John 20:1-18
‘O Come thou Key of David come’.
As I’ve thought about this sermon – that phrase has been like an ear worm. ‘O Come thou Key of David come’. Where had I heard it? Where have you heard it? Remember that wonderful Advent hymn you sang just a few months ago?
‘O come, O Key of David, come
and open wide our heavenly home.
Make safe for us the heavenward road
and bar the way to death's abode.’
O Come thou key of David come. David – Israel’s King. Jesus – the King born of this line.
The Bible references the ‘key of David’ twice. In Isaiah and in Revelation. On both occasions it is associated with Jesus who opens a door none can shut and closes a door none can open.
Jesus – the key of David.
A key is such a useful image. Keys open and lock, A key on a map gives us the symbols
to enable our orientation whatever terrain we are in. We sing in different keys- The minor and the major. The key – unlocking, orientating, helping us express ourselves. Hold those images a moment.
But now, let’s walk with Mary to the garden, she has lost her key and found herself in a new and terrifying landscape.
It’s dark. She is bowed with grief, utterly traumatised by all she has witnessed. It might be the first day of the week – but from her perspective there is nothing new. She is locked in loss without a glimmer of light. The early morning darkness mirrors the darkness of her heart and mind.
Imagine her horror when she discovers the tomb empty, the body gone. Three times she repeats her belief that ‘they’ have acted to remove Jesus’s body. The trauma has programmed her to expect that those who arrested, abused and killed Jesus are simply continuing with their abhorrent behaviour. She is primed for pain, locked in loss, lost in the terrain of grief. The minor key dominates.
Even in death Jesus is dishonoured and she is further wounded. Her trauma skews her perception of any other explanation. This is simply further abuse of their power and position.
Even his dead body has been desecrated. She is lost, in a strange and bleak landscape. Locked in. Off key. Lost.
She runs for help; Simon Peter and the other disciple come. There is a dash for the tomb. Oddly the linen cloths are lying in one place, and the head cloth rolled up in another. Without a key every sign on the map makes no sense, the unnamed disciple ‘saw and believed’ and yet did not understand. I’m reminded of my own attempts at map reading. I stab at the map. ‘I believe we are here, But I don’t understand how we got there.’ And I have probably got the map upside down.
The two men go home, and Mary is left, alone. Still without a map, without a key, she weeps outside the tomb. Utterly lost. And yet…Can you ever be truly lost if If someone knows exactly where you are?
Bending over to look in she sees the two figures in white and asks if they know where his body is.
They don’t answer. Behind her stands the ‘gardener’. Blinded by grief she doesn’t recognise him.
How often in our own despair have we not recognised the presence of Christ? He who promises never to leave or forsake us.
Do you notice how, just before he speaks her name she says to him, her imagined gardener,
that if he has taken the body away, and tells her where he has lain it, she ‘will take him away.’ Just notice her courage. Lost and grieving as she is, she is still desperate to retrieve the body. Off key, lost, she has remained to do the right thing. Mary Magdalene – a woman of tremendous courage.
Her courage places her at history’s pivotal moment. She stands by the unlocked tomb, and the key of David speaks her name, ‘Mary’. She turns to him, the path of misery is closed. The gloomy clouds of night disperse. Rejoice, Rejoice, Mary. And she does. ‘Rabbouni!’ Teacher.
Just look at this next lesson he gives: ‘Do not hold onto me.’ The resurrection is not a return to the old ways, a simple restoration of what was, a going-back. She cannot hold him, and fix the moment, there is work to do. She is the first to tell the story: Death’s door is opened. A new future is unlocked. A new journey into what will be.
And what of us? How often we look at the shifting tectonic plates: the heart’s hurricane, the personal tumult, the world’s wildness - and feel – ‘if only’. If only we could go back to a better time, a different place, to the old-imagined securities. No. In the resurrection Jesus unlocks death: A new song dares to sing; Hope, born from the womb of the tomb; A new key to the map is given, enabling us to orientate ourselves – whatever the terrain O come thou Key of David come!
Whatever the landscape you find yourself in,He speaks your name. Whether you are in the garden of grief, or lost in forests of fear or perhaps on the glorious mountaintop? He speaks your name. The key of David. Who enables us to read the terrain or our times and orientate ourselves
in the land of hope. Past, present, and future are known and held by God. So do not be afraid. Let nothing disturb you. The key of David has come, He has unlocked, He will guide and He will enable a new song – in the key of joy.
Rejoice! Rejoice! He is Risen. Alleluia. Happy Easter.
Amen