April 5, 2026

Easter Sunday

John 20:1-18

Epiphany, Winnipeg

So if you’ve ever wondered why Mary thought Jesus was the gardener, here’s why. This is the definitive pastor answer: Mary thought Jesus was the gardener because he was gardening.

Mary came to the tomb early in the morning and saw that the stone was gone, so she ran off to tell a few of her friends. They ran to the tomb to see what Mary had seen, and they saw and believed that the tomb was empty, but they didn’t know why it was empty. And then what did they do? Where did they go? They went home. Mary had gone to tell someone, anyone, about what she had seen, and that someone had taken Jesus’ body away. So Peter and Jesus’ most beloved disciple run to the tomb and they see and they have no idea what to make of it all so they go home. They look. They don’t say a word. They go home.

Mary watches them run down the hill and around the corner, and then goes back to the tomb and looks inside. She sees two angels, and that’s pretty weird, so she turns away and sees someone just over there on this side of the caragana hedge. He’s kneeling in a patch of dirt, wearing a ball cap and those gardening kneepad things. He’s looking really closely at something green that’s trying to grow. He’s all caught up in the beauty of earth and the smell of the early morning air and the sight of things starting to grow in the spring. He hears someone crying, and he turns to look at Mary and says, “What’s wrong?” She thinks he’s the gardener, and she asks him if he took Jesus away. But the gardener is really Jesus, and he looks at her and says, “Mary!”…as if to say, “Mary, it’s me! Jesus!” And then he holds up a handful of cool earth and says, “Doesn’t the dirt smell great in the spring?” And then Mary knows that it’s Jesus. He’s not gone. He’s not dead. He called her by name. He’s right here with her.

Or maybe he says, “Mary, it’s me, Jesus. It’s OK,” in a comforting sort of way. Or maybe he says, “Mary?” Like he didn’t expect to see her there before sunrise. He calls her by name, and then she begins to believe.

This whole Easter thing….it’s kind of a surprise. The surprise of Mary when she saw that her friend whom she knew had died was alive again. Who expected that? Maybe the surprise of Jesus at a turn of events that he seems to have expected but that have caught him off guard just the same. His last memory was a painful last breath on a cross, and then he opened his eyes at the sound of a stone rolling away from the door. Maybe even God, who raised Jesus from the dead, is surprised and delighted at the sight of new life, and of seeing old friends reunited, and seeing the world being made new, like green coming up out of damp cool earth, like the smell of an evergreen forest that’s always such a fresh surprise. Maybe even God looks on in wonder, with the wonder of a gardener who digs and plants and after doing it a thousand times is struck by the wonder of it all when it all comes to life again. It’s always new.

Easter is a kind of surprise. Wherever we see death – the death of the body or the death of hope or the death of freedom or joy – there is always the promise of life, always a promise of a surprise: a surprise that is as sure as the coming of spring.

But maybe it doesn’t always seem so sure. One Easter Sunday a few years ago the church where Val and I worked was using those bulletin covers that always had some kind of interesting painting or picture on the cover. This particular Sunday the picture was a head and shoulders painting of a weather worn farmer with five-o’clock shadow and a ballcap, and he was going like this (Blessing gesture). It was Jesus, mistaken by Mary for the gardener. Val looked at the picture and without hesitating she said, “Hey, that looks like Larry!” And she was right – Jesus looked just like Larry, a friend of ours and a member of that church, who could usually be found in a ball cap, with five o’clock shadow…and although I never saw Larry go like this (blessing gesture), he really did bless so many people just by being around them.

Here’s the thing about Jesus and Mary and Larry, and maybe it’s a surprising thing: When Mary mistakes the risen Jesus for the gardener, it’s not because she’s spiritually blind or distraught or doesn’t have enough faith. She’s just not expecting to see Jesus as flesh and blood because, well, that sort of thing just doesn’t happen. Maybe she thought, “Wow, that gardener sure looks like Jesus, but it couldn’t be him because he died.” But here he is, a real person she can see and hear and even touch if she were closer and had the nerve. The risen Jesus appears as a person, even a person who could be mistaken for Larry the gardener. And he speaks Mary’s name, and now she begins to see. And she runs off to tell what she has seen, but this time it’s not just that Jesus has been taken away. It’s that Jesus is alive.

This Easter day is for us all. It’s for everyone who recognizes Jesus, and who woke up this morning all excited because there’s nothing they like better than the celebration of the resurrection every time it comes around again – springtime after springtime, week after week, day by day. It’s for everyone who believes right to the core that this day matters and that this day changes everything. Maybe that’s you, and it’s really cool that you are that excited about Easter. Welcome to this high festival of the whole year, this holiest feast of the whole holy year.

But you know, this day is also and especially for everyone who thinks it’s just the gardener. Or Larry. And this could be anyone. Because sometimes it’s just hard to see.

I said before that this whole Easter thing is all about surprise. But there are probably some of us here – maybe it’s been all of us at some time in some way, even today – who aren’t finding any particularly joyful surprise bursting forth. Maybe life really is just one thing after another, the same old thing again, no surprise at all, and this story that you’ve heard a million times just doesn’t have anything fresh to say today. No surprise today.

Or maybe surprise and wonder and good news have just been worn away by too many things gone wrong or too many hurts. Like Mary who lost her friend Jesus, and who was already starting to see her community fall apart. Like how many people who have lost the ones they love the most and the grief is too deep for surprise; like a family in Tehran or south Lebanon who have lost their home; like a mother and child afraid to return to a violent home. “Christ is risen” seems like a good idea, but it’s just so hard to see. Maybe it’s just the gardener.

But here’s the thing: when Mary thinks that Jesus is the gardener, Jesus doesn’t turn away with a harrumph and go where someone might know who he is. He looks at her and says “Mary” (comforting). Or he looks at her and says “Mary!” (waking her up). Or he looks at her and says “Mary?” (surprised). And when he speaks her name, she begins to believe.

If you think it’s just the gardener, or if I think it’s really Larry, or if we all have our doubts – really small or really big – the risen Jesus still speaks our name, and will speak it again…and again…and again…and the risen Jesus will still speak, and call us together, and share all his life for the life of us all. For the whole world that is so beloved by God.

Mary thought Jesus was the gardener. And you know, in a way she was right.

Maybe here’s what the gardener is up to today. Someone is grieving today. A friend, a parent, an uncle or aunt, someone they love has died. And there’s a gardener tooling around in the earth and the ash, watering the soil and breathing on it, and life is coming out of that soil again. Someone is being raised to new life, and someone who grieves is being cared and even lifted up to a new kind of life. It can take time, so much time. But the gardener is working on it.

We look around and see a world in turmoil, and empires and powers and armies on all different sides are taking away so much life and filling up so many tombs. And there’s a gardener digging around in the soil and breathing life into it. There’s a gardener saying, “These clowns with their planes and bombs and power. I’m not impressed. I’ll be making everything come to life long after they’re gone.” It can take time, so much time. But the gardener is working on it.

We see a garden in peril, while glaciers melt and the storms get weirder and we lose how many species a day? And there’s a gardener who will never give up on the garden, and who keeps on breathing life into it. It will take time. And so much time. But the gardener is working on it.

Today the gardener takes some bread, born in the earth and the soil; and a cup of drink, born of earth and soil, born in the garden. The gardener says, “Here, this is for you. This is my life, for you.” And the gardener calls us by name, and we begin to believe, and we step out into the light of day, into the life the gardener is giving.

Christ is risen. Christ is risen indeed.