Matthew B. Ciske
Pastoral Team Member
West Richmond Friends Meeting
April 4, 2026
Scripture: John 20:1-18
“We go to the tomb with Mary Magdeline, early, while it is still dark. The stone is rolled away. We stoop with Peter to look on at abandoned linen cloth, and we don’t know what you do, O God.
Now we stand with Mary weeping outside the grave. It is not an angel but your Son we seek, O God; send him to us. Let us turn and see Jesus standing there. Make him no stranger to our eyes; let us see our teacher. Make us familiar to his eyes; let him see his disciples and call us by our name. Name by precious name.”[1]
Alleluia, Friends!
There is a theme of non-recognition and then recognizing in our Scripture this morning.
In the chapter before the one we read today, Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, an until-then secret disciple, “…took the body of Jesus and wrapped it with the spices in linen cloths, according to the burial custom of the Jews.”[2] The spices here were myrrh and aloes.
The flax plant, from which linen is derived, was cultivated extensively in the Nile Valley and was also grown in the Jordan Valley near Jericho.
Linen yarn could be so fine that it could not be distinguished from silk. Fabric woven from that yarn clothed priests and royalty, adorned temples, and wrapped scrolls. It was also used for ship sails and possibly fishing nets.
The preparation of Jesus’ body recalls the state of Lazarus when he emerged from his tomb, “his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth and his face wrapped in a cloth,”[3] a story we heard two weeks ago.
It also reflects Luke’s nativity account: Jesus’s life began with him wrapped in cloth strips; a symbol of Jesus being cared for just like any other human infant of his time.[4]
Mary Magdeline’s journey to the tomb required commitment, especially for someone not from Jerusalem.
Tomb entrances were typically covered by a disc-shaped rock set in a groove. The stones took more than one person to move, and tombs could not be opened from the inside.
All four Gospels note that a woman was the first to witness the empty tomb. Mary, though, was a disciple trusted but not believed.
Men often viewed women’s testimony as unreliable, which sparked a footrace to reach the tomb so Peter and the unnamed beloved disciple could see for themselves what Mary had told them.
Are there any current or former long-distance runners here today?
I always saved my long runs for early mornings on weekends.
While running, the two must have experienced a powerful emotion; this competition may also reflect a theological race to be seen as the most important disciple.
It also showed a concern for Jesus, that he had not disappeared from their consciousness.
The beloved disciple arrived at the garden first and likely concluded that Jesus was still in the tomb, since the linen wrappings were in view, and did not go in.
The Scripture doesn’t tell us if this was because of respect for the dead or because of fear of ceremonial defilement by touching a corpse.
Peter didn’t appear to have the same inhibitions and entered the tomb, also seeing the linen wrappings.
The neatly arranged wrappings were unexpected. If a thief had taken the body, then they likely would have been taken as well or left behind haphazardly.
The beloved disciple then entered the tomb, saw the linens, and believed that Jesus had risen from the dead; the only one of the three disciples present to reach that conclusion at this point in the story.
The beloved disciple’s belief was based on material evidence and perhaps recalling Jesus’ previous words that he “will see you again and your hearts will rejoice”[5] and “I am the resurrection and the life.”[6]
In Mary and Peter, we see a more gradual realization of what had happened in the tomb. This is despite Jesus’ repeated predictions of his passion and resurrection.
Peter and the beloved disciple then left, possibly to return to the upper room in Jerusalem where they had celebrated Passover.
Mary stayed at the tomb. The woman’s response of remaining and weeping was countered by the culture’s response of rejecting a woman’s testimony as valid. Jesus’ response was to let Mary be the first to see and speak with him, and to be the first to tell others what had happened.
She must not have yet understood the significance of the empty tomb, as she continued to weep and did not respond to the angels’ presence in any noteworthy way.
To be fair, angels in the Bible were usually distinguished by their powers rather than by significant differences from human forms. Jewish people told stories of angels who came disguised and initially unrecognized. Their presence was a sign of God’s work in that burial chamber.
