Soundings April 20 2025 Easter Sunday

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good morning, and welcome to Soundings, a public affairs presentation
of iHeartMedia. Each week we have an ecumenical discussion and
reflection on the scriptures and how they apply to life
in the world. My name is Shannon Jamal Hollomans, and
I'm the pastor of First Congregational United Church of Christ
in Lowell, Michigan, about twenty five miles east of Grand Rapids.

(00:23):
Two of our regulars are here with me this morning,
and I will invite them to introduce themselves, starting with
Pastor Ruth. Good morning.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
I am Reverend Ruth Bell Olson, and I serve at
Mayflower Congregational Church on the southeast side of Grand Rapids.

Speaker 3 (00:39):
I'm Father Mike krik Shank.

Speaker 4 (00:40):
I'm a allest priest serving at the Cathedral Saint Andrew
in the heartside neighborhood of Grand Rapids.

Speaker 1 (00:46):
Awesome, good morning to you both. And Christ has risen. Yes,
what a wonderful day. This is my favorite Sunday of
the year. I just love Easter. I feel like it.
It's church family Sunday. It's the day that we live
for the hope that we have in Christ. I love

(01:07):
the flowers, I love all the elements of this Sunday,
and I'm just wondering for you both, what are some
of the things that make this day special for you?

Speaker 2 (01:18):
Father Mike just sort of gestured to me, you know,
this year, well, traditionally, I think it's of course having
family get together, and my parents would always do an
egg hunt, from when I was little all the way
to my kids doing it, and invariably we would find

(01:41):
little bags of jelly beans in July, you know, under
bushes and things like that. So sometimes my dad, who
recently passed, but we would find he would hide them
so well. We would find them much later in the year,
which always gave us a good giggle. This year, I

(02:02):
just have this renewed sense of incredulity about how how
just fantastical this story is. It's just hitting me in
a renewed way, how miraculous, how profound, how truly extraordinary.

(02:24):
This uh, this Easter story is beyond Hollywood, beyond beyond anything.
I'm just I'm just sitting with that this year, maybe
more than than other years for some for some reason.
So and I'm kind of just sitting in that and
wallowing in it, in the best pot and wallowing in
the best possible way, stewing in it, sitting with it,

(02:47):
and relishing. I guess relishing is better than wallowing, relishing
the fantastical nature of this story that we we live
and breathe and in which we have our being.

Speaker 4 (03:00):
Yeah, I think growing up, certainly it was a great family.

Speaker 3 (03:08):
Gathering.

Speaker 4 (03:08):
We go to church in the morning or before you know,
before that, we usually have yeah, an egg hunt kind
of thing and get our chocolate bunnies and things like that.
And I think the one thing that is Easter is
different from Christmas. I think because I think Easter still

(03:32):
holds more of a religious standing or significance, where Christmas
has been kind of gotten mixed up with many other things.

Speaker 3 (03:44):
And uh, and so Easter that you know, I'm sure
you know.

Speaker 4 (03:50):
The Easter bunny is great, and and all the different
family traditions are are great. But I think it we do,
we do still hold on to that really core meaning
of Easter, which is the Resurrection, in which of course
is all about hope and hope that we all need
today more than ever, just as ever, We'll say, I think,

(04:16):
And now since becoming a priest, this is my fourth Easter,
and it's just a hopeful and joyous celebration. We just
ended our true Toum, Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday,
the vigil for Easter, and those are just beautiful liturgies

(04:42):
and kind of solemn in their own way. And then
we transition into today, which just like just massively joyous
and it's so great to hear just it's just throughout
the day, it's just a very mass after Mass after Mass,
and just very active, and it's just filled with hope

(05:06):
and joy, and yeah, it brings and and just being
with other people who have that same kind of hope
just just emboldens my own hope.

Speaker 3 (05:17):
So it's it's a really big day.

