William Yagel
Grace Radford
April 9, 2023
Easter Day, Year A
Holy and Loving God - may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be pleasing in your sight oh Lord for you are our rock and our redeemer.
Amen
Whom are you looking for?
This question, or one very similar to it in this stark form shows up 3 times on Jesus’ lips in John’s Gospel. Each time it is a profound question that startles the person who is asked. Jesus seems each time to know what they are doing to know what or who they audience is looking for, but he is putting the question to them directly, forcing them to answer for themselves. Each time the hearers are affected and compelled to do something beyond themselves. The simple utterance of these words is enough to stop the audience in their track. It forces them to go deeper than expected, into the power of Christ.
The model of question serves as bookends for the entire Gospel account in John. The very first word that Jesus utters in the book of John is to a pair of men who are standing with John the Baptist. John points to Jesus calling him the “lamb of God” as he walks by. The men follow immediately, and when Jesus sees them following him, he turns and says “What are you looking for?”
Rabbi, or teacher is their reply. Teacher.
He said “come and see.”
Andrew came and saw and brough his brother Simon. Simon who would become Peter. The rock on whom the Church was built. The two disciples were surely convinced a bit by John’s testimony, but to immediately drop everything and go is an amazing response by any measure. At the utterance of the question they were conviceted. At that moment of interrogation they were committed and they went forward into the world proclaiming truth, all from that one question.
The second utterance of this phrase we heard three days ago, on Good Friday after Judas entered the garden. In John’s account, Judas leads the soldiers directly to Jesus. The kiss is omitted because Jesus steps forward, full of calm and asks that same convicting question. “Whom are you looking for?”
When they hear him say “I am he” they step back and kneel. It is the only response they can muster. You can hear in the exchange that they have no choice, their body speaks when they cannot. Their bodies hear what is behind the name and they can’t do their work in the face of that question, all they can do is kneel. But Jesus asks again “Whom are you looking for?”, and ultimately, he leads them to their role on that day. He gives himself over to them to be crucified, knowing what was to come.
In beautiful foreshadowing, the question elicits the same response this morning at the tomb as it did when Jesus first spoke it in the beginning of John. The Evangelist tells us that the first spoken word of Jesus’ ministry in Galilee and the first spoken words of the risen Christ are the same. This morning, at the beginning of Christ’s risen life, near the end of the Gospel account, Mary Magdalene offers the same reply. When Jesus says “Whom are you looking for?”
Mary also replies, “teacher.”
She says “Rabbouni”, the “carative” form of the word, maybe kind of a term of endearment. We think she is saying something like “my dear teacher”.
At first it seems she is unclear. Maybe she doesn’t know what is going on, in the shock of seeing him she imagines that he is back. Maybe she imagines him back like Lazarus. Resuscitated. Going on with his old life. And well, he is back, but not as he was before. It a new creation, a resurrected creation and . Theologians think Jesus tells her not to cling to him because they are called into a new relationship.
It is as though he is saying don’t cling the human me that you knew. Don’t try to make me who I was because that me is gone. The way is forward, not behind. Cling to this new me, the risen me, who is marching on.
It is as this moment that Jesus starts his church. In a garden next to a tomb where Jesus transcended death he plants the seed that would become the church.
And Mary is the first Apostle. In her heart she bears, for a short walk, the entirety of Christendom. It is her work to tell the people, to share the Good News of the risen Christ. Mirroring the annunciation to Mary, the Mother of Jesus, this one woman carries the seed, carries the hope, carries the salvation. She sows without fear or deceit. On her lips would be the greatest piece of Evangelism the world would ever know.
Jesus told Mary to go and to tell them “I am ascending” to the Father.
My anticipation about our language tells us that Jesus is about to ascend, that this is effectively past tense, but that is not what it says. Rather the work was incomplete, it was ongoing, it was continuing.
There is something beautiful hidden in this utterance. Something that connects this phrase to the great prologue of John. This phase from Jesus to tell the disciples that “I am ascending” mirrors in form what John said in part in the prologue of his Gospel account:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.
The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.”
The light was coming into the world, the work emerging into the world was ongoing. The grammar enthusiasts hiding out there will know that this is called the Imperfect Tense in Latin or French and I am sure in others. We call it the past progressive or past continuous tense. I prefer imperfect, but I’m a priest and a nerd, what do you expect.
Anyway, the imperfect tense is so named because the action wasn’t perfected, it wasn’t completed. If it was completed it would be perfect because it would be contained, qualified, resolved, but instead this tense indicates that it is incomplete action or action that is ongoing. And we know this is really important to Jewish people in first century Palestine because of their language.
Biblical Hebrew, you see, lacks past, present, and future tense. Not kidding. Didn’t exist. They primarily sort verbs by state of completion, not by time. Not kidding. This means our translations are always kind of pulling against the essence of what they are saying. I mean its there, but it is like we are looking straight ahead and without moving our eyes we are looking over there…
The point is, they cared a lot about whether action was perfected, meaning completed, or ongoing and imperfect. The prologue to John is imperfect when it tells us that the light is coming into the world. It is work that is ongoing. So on Easter morning when Mary goes to the tomb John is sure to tell us that it was dark when she went because the light was coming into the world.
We get a nod to that when Jesus tells Mary he is ascending. That too was imperfect because that work of ascension was incomplete as least at that moment. It conveyed the urgency to act, to come, to see the way was being made.
So, on Easter morning Jesus is founding his church in the heart of his friend and is giving her the Good News to share his ongoing work. And that redemptive and salvific work of Christ has always been ongoing and will always remain a work in progress as Christ continues to emerge in is. Indeed, the work of the church is imperfect in more ways than one. But this morning the light is pouring into the world and we stand it the beams of perfected light. Today we join the great chorus of saints from ancient Palestine to Radford VA who are still singing the chorus of Alleluias into and in spite of an uncertain world. We join with those who have heard the call of their teacher and turned to answer.
Whom are you looking for?
Alleluia, the Lord is Risen.
Amen