Thomas Kleinert
A few days ago, I believe it was Monday, U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski addressed a room full of Alaska nonprofit and tribal leaders at a conference in Anchorage. She spoke about the tumult of tariffs, executive orders, court battles, and cuts to federal services under the current administration. “We are all afraid,” she said; and then there was a long pause — about five seconds. It was as though she suddenly realized what an astonishing thing she had just heard herself say. “It’s quite a statement. But we are in a time and a place where I certainly have not been here before. And I’ll tell ya, I’m oftentimes very anxious myself about using my voice, because retaliation is real. And that’s not right.” She called on Alaskans to “be affirmative” in protesting on behalf of programs they want to remain in place. “I think it’s important the concerns continue to be raised,” Murkowski said, “rather than letting the fatigue of the chaos grind you down.”[1] We are all afraid, but don’t let the fatigue of the chaos grind you down.
A few days ago, I believe it was on Palm Sunday, the White House press office released a statement by the president.
This Holy Week, my Administration renews its promise to defend the Christian faith in our schools, military, workplaces, hospitals, and halls of government. We will never waver in safeguarding the right to religious liberty, upholding the dignity of life, and protecting God in our public square.[2]
I’m quite confident that God doesn’t need protection in the public square or anywhere else, least of all by the government of the United States. And instead of promising to defend the Christian faith — or what the MAGA regime imagines our faith to be — the president should perhaps remember his oath of office and “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution.”
A few days ago, I believe it was Thursday, U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen was finally able to see Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a man illegally abducted by the United States government. Mr. Garcia is married to a U.S. citizen, he had been legally living in Maryland for more than a decade, and he was never charged with any crime. A federal judge ordered the administration to facilitate Mr. Garcia’s return home, an order upheld by the Supreme Court, but the president invited his El Salvadoran counterpart to a sham press conference where they each shrugged their shoulders, smugly pretending to be helpless in righting this grievous wrong — and all of this during Holy Week.[3] I hear echoes of Pontius Pilate washing his hands. The arrogance of power knows no limit. We are all afraid, but don’t let the fatigue of the chaos grind you down.
Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb. Wasn’t she afraid to go out by herself in the dark? I bet she was, but she went anyway. Why? Mary of Bethany had already anointed Jesus’ body with precious nard.[4] Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus had already lavishly prepared Jesus’ body with a hundred pounds of myrrh and other spices before they laid him in the tomb.[5] There were no more tasks to complete, no more final kind gestures to offer. So, why did she go?
I believe she just wanted to be there. She wanted to get as close to Jesus’ body as she could, as soon as she could. I believe she went because her love was stronger than her fear. She was heartbroken and sad, and I imagine she was angry at the world and at those who ruled it so violently. Or perhaps she was way past anger, sliding into numbness. She loved this man who encouraged her and his other followers to embrace the vision of a world where masters wash servants’ feet, where the sick are healed and the hungry fed, and all who mourn are comforted. He had awakened hope in her, boundless hope. Because of him, she had begun to believe in the possibility of forgiveness, the possibility of a community shaped by mutual love, the possibility of life in fullness for all.
And now he was dead. Her joy was gone, and all she could see in the dim light was that the stone had been removed from the tomb. After everything she had lost, even that last place of tangible connection with Jesus’ body had been violated. “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.”
“It matters little what we see when despair takes hold,” writes Jonathan Walton. “We will interpret all reality through this prism.”[6] They have crucified the Lord. They have extinguished the light of his luminous presence in the world. And now they have even taken his body. They have managed to make his absence unbearably complete. It was as though the predawn darkness became even thicker for Mary.
John seems to think we could use a little comedy now. He presents an interlude with the curious footrace between Peter and the other disciple: who got there first, and who saw what first, and who was the first to believe, and then, how the two of them, get this, how the two of them went home. The light of this first day certainly takes a while to dawn, doesn’t it?
