Mark 16:1-8
When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. They had been saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.” So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.
I read an article, just last week, about the fact that Ralph Waldo Emerson visited his wife’s tomb back in March, of 1832. His wife’s name was Ellen Tucker and she’d been dead for over a year and half by then. She was 18 and Emerson was 24 when they met in 1827. They were married in 1829. And she died less than two years after that, of tuberculosis. So she was only 20.
Of course, there’s nothing note-worthy about a still-grieving husband visiting his deceased wife’s tomb a year and a half after she’d died. What is noteworthy about Emerson’s visit – is that he opened the coffin to see her. And he wrote a note about it in his journal. Just a note, too. Nothing more. All he wrote was, “I visited Ellen’s tomb and opened the coffin.”
So, scholars are left to wonder what he saw… how he felt… why he did it in the first place… and what effect it had on him. He was still journaling to his dead wife as though she were alive at this point, so some say he remained in such grief that he just had to see her body again, for himself. Others believe, because of that grief, he had a desperate desire, still, to be with her. Someone even suggested Emerson thought his wife might be a vampire.
Even more curious, is that Emerson did it again. Not with his deceased wife, Ellen this time, but with the son of his second wife, Waldo, who died at the age of 5, in 1842. His son’s coffin was being moved from one cemetery to another, 15 years later, and his father opened it to look inside and see his son. Like before, with his wife, he never said more than that he had done it, according to his daughter.
The gist of the article – the details of which I’ll spare you – is that Emerson’s coffin-opening expeditions, as private and curious as they were and are, changed him. He did his most prolific writing during the span of time between the opening of Ellen’s coffin and his son’s. And in that work, there is apparently a discernable transformation of his faith and philosophy, his move toward Transcendentalism, and more.
Of course, all of this made me wonder about the women at the tomb that first Easter.
Their reasons and expectations for being there were clear: They had a job to do. They had come to anoint the body of Jesus. It had only been a few days, not years, since he had died and was buried so they were much more certain about what they would find, I imagine. Or so they would have believed.
And, obviously, what they found – or didn’t find, as it were – changed them, too. He wasn’t there. There was no body to see or corpse to smell. There was just some messenger with instructions: “Don’t be alarmed. You’re looking for Jesus. He’s on his way back to Galilee, like he told you. Go and find him there.”
Like Ralph Waldo Emerson – at least, initially, and according to Mark’s Gospel – they didn’t say much about it. With the women at Jesus’ tomb we know that “…terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.” I can only imagine there might have been some measure of terror, amazement, and maybe even fear for Emerson, too, though for very different reasons.
Of course, none of this is really about Ralph Waldo Emerson or Mary Magdalene, or Mary, the mother of James, or Salome, either. I wonder what brings us here so early this morning. Who are these weirdos – you and I – who get up at the break of day on Easter morning – many of us year after year – to be the first to peek inside the tomb?
Some of us are grieving, maybe. Or expecting to, sometime soon. We might be afraid of something, ourselves, perhaps. Or curious about what things will look like in the strange, new, post-Covid world of the days to come. Some of us long for the familiar words of hope we know we’ll hear. Maybe we want or need to be reminded or convinced that that grave really was empty. Maybe some of us are simply looking forward to a promise or a song or a light in the darkness we don’t feel compelled to explain
Whatever the case, I hope what we see and hear at this empty tomb changes us.
I hope this Good News of new life and resurrection and forgiveness and joy moves us this time around – for the first time, maybe… or again… or in a new way, perhaps, yet to be determined.
I hope maybe being here again, for another Easter, reminds or inspires us to not be so afraid of looking death in the eye – our own, or that of someone we love.
I hope Easter’s Good News moves us to find some measure of hope at the graveside in spite of the grief and sadness that naturally come with it.
And I hope this moves us, compels us to find, to meet, and to introduce the living Jesus of God’s love and grace and mercy to the world around us because of it all.
Amen. Alleluia. Happy Easter.
