What Are You Running From?

​Easter Sunday – 2025                                                                                    LSB #’s 457, 436, 466
Text – John 20:1-2
 
Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark, & saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb.  So she ran…
 
WHAT ARE YOU RUNNING FROM?
 
 
Go to Dark Gethsemane is probably not the most common hymn sung on Easter morning.  In my own mind it is firmly etched in the somber services of Good Friday.   The opening verses lament Christ’s suffering & death: “Your Redeemer’s conflict see, watch with Him one bitter hour.   Shun not suffering, shame or loss, learn from Him to bear the cross.” 
We began this service with a dimly lit room that blossomed into a sight of beauty with the Agnus Dei ringing in our ears, flowers singing across the chancel, & then the glorious strains of “Jesus Christ is risen today, our triumphant holy day…  Hymns of praise then let us sing, unto Christ, our heavenly king, Alleluia!”  (LSB 457:1 & 2). 
You know the story, “’Twill be my theme in glory to tell the old,   old story of Jesus & His love.”   Because we know the story, we effortlessly jump to the final conclusion – our physical arrival in heaven on the Last Day, as our bodies are raised from the dead in glorious perfection.   None of what you just experienced was that way for Mary on her Easter morning. 
You & I have this joyous celebration.  Mary ran away in confusion.  Our service is full of praise & joy, loud Alleluias, many flowers & jubilant music.   The resurrection Gospel according John, has tones of frantic confusion, searching for a missing body, & even after believing, a lack of peaceful understanding.   Peter & John went home.   Mary stayed at the open tomb   & cried. 
“Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark,   & saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb.   So she ran & went to Simon Peter & the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, & said to them, ‘They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, & we do not know where they have laid Him.’”  (John 20:1-2 ESV)  Mary panics & runs away because she misinterprets the proof that God showed her, the proof of His Son’s resurrection from the dead.   Jesus had predicted this.  Mary had not understood. 
“‘…everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished.  For He will be delivered over to the Gentiles & will be mocked & shamefully treated & spit upon.   And after flogging Him, they will kill Him, & on the third day He will rise.’   But they understood none of these things.  This saying was hidden from them, & they did not grasp what was said.”  (Luke 18:31-34 ESV) 
 
The Gospel of Luke tells us that understanding of Jesus’ prophecy was actually hidden from His followers.  After several of the miraculous signs Jesus performs, He instructs them to tell no one.  Everything about Christ’s kingdom hinged upon His resurrection from the dead, & even after His resurrection, it took awhile for the confidence of His followers to return. 
Our experience of Easter is so totally different from that of the people who grieved Christ’s death on the first Good Friday.   We cannot help but take Easter for granted.  We cannot begin to fathom the joy that Jesus’ followers experienced in the days after that very first Easter.  Their joy led them to accept death for themselves rather than stop telling others about Jesus. 
In addition to Jesus, we owe a huge debt of gratitude to Mary, the other women, & the apostles, for not allowing their church or their government to silence them.  What motivated them to speak so defiantly, was not guilt over their failures & sins.  It was joy that all their sins & failures had been completely paid for, & new & eternal life was now in their possession. 
Physical death could no longer harm them, so threats of punishment held no sway,  when it came to sharing the love of Jesus Christ with people in need.   That’s where the followers of Jesus ended up, once they believed & understood Christ’s resurrection from the dead.  That’s not where they were on Easter morning.  When Mary first saw the stone taken away, she ran. 
At that moment, she was running out of fear.  It wasn’t fear for her life, but fear that she
would not be able to honor her Lord as she intended.  She was afraid that others had plotted to dishonor Jesus even more than they already had.   What happened that she stopped running?  Jesus appeared to her in person, & He spoke her name:
“…she turned around & saw Jesus standing, but she did not know that it was Jesus.  Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping?  Whom are you seeking?’  Supposing Him to be the gardener, she said to Him, ‘Sir, if you have carried Him away, tell me where you have laid Him, & I will take Him away.’  Jesus said to her, ‘Mary.’  She turned & said to Him in Aramaic, ‘Rabboni!’ (which means Teacher).”  (John 20:14-16 ESV) 
 
