Isn’t it beautiful that the very first person to whom Jesus chooses to appear is not Pilate, not the chief priest, nor Peter or one of the other men, but to a weeping woman with a dubious past?
Woman
At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus. He asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?” John 20:14
“And isn’t it exquisite that Jesus’ first words are not a proclamation of power but a simple, pastoral question: ‘Why are you crying?’” Pete Greig
Pete Greig founded the 24-7 Prayer Movement.
Pete wrote a devotional for the YouVersion Bible app that a group of us read leading up to Easter weekend. He also shares at Lectio365, one of the best daily devotionals available.
Mary
Mary Magdalene has the first sighting of the risen Jesus. And what a sighting.
It’s kind of the most underwhelming, least dramatic, least spectacular kind of moment ever.
You would think that at least Jesus would kind of glow a bit and have a few angels around his head, maybe a halo on top. Instead, he’s mistaken for a gardener.
The God who looks like a gardener. And not a super gardener. An ordinary gardener, a horticulturalist with dirt under his nails, at the start of a working day.
God looks normal. He comes to us in the mundane. And of course, Mary doesn’t recognize him. Would you?
By Giotto – Web Gallery of Art: Image I
Your Name
He asks a question. The first words of the new dispensation are not creedal statements but a simple question. “Why are you crying?”
And he says to each one of us today, Why are you crying? Why are you afraid? I’m alive.
Mary still doesn’t get it. So he looks her in her eyes and he says her name.
He doesn’t say, “Don’t you know who I am,” like some Hollywood celebrity. He’s not interested whether she knows his name. He knows her name. And he says, “Mary.” Ans all the lights go on and world history changes.
What would it be like if every Christian in the world today truly understood that God knows our names. That he cares about our tears and that he has chosen to reveal himself to us.
Witness
Mary is sent as a witness. The first ever witness of the resurrection, to tell the apostle Peter and all the others that Jesus is alive. The apostle to the apostles is a woman not a man.
And it’s not just that she’s a woman: she’s a broken woman, chosen by God as the forerunner.
Today, he chooses people like you and me to testify that he is alive.
Let’s follow Mary’s lead and testify in deed and word that Jesus is alive, that we have seen him, that we have experienced him.
And that everything is going to be OK.
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