Speaker 1 (05:20):
Yeah, Yeah, I have to agree with you, father Mike.
I think it's it's something that the Church still holds
as sacred and that the culture hasn't co opted quite
as much, even though definitely with Easter bunnies and baskets.
But yeah, I also you know, for me having family,
a lot of my family doesn't celebrate Easter. It's for me,

(05:42):
it's just such a wonderful day of belonging for the Church,
right like we belong to one another in Christ and
those of us who are part of the Church and
work together as the church right to be the light
of Christ in the world. I feel like such unity
on Easter Sunday with all who call on the name
of Christ. To me, that's what's really special. It's really

(06:05):
about the church and what we're doing and how we're
seeking to live that hope that we have all year long. Yeah. Yeah,
So let's get into our passage today. We're going to
be reading from John chapter twenty, and I will read
verses one through eighteen. Early on the first day of

(06:26):
the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalen came
to the tomb and saw that the stone had been
removed from the tomb. So she ran and went to
Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved,
and said to them, they have taken the Lord out
of the tomb. We do not know where they have
laid him. Then Peter and the other disciple set out

(06:49):
and went toward the tomb. The two were running together,
but the other disciple out ran Peter and reached the tomb. First.
He bent down to look in and saw the lin
wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. Then
Simon Peter came following him and went into the tomb.
He saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the cloth

(07:11):
that had been on jesus head not lying with the
linen wrappings, but rolled up in a place by itself.
Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also
went in, and he saw and believed, for as yet
they did not understand the scripture that he must rise
from the dead. Then the disciples returned to their homes,

(07:33):
but Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept,
she bent over to look into the tomb, and she
saw two angels in white sitting there where the body
of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and
the other at the feet. They said to her, woman,
why are you weeping? She said to them, they have

(07:54):
taken away my lord, and I do not know where
they have laid him. When she had said this, she
turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did
not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, woman,
why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for? Supposing
him to be a gardener, she said to him, sir,

(08:15):
if you have carried him away, tell me where you
have laid him, and I will take him away, Jesus
said to her. Mary. She turned and said to him
in Hebrew, rabooni, which means teacher. Jesus said to her,
do not touch me, because I have not yet ascended
to the Father. But go to my brothers and say

(08:36):
to them, I am ascending to my father and your father,
to my God and your God. Mary Magdalen went and
announced to the disciples, I have seen the Lord. And
she told them that he had said these things to her.
This is the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Speaker 2 (08:53):
Thanks Peter to God.

Speaker 1 (08:55):
Such a powerful story.

Speaker 2 (08:56):
So much backed in there.

Speaker 1 (08:58):
Yah, I don't know. One. One idiosyncrasy about this story
that I just love is the way that John John
describes this scene right and talks about the one who
Jesus loved and how he ran faster, and you know,
John is talking about himself, and I just think that
is adorable that he still is like, yeah, and the

(09:21):
one who Jesus loved ran faster and got there first.
He's got to make that point. I just think I
love seeing the human side of the disciples and it
just it just makes me smile.

Speaker 2 (09:34):
What else not just on it like keeps coming up right,
the story, Yeah, yeah, funny, funny, funny, But it.

Speaker 1 (09:44):
Also stands out to me that these disciples all had
different reactions, right, Simon, Peter, John, and Mary Magdalene.

Speaker 5 (09:52):
Yeah, we'll often call Mary Magdalene the apostle to the apostles,
apostle meaning somebody who's sent, somebody who goes and is
sent to proclaim the good news.

Speaker 3 (10:08):
And she's the first one two.

Speaker 4 (10:12):
Have seen evidence of the good news, and so she
goes and wants to tell others about about this evidence.
And then yeah, the John Bloby disciple and Peter go
and yeah, they I mean there's yeah, there's a mix
of confusion, doubt, and I mean for Peter kind of

(10:37):
it's it's it's kind of amazing actually, because it says
there that they did not yet understand the teaching of
Jesus that even rise in the dead, which in a
way at least two thousand years later, and having having
read the scriptures over and over again, we probably find
that amazing because it seems like Jesus had said this

(10:59):
many time, but for them it's still they still don't
have that understanding. Yet he believed without the understanding, he
believed that Jesus had risen, and so there's I mean,
I think the Peter's reaction, I think is the last

(11:20):
one because it's I think it's lifted up as a
kind of incredible sort of belief that.

Speaker 3 (11:28):
It's almost the you know, having.

Speaker 4 (11:33):
The net, it's sort of having the absence of something
then brings about. He gets filled with hope because of
the absence of it. And so I think his without
really understanding what was going on, what is going on,
he believed. And I think that I think we're we're
asked to make those choices all of the time in

(11:53):
our lives where we don't really quite understand what's going on,
We don't really quite understand why this person is is
acting this way, but we believe in them. Still, we
don't fully understand why God has put us in this
difficult situation, but we believe that he'll help us through it.

