Easter Sunday, 2016.

When our lives are so rudely interrupted with pain and sickness, we wonder about what God is doing in our lives. Some may think that God has some plan for what this is happening, while others may grow bitter. The death of Jesus was an interruption to his life: It was an interruption in the lives of his disciples and in the life of Mary Magdalene. Everything that Jesus had been doing for the disciples, for the crowds, for Mary, was now over. Jesus was dead and he could no longer stop or remove the interruptions in people's lives. He made the blind see! He raised the dead! He fed the hungry, and healed the sick! Jesus’ love interrupted the harshness of life, the coldness of hearts. The association with Jesus made life better.

But Jesus had been killed. All his goodness had been interrupted by death. All his work of healing had been interrupted by death. All his love for people had been interrupted by death. Not just interrupted, though, because death put an end to what Jesus was doing. Death has put an end to Jesus. And the disciples did not think that Jesus could overcome this interruption of his life. Death was not an interruption. It was an end. He may have raised a few others back to life. But he could do nothing about raising himself back to life because he was dead.

So, Mary Magdalene grieved the death of Jesus. The fact that his body was not in the tomb only meant that someone had moved his body. Never could it have occurred to her that Jesus would rise from the dead. "For as yet she did not understand Scripture that he must rise from the dead." Peter did not understand Scripture. The other disciple did not understand Scripture. He only believed Mary and her news that the stone had been removed from the tomb and that the body of Jesus had been taken away. Peter and John did not know what to do. They left. Mary remained and continued to grieve.

Now her grief was interrupted, when she saw Jesus standing in front of her. She may not have recognized him. She was certainly not expecting to see him. An empty tomb is not enough to convince her that the person she had seen dead was now alive. An empty tomb is not enough to prove to anyone that the dead person is alive. Jesus does not look at death as something that interrupts life. Instead, he looks at death as our not having relationship with God. Therefore, he interrupts death by his resurrection. Jesus interrupts Mary's burden of death by calling her name. Oh, what a joy! She turned and clung to Jesus, grabbed onto him.

Jesus’ being alive, while a new event, an event Mary was glad to experience, was not enough. It was, just a fact. And he was alive in order to do something for us. What he had done for us by rising from the dead was to make us alive again. He raises us up to life by making his God our God, and to make his Father our Father. Jesus was going up to his Father, so that his Father, who raised him from the dead, would be our Father and raise us from the dead!

We do not have to see things as interrupting our lives anymore. Now, in the midst of death, in the midst of sickness, pain, worry and despair, there is the risen Jesus! Now, in the midst of death, in the midst of sickness, we see life. We see life because Jesus is risen! Now, it is God who is saving us with the life of Jesus. It is God who is with us in Jesus. It is God who forgives us and gives us life with him, because Jesus is risen from the dead!

Do you see interruptions in your life? Jesus sees interruptions in our death! He looks at his life as something: that gives us life, interrupts our worries, our griefs, our pain, and our hatred. No matter what happens. He interrupts us with his forgiveness and with his peace.

Look! See the empty tomb! See the risen Jesus. Death is interrupted! God is for us because Jesus is risen! Interrupt people's grief, interrupt people's worry, and interrupt their feelings of being judged. Tell them, in the fashion of Mary, "I have seen the Lord! He is risen!"