(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Worship on April 16, 2017, Easter Sunday)
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Recognition: A Life-and-Death Matter
“She turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus.” She did not recognize him.
Recognition can be a matter of life and death. The ancients knew this well.[1] Their stories dramatize the moment of recognition as the moment that life returns. A face is not just a face; it becomes the doorway from death to life.
We see this in the ancient Hebrew story of Joseph and his brothers. When Joseph finally reveals himself to his troubled brothers, when they finally recognize him, the tension in the story lifts. There are tears. There are embraces. There is life once more.
We see this in the ancient Greek tale of Odysseus. Odysseus leaves his home to fight in the Trojan War, and a number of adventures delay him on his way back. By the time he actually returns, much has changed. His wife Penelope, who has just about given up hope on him, has many admirers trying to win her affection. Only when Odysseus finally reveals himself, only when Penelope recognizes him, can life be made right. Only then, can he and his wife return to their life together.
Just as recognition brings life in these stories, non-recognition often proves tragically fatal. Years after Odysseus has returned to his home life with Penelope, he confronts a stranger who is killing his sheep. The confrontation escalates into a fight, and the stranger kills Odysseus. How tragic: for this stranger is none other than one of his sons, Telegonus, whom Odysseus had not seen since birth. Telegonus had made a long journey to reunite with his father. But he had been hungry, so he had killed some sheep for food.
Of course, the famous tragedy of non-recognition is the tale of Oedipus. Separated from his father since birth, Oedipus encounters him one day on a road, but neither recognizes the other. All that they see is a stranger, an enemy. And so it is that Oedipus kills his father.
According to the ancients, recognition is the difference between life and death.
Recognition Instead of Resurrection
Our gospels, I think, would agree.
Today we celebrate resurrection. But have you noticed? Not one gospel presents us with a story of Jesus’ resurrection. We never see Jesus himself come back to life. Instead, we hear the personal stories of others who encounter a stranger and then come to life themselves. And they come to life precisely at that crucial moment of recognition: Mary hears her name and recognizes the gardener and cries out, “Rabbouni!” (John 20:16); Thomas touches the wounds of Christ and exclaims, “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:27-28); Cleopas and his friend encounter a stranger on the way to Emmaus and don’t recognize him until he has blessed bread and broken it and gave it to them, so that afterward they say, “Were not our hearts burning within us?” (Luke 24:13-35).
The gospels do not show us Jesus’ resurrection. They show us others’ recognition. No resurrection. Only recognition.
Without Recognition, There Is No Resurrection
But what if Mary had not recognized Jesus? What if she had just mistaken him for some eccentric gardener? What if Thomas had dismissed the man with the wounds as a meticulous imposter? What if Cleopas and his friend had simply identified their traveling companion as a wise rabbi?
What if no one had recognized Jesus?
According to the ancients, non-recognition is a tragedy. It is potentially fatal. The gospels, I think, would probably agree. Without the stories of Mary and Thomas and Cleopas and the disciples, without their stories of recognition, there would be no resurrection to speak of. For a resurrection to mean anything, it must be shared. It must catch on, spreading like wildfire through moments of recognition, moments that become indistinguishable from resurrection, so that really one must begin to wonder if recognition is not itself part of the resurrection.
The gospels do not show us Jesus’ resurrection. The new life that they show us in their final scenes is not the breath miraculously coming back into Jesus’ lungs. The new life that they show us is the wonder and joy that miraculously seize his followers in that moment of recognition. A moment of burning hearts and embrace and wondrous exclamation. According to the gospels, this is the meaning of resurrection. It is not a meaning of physics or biology, but the spiritual meaning of coming back to life, coming into new life.
Recognizing Resurrection:
Looking Beyond the Way Things Were, Looking for Love
When I was younger and surer of myself and the world, I would roll my eyes whenever I heard stories of grief like the kind you read in Reader’s Digest, where someone loses a loved one but then somehow senses the loved one’s spirit in the appearance of a butterfly or the music of a bird’s song. Nowadays, I roll my eyes at that younger self. For now, I myself have had such experiences.
What else are those butterflies or those singing birds, but sacred moments of recognition, a recognition that is somehow part of a resurrection—because it undeniably brings new life.
In today’s scripture, Mary does not recognize Jesus straight away. We don’t know why. I have my own suspicions though. Jesus asks her, “Whom are you looking for?” (20:15). My guess is that Mary was looking for a dead body. She did not recognize Jesus because she was looking for the way things were, not the way things could be. Moments later, when she does recognize Jesus, Jesus says to her, “Do not hold on to me” (20:17). Which is, I think, his way of saying, “For resurrection to happen, to continue to happen, one must not hold on so tightly to things as they were; resurrection means new life.”
Our own experiences of recognition—butterflies, singing birds, or whatever else—affirm this truth. If we were looking so hard for simply the physical things as they were, the body as we held it, as it held us, we would never recognize the loved one elsewhere.
What are we really looking for? We are looking for the loved one’s love.
“I Have Seen the Lord!”
“She turned around and saw Jesus standing there,” but she did not recognize him (20:14). At that moment in Mary’s experience, Jesus is still dead. It was Easter morning, but she did not know it yet.
We are all Mary, this morning and every morning. We hear a voice, “Whom are you looking for?” If we’re fixated only on what happened nearly two thousand years ago, I’m afraid we’ll actually miss out on the resurrection, which is to say, the coming back to life that catches on and spreads like wildfire whenever we look love in the face and recognize it. Resurrection without end.
“Whom are you looking for?” I’m looking for Jesus. I’m looking for him whose loving words and touch have haunted me with longing and inflamed my heart’s desire. I’m looking for his love: a love that is uncalculated, a love that forgives, a love that believes and hopes for the best while it bears and endures the worst, a love that looks for redemption in every single created thing, a love that never ends. And I’ve seen it! I’ve caught glimpses of it! In the face of my parents, who even on days when I had been quite a pain tucked me in and said “good night.” In the face of my brother, who has this silly, unquestioning belief in me whenever I doubt myself. In the face of this church, whenever we serve and give without return. Even among the faces of my “heathen” friends, who sometimes have a keener sense than the faithful for the sanctity of life in the downtrodden, the poor, the helpless. I know that this love lives—I have seen it!
Have you? Can we together with Mary say, “I have seen the Lord”? Come, then, let us go announce these things to the world!
Prayer
Beloved Christ,
Whose love knows no end,
Who calls us tenderly by name:
Open our eyes to your risen body in our world;
Awaken us to new life with you;
Whip up the wildfire
Of your resurrection
Until all live by your love. Amen.
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[1] This is most famously discussed by Aristotle in his Poetics, particularly chapter 11.
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