Speaker 3 (12:17):
We have we have the choice to believe or not
to believe.

Speaker 4 (12:19):
In Peter shows to believe, and you know, I think
today reminds us of the power of that of that
choice that we can that we can always make too.

Speaker 2 (12:28):
Yeah, And I think the humanity when when Mary came
to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed.
The Yeah, of all the teaching and walking with Jesus,
I mean so close to him, But the assumption is
that the stone has been removed in the body has
been stolen, because that's the only thing in human experience

(12:54):
that makes any sense, because resurrection has never happened before. Right,
So it doesn't matter how much Jesus has taught on this,
it's so fantastical. Back to my other word that I'm
sitting with, it's so otherworldly, it's so incomprehensible. Even though
he said it, even though he's all these allegories and

(13:14):
all these explanations that Jesus has used it, it still
doesn't make any human sense. So when you see a
stone moved, there isn't any comprehension of what that could
mean except someone has taken the body and done something
with it. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (13:33):
Yeah, And then all.

Speaker 2 (13:34):
This, even the even the fabrics and where that there's
a head covering in one place and the body coverings
in another, and the whole comparison with Lazarus, that Lazarus
came out and he was still wearing the he was
still wearing They're like, hey, take that thing off. Your head, right,
they're all that confusion about Lazarus, right, because he came
out still wearing the wrapping. So it's very important to

(13:58):
have that note, right, that the that the linen is
still there in the tomb, that there wasn't a body
that came out wrapped in right, all these all these
details that that signified that there's a resurrection, well, no
human had ever had any experience with that. Yeah, so

(14:18):
you just see this. This the humanity of these disciples.
It's just they can't wrap their mind around it. And
I don't know that we and I don't know that
we can. I don't know that I can that I
still can. I still struggle that I believe, but I
still struggle because it is such and I think that's

(14:39):
and I and I so often say, and I say
this in in sermons, and I say this to myself,
I'm so glad that God is God and I am not,
because if I could wrap my mind around all of this,
it wouldn't be the mystery, right then God wouldn't be God. Yeah.
So there is something that that that that divide, that
gap that the mystery and the fantasy, and there's something

(15:04):
so beautiful about that something important about that that I
can't that I can't understand that that's faith, right, And.

Speaker 1 (15:10):
What stands out to me here is, you know, in
verse thirteen, the angels say to Mary woman, why are
you weeping? And in verse fifteen, Jesus says the same
thing to her woman, why are you weeping? There's so
much I think that we weep over, right, And I
think rightfully so, I think there is a lot to

(15:31):
grieve over in the world around us. And what I
really see here is, you know, that reminder that we
do not grieve as those without hope. That the mystery
of the Gospel, that the glory of the resurrection is
that it does confound us, that it doesn't make sense
based on what we can see around us, but that

(15:53):
God is at work doing bigger things than we can
even imagine. Right, That's just the hope of the gospel
to me, that cultivating of that sense of wonder and
awe that God is at work doing things that that
we can't even understand, but that God, in God's goodness,
is actually providing for us in miraculous ways like resurrection.

(16:17):
That's I think that's wonderful for those of us, especially
who've grieved the losses of people we loved that we
do not grieve as those without hope.

Speaker 4 (16:26):
And I think one of the really hard parts about
grief or about losing somebody, whether it's a death or
even somebody that moves away or just a broken relationship,
is that it's hard to let go of that. And
Jesus says to Mary, you know, stop holding onto me,

(16:50):
or I'm not yet a send to my father, but
I am going to my father, and he's also your father,
And so I understand and that you that you grieve,
that you don't want me to go, but I need
to go. And yeah, that's such a human reality that

(17:14):
we don't we don't we don't want to let it go.
Think the good things in our lives, especially the really
close relationships that we have, are just so hard to
let go of. But I think I mean whether death,
I mean, of course is a good example where it's
just it's it's a final thing in this life.

Speaker 3 (17:35):
And and so.

Speaker 4 (17:37):
You we either let go, not forget, but let go
of the attachment that we have.

Speaker 3 (17:43):
To it, or you know, we we we don't.

