Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told all this to the apostles. But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.
They were not believed. Peter ran to the tomb and found it just as they had said. They were right! The women disciples were the true evangelists that first Easter.
Easter will not be stopped by unbelief. The truth of Resurrection, of new life and hope found in Jesus profoundly affected all the disciples and it changed their lives.
According to ancient tradition, Mary Magdalene who was a wealthy woman from whom Christ expelled seven "demons," supported Him and His other disciples with her money, during the three years of Jesus’ ministry. When almost everyone else fled, she stayed with Him at the cross. On Easter morning she was one of the first to bear witness to His resurrection. She is often called the “Apostle to the Apostles.”
After the Ascension of Jesus, Mary Magdalene, continued her discipleship, as she journeyed to Rome where she was admitted to Tiberias Caesar's court because of her high social standing. After describing how poorly Pilate had administered justice at Jesus’ trial, she told Caesar that “Christ is risen!” (from the dead). To help explain the resurrection, she picked up an egg from the dinner table. Caesar responded that a human being could no more rise from the dead than the egg in her hand turn red. The egg turned red immediately, which is why red eggs have been exchanged at Easter for centuries in the Byzantine East.
She did not convince him but Mary is said to have spent the rest of her life in the Mediterranean proclaiming the good news of Christ & preaching the resurrection.
Easter lived in Mary and she shared it with the world.
As I thought about that red egg that Mary held up, I think of our Easter eggs that we painted at the Rectory and what usually comes from an egg…
A small chick begins the long journey to birth. The not-yet-a-bird weighs little more than air; its beak and claws are barely pin pricks. The bird-to-be is in its own little world: protected by the rigid shell, warmed by the mother hen’s body, nourished by the nutrients within the egg’s membrane.
But then the chick begins the work of life. Over several days the chick keeps picking and picking until it can break out from its narrow world — and into an incomparably wider one.
But for this to happen, the egg has to go to pieces. New life demands shattering the old.
That’s the real Easter egg. Not a complete egg dyed and painted with so many designs and colors.
Not an egg that has been hardboiled, impossible to shatter. Not an egg made of chocolate.
The real Easter egg is shattered and destroyed. The real Easter egg exists in broken pieces. The real Easter egg is cracked opened, yielding new life that takes flight.
For centuries, the world has marked the Resurrection of the Lord with eggs. But the Easter meaning of the egg is found in the struggle of the chick to free itself from its confines so as to take flight into the much bigger world beyond it.
We struggle to break out of a world that we perceive as going to pieces; we pick away at an existence that leaves us dissatisfied and unfulfilled. The promise of the Easter Christ is that we can break out of our self-contained little “shells” and take flight into a much bigger world: a world where peace and justice reign, a world illuminated by hope and warmed by love, a world that extends beyond time and place into the forever of God’s dwelling place. [From a meditation by Brother David Steindl-Rast, O.S.B.]
For the resurrection is more than one moment in time, something we talk about. It’s something we become, something we live into our daily lives; our stories speak of Easter, of new life…
Natalie Barnes, a driver with the Milwaukee County Transit System, found out that a frequent rider, "Richard," no longer had a home. "I am officially homeless now," he said as he boarded her bus last November. The house Richard had been living in was condemned and he had been on the streets for a week.That is an Easter story.
At first, Barnes offered what she could: the warmth of her bus and some food. Then, she called a friend and was able to get Richard into a community shelter that worked to help him find permanent housing.
"At some point in our lives, everybody needs help," she said in a statement. "I wanted to do what I could to help Richard in some way. He thanks me every time he talks to me for helping him. He calls me his little guardian angel. I'm happy to say that he's progressing well.' (She has been honored for her work.) (https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/21/us/iyw-bus-driver-helps-homeless-man-trnd/index.html)
Natalie listened to Richard and she acted. As an Orthodox theologian put it, “The Resurrection is not the resuscitation of a body; it is the beginning of the transfiguration of the world.” (Patriarch Athenagoras) Natalie’s actions speak of that transfiguration, of changing Richard’s world.
This is an Easter story that Mary’s experience of Jesus death and life, guided her to preach with her own life about the Resurrection to Emperors and to all who would listen to help change the world.
Today, this is our Easter story - for Easter breaks open the shells of our lives – calling us to live into that new life, just like a true Easter egg. Easter isn’t just an event or something for us to remember from long ago. It’s something we live and breathe, right now, & in every moment of our lives, to help transform this world with love. Alleluia! Christ is risen! Amen.
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