4.18.2006

“While It Was Still Dark”

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and say that the stone had been removed from the tomb.– John 20:1

Easter is about brightness and light. Spring colors, nothing drab or dark.

But John says that Mary went to the tomb while it was still dark. Things were dark in more ways than one. Mary’s world had been plunged into darkness by Jesus’ death. Night fell about her, and the darkness invaded her heart.

And on Easter, the last thing in the world she expected happened.

Mary Magdalene went to the tomb while it was still dark, and the resurrection had already happened. The resurrection of Jesus occurred at night, not in the brightness of day. This is not unprecedented. In the beginning, in Genesis 1, God’s first creative act was in the dark..darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters. And God said, ‘Let there be light’ Doesn’t all life begin in the dark, in some utterly dark womb? Nobody’s ever seen a creation or a resurrection, because God works in the dark.

When you have experienced resurrection, hasn’t it been in the dark? God seems not to perform many resurrections on church picnics or Easter Sunday mornings. God works the night shift. And that’s good because we do not live in some perennial bright Easter morning. Your spiritual world is not a place where the sun is always shining and the news is always good.

So when bright Easter is done, in your bright, Sunday service at church, remember to expect God whenever it gets dark. When we get to where the road runs out, when the sky turns to midnight at midday, when even the stars forsake us and fall, when our last best hope has been sealed in a tomb, and when three days later it is still dark, then we, by the grace of a living God, may have arrived with Mary Magdalene, surprised by Easter, surprised by God with us, even in, especially when, it’s dark. Thanks be to God! Happy Easter.

William H. Willimon