Christ Appearing to Mary by William Etty 1787–1849
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(Audio)
On the first day of the week,
Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early in the morning,
while it was still dark,
and saw the stone removed from the tomb.
Having been forgiven much, and freed of seven demons, Mary Magdalene loved much. She kept a vigil of love for the one who had given her freedom, who had become her friend, and who now, to all appearances, was gone forever. On the one hand, Mary could not help but believe Jesus to be dead. On the other, she simply couldn't let him go, couldn't accept that he was gone forever.
Mary stayed outside the tomb weeping.
Her heart was still seeking Jesus, like the bride in the Song of Songs.
I sought him but I did not find him.
If she did not find him whom her heart loved she would not give up. If the watchman who had made their rounds hadn't seen him she would not give up. Yet to actually find him whom heart loved seemed to her impossible. She still knew Christ "according to the flesh" in some sense. She understood him to be the Messiah, no doubt. But she didn't know him enough to understand how their could still be hope even after such a trauma and a tragedy as was the cross.
When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus there,
but did not know it was Jesus.
Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?
Whom are you looking for?”
She thought it was the gardener
She was still considering things according to the paradigm of the old creation. In this creation there was only the first Adam, doomed to die himself, to tend to the garden. There was no way she could imagine this person she encountered to be anyone else. However, the world was no longer circumscribed merely by the old creation. A new day was dawning.
even if we once knew Christ according to the flesh,
yet now we know him so no longer.
So whoever is in Christ is a new creation:
the old things have passed away;
behold, new things have come.
How did it come to pass that Mary discovered this new creation, when she even interpreted the sight of Jesus himself according to her old worldview? She assumed that it couldn't be Jesus, and there couldn't be hope, because it was after all still the old world with which she was all too familiar. No matter how much she loved him, he wasn't coming back, for death was no respecter of persons. She knew her susceptibility to grief. She knew the danger of getting her hopes up, or of mistaking some stranger as Jesus simply because she desired to see him. She would keep herself closed off, safe from deception, but also unable to move forward. Yet all of this dissolved in a single moment.
Jesus said to her, “Mary!”
She turned and said to him in Hebrew,
“Rabbouni,” which means Teacher.
The voice of Jesus cut through the protections with which Mary had barricaded her heart. His appearance was new to her, for he was inaugurating a new creation. She wasn't moved to hope simply by seeing it. There was still the freedom to see things either way. But his voice! His voice was undeniable. It was still utterly familiar. It still knew her entirely. The voice comprehended all the grief she had endured with the most profound sympathy. It was the voice that had once set her free. And now, by calling her name, it did so once more. This could have no other effect than to make her a witness, an apostle to the apostles.
“I have seen the Lord,”
and then reported what he told her.
We too encounter tragedies in our own lives. Our limited perspectives often cause us to interpret them according to old paradigms, and to therefore assume them hopeless. But Jesus wants to call our names so that we can recognize his presence in our midst and to come to see the new creation all around us, already beginning to restore life and hope.
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