Found By Jesus

Then the disciples went back to their homes, but Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus' body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.
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." At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.

"Woman," he said, "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."

Jesus said to her, "Mary."

She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, "Rabboni!" (which means Teacher).
Jesus said, "Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, 'I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.' "

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.

John 20:10-18

After the disciples had returned home, Mary remained at the tomb, crying.

Perhaps the other disciples had also wept and felt the full measure of grief. Perhaps they had all accepted Christ's death and moved on -each at the same time.

But Mary remained at the tomb, crying.

What must have that been like?

I suppose Mary may have thought there was something wrong with her. Something that prevented her from being like the other disciples. Something that prevented her from being ... normal.

And so, Mary remained behind ... alone ...

It was true and clear that something strange and wonderful was at work in the life and ministry of that man. Now the man was somewhere else. Who was this person left behind weeping ... ?

Surely not something grand or marvelous, like the food at a banquet. Maybe more like the food at a banquet saved until the next day ... like the left overs ... a forgotten dish that was simply there.

Whatever the disciples hoped to find by going home, Mary did not desire, or at least did not pursue it.

And when, in her grief, her eyes fell upon the face of angels, she could find no consolation in their heavenly appearance.

We are told the angels were sitting down, gazing while Mary was crying. They watched ... though they did not weep. When they spoke, did they address Mary or their own confusion,

Woman, why are you crying?

The angels -the ones who worship and obey God- have a singular way about them. Their path is one of rejoicing, and they do not know any other way.

Perhaps in that moment, Mary saw them sitting, calmly, and wished that she could be an angel also, perhaps wishing that her body and her spirit could be lifted into the glory of the heavens.

But Mary was separated from her Jesus, and her spirit knew only grief.

If the disciples had seen angels, perhaps if we had seen angels, we would become excited and say, "Look! Do you see them?!" And our minds would ask questions like, "Do we have proof?" And, "What was their appearance like?" And a hundred other such places.

But Mary remained in her place, which was her sorrow.

"They have taken my Lord away," She said, "and I don't know where they have put him."

How quickly we cast aside Mary's concerns here. We consider her cares nothing because we (today) know that Jesus was not so very far from her.

Perhaps some people have even dared to laugh at Mary in her sorrow. If only she had known ... as though knowledge, the true consolation, will give us peace in our time of distress.

We think we know many things ... and that this makes us somehow better than Mary. Even if, like Mary in this passage, we do not know the day or the hour when we will see Jesus with our own eyes.

In many ways, Mary here has a knowledge of Jesus that we will not have in this life. She knows the color of his hair. How tall he stands. How deep his voice is. How he usually dresses. Now all she needs to know is what place his body is in.

Or does she need to know something else?

When Mary speaks to Jesus she does not recognize him. She sees a man who, like the angels, observes the depth of her grief, but understands it not. He asks her why she cries.

Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.

Mary is looking for someone of a certain height, with a certain color of hair, a certain style of clothing. Perhaps she is so focused on finding such a person -the person she knows with her mind- that she fails to notice the person she already knows in her spirit.

Jesus said to her, "Mary."

In that moment where she is alone, she hears the Son of God address her alone.

The Mary who truly sees and recognizes Jesus has come back to life. She is awakened again. As his words extend out of the heavens and land specifically on Mary and Mary alone, she realizes again who Jesus is.

Mary is able to see Jesus, the Jesus who was there all along.

For many of us, we may have a sense that Jesus is close to us, and truly he is! He is standing right outside the door of our lives. He is close, indeed!

When Jesus knocks on the door of our hearts, our befuddled human minds do not know what to do or how to recognize him. On our own we are confused, distressed, and of a sorrow that neither the angels in heaven nor Christ himself understands.

In the same way that Mary could not recognize Jesus by looking at him, flesh and blood cannot reveal Jesus to us. All of our historical knowledge about the Son of God will only serve to keep him at arms' length, however close he may be.

After Jesus asks Mary who it is she is looking for, he reveals himself to her. Jesus already knows who Mary is looking for, but he wants Mary to be perfectly clear with herself who it is she is looking for. In the same way, Jesus wants to know who it is we are really looking for.

Jesus gives Mary clear instruction about how he is leaving her ... and indeed how he is leaving every one of his disciples. He is leaving to return to his Father and her Father ... to the Father of everyone who knows Jesus.

This is the wonder of discovering Jesus ... to know Jesus' Father as his own Father, to know the Father as her own Father.

The day is coming when all who are in Christ will see Christ with their own eyes. Until that day, Christ is teaching people to see him without their eyes. After that he will lead them and take them back to be with his Father and their Father.

Chewy Little Bits

As the children left the kitchen, Brian spoke up. "I know you said the chocolate was good. If someone would have asked me, I would have said it just like you did. But ... I really had no idea until it was in my mouth."

When Helios realized that Icarus refused to choose between the sky and the water, he summoned all his wrath and melted the wax holding the boy's feathers. The boy fell down, down into the ocean.

An ounce of heart knowledge is worth a ton of head knowledge.
Spurgeon

The greatest singer-song writer was hated by most people. Many people said he was their favorite. Strangely, only one fan really liked his music … cherishing his every note.

Throughout his life Narcissus was surrounded by women wishing to be his lover. One day he wished to see his appearance for himself. He went down to the river and looked. 'How horrid!' He cried. 'They were all playing a cruel trick on me!' And he threw himself into the water.
The next day, the people said Narcissus had found his reflection so lovely that he came too close and drowned. The women laughed with each other. "What an ego-maniac!" They said.

Everyone wishes to be noticed, but there is something about a hero that wishes to remain concealed.