Mary Magdalene, though, bewildered and bereft, doesn’t walk away. She doesn’t turn away from the painful reality; she stays with it, right there by the open tomb where the absence is most palpable. She stays and she weeps.
“Woman, why are you weeping?” the angels ask her.
Why am I weeping? Why aren’t you? Haven’t you been paying attention? Don’t you see what is going on? Don’t you see how they take away all things bright and beautiful, how they destroy anything that is promising, and how they pile up only ugliness and lies, all for the sake of power? How can you not weep when they have put out the light of the world?
The angels have no comfort to offer. They just sit there, the silence of heaven in the face of human loss and pain. What do angels know about hope and grief?
Then she sees the gardener, and to us, at first glimpse, that’s another bit of comedy, a case of mistaken identity, because the narrator has already told us who this is. But he actually is the gardener. The whole early morning sequence resonates with echoes of the creation stories — the darkness before the light, the first day, God who planted a garden and walked in it in the cool of the day — and we may recall the words from the first chapter of John,
He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overtake it.[7]
Mary sees the gardener, but she doesn’t recognize him. Mary stands at the dawn of a new creation, and she doesn’t know it. “Woman, why are you weeping?” he asks, sounding just like one of the angels. “Whom are you looking for?”
On the night before his arrest, Jesus told the disciples, “A little while, and you will no longer see me, and again a little while, and you will see me.” They said, “What does he mean by this ‘a little while?’” and he responded, “You will weep and mourn, you will have pain, but your pain will turn into joy. I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice.”[8] And now he does see her, but she doesn’t see him until she hears him speak her name, “Mary!” — and light floods in and everything becomes new in an instant.
Jesus’ vision of God’s reign awakens hope in us, but amid the fading of the world as it is and the coming of the world as it shall be, our hope often gets shaken or buried. We mourn, we weep, we seek to reconnect with what we once knew, wondering who has taken it away, wondering where we might go and find it. We run back and forth, much of what we see is ambiguous, and sometimes, like Peter and the other disciple, we just go home — except that without hope, home isn’t much of a home.
So let me suggest we do what Mary did: stay as close as we can to what’s real even when it makes us weep, or perhaps especially when it makes us weep, because amid the chaos our tears bear witness to what is good, beautiful, and true. We stay until we hear him call our name and everything becomes new.
The resurrection is not a turning back of the clock that somehow undoes the reality of injustice and suffering, or the cruelty of those in power. The resurrection is the beginning of new life in the midst of the old. It is the dawn of the world’s redemption from anything that would keep it from being a home for all.
When Jesus met his first followers, he asked them, “What are you looking for?” and he invited them to come and see.[9] When Mary stood outside the tomb, mourning and weeping, he asked her, “Whom are you looking for?” and, calling her by name, he invited her again to come and see. Like them, we listen for that call and we follow; we seek, we find, we get lost; we hear our name; we see and we want to hold on, and we let go for the promise of fulfillment beyond our imagining. Like Mary, we do not cling to the Jesus we once knew, but to the promise that he will not leave us orphaned in a world of our own making. We are all afraid, but we won’t let the fatigue of the chaos grind us down.
The stories of Jesus’ life and ministry, of his humble birth and cruel death, his radical hospitality and boundless compassion, and his resurrection from the dead — all these stories tell us that there is a great love at work among us, a love stronger than any fear; a love so powerful and creative, it frees us to let ourselves be built into a community shaped entirely in its image: life in fullness for all. Praise be to God who raised Jesus from the dead.
[1] https://www.adn.com/politics/2025/04/14/we-are-all-afraid-speaking-to-alaska-nonprofit-leaders-murkowski-gets-candid-on-upheaval-in-federal-government/
[2] https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/2025/04/presidential-message-on-holy-week-2025/
[3] https://www.whitetoolong.net/p/god-hasnt-forgotten-about-you-an
[4] John 12:1-7
[5] John 19:38-42
[6] Jonathan Walton, Connections, Year B, Volume 2, 192.
[7] John 1:2-5
[8] John 16:16-20
[9] John 1:38-39