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. - John 20:18
Mary Magdalene went to the tomb in the dark. She went expecting death, expecting finality, expecting the stone to seal away the body of the one she loved.
But the biggest secrets don't stay buried.
The tomb was empty. The grave clothes were folded. Impossibly, gloriously - Jesus himself was standing there, saying her name. -
"Mary." - She recognized his voice. And everything changed.
“I’ve seen the Lord”
That's what she told the disciples. Not "I have a theory" or "I have a nice memory" or "I have a spiritual feeling." But "I have SEEN the Lord."
The biggest secret in human history - that death doesn't get the final word, that love is stronger than the grave, that resurrection is real - that secret couldn't stay buried.
It burst out of the tomb. It spilled into the garden. It turned grief into joy, despair into hope, ending into beginning.
Jesus trusted Mary - a woman, in a culture that didn't value women's testimony - to be the first witness. The first evangelist. She is the first person to run and tell the impossible, beautiful truth: He is risen.
Friends, what we have walked through this Lent - the ashes, the fasting, the letting go, the unbinding, the silence, the grief of Friday - it was all leading here. To Easter morning. To the empty tomb. To THE announcement that changes everything. -
The biggest secrets don't stay buried.
Not Jesus. Not the resurrection. Not the life that breaks through death. Not the hope that refuses to be extinguished. Not the love that will not let us go.
Christ is risen. He is risen indeed.
Rejoicing with you, Pastor Erin
P.S. Mary ran to tell the disciples. Who do you need to tell today? Who needs to hear that the tomb is empty, that hope is alive, that resurrection is real?
