Easter, Fridays, and Sundays

 Fatimah Salleh gave a wonderful talk about Easter using the account in John 20. 

On Sunday morning, Mary went to the tomb early, while it was still dark, saw the empty tomb and ran to tell Peter and the others. They came, saw the empty tomb and then went “unto their own home.” Mary stayed. She weeps. The angels ask why she is weeping, She tells them it is because someone has taken her Lord. Then she see someone who is Christ but she doesn’t recognize him. He asks why she weeps. She tells him the same thing. Then he says her name “Mary” and she knows it’s the Lord. He tells her to go tell the others that he has risen. 

Salleh’s comments - Easter morning is about showing up, early. It’s about grieving, wondering what’s happened, where God is. The angels and Christ ask Mary why she’s weeping and they wait for her answer. How many times have we wept and wondered where God is when he’s standing right beside us? Mary is the first missionary of the Resurrection. Of all the people Christ could select to be the first witness to his resurrection, he chose a Hebrew woman. 

Salleh’s comments reminded me of a talk by Joseph Wirthlin, Dark Friday, Bright Sunday. Friday was dark when the Christ hung dead on the cross. “It was a Friday filled with devastating, consuming sorrow that gnawed at the souls of those who loved and honored the Son of God…. But the doom of that day did not endure. The despair did not linger because on Sunday, the resurrected Lord burst the bonds of death. He ascended from the grave and appeared gloriously triumphant as the Savior of all mankind.” 

Then Wirthlin says. “Each of us will have our own Fridays—those days when the universe itself seems shattered and the shards of our world lie littered about us in pieces. We all will experience those broken times when it seems we can never be put together again. We will all have our Fridays. But I testify to you in the name of the One who conquered death—Sunday will come. In the darkness of our sorrow, Sunday will come. No matter our desperation, no matter our grief, in this life or the next, Sunday will come."