When the professor began the class he instructed every student to build a robot, as would the professor himself. The students laughed at the professor's robot, which was much smaller than the robots of everyone else.
At the end of the day, the robots were all turned on. One by one they went to the robot of the professor and bowed before it.

Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perservers. Love never fails.
1 Corithians 13:7-8a

The wicked husband began eating his lunch when he noticed a small note written on his napkin. 'Don't forget my love for you!' It read.
He sat back in his chair, as though offended. 'I haven't got any time for that!'

Why is it that people fear corrupting the world, but few people fear that the world will corrupt them? Why do so many people want to get into heaven, but few people who want heaven to get into them?

Verbiage is to devotion what the chaff is to the wheat.
Spurgeon

The police officer noticed he was walking by a shop window. He paused and looked in for a second at what appeared to be a costume shop. There were bright masks, scary masks, masks that looked like famous people he had seen pictures of. He noted to himself how interesting they were.
"What if I made my whole life into a mask ... what if there was no one underneath?"
He shuddered to himself and continued walking.

The Piano Player

Long ago a young boy was sent to piano lessons by his parents.

His instructor set before him a music score.

"This note means this key should be played." She pushed down on the piano key, and he heard a sound.

"If you learn how to read the notes, and play them exactly as they are written on the paper, it will sound like this ..." Then she played the entire piece and the young boy smiled.

When the boy came home, he began to play the piano one note at a time. He was barely able to recognize the sounds, which were a little bit like the music he remembered at his teacher's house.

He soon discovered that to play the song as well as the teacher, he needed to practice the song over and over again, and so he played it many times.

Eventually, he could play the entire song perfectly. His parents came to listen and said, "What an excellent song!" But to the boy it no longer sounded like music, it was like he was only hearing words in a distant conversation without knowing the meaning.

The little boy learned to play many songs. Each time it sounded a little bit like music while he was learning it, but eventually it sounded like a memorized speech.

Many people came by the little boy's house to hear him play. They liked listening to him very much, but the boy became angry when he was alone, "Everyone likes my music! Why doesn't it even sound like music to me?".

In a fit of frustration, the boy seized his music books and threw them across the room. He dropped his elbows on the keyboard, which made a loud noise, and he began to cry.

The boy had no desire to lift his eyes open. He put his hands on the keys and began to play the notes -one at a time- with his eyes closed.

Only this time the song did not sound like music, it was truly music.

His mother came home and heard him playing from another room. "I've heard that song before, but I've never heard anything played like that ... how did you learn to play it that way?" She said.

The boy looked at his mom and said, "The music wasn't in the books or the notes on the page. It wasn't in the keys, or the piano. The music wasn't even in my ears or my fingers. The music was in me!"

What is best in music is not to be found in the notes.
Gustav Mahler

...The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
2 Corinthians 3:6b

Image from: here.

The Second Beginning

The Greek word Genesis means origin or source. The book contains a passage about beginning that many people are familiar with:

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
Genesis 1:1

Another beginning is also mentioned in the book of Genesis. It is brief, subtle, and often over-looked.

At that time men began to call on the name of the Lord.
Genesis 4:26b

These two beginnings were not the same.

In the first beginning many things came into the world out of nothing. All of these things -the sun, the moon, the land, the ocean, the animals, and the people- all of this had a beginning before the second beginning.

And certainly God was there long before either of these beginnings.

So when people began to call on the name of the Lord, how could it be said that something was "beginning"? Wasn't it all there already?

Men began to call on the name of the Lord.

This was not the beginning of men, nor was it the beginning of the One who never had a beginning. This was the beginning of men relating to God in a very new way.

In the same way, Jesus came to earth -not to create new bodies, or a new law, or a new government. Jesus came to tell us that we could have a new beginning. That a man could be born again.

To some, this seemed to be a very strange proclamation.

"How can a man be born when he is old?" Nicodemus asked. "Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb to be born!"
John 3:4

Confused Nicodemus thought the first beginning was like the second. In some ways the two are very similar. God brought out in a strange and wonderful way something which was not there before.

But Jesus explained a key difference between the two beginnings: flesh gives birth to flesh, and the Spirit gives birth to spirit.

The Psalmist David indicated that human birth takes place when God knits a baby together in his or her mother's womb. The second beginning takes place when God takes a human body and puts someone -a spirit- into that body.

Why does the Bible describe these events as distinct and separate?

The question could be asked in a number of different ways.

Someone could say, 'I am alone here in my house about to eat dinner. Everything is in place, so who is it I hear knocking on my door?'

Or they could say, 'Our ancestors have used this well for over a thousand years. What makes the water you offer any different?'

In the first beginning, everything seems to be set and put into place.

It is like a date that has been arranged by a man for whom the woman has no regard. The candles are lit, the violins play softly in the background, the food -how fragrant! But something is missing. The night has begun, but ... it has failed to start. It has everything ... yet it has nothing.

The second beginning is the completion, even if everything from the first beginning is terminated or destroyed. Not even death itself can stop the second beginning.

Soon after we hear about the "new beginning" in Genesis, we also hear about Noah. The book continues to tell us about Melchizadek, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph.

When God reveals Himself later to Moses, He says, "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob."

Jesus notes that if God is indeed a God of the living, of those who have not ended, these men who had died are alive even though their bodies have ended.

The second beginning has no end.

Paul writes as he is led,

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8:38-39

What of you, my reader? Have you found a new work beginning inside you? If not, know that God sent His Son and that he knocks upon the door of your heart to offer you a new hope and a new beginning.

If you have found this beginning, search it out and you will find that its wonders far exceed every difficulty the world threatens us with.