Don Friesen
It was early in the morning -- it was still dark -- when Mary Magdalene came to Jesus' tomb, no doubt to mourn his passing, perhaps to leave something at his tomb as a sign of her love for him. Even in the darkness, however, she noticed that the stone covering the entrance to the tomb had been removed! I don't know what went through her mind -- perhaps she suspected grave robbers -- but she quickly brought it to the attention of the other disciples, and they all assumed the worst! Either someone had stolen Jesus' body, or the Romans had decided that they wouldn't allow Jesus to rest in peace after all. Barbaric regimes that favoured crucifixion as a method of capital punishment were not above leaving the bodies of those they killed in full view in order to concentrate the minds of others who might be tempted to make trouble.
Mary and the other disciples ran back to the tomb, and the disciple who got there first looked in and saw the "linen wrappings" (John 20:5) used to lay out Jesus' body. Simon Peter arrived, then, and went inside the tomb. And the Gospel of John tells us that he "saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the cloth that had been on Jesus' head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself." (20:6-7)
Our gospel text pays a surprising amount of attention to Jesus' graveclothes. It may be that John intended this as evidence of Jesus' resurrection, the assumption being that if Jesus' body was stolen, the body snatchers would not have taken the time to unwrap the graveclothes. The burial customs of the day required one to wrap the body of the deceased in narrow linen cloths filled with spices. Those who prepared the body wound the linen bandages around and around the body, sprinkling the powdered spices and gooey gummed fragrances into the folds as they wrapped. A grave robber would not have take the time to unwind all those strips of sticky linen! The graveclothes were essentially undisturbed. Everything was in place, except for the fact that there was no body!
The other disciples left, but Mary remained behind, and it was then that Jesus appeared to her. Now, I don't mean to be impertinent, but one wonders, with the graveclothes still in the tomb, where Jesus got his new clothes! Some have suggested that Jesus borrowed some clothes from the groundskeeper, and that's why Mary Magdalene mistook him for the gardener (John 20:15), but what's important about the clothes, of course, is the implied declaration that graveclothes are for the dead! Jesus had no more need for the shroud of death.
Graveclothes Hamper the Movements of Life
Earlier in the Gospel of John Jesus went to visit his friend, Lazarus, when he heard Lazarus was sick, but he got there too late and people had already gathered to mourn Lazarus' passing. Jesus was moved by their concern and, asking some people to roll away the stone from Lazarus' tomb, he "cried with a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come out!'" Reports John's Gospel, "The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. (And) Jesus said to them, ‘Unbind him, and let him go.'" (John 11:43-44)
It's a dramatic story, even with the very earthy details I left out, but we are left with the obvious implication that graveclothes are not intended for those who are alive! They restrict movement. They're intended for bodies that don't move! They hamper the ordinary, vital movements of life.
Mary Magdalene expected to see Jesus in graveclothes, and she herself was still wrapped in a mantel of sadness. When the other disciples went home, Mary remained behind, "weeping outside the tomb" (John 20:11), and the angels "said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping?' She said to them, ‘They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.'" (20:13) Mary was still in mourning mode and it kept her from recognizing Jesus, even when he stood before her and asked her himself, "Woman, why are you weeping?" (20:15) And she gave him the same reply. And finally, when Jesus said to her, "Mary!" she must have recognized his voice, and she turned and said to him in Hebrew, "‘Rabbouni!' (which means Teacher)". (20:16) Whereupon she threw her mantel of sadness aside and went and announced to the disciples, "I have seen the Lord!" (20:18)
Easter Cast-offs
The Risen Christ cast his graveclothes aside. He had no need of them. I don't know how well the Apostle Paul knew John's version of the resurrection, but I wonder if the emphasis upon the graveclothes didn't inspire his letter to the Colossian congregation. In Colossians, chapter 3, Paul uses the language of clothing in connection with Christ's death and resurrection. He writes, "So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. ... Put to death, therefore, whatever in you is earthly...." (Colossians 3:1, 5) And then, in verse 12 Paul encourages believers to: "...put on the garments that suit God's chosen people...." (3:12, NEB) and then goes on to pick out an appropriate spiritual wardrobe for Christian believers. Before he does so, however, he lists a number of specific garments that we would do well to discard -- the garments of sexual immorality (PHL), indecency (NEB), and uncontrolled passion (PHL), the latter word rendered by some translations (NEB, NIV, TEV) as "lust" and which the King James Version coyly renders as "inordinate affection". (3:5) These are cast-offs, says Paul, not even worthy to be sold as factory seconds.