Our experience of this Easter is vastly different from the experience of Jesus’ disciples that first Easter morning, but all of us are also running from something, or from many things.  When I was still running for exercise, someone once asked, “What are you running from?”  I replied, “From old age.”   Well, it caught me. 
There are an endless number of things that sinful human beings are running from – lack of financial or emotional security, being ashamed of ourselves or ashamed of those associated with us.  We run from responsibility, we run from being loved, we run from loving others.  We run from our past, we run from our future.  Sinful creatures do a lot of running. 
Once we own our fear then it no longer controls us.  The resurrection of Jesus from the dead allows & enables us to stop being afraid.  God had given Mary proof of the resurrection of Jesus in the empty tomb.  Yet, because she was living in fear, she could not see that proof.  All she knew, from her worldly experience, is that an empty tomb was totally abnormal. 
Once Jesus speaks her name her fear is gone & she believes.  Likewise with John, verse 8 tells us, “Then the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went in, & he saw & believed.”  The first Easter morning of Jesus’ disciples was not filled with joy, but with fear.  It took time, & the work of the Holy Spirit, to dispel that fear. 
Instead of listening to the words of Jesus & believing them, His disciples, men & women
both, had been following their own thoughts & experiences regarding what was real & what was not.  Here we learn that even miracles are only steppingstones to faith.  The real basis of faith is Holy Scripture, the revealed & inspired Words of God.  On this basis is faith to rest. 
If all the disciples had closely remembered the prophecies of Jesus concerning His Passion & resurrection, they would have saved themselves many a bitter heartache.   Whatever you are running from, searching the holy words of God, instead of following your feelings, is the reason you will finally stop running.  You finally experience God’s peace. 
In all four Gospel-accounts, all the disciples, men as well as women, are pictured as fearful, confused, running this way & that.  On the other hand, Jesus was patient.  He came to them & spoke the Scriptures. 
Mary did not go to the tomb on Sunday morning to meet a risen Savior.  She went to finish His burial, but Jesus found her, & healed her broken heart with a joy she had never imagined.  Jesus has that same joy available for you.  It doesn’t remove you from the brokenness of this sinful world, but His joy enables you to see beyond this world. 
That is what Job was describing as he wrote, “…I know that my Redeemer lives, & at the last He will stand upon the earth.  And after my skin has been thus destroyed,  yet in my flesh I shall see God,  whom I shall see for myself,  & my eyes shall behold,  & not another.  My heart faints within me!”  (19:25-27 ESV)    St. Paul wrote of that in a letter to the church at Corinth:
“I tell you a mystery.  …we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.   For the trumpet will sound, & the dead will be raised imperishable...  then shall come to pass the saying that is written: ‘Death is swallowed up in victory.  O death, where is your victory?  O death, where is your sting?’   The sting of death is sin, & the power of sin is the law.  But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”  (15:51-52, 54-57 ESV) 
 
Confident of that victory, you & I are empowered by the Holy Spirit to own any of the fears we are running from.   Now, we have something to run to – the last trumpet, our own resurrection from the dead, a life in paradise that will never be spoiled & will never come to an end.   The reign of sin & death has already been defeated.  Our fears are a figment of Satan’s imagination.  This veil of tears is but a passing matter compared to the eternal life we enjoy partially already now & one day will enjoy fully with Jesus in heaven.  Amen. 
 
 
 
Calvary’s mournful mountain climb; there, adoring at His feet, mark that miracle of time, God’s own sacrifice complete.  “It is finished!” hear Him cry; learn from Jesus Christ to die.   Early hasten to the tomb where they laid His breathless clay; all is solitude & gloom.  Who has taken Him away?   Christ is risen!  He meets our eyes.  Savior, teach us so to rise.  Amen.  LSB 436:3-4.