A few moments later,

they both walked past Mary

as though she wasn’t even there,

as though she wasn’t standing there in her anguish,

desperate for an answer.

She watched as they walked silently back to town.

Mary stood there alone

as the sun began to herald the dawn.

She thought she had no more tears left to cry,

but she broke down and wept,

sobbing in anguish,

despair,

and hopelessness.

Something moved her to look inside

the tomb even as she wept,

and then she saw what the men

must not have seen,

could not have seen:

two angels,

“sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying.”

They spoke to her, saying

“Woman, why are you weeping?”

Her response was automatic, almost reflexive,

“They have taken away my Lord

and I do not know where they have laid him.”

But even as she spoke to the angels,

something caught her attention

out of the corner of her eye;

someone was there, behind her,

and so she quickly turned,

and saw a man,

a man she did not recognize,

a man who asked, just as the angels had,

“Woman, why are you weeping?

Whom are you looking for?”

Surely this man must know, she thought;

this man,

who must have been the caretaker of the garden.

He would know who had

taken away her Lord’s body;

he would know where she could find it.

Desperately she pleaded,

“Sir, if you have carried him away,

tell me where you have laid him,

and I will take him away.”

She looked into his eyes

imploring him with her tears.

        

And then she heard her name:

“Mary.”

It was the voice she had grown to know so well,

the voice that had taught her,

the voice that had encouraged her,

the voice that had healed her,

the voice that had prayed for her,

the voice that had lifted her,

the voice that had told her she was loved.

It was his voice.

It was him.

The rays of the dawning sun shone on his face,

and she could see:

Her Lord was alive,

risen,

and he was calling her by name.

It is a promise that God makes to each of us:

I have called you by name,

you are mine.

(Isaiah 43:1)

It is a promise God keeps

through our Lord Jesus Christ,

our Risen Lord,

our Living Lord.

God calls us through Christ – you and me –

by name,

so we will know God’s grace,

God’s goodness,

God’s mercy,

God’s love.

and God’s promise of eternal life in Jesus Christ.

Jesus calls us by name…

so we will know God.

Listen!

Can you hear?

Our Lord is calling you,

calling me

calling each of us,

by name,

here in this place,

saying to you, saying to me,

“Do not fear;

I have redeemed you.

I have called you by name.

You are mine.”

(Isaiah 43)

        

And there’s more,

for Christ calls us by name to his Table,

saying to you,

saying to me,

“Come!

Come to my table;

come and share in this meal

which I have prepared for you:

the bread of life,

and the cup of salvation.

Listen!

For we are called,

each of us,

called by name,

called by our Lord Jesus Christ.

For Christ is risen!

Christ is risen!

He is risen indeed!

ALLELULIA!  

AMEN