Paul also tags "evil desire," a word denoting the kind of person who is driven by a desire for the wrong things. That one can go in the garbage. Don't even send it to the Sally Ann! Another one fit for the discard pile is covetousness, a word other translations render as "lust for other people's goods" (PHL), or as "ruthless greed" (NEB), meaning the desire to have more -- a desire that soon takes on the dimensions of idolatry. Get rid of it! These are graveclothes, not fit to be worn by those who live in the light of the resurrection.
Not content with this heap of discards, Paul continues to go through our wardrobe, finding there a number of other garments having to do with the temper and the tongue. (Colossians 3:8) These are nothing but filthy rags, and you can throw them on the same heap as the garment of malice (kakia), or spitefulness, as another translation (JER) renders the word. We would also do well to cast off slander (ablasphemia), or abusive language, as another translation (JER) phrases it. Furthermore, advises Paul, "Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have stripped off the old self with its practices and have clothed yourselves with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator." (Colossians 3:9-10)
Paul includes yet another list in this passage, and while he doesn't directly refer to the things listed as garments, it is clear that there is a whole list of social distinctions that are to be cast off as well. There is no more room in the Christian closet for distinctions between Jew and Greek, between circumcised and uncircumcised, between barbarian and Scythian, between slave and free. (Colossians 3:11) Distinctions that separate humankind -- distinctions of race, distinctions between civilized and uncivilized, cultured and uncultured -- these too can be added to the discard heap!
A New Line of Clothing
The Risen Christ exchanged his graveclothes for a new set of clothes. A similar exchange took place in the Early Church, which held its baptismal services at Easter. On the day of baptism new converts would take off their old outer garments when going into the baptismal waters and when they emerged they put on new and pure white robes -- a symbolic divestiture of one kind of life, and the donning of another, the white robes signifying their new life in Christ.
The Apostle Paul tells us that there's a whole new wardrobe waiting for us. The good news of Easter is that we have no more need of our graveclothes! And the even better news is that the Great Designer has prepared a new wardrobe for us! Just as Paul lists specific garments destined for the discard bin, so too he has an inventory of the new line of garments appropriate to Easter. He writes, "...put on the garments that suit God's chosen people ...compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience. Be forbearing with one another, and forgiving, where any of you has cause for complaint: you must forgive as the Lord forgave you." (Colossians 3:12-13, NEB) Over all these clothes, to keep them together and to complete the ensemble, "put on love." (3:14, JER )
The new line of Easter garments has a lot to do with qualities that help us relate to other human beings. There's no mention here of efficiency or cleverness, or of diligence or industry; the great and basic Christian virtues are those which facilitate human relationships and ultimately make the human experience a more harmonious one.
The new garments laid out by Paul appear to coordinate well not only with each other, but also with what our sisters and brothers are or should be wearing. That is, the virtues listed are social graces, habits of mind and heart that promote graceful Christian living. One might also conclude that the social graces named by Paul should be as apparent in our daily life as are the clothes we wear.
I think it's good that each year Easter comes at about the time it does. It's about the time in the cycle of the church year when we begin to snap at each other. We become short with each other, impatient with attitudes and tastes different from our own. We drag back some of our old clothes -- the torn jackets and dirty runners of the human spirit -- simply because we're used to wearing them. We retrieve some of the old relational and attitudinal garments from the discard bin! But they do little to add grace to our daily living and fellowship.
Kathy Galloway tells of her experience, some years ago, of living in a small Christian community in an inner-city housing settlement in Edinburgh. The community consisted of about a dozen adults and six small children inhabiting a six-flat tenement, living in community for a number of reasons, and in part, as a sign of solidarity with the hard-pressed people of that area. They were young, very committed, and intially full of enthusiasm. They wanted to change the world!
Two years later they were holding one of their regular, interminable and rather fractious meetings, their great ideals in shambles. They were deeply divided about a number of things, and for the past two hours, recalls Kathy, "we had been bloodletting, and all of us had been forced to face some things about ourselves we would rather not have faced. Someone began to say what had previously been unthinkable to us -- that we had failed, that our community was fated, that perhaps we should think about moving out, (and) moving on." And then, one of them, who had been silent for a little while, said, earnestly and calmly, but quite firmly, "But we love each other." And the room became very quiet. Everyone sat very still. Shortly afterwards the meeting broke up, and the community went on, but there was a qualitative difference to their community life. "We learned to live," says Kathy, "...with the community we actually had, and not with our agenda for community. We discovered how little we had to teach, and how much we had to learn, about endurance, ...and hope, from the people round about us." (Kathy Galloway, "Stories and Spirituality," February, 2003)
John writes, in his first epistle, "We know that we have passed from death to life because we love one another." (1 John 3:14) May God bless our own community with this Easter spirit, filling us with a generous measure of love and grace.
All quotations of Scripture, unless otherwise noted, are from the New Revised Standard Version.