The Risen King
For Meditation
This story about Jesus meeting Mary Magdalene on that first Easter morning is truly wonderful. The famous scholar C.H. Dodd writes this about it: “I cannot rid myself of the feeling that this passage has something indefinably firsthand about it. It stands in any case alone. There is nothing quite like it in the gospels. Is there anything quite like it in all ancient literature?”
Indeed there is not. Where else do we find a story with so dramatic a turn, when at the sound of her own name, a woman goes from the absolute pit of total despair to the absolute height of overwhelming elation? The story speaks to the power and impact of the resurrection for all of us, not just for Mary, but for the whole world. In this turn of events, the human destiny shifts from certain destruction to certain hope, weeping and sorrow to joy and life.
We still live in the "not yet." We still live in the veil of tears in which we must face all kinds of suffering, sorrow and even death. But Easter means that “the turn of the story” has happened. The plot has shifted, and we are now moving toward life. This Sunday, we celebrate with deep joy what God has accomplished for us in raising Jesus from the dead.
Christ is risen! Hallelujah!
John 20:1-18
1 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!”
3 So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. 4 Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5 He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. 6 Then Simon Peter came along behind him and went straight into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, 7 as well as the cloth that had been wrapped around Jesus’ head. The cloth was still lying in its place, separate from the linen. 8 Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. 9 (They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.) 10 Then the disciples went back to where they were staying.
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.