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Updated: Saturday, 30 August 2008, 7:31 (BST)

25 March 2008 | John 20: 10-18

Then the followers went back home. But Mary stood outside the tomb, crying. As she was crying, she bent down and looked inside the tomb. She saw two angels dressed in white, sitting where Jesus' body had been, one at the head and one at the feet.

They asked her, "Woman, why are you crying?"

She answered, "They have taken away my Lord, and I don't know where they have put him." When Mary said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know it was Jesus.

Jesus asked her, "Woman, why are you crying? Whom are you looking for?"

Thinking he was the gardener, she said to him, "Did you take him away, sir? Tell me where you put him, and I will get him."

Jesus said to her, "Mary."

Mary turned toward Jesus and said in the Hebrew language, "Rabboni." (This means "Teacher.")

Jesus said to her, "Don't hold on to me, because I have not yet gone up to the Father. But go to my brothers and tell them, 'I am going back to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God."

Mary Magdalene went and said to the followers, "I saw the Lord!" And she told them what Jesus had said to her.

Notes

What's in a name? A lot. My own means 'cheerful', which can be hard to live up to some days! As a child it was easy to know what kind of mood my dad was in by the way he called to me. Sometimes it would be an irritated bellow down the garden because a friend wanting to speak to me on the phone had interrupted his work and sometimes it was a soft 'can I come in to your room?' call.



I once used a nickname picked up in my teenage years but gradually noticed the girl I later married sometimes couldn't get my attention until she used my real name. The kind of grief or confusion Mary experienced can sometimes prevent us hearing Jesus call us by name. Believe it or not, even Christians can occasionally experience chaos and it's all too easy to start thinking that the reason you can't hear Jesus calling is because the confusion is your fault and surely He'd be rather disappointed so perhaps best not listen ...?



In the film of the C.S.Lewis book, The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, there is a moving scene where King Aslan, after coming back to life, talks quietly to Edmund and then tells his brother and sisters not to rake up the past. Take a moment to listen to The King of Love call your name. Do you think Jesus is about reprimand or is he calling to you for some other reason? If there's anything you need to say sorry for, you can do that now. So why not speak Jesus' own words back to him by way of commitment or re-commitment.

Prayer

I am going back to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.





Written by Hil Jennings



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