Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb.

John 20:1

Did you feel it, too?

I'm not sure why, but pathos - the experience of pity or sadness - that's what I felt, first, this year as I sat with this text.

Actually, maybe I do know why. I think Larry McMurtry may be to blame. Many of you will know that name. McMurtry is the author of, among many other titles, Lonesome Dove , the sprawling cowboy epic set in the American West.

It is a brilliant book for many reasons, not least because in Augustus McCrae and Woodrow F. Call, McMurtry gives us two of the most colorful characters in all of American fiction.

When Robyn and I realized we both loved the book, we opted to watch the mini-series together recently. Now, Lonesome Dove is no Easter allegory. But the last installment of the series brought into focus for me something of what the characters in today's story must have felt on that first Easter morning.

In the mini-series Augustus McRae is played brilliantly by Robert Duvall. He is a larger than life figure. Exasperating, stubborn, tender, tough, eccentric, compassionate, bursting with life.

His counterpart, Woodrow Call, played by Tommy Lee Jones, is the antithesis of Gus. He's dour and stoic. He's bad with the ladies and even worse with his son. He is seemingly impervious to life's joys and sorrows.

Until the end. Until the end when you see just how much Woodrow loved his friend, Gus. The two of them have left their home in Texas, with a herd of cattle. Their goal is to drive the herd all the way to Montana and establish there the first working ranch in that wild new territory.

It's a harrowing journey to say the least. And sure enough, shortly after they cross into Montana, Gus is wounded in a skirmish with some Indians. He takes an arrow in the leg, succumbs to blood poisoning; and just as they are about to complete their journey, he dies.

But not before he makes Woodrow promise to cart him back to Texas to be buried in his home ground. Which Woodrow does, a 2,500 mile act of such faithful devotion it belongs in scripture.

Woodrow undertakes the return trip to Montana with his characteristic stoicism. Until he gets to the little pecan grove where Gus asked to be buried.

As he drives the rickety wooden cross into the ground that will serve as Gus's headstone, tears begin to wet Woodrow's rock hard-face, running down his cheeks like little waterfalls running over granite.

For Woodrow, the sun might as well have fallen from the sky. He has lost the great friend of his life and he is in the darkness of grief. You can see the pathos on his face, you can see it in his eyes, in the quiver of his lips, the pathos so beautifully captured in W. H. Auden's great poem, "Funeral Blues":

He was my North, my South, my East and West, My working week and my Sunday rest, My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song; I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong. The stars are not wanted now; put out every one, Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun, Pour away the ocean and sweep up the woods; For nothing now can ever come to any good.

Just so today, with this story. Mary Magdalene has risen early from her bed, sleep presumably having been stolen from her by grief. Rising, she heads to the tomb in the dark because what else was she going to do? The sun has gone out of her sky. Where else could she go?

When she arrives, she's met with a stunning discovery. The body is gone. The focus of her grief has seemingly been stolen. She runs and tells Peter and an unnamed disciple this distressing news.

They, in turn, make a beeline for the grave. They, too, feel the loss like an arrow in the heart, so they actually run - something grown men in that time never do - they run back to the tomb.

And then something inexplicable and wonderful happens, something totally unexpected. One of the disciples, the unnamed one - which means it could be any one of us - one of them looks into the tomb, sees that Jesus is gone, and simply believes. To that point, the text tells us, he did not understand the scripture, that Jesus must rise from the dead.

But as he peered into that dark cave maybe he smelled something he'd never smelled before - the scent of resurrection, like the smell of a thousand lilies covered in angel dust. Or maybe the tomb was still smoking from having been lit up with the life-giving fire of God.

Whatever the reason, this disciple had the first Easter experience ever. He did not understand the scripture, John tells us. Who can understand this thing that has happened? It defies all logic. It defies our experience. In the end it doesn't matter if it's literal or allegorical or metaphorical cause it's more than all of those. It's resurrection; it's beyond our categories. It's supposed to be.

But for this disciple it was easy. He saw the tomb was empty, and so he believed.

Ah, but not Mary. Already we see in the scriptural record room for differences of opinion and experience in matters of faith. The text gives room for doubt to live along side faith; room for grief to inhabit the same venue as joy, at least for a time.

