-
April 23, 2019“…She turned around and saw Jesus there, but did not know it was Jesus …Jesus said to her, Mary!” …And then he said to her, “Stop holding on to me…”
Jesus found Mary Magdalene in the garden where he had been buried some three days earlier. Mary Magdalene, who knew him well, in the old dispensation, mistook him for the gardener, a stranger, and when she recognized him, he had to tell her: “Don’t hold onto me…” I wonder how many times I’ve met the Risen Lord but did not recognize him because I have been holding onto some worn out image of him, some expectation of who He is, and where and with whom He can be found. Jesus and the prophets before him have testified that we meet God in “the other.”
Mary of Magdala did not expect to find her Friend and Lord outside the tomb where she knew his body had been laid. If I’m honest, I don’t expect to find the Risen One in places I’ve entombed him either, out of the way places I am afraid to go, in unbelievers and in those who have rejected my image of the Christ; but, these days I wonder: Would he not show up in and with the same people he hung out with when he walked on this earth? Today, would he not be found with those who have left the Church, those who belong to other faiths or to no faith at all? Would we not find him again with the stranger, the widow, the sick, the outsider?
We are, all of us, a cry for help. If the Bible is true, these folks are our guides. We all need to be found by the Risen One, like Mary Magdalene was found.
The Lord is risen! Where am I to look for Him today?
