The television was droning in the background and I wasn't paying a lot of attention to the commercial. Some supermarket chain was pushing a special sale in preparation for Easter. The tag line was this: "We'll put more Easter in your basket." To this I say: "Christ is Risen." To this you respond, "Christ is Risen Indeed!" My friends, once you say that, it's pretty difficult to put much more Easter into your basket! I don't care whether it's A&P, Pathmark, or ShopRite - once you sing, "Jesus Christ is Risen Today," you've pretty much filled your basket with Easter. We might thank heaven for 7-Eleven, but 7-Eleven cannot possibly put more Easter in your basket than "on the third day he rose again." Right?

For most of us, the good news from the cemetery has been with us for as long as we can remember. The events from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday are as well known to most of us as our own family history. Indeed, this is a part of our family history. Each Sunday we recite the heart of our faith, "... crucified, died and was buried ... and on the third day." Ah, that wonderful, that beautiful - third day. The Resurrection. For you and for me and for the sake of the world. For truly God shows no partiality. Isn't that a wonderful assertion from our first reading: "for truly God shows no partiality." Sometimes preachers spend so much time lingering at the empty tomb they forget news equally as wonderful as the resurrection gossip. The good news that "truly God shows no partiality." Well, maybe we can squeeze that bit of Easter also into our basket!

Actually, I shouldn't be taking A&P, Pathmark nor ShopRite to task. It's a laudable goal to offer more Easter in your basket. For thirty-five years as a preacher ... that's always been my Easter morning mission. More Easter for your basket. For 2,000 years, that has been the choice of the Church: more Easter for your basket.

These words are so familiar, aren't they? "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." The Gospel writer, John, doesn't tell us why Mary is making her way to the tomb; perhaps she has a basket of spices to anoint the body. One thing we do know, there is no Easter in her basket. But wait! Hold on! The rock is rolled and the tomb is empty! What in heaven's name is going on? Mary runs to find two of the disciples, Peter and the nameless one. The two race back to the tomb and discover, "Go figure. Mary is right. The tomb is empty." And then? And then? Well, very matter-of-factly, the Gospel records, "the disciples returned to their homes."

Who remains at the tomb? Mary - merely Mary - alone at the tomb. Not quite alone. She peers into the tomb and notes two angels, messengers from God. "Why are you weeping?" they ask. As if a woman weeping in a cemetery is somehow an oddity. She tells the messengers the source of her tears, and then turns and bumps into a man she assumes to be the gardener. The greatest example of mistaken identity in all history. Perhaps Mary is startled. Maybe she drops her basket of anointing spices. It doesn't matter, really. She is about to get Easter in her basket. The gardener-who-isn't, speaks a single word. "Mary." "Mary," he says. "Mary."

I've been mesmerized these past few days by a Youtube video of Hannah, a ten-year-old who is being surprised by the father she had not seen in twelve months. Sergeant Myers has just returned from Iraq. He had promised Hannah he would be home before the end of her fourth grade school year, and he arrives the second last day of school. He makes it by a day. My words won't do justice to what happens next.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRf_R6ieAPA&feature=related. Hannah is at her school desk and she looks up in response to a commotion at the classroom door. In walks - her father. Her reaction is priceless.

Hannah looks up and there is a bit of hesitant confusion in her eyes. But you can see the millisecond it takes to dawn on Hannah that the man who has walked into the room is her father. Hannah's response is what I imagine to be the reaction of Mary Magdalene at dawn, with her sudden recognition of Jesus. If you fail to weep as you watch what I watched, you surely are not Irish.

Here's what I saw: Hannah looks up. Her eyes widen with recognition. Her hand goes to her heart. Her mouth forms a perfect "O." She slowly stands and then rushes to her Daddy's arms. It's stunning she doesn't trip because her eyes are shut tight and tears of joy are flowing. She is silent. She does not say a word. She does not have to have to say a word. I wonder if even a dictionary could contain all the beautiful words of emotion conveyed by Hannah in her Daddy's arms.

To my dying day this will be my image of the millisecond dawning of the truth - when it registers on the Richter Scale of Mary Magdalene, "Mary." He said, "Mary." There is initial confusion in the mind of Mary, and then the millisecond dawning occurs: "Rabbouni." It is Hannah jumping into the arms of her Daddy. "Rabbouni." It just might be an image of our first tentative steps into eternal life, "Rabbouni."

I will never criticize the Bible, the Word of our God. But after watching that Youtube video, I am so sorry the Gospel writer included these puzzling words of Jesus, "Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father." After viewing, any number of times, Hannah in her father's arms, I want to imagine Mary Magdalene, and by golly, I will!

I picture Mary, embraced by Jesus, and the two of them like dervishes, whirling together to the rhythm of Resurrection! May this fanciful image add more Easter to your basket. Mary and Jesus, whirling together - to the rhythm of Resurrection!