The first thing Jesus does after his resurrection is lift women out of cultural obscurity. Women matter to Jesus. He starts with one particular woman. Jesus gives the woman a voice, puts her first, and sends her out with a message to shape-up some very scared men. What a launch to his new creation agenda! That Sunday was powerful for many reasons, including liberation.

Now let’s talk. Let’s talk about Mary Magdalene. My mother is named Mary. There is something about Mary. She sees Jesus, this NEW man whom God has introduced on the scene. She sees him at the tomb in the garden while it’s still dark on the first day of the week. John wants us to linger and think through the spiritual clue of it being the first day of the week. Let’s make a few comparisons between the book of Genesis and John to clarify the clue. Listen closely. On the sixth day in Genesis, God created man. On the sixth day of Jesus’ last week on earth, he stood before Pilate who looked at the crowd and said, “Behold the man” (John 19:5). On the seventh day in Genesis, God rested from his work. And on the seventh day of the week of Jesus’ crucifixion, Jesus’ body was resting in the tomb. The old man, the old Adam who was made on the sixth day, was put to death in the death of Christ and rested in a tomb. But on the first day of the week, on Sunday, a new man, a new Adam arose who is qualitatively different from the old Adam.

While it was still dark Mary sees him, but she doesn’t recognize him! Something’s different about him, he’s new, he’s OTHER! She thinks that he is the gardener. He is, but not as she suspects! She’s blind to the new creation that stands before her. She doesn’t know that she has entered into the last act in God’s divine drama. She doesn’t know, that in this very moment, renewal for her and for creation has begun. But Jesus, in the darkness, on the first day of the week, with distinctiveness, reenacts what he did in the darkness of the first day of Creation. He turns on the lights, but instead of saying, “Let there be light”, he says, in what I suspect was a whisper, “Mary.” Instantly she knew who he was, and she reacted the way we all do when Jesus reveals himself to us— she clung to him. Then he commissioned her as the first to tell the good news of his resurrection. Jesus is up to something very big! See, women in this time weren’t considered credible witnesses. Therefore, if someone wanted to fabricate a story of a man rising from the dead, they wouldn’t have assigned the task of announcing the resurrection to a woman. John in his honesty tells us how it happened. He shows us how Jesus, directly out of the tomb, begins to make all things new. He restores the woman, validates her message, and gives her credibility by appearing later to the disciples who heard the message first from her. He appeared to the disciples while they were hiding behind closed doors, freaked out. Jesus truly is the gardener. He’s the cultivator of humanity. He makes things and people beautiful. Mary, the ambassador, is the first to tell the disciples that Jesus is going to their father and his father, their God and his God. She brought good news to a fearful bunch. Sundays are about restoration, liberation, and power to move beyond cultural marginalization. Sundays are about deliberate defiance of dehumanizing norms. This is one of the many reasons why we gather on the first day of the week, Sunday. We are the liberated.