Easter Sunday - March 5, 2026 – John 20:1-18 - The Rev. Colette Hammesfahr

 

March 5, 2026 – John 20:1-18 – Easter Sunday

Everything in this Gospel text from John happens quickly. It’s still dark and Mary Magdalene is already going to the tomb. When she sees that the stone from the tomb has been rolled away, she runs to tell Simon Peter and John what she has seen. Then Peter and John race to the tomb and John gets there first. They are out of breath and they are confused. They look in and then they leave. The whole thing is happening so fast, it is hard to understand. It’s like no one can stand still on Easter morning. There is so much movement – so much urgency. Yet, no one knows what’s actually going on.

Peter and John run to the tomb, they look, and they leave. Mary stays. She cries. She looks again. When Mary slows down – when she stops, when she cries, when she looks again, everything changes. Jesus calls her by name. “Mary,” he says. Not an explanation of what’s just happened. Not proof of who was standing before her. Just her name. Running gets everyone to the tomb but stopping gets Mary to the resurrection.

In a few moments we are going to slow down and do something. We’re going to come to the font. We’re going to bring people to the water. An infant will be carried and an adult will come forward, not in a sprint, but with intention. Everything will slow down. Water will be poured. Names will be spoken. Promises will be made. Arden and Michael will be called by name. Baptism is one of the few moments in life where we stop running long enough to be claimed and to be held. Before we truly understand what God is doing for us in our Baptism, God has already spoken our name.

Mary has spent years with Jesus. She has listened to him, followed him, stood at the foot of the cross. Yet when she sees him outside of the tomb, she thinks he’s the gardener. Even on Easter morning, face to face with the resurrected Jesus, she doesn’t recognize him.

This matters because it tells us something honest about faith. Faith does not bring us clarity. Baptism is not the end of confusion. We are baptized into a life where we will still have moments of not recognizing God. Moments of overlooking what God has done in our lives and doubting that God recognizes us. In our baptism, we belong to the one who keeps calling us, over and over, until slowly, over time we begin to recognize his voice.

Jesus says to Mary, “Don’t hold on to me, go to my brothers.” Of course, Mary wants to stay in that moment. The man who the day before she saw die on a cross is standing in front of her. But the resurrection does not end in holding on. It leads to being sent. Mary is being sent. In their baptism, Arden and Michael are being sent too. Not because they understand everything or that life will suddenly make sense to them but because they now belong to Jesus’ story. They belong to the story of the resurrection.

The running in this Gospel story has changed. At first it was running in fear and confusion. Running without understanding what is happening. Mary runs again but not because something is wrong. She runs because something is true. Mary has seen the Lord.

Most of life feels like running. We run from one place to the next. We run to try to keep up. We run because something is wrong. We run because we are trying to figure things out. Easter doesn’t call us to stop moving. Easter changes why we should run. God doesn’t call us to run in fear or confusion. God calls us to run with a purpose, to tell Jesus’ story; to live as people who have encountered Christ. Running because we are sent.

Easter begins with people running. They are running in the dark, without answers and because something has happened that they don’t understand. Maybe that’s were we are in our story. Trying to make sense of things, we feel like we’re running in circles.

Today, at the font, we are invited to stop. Stop long enough to hear our name. Stop long enough to be claimed and to be held. Then we are called to go back into the world, not because we now have everything figured out but because, like Mary, we have encountered the risen Christ. When we have encountered the risen Christ something in us begins to change. We may still run and life may feel fast but we are never running alone. Amen.