A Word from Joel - May 14, 2025

“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

Unjustly overlooked and maligned, Mary Magdalene is the apostle to the apostles and
has a claim to being Jesus’ most devout and faithful disciple. She comes to Jesus’ tomb
while it’s still dark on the first day of the week. Whenever the Bible gives us time
stamps, we do well to pay attention. John’s Gospel retells the creation story through
Jesus, as evidenced in its opening line, “In the beginning was the word, and the word
was with God and the word was God.” Here at the end of the Gospel, Mary comes to
the tomb on the first day of the week, while it’s still dark. Recall that in Genesis 1 on the
first day of the week, darkness was over the face of the deep, and God said, “Let there
be light.” Now at the resurrection of Jesus, God is bringing new light into our dark world,
and Mary will be the first witness to it.

Through Jesus’ death and resurrection, the new creation has begun. In this new
creation, we are all children of one God, connected in our grief and in our faith,
connected to God, whether we know it or not. Mary is resurrected from her despair. She
wakes up to a whole new reality, where grief and death have their say, but do not get
the final word. Love does. That’s resurrection hope. Mary was the first to see it, but not
the last. Now it’s our turn. You may not see it yet, but hope is on the way. When you are
living in despair, it feels like it will never end, but if your future self could speak to you,
they’d tell you that you won’t feel like this forever. One day, it’s going to feel better.
On Sunday, our choir debuted a newly arranged choral piece by Spencer LaJoye,
“Someday You’ll Wake Up Okay.” If you missed it or want to see it again, you can do so
here. Spencer wrote the song as a love letter to their younger self, singing:
You won’t believe it if I tell you now
Just entertain the possibility somehow
You’ll never see it coming
But someday you’ll wake up okay

Resurrection isn’t a one-time miracle that happened to Jesus. No, resurrection takes
place every time a new future is born out of despair. This song is a resurrection song,
promising that the tears of today water the seeds of tomorrow’s emergent life. You may
not see it now, but you can still believe it. Our choir also performed Spencer’s
Plowshare Prayer, which is a heartbreakingly beautiful song that you’ll want to hear
again and again. We are so blessed at Covenant to have a music ministry that speaks
to our hearts in ways that words alone cannot. May this music minister to the deep
places of your heart, assuring you that God is with us in all things.