Image: Risen © Jan Richardson
Reading from the Gospels, Easter Sunday, Year B:
John 20.1-18 or Mark 16.1-8
If you are looking
for a blessing,
do not linger
here.
—from Easter Sunday: A Blessing for the Rising
The Painted Prayerbook, March 2016
This is the place we have journeyed toward all these weeks, the destination we have been bound for all these days—more than forty now, if you count the Sundays. I am partial to John’s telling of the story of Easter morning, and of what happens between Mary Magdalene and Jesus here at the garden tomb—how at the sound of her name, Mary’s weeping gives way to seeing, to recognition, to the astounding joy of resurrection.
I would want to linger here, to stay and savor this miracle of reunion and return. But we know that Jesus asks something other of Mary Magdalene. Though this may be a garden, this is not a place to put down roots. It is a place of calling, of consecration, of sending as Jesus urges the Magdalene to go and tell what she has seen.
Mary has to choose whether she wants this calling, this consecration; she has to decide whether she truly wants to be sent from this place. I feel a catch in my own chest in this moment of decision, this threshold that will change everything from here.
This day, this empty tomb: this has been our destination all this time. But we see, with Mary Magdalene, that this is not a place to stop. This is not the end toward which we have been traveling.
This is the beginning.
* * *
For this day of beginning, I have gathered together a collection of reflections I’ve written for Easter Sunday across the past decade. I offer these with deep gratitude to you for traveling this path with me, and with blessings and hope for the road that leads us on from here.
Easter Sunday: While It Was Still Dark
Easter Sunday: A Blessing for the Rising
Easter Sunday: Seen
Easter Sunday: Out of the Garden
I also want to share with you a song that Gary wrote for this day. It’s called “I Am With You Always,” and it’s from a CD he had nearly finished at the time of his death. Particularly on this side of his dying, the song comes as an achingly beautiful reminder that even in the heartrending leave-takings we endure in this life, we are not alone; we are accompanied always. To listen, click the play button in the audio player below. (For my email subscribers: if you don’t see the player below, click here to go to The Painted Prayerbook, where you can view it in this post.)
O my friends. Happy Easter!
Using Jan’s artwork
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Using Jan’s words
For worship services and related settings, you are welcome to use Jan’s blessings or other words from this blog without requesting permission. All that’s needed is to acknowledge the source. Please include this info in a credit line: “© Jan Richardson. janrichardson.com.” For other uses, visit Copyright Permissions.
March 29, 2018 at 4:38 PM |
Hi Jan,
Such synchronicity between this post and my own work! I have to share something I wrote a couple days ago.
Beloved
We take the road
From dust to dust
But this is not
The end, you say
This weary road
Toward suffering
Yet this is not
The end, you say
You went before
And tasted death
And this is not
The end, you say
Dust will transform
For heaven’s sake
So this is not
The end, you say
We’re sacred dust
Made for eternity
It is not the end
You say
It is a new beginning
AD 21/3/18
Thanks!
Alicia
March 29, 2018 at 9:56 PM |
Alicia, thank you for sharing this! Beautiful words, and lovely synchronicity. Much gratitude and many blessings to you. And Happy Easter!
March 30, 2018 at 11:34 AM |
Dear Jan,
Your blog posts always touch my heart, sharing with you the experience of the death of a spouse. Easter can help one to connect with a sense that “death” is not the end. Gary’s song and Alicia’s poem are lovely. I would like to share a poem I wrote for my wife Marianne a number of years ago. As I was older than she, I expected I would die first. We had had a lovely time in our favorite vacation place, Acadia National Park. She was feeling sad about our vacation ending and a coming feeling of separation due to my absorption in work, which was a big part of my life then. I wrote this poem for her. It has an Eastern perspective of spirituality in it, but we both felt an underlying unity of all spiritual paths. I would like to share it for Easter this year.
Always
Let the tears come, my love
A tear is a healing thing
I know you will miss me
As I will miss you
And when the great separation comes
I want you to know there is no death of the real me
As there was no birth
I am as I always was
Look for me not in words or activities
Look for me by the seashore and in the forests
Look for me on the mountain top
Look for me in the sunrise and the sunset
And know I am with you always, my love.
March 31, 2018 at 3:21 PM |
I’m sitting here in my study on Saturday afternoon, listening to Gary sing, and I’ve got tears streaming down my face: “We are not alone, God is in the world, Jesus is risen, risen from the grave, sing Alleluia! take away these chains, these chains of death that bind us here.” He’s preaching Good News that I need to hear, but it also comes from you. Bless you, sister. I wonder if you have any idea how many times you’ve preached Good News in the ears of those who are bound and dying? “This is not a place to put down roots.”
Thanks, Jan.
“Always, always, always”, indeed.
April 1, 2018 at 3:10 AM |
Thank you, Jan, for such a wonderful blog…. such life… Blessings of Easter continue …
April 1, 2018 at 10:28 AM |
Jan, you cannot imagine what it is to journey these 40 days in companionship with your wonderful writings and sharings in word & vision soul to soul. I feel so blessed to have received these generously & openly from you and to journey connected by this wisdom from dark to light. Happy Easter blessings.
April 8, 2018 at 11:48 AM |
Hi Jan –
Sherry Schultz here. I met you at Holden in October and look forward to meeting again, maybe some day with our Hospice volunteers in Tacoma.
I am preparing for the second Sunday of Easter. Your writing and Gary’s song have so inspired me. Thank you for sharing your gift and his.