Mary saw the same thing as the other disciple but she did not believe. She stood weeping outside the tomb. She's unconvinced, locked in her grief. It seems that for Mary, there is no way to fix this; there's nothing that can make her feel better. Jesus is gone. The man who was her north, her south, her east, her west, her working week and her Sabbath rest. This man, this larger than life figure, is gone.

So she stands there outside the tomb, weeping in the darkness. Before we get to Easter; before we get to faith or to joy, maybe we weep with her cause we know that place. We've stood outside that tomb, or one like it, in our own darkness, when we've lost someone or something we loved beyond words - a spouse, a child, a marriage, a pet, our health, our career, our future.

And so we weep with her because we know that feeling. There is no way to fix this, there's nothing that can make us feel any better. And so we stand there, weeping with the darkness of Good Friday all around us.

If you've never felt that, you just haven't lived long enough.

* * *

Now, who would have thought that in a male dominated culture, a woman would carry this much weight in one of history's pivotal stories? And especially this woman. The only thing we know about her biographically we get from Luke's gospel, that she is the one from whom Jesus has driven seven demons.

Turns out that's no small detail. James Kay, a professor of homiletics at Princeton Seminary, points out that in that era, to speak of demon possession was a way of saying there were destructive forces at work in one's life. Today, of course, we have more sophisticated names for such forces. Addiction, bulimia, obsessive-compulsive disorder.

We don't know what Mary's specific issues were of course, we only know that if there were seven demons, whatever was going on with her was a lot.

And then she met this strange man who puts her right, who sets her on the path toward wholeness, toward herself.

What she didn't know then is that he would also set her on a path toward Good Friday and Easter, toward a season when she would come face to face with realities that would break her heart, realities she could not understand or explain, realities that would ultimately illuminate her heart, her life, with joy.

And it is to this woman that Jesus first appears. To this former drug addict, say, and not to James or John, that the resurrected Christ first makes himself known.

It is of course totally unexpected. Why would he do such a thing? In an era of male privilege, why would he reveal himself to a woman; a woman, moreover, with such a sketchy past?

Why would he reveal himself to history in the presence of a nobody like Mary Magdalene? Because he's still up to his same old tricks, is why; because the world is full of Mary Magdalene's, and because he's still committed to loving all of us Mary's into wholeness.

Different body - this one now has scars on it - same old Jesus.

And yet. And yet something is different, after all. Pre-resurrection, Jesus is available, open to being touched and loved by his followers.

But not now. Once Mary recovers from the shock - and it takes a while for this is no small encounter; this one boggles the mind and the heart - once she calms down, his first command to her is unexpected.

Do not hold on to me, Mary. Let me go.

But maybe that, too, is not so surprising after all. On that long return trip to Texas, Woodrow Call literally carts the body of his friend Gus behind him. The body is in a coffin, and the coffin is strapped to a donkey cart.

During a river crossing, the cart hits a submerged rock and tips to the side. The force of the river dislodges the coffin, which starts floating downstream. Panicked, Woodrow swims after it.

Inevitably, the coffin hits yet more rocks and breaks apart. Gus's body, wrapped in grave clothes, floats free. Finally Woodrow catches up to it, and grabs hold of it and wraps his arms around it, like he'll never let go again. Why would he? He's got his friend back.

But of course he doesn't have his friend back, so he must let go. And so must Mary. She wants to hang on to the old Jesus. Pre-resurrection Jesus. But to follow him now, post-resurrection, she's got to let go of her old categories. She's got to let him be bigger than she thought he was. She's got to let him be alive.

Easter ultimately asks all of us to let go of our categories. For in the end, this is a different story than Lovesome Dove. That's why it's Gospel, not literature.

That's why it's Good News, not fiction. For this story is ultimately not about death. It's about resurrection. And if you haven't seen it yet, if you haven't experienced the life-altering bolt of joy that Mary did on that first Easter morning, you haven't lived long enough.

One of these days you'll turn around, maybe in the garden of your own sorrows, your own Gethsemene, or maybe in the garden in your back yard, maybe in the street, maybe in the hospital, maybe in the cancer ward, maybe in your pajamas in the darkness of night or maybe in formal attire in the bright light of day . . .

One day you'll turn around and you'll be met by the living Christ, by a God who is bigger than you imagine, and more present than you could possibly hope for. Easter faith will be born in you and you will believe this Gospel story.

And, like Mary, you will and want to announce to the disciples, "I have seen the Lord."

Amen! Happy Easter!