In the Quiet (sunrise Service)

In the Quiet
There’s something so serene about the early morning hours…After a night of slumber and it feels like the whole world is just waking up…Before the activities of the day start and everything starts to run and go…Before all the noise, there’s the stillness of the morning…Once the sun rises and light floods through, that stillness fades away…We begin this Easter morning in the stillness…In the quiet…
Jesus’ life was anything but quiet…He spoke out against injustices…He encouraged people in their faith…He taught that we should love God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength and love our neighbors as we love ourselves…He healed…He performed miracles…While Jesus’ messages were filled with hope and love, they were anything but quiet…It was those messages that got Jesus attention from all people…There were people who were filled with hope because of his messages and there were people who were threatened by his messages.
Our Holy Week journey started on Sunday with Palm Sunday—Jesus entered Jerusalem for the Passover festival to a celebration with people waving palm branches and shouting “Hosanna!” Things would change dramatically for Jesus…As we remember Jesus’ last supper with his disciples on Maundy Thursday, Jesus is aware of what is going to happen as he washes his disciples’ feet and breaks bread and shares the cup with them…As Jesus prays in the Garden of Gethsemane and is arrested…As we remember on Good Friday Jesus’ trial, beatings, and crucifixion…Then, there was silence…
Although there was silence, there were certainly many emotions felt by Jesus’ disciples and followers…Most of them had abandoned Jesus in his last hours—literally running away and hiding…As they recounted what had happened, did they feel shame for abandoning this man who had done so much for them? Or if they did stay, did they recount what they had seen with anguish and tears? Were there moments of laughter as they recounted Jesus’ life with them? Where there echoes of tears and sobs as they tried to make sense of what happened? And then there was the silence…
This silence had be deafening…Lost in their own thoughts and emotions…We don’t have an account of what they were thinking and feeling, we don’t have an account of those days and hours in between Jesus’ death on the cross…To the morning when the women went to the tomb in the silence…
Mary Magdalene goes to the tomb at dawn to anoint Jesus’ body with spices and oils. She wouldn’t have been able to do it earlier because Jesus died on a Friday just before sundown. The Jewish Sabbath begins on Friday at sundown and is over on Saturday just after sundown. The Sabbath is a day of rest—there were and still are specific rules about what can and cannot be done on the Sabbath. There were rules about how many steps you could take and still be considered observing the Sabbath. Observing the Sabbath was part of their religious observances and part of their law. Mary and the rest of Jesus’ followers being Jews themselves, would have observed the Sabbath strictly…
After the Sabbath, Mary goes to the tomb at dawn to anoint Jesus’ body for burial…In the stillness of the morning…In the silences…And as she approaches the place where she has seen her Lord’s body being laid, there have to be a number of emotions going…She was approaching the tomb that she knew was being guarded and watched by Roman soldiers…And she’s going to this place in the silence…
As she approaches the entry of the tombs, she receives a surprise as the stone is rolled away from the tomb. She ran to get the other disciples, thinking that someone has taken his body…As the disciples investigate and find that yes, Jesus’ body truly is gone, they have forgotten what Jesus said would happen and they simply return home. Mary stays outside of the tomb, weeping…Not only does she believe that her Lord is dead, but she thinks his body has been taken…
Mary sees two angels sitting in the tomb where Jesus’ body was laid…She speaks with them and wants to find Jesus’ body…As she turns around she runs into who she assumes to be the gardener…She asks him also where the body of Jesus is, not recognizing that he is in fact Jesus…As a matter of fact, she doesn’t recognize that he is her Lord until he speaks her name… “Mary”…
Jesus broke the silence…The silence that he had kept when he breathed his last to when he said Mary’s name…In that silence, much had changed…Not just that Jesus had been resurrected…But the whole universe had been changed…The whole universe has changed and will never be the same…Through Jesus’ resurrection, the universe was turned upside-down…
Where Jesus’ life had been a series of reversals…On Easter morning the ultimate reversal happened. Jesus defeated death and rose again. What was once dead, was now and forevermore alive.
What happened in the silence is silent no longer…The silence was shattered with shouts of joy, with cries of amazement…With shouts that Christ has risen! Christ has risen in deed!