It is an important anniversary. Eighty years ago this week, the British Eleventh Armoured Division liberated the concentration camp at Bergen-Belsen.
The troops who opened the gates there discovered the graves of many, and the true extent of Nazi hatred of Jews, Sinti and Roma, Poles, Slaves, Gay people, the Disabled, and Transgender people.
They discovered how these groups had been hated, and dismissed from the sight of German society as less than fully human, and then had been killed.
They also discovered, moving amid the mass graves like skeletons walking, survivors: those who had been condemned to the death of the camps, and yet they were alive still – and, rejoicing in their salvation, they were again being recognised as fully alive.
rejoicing in their salvation, they were again being recognised as fully alive.
Renee Salt was one of these survivors. And just last years, she returned to visit Bergen-Belsen for the first time since 1945. She went there, overwhelmed by emotion, in order to tell the story of those who had not survived the camps, so that of their stories not one should be lost.
It is an important anniversary. About 2000 years ago this week, Mary Magdalene went to a place of pain and of a death, carried out by imperial power against an innocent victim. We don’t know why she went to a place that was so full of pain for her, but she perhaps it was to ensure that Jesus’ story was remembered in the place of his burial. Perhaps it was to ensure he would not be lost and forgotten even in death, because of her witness to his memory.
Yet when she arrived at the grave, Mary found that Jesus’ body was absent, and the full devastation of her grief at Jesus’ death was even more complete.
The places where we remember those we love and yet see no longer in life can be tremendously important, and without their memorials being fixed and honoured, our griefs can seem cast adrift and endless.
Mary, after her second trip to the tomb, stood by the last place of Jesus’ presence, weeping. And through her tears, she begged angels, and then Jesus himself, all unknowingly, that she might see him again: that she might know where she could mourn still in the presence of her Lord.
Seeing is believing, so they say, but in John’s gospel coming to know that we are being seen, truly and fully, is what matters
Mary did not recognise that she was still in the presence of her Lord until the point when he recognised her: when Jesus called her by name: ‘Mary’: and when he recognised the fullness of her humanity, in the honour of the duty he then gave her to proclaim his resurrection to the other disciples. Rejoicing suddenly in Jesus resurrection in this moment and in this way, Mary also becomes aware of herself as full alive in Christ, and capable of sharing his joy.
John’s gospel subtly echoes Mary’s confusion and the shock of her sudden understanding by using slightly different words for ‘seeing and ‘knowing’ throughout this passage; so that Mary sees, but does not see with understanding at first, and then the gospel uses words that show she both sees and understands together at the end.
Seeing is believing, so they say, but in John’s gospel coming to know that we are being seen, truly and fully, is what matters because it allows our own sight and belief to flourish. Being recognised and called by Jesus, Mary believes in who he is, because he shows that he knows fully who she is.
In a world that still denies the fullness of human rights to some people, and equalities to others, please know that this is the way that God sees us all.
You are fully seen, in God’s fullest understanding – and you are known by name.
You are fully loved, in God’s presence and his care – and your concerns and griefs are known too.
You are fully called, by the God who knows you as you were created to be – and your calling is to realise that in your fullest life.
You are fully seen, in God’s fullest understanding – and you are known by name.
You are fully loved, in God’s presence and his care – and your concerns and griefs are known too.
You are fully called, by the God who knows you as you were created to be – and your calling is to realise that in your fullest life.
In these ways, and countless others, Jesus’ resurrection is for you, without any partiality.
In this knowledge, you are able to share a new hope, that comes even out of a place of destruction and despair. Just as Renee Salt has spoken out against prejudice and violence, you have a vocation to carry new memories of hope forward into the future. Just as Mary Magdalene preached the divine word of the resurrection to the other disciples, you have an apostolic message to proclaim: that God in Christ has defeated all the powers of hate and even of death.
Knowing that you are fully seen, loved, and called, how will you now proclaim and live God’s message of love in Christ to the world: that he is Lord of all?
Christ is risen:
He is risen indeed, Alleluia.
Amen.