What Are You Looking For?

 

 John 20:1-2, 11-18

The Empty Tomb

20 Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. ² So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!”

Jesus Appears to Mary Magdalene

¹¹ Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb ¹² and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.

¹³ They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?”

“They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” ¹⁴ At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.

¹⁵ He asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”

Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”

¹⁶ Jesus said to her, “Mary.”

She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”).

¹⁷ Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”

¹⁸ Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them that he had said these things to her.

Mary of Magdala, who so loved Jesus, was the first to see him risen from the dead and commissioned to tell the Apostles that he was alive and returning to the Father.We can imagine her joy and her huge hug so much so that Jesus had to tell her to stop holding him. Yes, she found more than what she had hoped for, not the stolen corpse, but Jesus fully alive. What are we looking for? May we find Jesus alive and well and like Mary, bring this good new to others by the way we live and the way we treat one another.

Bro. Rene

Dear God, give us the love and devotion of Mary of Magdala, that we might seek Jesus and announce his presence among us by our words and deeds. Amen.