22 July 2014 - naming names

22 July 2014 - naming names

Upon my bed by night I sought him whom my soul loves; I sought him, but found him not; I called him, but he gave no answer.

It is important that the LORD allows our desire for the one whom we love to be challenged in this way.  He tests it to see how it sustains us "by night".  It is said that absence makes the heart grow fonder.  And while that can seem trite there is nevertheless a certain truth here.  Our desire for him is refined and purified.  Only when we experience it in this way does it become so compelling as to be more worthwhile to us than desire for the things of this world.  By occasionally withdrawing from us Jesus teaches us to fix our eyes on heaven.  It helps us to untangle our desire from him from all of the other desires we have which taint and twist it. Although that certainly doesn't make it feel pleasant for us at such times.  To feel alone in the night is not pleasant.

Mary Magdalene experiences this profoundly.  Jesus cast from her seven demons (cf. Luk. 8:2).  Because of this profound healing she loves much.  She is torn apart to see her beloved separated from her by his death on the cross.  Yet she does not look away.  And for this she is rewarded.

But Mary stands weeping outside the tomb, and as she wept she stooped to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one at the feet. They said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping?" She said to them, "Because they have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him."

Her desire for Jesus is purified by enduring his passion with him.  Her com-passion refines her desire for him.  This is why she doesn't immediately recognize him.  He appears different than before, when she saw him through the lens of more earthly desires.

Saying this, she turned round and saw Jesus standing, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping? Whom do you seek?" Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away." 

But then she hears him call her name, "Mary."  She knows.  She is known.  She knows that she is known.  She recognizes this voice.  This voice completely reawakens and renews the deepest parts of her truest desire for God.  She is now like the woman in Song of Songs who refuses to let go of her beloved:

I held him, and would not let him go until I had brought him into my mother's house, and into the chamber of her that conceived me.

Her love for the bridegroom is now refined.  It is not in the world, but in her mother's house, the Church.  It is not merely external, not merely selfish.  The nuptial union and mystical marriage is beginning even now.  But even so, this isn't yet the eternal embrace of the beatific vision.

Jesus said to her, "Do not hold me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brethren and say to them, I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.

But this does not crush her.  She is closer to Jesus than ever.  Her whole life is different now. Encountering the risen One on the far side of our selfishness, on the far side of sin, and on the far side of death, changes her forever.

Mary Mag'dalene went and said to the disciples, "I have seen the Lord"; and she told them that he had said these things to her.

So let us never be content with God's absence.  Let us learn to desire him with holy desire.  Like the psalmist let us say "O God, thou art my God, I seek thee, my soul thirsts for thee; my flesh faints for thee, as in a dry and weary land where no water is."  We can be confident.  It is not just Mary, he longs to call all of his sheep by name (cf. Joh. 10:3).