John
20:11-18
Mary
stayed outside near the tomb, weeping. Then, still weeping, she stooped to look
inside, and saw two angels in white sitting where the body of Jesus had been,
one at the head, the other at the feet. They said, ‘Woman, why are you
weeping?’ ‘They have taken my Lord away’ she replied ‘and I don’t know where
they have put him.’ As she said this she turned round and saw Jesus standing
there, though she did not recognise him. Jesus said, ‘Woman, why are you
weeping? Who are you looking for?’ Supposing him to be the gardener, she said,
‘Sir, if you have taken him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will go
and remove him.’ Jesus said, ‘Mary!’ She knew him then and said to him in
Hebrew, ‘Rabbuni!’ – which means Master. Jesus said to her, ‘Do not cling to
me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go and find the
brothers, and tell them: I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God
and your God.’ So Mary of Magdala went and told the disciples that she had seen
the Lord and that he had said these things to her.
Food
for thought: What's in the name?
In
this reading something interesting happens. It is the name calling. When the
angels found Mary, they called her "woman". When Jesus found Mary he
also referred to her as "woman". As long as Mary was being referred
to as "woman" she could not connect the dots; she could not know that
it was Jesus.
Mary
could not recognize Jesus because she was taking him to be a mere gardener. The
gospel says that "Supposing him to be the gardener, she said, ‘Sir, if you
have taken him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will go and remove
him." It was when Jesus called her by her name “Mary” that she discovered
who Jesus was. In other words, as soon as Jesus called her by name, she
immediately knew him to be Jesus. All this shows us that names are important in
our life; we need them for identification. We do well to call ourselves by
names and not by our titles. Titles are about our job; our names are about our
person. The job can be lost; the name not.
Another
reason Mary could not recognize Jesus was because of her tears. They blinded
her eyes so that she could not see. When we lose a dear one, there is always
sorrow in our hearts and tears shed or unshed in our eyes. But one thing we
must always remember--at such a time our sorrow is in essence selfish. It is of
our loneliness, our loss, our desolation, that we are thinking. We cannot be
weeping for one who has gone to be the guest of God; it is for ourselves we
weep. That is natural and inevitable. At the same time, we must never allow our
tears to blind us to the glory of heaven. Tears there must be, but through the
tears we should glimpse the glory.
She
could not recognize Jesus because she insisted on facing in the wrong
direction. She could not take her eyes off the tomb and so had her back to
Jesus. Again it is often so with us. At such a time our eyes are upon the cold
earth of the grave; but we must wrench our eyes away from that. That is not
where our loved ones are; their worn-out bodies may be there; but the real
person is in the heavenly places in the fellowship of Jesus face to face, and
in the glory of God.
When
sorrow comes, we must never let tears blind our eyes to glory; and we must
never fasten our eyes upon the grave and forget the heavens. For people with
neither Christian faith nor Christian connection, the funeral is but end of it
all. But it is not. So when you attend a funeral, at the end when you look at
the grave, never say, “Goodbye, father, mother, sister, etc”. Say instead,
"Adieu!" "To God!" "Until we meet again."
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