Song of Solomon 3.1-4; 2 Corinthians 5.14-17; John 20.1-2, 11-18

“In our busy and self-centred lives, we so easily neglect to notice the ever-present company of God. We keep our heads down, and our eyes metaphorically shut. We become irritated by our colleagues and friends, and by the petty frustrations of daily life. Yet how much more profitable, peaceable, and happy might our lives be if we truly beheld the presence of God in the daily routine. And how much more effective would our witness be, if we truly allowed God to strengthen our hands to do his will.

“At dawn on Easter Day, Mary was too bowed down by her grief and her limited vision to realise that the Son of God was standing before her. It was God himself who opened her eyes to see him; God who gave her back hope, and who entrusted her with his message.”

That was a quotation from last week’s Church Times. The author Eleanor Rance is talking about a specific prayer she has chosen as a favourite, but how appropriate her words are for our celebration today of Mary Magdalene, for she points out that that which we all need to be reminded of from time to time, that we become so involved in our own lives that we lose sight of God.

We can imagine Mary in the garden, aware that someone has approached her, but not lifting her bowed head to see who it is that is speaking to her. In her grief, she remains, weeping, assuming that the person who has found her must be a gardener. After all, she’s in a garden, and it might seem natural that, if one of those who looked after the garden, spotted a woman crying they would go and ask her, if she was all right.

“Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.”
She can’t bear to be parted from him, can’t bear the thought that his body might be somewhere where it might come to harm. But Jesus doesn’t give her the answer she is expecting. He just says her name: “Mary.”

There must have been something in the way that he addressed her, using her name, that alerted her to the fact that this was Jesus himself, speaking to her, and not some gardener.

And even more when she knows who it is does she want to cling on and hold him to herself, just in case he might disappear again.

I wonder how we approach worship on a Sunday morning, our special time dedicated to Jesus. Do we prepare for it calmly, slowing down, giving ourselves some space before we worship so that we can concentrate and centre ourselves on God?

Or are we in such a rush on a Sunday morning that we’re racing around, worried we’re going to be late, distracted by whether we’ve prepared our Sunday lunch or not, and end up arriving in church hassled and distracted from worship so that it takes half the service for us to begin even thinking about God?

When we arrive at church, do we spend time in the pew before the service begins calmly preparing ourselves for worship? Or are we racing around trying to find out whether we’re reading today or laying up the altar, because however early we arrived at church, somehow time runs out and we’ve only got five minutes before we start?

Often for those with a role in the service, the quiet preparation time needs to take place earlier. I find, not surprisingly, that the services I feel most ready for are the 9 o’clock ones or the 10.30s where they are the first service of the day, because I’m not rushing in having already led worship elsewhere.

Is our Sunday worship our main priority? Or does worship get pushed out altogether because we’ve friends coming to lunch so we need to make a decent meal for them? Or because we’ve had a party the night before and we need to clear up? Or the garden is such a tip and it’s going to rain later so we really must mow the lawn?

It’s so easy to lose sight of Jesus, because we become bound up in our busy-ness and concerns of life, in the same way that Mary became bound up in her grief.

The moment won’t last. Mary couldn’t hang on to Jesus, she couldn’t cling on to him, for he had work for her to do. She could have missed the moment by not recognising the call of Jesus in the way he said her name, but she didn’t.

We too are often in danger of missing the moment. It’s a danger because when we do miss the moment, our lives push out space for God. When we, as we all do, constantly give in to life’s demands and expectations, struggling to say no, we push out God.

Mary Magdalene, until she heard Jesus say her name, was pushing out space for Jesus. He hadn’t much longer on this earth before he ascended to his father; she wasn’t going to have that moment again when Jesus was with her by the empty tomb.

We’re a society that loves busy-ness and hates silence. We’re people who love to proclaim how busy we are but who struggle to make time for prayer. 

Sometimes we need to stop and stay still. Mary encountered Jesus because, in spite of her grief which blinded her to his approach, she had stayed at the tomb. The part of the story that was cut this morning was Peter and the other disciple’s arrival; their discovery of the wrappings in the tomb and then their rushing off again. It’s only when we know that, that the “but” makes sense in the sentence “But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb.”

Mary’s staying is contrasted with the disciples’ going.

Jesus’s words lifted Mary from her grief. But she had to learn to live without his physical presence. It’s much easier to spend time with someone who is physically present to us. Her time with him was limited, because he then sent her off to his disciples with a message.

There are times when we too are sent to do God’s work, but there are times too when we need to allow God to open our eyes to his presence, times when we need to stand still and allow that call to come.

God’s time is eternity, but ours slips away too fast. We won’t get another chance to stop and marvel at the wonders of God’s creation. We won’t get another chance for the conversation with God we’ve been meaning to have for a long time.

I received this week one of those e-mails that gets sent around from person to person. I usually glance at them quickly and either delete them or leave them in my in-box in case they might be handy in the future.

Some of them make me laugh; some of them are tacky beyond belief, particularly some of the religious ones. The one I received this week was a bit slushy, but it also had an important message.

The scene is someone interviewing God. The first question he asked is “What surprises you most about humankind?” The second: “As a parent, what are some of life’s lessons you want your children to learn?” God answered both questions.

God ended the second answer, and the interviewer asked a final question: “Is there anything else you’d like your children to know?”

God smiled and said: “Just know that I am here. Always.”

Jesus’s “Mary” told her that he was there. She couldn’t cling on to him, for he had to return to his Father. We know that without that return the Holy Spirit, the presence of God among us, would never have been released.

Because Mary let go, the Spirit was able to come. It is through the Holy Spirit that we are able to know that God is here. Always.

Let us lift our eyes from our own concerns so that we claim that promise for ourselves and are aware of the presence of God with us, as Mary became aware of the risen Christ in the garden.