Easter Day
March 31, 2024
John 20:1-18

It’s one of my guilty pleasures. When I’m folding the laundry, when I’m doing the dishes, I put in my earbuds and watch endless reruns of Seinfeld. The Puffy Shirt, the Festivus Pole, Newman! I can watch Seinfeld over and over and over again.

Of course, I know it’s not just me. It’s why you go back and watch “It’s a Wonderful Life” every single Christmas. Growing up, it’s why my parents were still listening to “oldies.” It’s why your kids have watched the same episode of Bluey eight hundred times. Why? Because good things are worth repeating. 

And, that’s one of the quirks of this story about Easter morning. Mary Magdalene goes to the tomb on Easter morning, and sees that the stone is rolled away. She runs and tells the disciples, and then the disciples go to the empty tomb. But after that, after Peter and the other disciple leave the tomb, Mary Magdalene is there again. It means that Mary Magdalene went to the tomb twice that morning. Once wasn’t enough. She went for the rerun.

Friends, if there is any good news for us this morning it is that. Even for Mary Magdalene, once wasn’t enough. For most of us, this life of faith, this path of discipleship, belief itself, does not happen right away. Sure, Mary Magdalene saw the empty tomb once, but she did not yet believe. But she goes back, and it’s then, during that rerun, that she meets the Lord Jesus. Sure, we might have been to church before, we’ve tried to read the Bible, we’ve tried to pray. But for most of us, myself included, faith in Jesus doesn’t happen at once. In other words, it’s okay. It’s okay to struggle with it, it’s okay to work through faith and doubt, it’s okay to not get it right away. Because you’re in good company, you’re right there with Mary Magdalene who also came back to try to figure it out.

We already know this is true in the other parts of our lives. It’s not like you can eat one carrot and suddenly, oh, you have a healthy diet. It’s not like you can go to the gym once, do one push up, and suddenly, you’re in shape. Look, I do it, too – the day before your dentist appointment you floss your teeth so that when they ask, you can say, “oh yeah, I floss.” It doesn’t actually work that way. The things worth doing are worth doing over and over and over again. So that over the course of time, like Mary, we come to faith. 

This is also shows the patience of God. Yes, on that Easter morning, Jesus has broken the power of sin, loneliness, and death. Yes, God has shown us our own future, when we, too, will be raised from the dead, like Jesus. Yes, because of Easter, you have received abundant life and grace and mercy and peace beyond all understanding. But one thing we learn this morning is that once is not enough for God. You may have heard that you just need to make a decision once for Jesus. I don’t think that’s true. Like a Netflix show on endless repeat, God will keep playing the reruns so that, no matter how good or bad life has become, we can always come to God’s love and grace.

And I know, I know how empty this sounds. It sounds like some feel-good, self-help, pseudo-Christianity. “Just believe in God and your life will be great.” I am not saying that. Because like Mary Magdalene, the only reason we are here this morning, is because a man died on a cross. Like her, we have to acknowledge just what a sorry state we are in. Because it seems that, in this world, the reruns are playing alright, but they are all the bad ones. We keep playing them back in our heads – the wrongs done to us, the injustices of the world, the hardships we all face; financial uncertainties, our bodies breaking down, we worry about our kids and their future and the world they are inheriting. We keep repeating those stories in our heads and hearts; we keep watching those reruns of fear and shame. And it’s put us in a sorry state. To get out of that cycle, we try escape with all the wrong things, we try to numb our pain. And the powers of sin want it that way. It’s why you can never have enough money to make you happy. It’s why you can never scroll to the bottom of Facebook, there is no bottom. It’s why the news is on twenty-four hours a day, they don’t want your eyeballs to ever leave, they want you to be anxious, and then to tune back in to see what else you should be anxious about. Because we’re human, because we love reruns, we keep coming back to the same thing over and over and over again.

So on this bright, Easter morning, we are presented with a distinct choice. Which reruns are you going to watch? Will you keep going back to the darkness, the shame, the baggage you carry, the resentments, and anger? But notice, that Mary Magdalene doesn’t go back to where Jesus died, she doesn’t keep going back to the cross. She goes to the empty tomb. There is a better way. You can replay in your heats and minds the grace you have received, to thank God for the blessings of this life. You can return, with Mary Magdalene, for as many times as it takes until your heart finally breaks open with the goodness and love of Jesus. Not that it makes all the hard things go away, Jesus still died on a cross, you are experiencing real problems and heartaches. But it’s that God takes that darkness and transforms it into light; from the cross to empty tomb; from death to life; from despair to hope. And hope is why we are here today; hope that the way things are won’t always be that way; hope that Jesus is always there, no matter how many times we need to come back. 

One last word. I know, that one day, I’ll get tired of Seinfeld eventually. It’s awfully dated, and one can only take so much George Costanza. Eventually, your kids grow out of Bluey. New music, new movies come along. The old stuff can get wearisome.

But in this life with God, the reruns get better, not worse. Every prayer, every time of worship, every story from the Bible actually gets better with time. It’s why we say the same prayers every Sunday, because the reruns are just that good. It’s why we keep coming back, it’s why we’ve celebrated Easter for 183 years at Trinity. Once isn’t enough. It’s why Christians keep coming back to the empty, for two thousand years, because with God, it gets better. This is God’s invitation on Easter morning – for no matter how long it takes, Jesus is there for you.