Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb.
Mary was up all night. Was she a “morning lark” up early, or a “night owl” out late? Neither one, I say: She just had a bad night. In this hardship, she is our companion: you’ve surely had some bad nights. You came here this morning while it was still dark: I doubt you slept all that much last night.
Coming to the tomb before dawn; coming to church before dawn; getting up and out of the house when you can’t stop thinking about everything: We all know this. We’re all restless. Mary found her way to the tomb before dawn because she was restless.
She was grieving of course, and this great feast of Resurrection is at least in part about human grief, the kind of grief that wakes you in the night, and haunts you day and night. Mary’s closest friend and beloved teacher had been publicly executed, dashing everyone’s hopes — and profoundly traumatizing all of them, too. It took almost four centuries for Christians to make visual art about the crucifixion. This is generational trauma.
So yes, Mary was overwrought with grief. She returns to the tomb later in the morning to weep some more, after telling the others that the body was gone. Let Mary be your exemplar: You aren’t wrong to bring your grief with you, before dawn, on Easter day. You aren’t wrong to carry your grief all the way up here, to this Table of thanksgiving. And you aren’t wrong to still be weeping hours later, whatever Good News you might discover here.
But there are other things going on today, other ideas and insights, other teachings and exhortations, reasons other than grief why Mary Magdalene was keeping vigil in the night. Resurrection is not only about grief! Consider this: she saw that the stone had been moved, then rushed back to tell the others that his body was gone. How did she know his body was gone? Somehow she knew there was more going on in the shadows of that open cave, but we aren’t told that she went inside to investigate. She just knew.
She knew because she had been thinking it through. Mary was savvy and discerning; Mary was sharper than most of the others, quick to reach correct conclusions. She saw the disturbance at the tomb and quickly sized up the situation, having spent the night contemplating everything in her mind.
Maybe she was dogged in her night-long vigil by nagging questions, continually lobbed at her by her inner voices, questions like, “Didn’t he say he would rise on the third day?!” or “This just can’t be the end of the story, of his story, of our story. He said wondrous things and performed miraculous signs. He went into this awful weekend so serene. How could this be the end?” And the most vexing question: “What now?”
Mary was up pacing, or (if she’s like me when I’m restless) Mary was up cleaning, sweeping, tidying, laundering, organizing. She couldn’t breathe deeply and rest. She couldn’t just leave it alone, let it go.
And so it is with us, the restless nighttime vigil companions of Mary. By day and night, we work in our various vocations. We teach and counsel; we act and sing and play musical instruments; we support complex data systems and file our clients’ taxes; we care for our neighbors and tend to our families; some of us care for this parish in myriad ways, most of them far from spectacular.
So… maybe we’re restless in the night because our daily labors all feel so weak and inadequate, so disappointingly insufficient to the massive task that lies before us, a task that demands our hope and confidence, but like the sleepless Mary, we have a hard time with hope and confidence because we’re just overwhelmed by all the terrible things blowing up everywhere.
And our faith tradition just piles on the pressure. The Gospel of Jesus Christ sends us into the world to liberate the oppressed, to lift up the broken-hearted, to proclaim good news to the poor – and that all sounds so grand. How exactly can our mission be as ordinary as whatever you did last Tuesday afternoon? Whether you’re a lark or an owl, when you pass a bad night, you’re probably worrying about your small part in a tiny corner of this roiling world.
Mary has an encouraging answer for us. She was an unremarkable peasant in a backwater colony of a vast empire. She missed her friend. She fretted about the catastrophe they all just suffered, one of countless catastrophes that happened on the regular in that occupied land. She wondered what went wrong, and worried what was going to happen next. She pondered what she should do next. But be encouraged: When she was up and active while the world slept, she successfully worked out her next steps. She found an answer or two. Then she got up and out, and got started on the most wondrous day of her life.
So take heart. Here at this Table of Thanksgiving, here at this festive wedding banquet with the Risen One, now on this first day of the week, now on this first day of a new creation, you’re an ordinary little person in a big broken world. You need not have it all worked out, and you certainly need not leave your grief at home. Come and gather here.
You’ve been up for hours now, but maybe you’ve been fretting for years about the thousand thousand problems we face in these hard times. Maybe you’ve been pondering how the word “resurrection” has any meaning when so many people are in harm’s way, and the body count just keeps rising. Maybe you’ve been doing your part, pushing past your doubts and discouragement, clearing the clutter of your anxiety and confusion, working out how you’re going to make a tiny difference each morning.
Bring all of that here, up here to this Table. Bring your fears, your dilemmas, your puzzled wonderings. You may find, like Mary, that you’ve already worked out more than you know. And you will find, like Mary, that you will not be the only one who’s here. You will not be the only one who’s been up in the night trying to work everything out. You will not be the only one exhausted by grief. And you will not be the only one who finds your greatest friend and teacher here, living and moving, reconciling us all and sending us back out to announce, to ears aching for good news, that we have seen the Lord.
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Preached at the Great Easter Vigil, April 5, 2026, at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Seattle, Washington.
Nine readings from the Hebrew Bible
Romans 6:3-11
John 20:1-18