The angels’ question of Mary brought a response of grief and frustration. Witnessing death is distressing and unnerving; the disappearance of the body likely added apprehension and mystery to Mary’s grief. The hope of the sad consolation of completing the burial had been taken from her, or so it appeared.
There were also stories in the Jewish tradition of God disguising some people’s appearances.
Then Jesus, whom Mary believed to be a gardener, greeted her politely and asked why she was weeping. Mary seems to assume that a gardener would know she was looking for a body and could direct her to it.
What’s not clear is how Mary intended to retrieve an adult corpse by herself or explain her possession of it should she encounter other people.
Jesus then addresses Mary by her name, a very personal call of attention.
How one speaks a person’s name often identifies something about the speaker. Surely no gardener would have known Mary’s name or spoken it in the way Jesus did.
Mary likely prostrated herself and clasped Jesus’ feet. His response was to reassure her that he would not immediately disappear and that he would see the disciples soon, as he had promised.
In this moment, Mary recognized that the resurrection had occurred.
Gentiles had many stories of spiritual ascensions, and the Hebrew scriptures contained stories of bodily ones, too. Just think of Elijah and his chariot.
The term “brothers” could refer to members of one’s own ethnic group, association, or those who share a common faith.
Nowhere in the Gospels did Jesus address God as “Our Father” or “Our God” so personally. This demonstrated that Mary’s relationship to God, and ours, is different than Jesus’, though they both concern the same God.
Mary gave further confirmation to the disciples that she had seen Jesus, corroborating the inference on which the beloved disciple had believed.
Over the Gospel chapters that follow the resurrection accounts, we will find a series of interactions between the resurrected Jesus and others that continue the theme of recognition and non-recognition.
They take place in the upper room, then with Thomas, at the Sea of Tiberias, along the road to Emmaus, and in that village over supper.
What have you seen but didn’t recognize, or heard but didn’t understand?
My mind starts with the negative examples: a red flag in a relationship, the change in a boss’s tone that preluded a tough conversation, or underestimating the speed of a truck about to overtake me on my motorcycle.
There have been instances with positive outcomes, too: a moment of bureaucratic kindness that made a trip to the BMV a little easier and life circumstances that appeared tough but ultimately revealed God’s grace and new opportunities.
How, then, are our eyes and ears opened?
Our brains seem wired to fill in gaps with previous patterns, to make things make sense.
This gap-filling, though, is prone to the risks associated with assumptions, biases, and mindsets.
Not all assumptions, biases, and mindsets will necessarily lead us to peril.
Assuming good intentions in others’ actions, showing a preference for diversity and pluralism, and maintaining an underlying view of the world as positive are possibilities.
Sure, these orientations can burn us or make us seen as naïve.
I suggest our Christian faith calls us to this state of recognition.
It is God who rolls away the stones that block our understanding of the power of death.
Not just human death, but the realities of social and economic inequality, racism, transphobia, addiction, and all the other destructive powers in our world.
Rolling the stones away also exposes God’s mercy, compassion, and faithfulness to us.
Jesus implored the disciples to remain awake. We must also.
The night before he was betrayed, Jesus prayed for his disciples, those then and those now:
“I ask not only on behalf of these but also on behalf of those who believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, [God], are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one,I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. [God], I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.”[7]
This is our Good News today: that God still rolls away the stones that frustrate our recognition of God’s love. God’s presence releases a hurting world and replaces that death with eternal life. We are in Christ, just as he is in God, loved since the beginning of time.
Sing and rejoice, ye Children of the Day and of the Light!
Christ the Lord is risen today, alleluia!
May it be so
[1] Litanies and Other Prayers for the Revised Common Lectionary Year A, 73.
[2] John 19:40 NRSVue
[3] John 11:44 NRSVue
[4] Luke 2:7 and 2:12 NRSVue
[5] John 16:22
[6] John 11:25
[7] John 17:20-24 NRSVue
Matthew Ciske 