Easter Day 7am

Sunday
7.00am

Called by name

But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” When she had said this, she turned round and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? For whom are you looking?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord’; and she told them that he had said these things to her. (John 20.11-18)

The day was still beginning but for Mary time had stopped. The others had left her and she was there outside the tomb. The grass was dew-jewelled and she got up from where she had been kneeling, she went to look inside the tomb, to see what Peter and John had seen, but it wasn’t what she expected. There were two people there; well, they looked like people, but in white; calm, beautiful, full of messages it seemed. She had no fear. They saw here tears and with voices like the gentle breeze of dawn asked her why she was weeping and she told them. She felt as though she were no longer alone on another way. Mary turned from these two beautiful creatures and looked back into the garden. She was looking from the darkness of the tomb into what was the first light of the new day and there was someone there but she could not make out who it was. He asked her the same question that she had been asked in the tomb; ‘Why are you weeping?’ And then, ‘For whom are you looking?’ She said, ‘Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away,’ and then life changed. It is when Mary hears her name in the garden, in the dawn at the tomb, through her grief, that resurrection and truth and life break through and she wakes up to a new reality, the new reality. Only her name could break the seal. ‘I have called you by name.’ We are known by God for who we are, personally, intimately. Jesus knew the real Mary, not the notorious sinner from Magdala but the beloved of God, created in God’s image, loved by God. Jesus had died for her as he died for you, and he called her into life by name, just as he called Lazarus back to life, by name. And he calls us back to life, by name.