Speaker 4 (17:48):
Fully let the person go off into their own space,
and we don't fully let ourselves advance in our lives
accompanied by the relationship that we have had with that person. Well,
I think I think this is you know, Mary's reaction

(18:11):
is a very real reaction. I mean all of it.
You know, the the fear at the beginning of of
seeing the tomb empty and not knowing what's happened, maybe
the anger that she had that thinking that it was
taken away or stolen, the weeping that she had, you know,
thinking that she had lost any sort of connection to

(18:32):
to Jesus, and then to the trying to hold on
to that because it was so good. But God the
Father was calling Jesus and her to something different in
this stage and that that's all.

Speaker 3 (18:50):
That's a really hard thing for a lot of us.

Speaker 4 (18:52):
But this is a good reminder of of the need
the need for that.

Speaker 2 (18:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (18:57):
Yeah, that that strikes me too.

Speaker 4 (18:59):
You know.

Speaker 1 (18:59):
She she didn't know that Jesus was there, but Jesus
was there.

Speaker 3 (19:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (19:04):
And to me as a person of faith, like I
have to trust that that even when I can't understand
that Jesus is here with me, that God is here
with me, that God is here with me, right, and
that that line of verse seventeen really stood out to
me as we read it today, where Jesus said to
Mary Magdalene, tell that to other your brothers, I am
ascending to my father and your father, my God and

(19:27):
your God.

Speaker 3 (19:28):
That's just.

Speaker 1 (19:30):
Beautiful.

Speaker 2 (19:34):
And what do you make of the tomb is in
they say a garden like a garden tomb, right, And
then Jesus is mistaken for the gardener, right? And do
we see this as kind of this eden and you
know the fact that this whole God as the gardener

(19:58):
God who tells the soil and our lives and we
are right all all these this imagery. Do you see
that in this scene? You know, I just Easter being
in in Michigan of course, being the springtime, and with
all the things that are sprouting, and I know in

(20:20):
our church will have people will bring flowers and fill
this cross, you know, with all these living, beautiful sprouting
things and all this floral beauty, and so that imagery
is so so prescient for us. Do you do you
see that in this text? Do you see this really
Edenic kind of comparison or does that kind of fall flat?

(20:44):
Does that feel kind of contrived for you both?

Speaker 1 (20:47):
I just love that Jesus gets mistaken for a gardener.
I mean I do too. Our God gets mistaken for
a gardener. That just says something, you know, especially you know,
on my mother's side. I come from a long line
of Dutch gardeners and greenhouse growers, so he was he
was one of the common people like us, right I.
I just I love that image of God as the gardener.

Speaker 4 (21:10):
Yeah, I mean, that's it's it's a cool sort of
twister or sort of detail of the story that I
hadn't pastor Ruth, I haven't. I hadn't really thought about
it in that way before this.

Speaker 3 (21:24):
This imagery, the garden imagery, Garden of Eden.

Speaker 4 (21:30):
Uh, yeah, I'd have to, I'd have to ponder that more.

Speaker 3 (21:33):
I didn't. I didn't.

Speaker 4 (21:34):
I never thought about this story in that way. But
something to think about.

Speaker 2 (21:41):
Yeah, yeah. And I don't know if it breaks down,
of course, as the whole Jesus is the Adam and
you know, they are all all those kind of parallels.
And I don't know how much it breaks down and
how much of it is supported in this text, but
certainly the the gardener, just how oh God tills the
soil for all of us, and the growth and the

(22:02):
prunin and right and supports John is just full of
all the pruning imagery and the branches and yeah, but
that imagery is so powerful throughout this gospel that it
just only makes sense that kind of the apex of
the story would involve something that is so organic.

Speaker 1 (22:23):
Yeah, powerful, I think, yeah, And it reminds us, you know,
back in John twelve, where talks about Jesus says, the seed,
you know, must fall into the earth and die before
it can be borne into something new. Right, Something that
produces life, provides for life, sustains life, and that that's

(22:43):
what Jesus was comparing his death and resurrection and ascension
to I just think, yeah, I appreciate that, Reverend Ruth.
It's good to think about that. Yeah, especially this time
of year, right when we're looking at planting things and
growing gardens. And yeah, any other final thoughts before we

(23:06):
close today on this passage, Well, thank you both for
being on behalf of Father Mike and Reverend Ruth. Happy
Resurrection Day, Happy Easter. We're just so glad today to
celebrate the risen Lord with all of you.

Speaker 3 (23:23):
Yes, absolutely Easter.

Speaker 2 (23:26):
Yes,