And the Flesh Became Word

John 20:1-18

Hastings, Nebraska, doesn't offer much to the incidental traveler passing through on her way to Denver or Omaha, but if we have anything approaching a tourist season in this part of the country, the middle of March is it. It is usually around this time that the Sandhill Cranes are at the peak of their northward migration, and their presence on the landscape is enough to warrant a kind of ornithological holy week. There are thousands of them. They fly in such numbers that their flocks on the distant horizon can easily be mistaken for wispy clouds rolling in slowly from the south. They descend on the barren fields that border about a fifty-mile stretch of the Platte River and spend the next several weeks pecking at the stray kernels of grain left behind by September's combines. Soon they'll leave for the Alaskan tundra where nature will call them to attend to their procreative duties, but if certainty has any claim on the staggeringly capricious cycle of the Great Plains it lies in this: the cranes will return.

Theirs is a dance that has gone on for as many as nine million years, and for as often as I have witnessed the spectacle, it never fails to overwhelm me. But the sight of their vast numbers is not what captivates my imagination. Rather, it is their ancient guttural call, a woody trill whose slightest intimation in the skies above – not to mention a chorus of thousands below – reaches so deeply into my genetic memory that I am transported back in time to the barren grasslands of the early Pleistocene. That's why I feel a little sorry for the roadside ecologists who seem content simply to observe these beguiling creatures from the climate-controlled comfort of their mini-vans, because when it comes to cranes, hearing – not seeing – is what transforms your perspective and makes you a believer.

It is the need to remain attentive not only to what is seen but also to what is heard that lies at the heart of our lectionary text for Easter. Though it is not an especially evident motif in the gospel of John, it is nevertheless certain that the evangelist wants to make one point very clear with respect to Jesus: as the "Word become flesh" (John 1:4) his truth lay well hidden beneath his appearance, and those who choose to base their understanding of him solely upon what they see will surely miss the mark. Jesus' disciples need also to listen and respond in faith to the voice of the Good Shepherd who calls his own (10:2-4). For John, the aural rounds out the visual and gives it meaning. It takes apparently commonplace people and events and furnishes them with new dimensions. As Mary Magdalene discovers amidst her grief and bewilderment in the garden, recognition of "the Word become flesh" involves remaining open to the possibility that, through the grace of God, the flesh is equally capable of becoming Word, of reaching into our hearts and allowing our eyes to perceive with new understanding what had actually been there all along. When Word issues forth from flesh, Spirit from substance, all things are brought clearly into focus.

Mary's faithfulness to Jesus is accentuated in this account by the fact that she arrives at the tomb well before dawn. Since the body had already been prepared for burial (19:40), we can only conclude that she comes early on the first day to lament the loss of her beloved. Mourning is women's work; the men apparently have better things to do – that is, until they hear the awful news. "They have taken the Lord away from the tomb and we do not know where they have laid him" (John 20:4). Hereupon ensues an interesting little footrace between Peter and "the other disciple," complete with the kind of one-upmanship that we have now come to expect from this crew. But in this case, the first actually does become last – it is the fleet-footed apostle who allows the fisherman the honor of entering the tomb to confirm Mary's claim. What they both eventually discover is perplexing indeed. All the evidence suggests that the body has not been stolen, but they simply do not know what to make of the scene. For Peter and the beloved disciple, what they behold with their eyes is not sufficient to evoke in them any firm conviction about the resurrection of Jesus, "for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead" (20:9).

So they go home, simple as that.

But Mary stays. Her love is of a different sort. She yearns for the body of her beloved with a special devotion. Her lingering at the tomb recalls in many ways the erotic imagery of the Song of Solomon:

"I will rise now and go about the city,
In the streets and in the squares;
I will seek him whom my soul loves."
I sought him, but I found him not (3:2).

Mary is a little less inclined it seems to jump to any quick conclusions. Perhaps in grief, or in hope, or bewilderment, or just sheer exhaustion – but certainly in love – she chooses to wait, to watch, and to listen. In such unusual and frightening circumstances her senses must have been completely heightened and attuned to her surroundings: the empty tomb, the discarded strips of cloth, and angels no less! It is all the more surprising then when she fails to recognize the one whom she seeks so earnestly, believing him to be the gardener. What her eyes behold is not sufficient to bring her fully into the presence of her Teacher, until the one who stands before her in the flesh calls her forth from her limited perception: "Mary."

I have always wondered why many commentators on this text generally ignore the one reference that nearly screams out for attention. I suppose it makes sense that Mary in her confusion could mistake Jesus, her Lord and Rabbi, for "the gardener." But the darkness had passed, the day had dawned. What was the problem? I think John is drawing on one of his customary devices in this pericope to make a theological point: as the shades of night begin to dissolve into morning, Mary, like so many who encountered Jesus before her, experiences a gradual awakening that blossoms into epiphany only when the Word is added to flesh, when Jesus calls her forth into new understanding and insight. It is only then that she can see clearly that the gardener and her rabbi are one and the same.

She sees everything else anew as well. The word produces in Mary an immediate realization that she had not been weeping in just any garden that morning, and the one who confronted her was not just any gardener. At the sound of her name, she experiences a touch of eternity in the present: kairos. She was in Eden, and a witness to God's ongoing creation. Here was the Gardener, the one whose spirit hovered over the face of the deep in the beginning and called forth creation: "Let there be light" (Gen. 1:2). Here was the one who had fashioned Adam from the earth itself, who had called Abram out of Chaldea, and instructed Moses from the burning bush. His was the still small voice that Elijah encountered on Horeb, as well as the source of new life for the woman at the well, and Lazarus at the tomb. And now he was calling her to break free from the fetters of appearances so that she might also perceive, in this single moment, the sound of the light that lies at the heart of all things. Then she could run and tell the others what her eyes had heard.

And so the church is fashioned from the dust of the ground, outside a tomb in Jerusalem, as the flesh of the Gardener is made Word in the sight and hearing of the one who waited, watched, and listened. Mary was the first to be "called out" (ecclesia) toward a new vision, a way of seeing with her ears, and hers is the example that we must also follow. Our task, more urgent now than ever, is to perceive in faith the Word that lies at the depths of all creation, to hear the heart that beats almost imperceptibly in what our eyes behold, and to make it known to those in our midst.

"The heavens are proclaiming the glory of God," the Psalmist assures us, "and the firmament his handiwork" (Ps. 19:1). Yet their voice is not heard – until now. It pleased God in the fullness of time that the Word would become flesh and, literally, "pitch his tent" among us. Now, however, it is the vocation of the church – the offspring of Magdalene – to become itself the resurrected body of Christ and bear witness to the fact that the flesh might also become Word. This is the miracle of Easter, and it needs to be affirmed not only on this one Sunday that concludes the season of Lent, but every day throughout the year. For believing in the resurrection alone is not a sufficient mark of our Christian faith; we must also practice it.

Questions for Further Discussion

1. Have you had experiences, like Mary's, where the visual was "rounded out" by the aural, where new insight was attained by "seeing with your ears"?

2. Reflect on the following statement: "While we affirm that the Virgin Mary is the Mother of God (Theotokos), we too often fail to recognize that Mary Magdalene is the mother of the church." Do you agree or disagree with this claim?

3. In the synoptic gospels, Mary Magdalene is accompanied in her visit to the tomb by several other women. Why do you suppose John has her arriving alone at the garden?

4. Is it significant, or just a throw-away reference, that Mary mistakes Jesus for the gardener? Why do you think John included this apparently incidental comment?