And they said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?”
She said to them, “They have taken my Lord,
and I don’t know where they laid him.”
Even when angels themselves tell us not to seek the living among the dead it is difficult for us to imagine the reality of the resurrection. Our assumptions about the permanence of death are hard to overcome. The fact is that God, who created all things, who sustains all things in being by his word of power, could, with no strain on his part, speak a new creative word to turn all of our assumptions on their head. And this fact is fairly easy to grasp intellectually. But it is harder to receive pragmatically at the level of the heart, especially for hearts afflicted by trauma, as most who survive in this world eventually become. The angels may have beautiful appearance and persuasive words. They may indeed by impressive enough that we ought to believe them if we could only see clearly through the tears of our grief. But like Mary Magdalene, we often need more than the mere ethereal or intellectual to bring the truth of the resurrection home to us.
When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus there,
but did not know it was Jesus.
We imagine ourselves to be better positioned than Mary Magdalene here in the present day, that we who know about the resurrection would recognize the presence of our Lord in our midst. Yet how often do we still not recognize him at first! He comes to us in so many ways, ways that are at first often veiled from our eyes.
Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?
Whom are you looking for?”
She thought it was the gardener
We have the tendency to believe ourselves to still be in the old story of creation where the Adam, the gardener of the garden, had doomed the human race to death. We believe that we ourselves are the woman who believed the lie of the snake and let trust of God die in our hearts. We set about making the best of the years we have left, but with our expectations tempered to prepare us for inevitable grief. We still see the external evidence of this fallen reality all around us, shouting down, as it were, all the small and fragile signs of hope that we encounter.
Jesus wants to reveal to us that we need no longer dwell in the fallen reality of the first garden. If we recognize him to be the new Adam and embrace him we ourselves can come to share in the blessings that he, as the bridegroom, came to bring to his bride, the new Eve. We ourselves can dwell in a new garden, receiving from the cross, the tree of life, all of the fruits of the Holy Spirit. But the facts of a new creation, a new garden, and wedding gifts to a spotless bride all have the liability of sounding at first like fairytales. We are jaded and cynical in a way that makes us deeply suspicious of such promises.
Sir, if you carried him away,
tell me where you laid him,
and I will take him.”
The only way to enter the new reality that Jesus rose from the dead to make available to us, the way beyond our preconceptions and our doubts, is a personal encounter with him.
Jesus said to her, “Mary!”
She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni,”
which means Teacher.
Somehow, when Jesus speaks our name, it comprehends all of our grief, all of our doubts about stories that seem to good to be true, and, precisely by knowing us so thoroughly, assures us that they are true, that this one who knows us at this deep level could only be Jesus himself. Once he calls our names we can begin to see everything with new eyes, to live in the new creation of the resurrection even as we continue to live our mortal lives on earth.
Jesus said to her, “Stop holding on to me,
for I have not yet ascended to the Father.
Jesus sometimes requires us to let go of the merely human ways in which we desire him to be present to us precisely so that he can become more abundantly and deeply present.
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.
Just as Jesus cut Mary Magdalene to the heart by calling her name, so too did Peter's Pentecost proclamation cut the crowd to the heart. This is the power of the Spirit at work, calling people by name, in all of their unique individuality, and inviting them into the Kingdom. Jesus knows our names. If we spend time listening, he himself will speak. If we open ourselves, he will release in us more of his Spirit so that we can not only recognize the new creation but help to make it a reality in the way we live.
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.
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