23 April 2019 - called by name

Today's Readings

(Audio)

Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart

Jesus Christ, who was killed, was raised from the dead. God revealed him to be both Lord and Christ. Are we cut to the heart? Even though our sinfulness made us complicit in his death, Jesus did not allow our brokenness to have the last word. We killed him and his answer was not to destroy us. It was rather to be our savior. The resurrection is the last thing we had any right to expect after the culmination of evil that crucified him. Yet from the resurrection we received life and salvation beyond what we realized we needed, beyond what we could ask or imagine.

Repent and be baptized, every one of you,
in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins;
and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Have we been cut to the heart by the news of the resurrection? Or are we still, as it were, weeping with Mary Magdalene outside of the tomb. Perhaps we understand the idea of the resurrection without having internalized it. Have we encountered the risen Jesus without fully realizing it?

Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?
Whom are you looking for?”
She thought it was the gardener and said to him,
“Sir, if you carried him away,
tell me where you laid him,
and I will take him.”

Jesus wants us to go deeper than this. He is not content to let us wandering around in abstractions without the power to change our lives.

Jesus said to her, “Mary!”
She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni,” 
which means Teacher.

Jesus calls our name and we know in a way that we have never known before that he truly lives. This is a hard moment to let go.

Jesus said to her, “Stop holding on to me,
for I have not yet ascended to the Father.

But the moment is only the beginning of a new reality. We are part of a new family with Jesus's Father as our Father, Jesus's God as our God. Jesus left Mary Magdalene but only to be even more present to his Church, always, to the end of the age. So with her, let us proclaim "I have seen the Lord".

See, the eyes of the LORD are upon those who fear him,
upon those who hope for his kindness,
To deliver them from death
and preserve them in spite of famine.