“They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.”
That first Easter did not start out joyful. There was no initial shout of Alleluia, nor any reassurance of Jesus’ eternal and unfailing light. No, before that sort of celebration was desperate searching for the Lord, and the pain of losing someone very important.
“They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.”
I still hear these words in my office and in the break room at work, though they sound more like, “I once believed, but now I am not so sure.” “Where is God? I do not know where to even begin looking.”
I remember seeing a heart wrenching scene in the hospital. An elderly mother was laying in the hospital bed, crying out, “I’m so alone,” as her daughter sat next to her, holding her hand and looking helplessly into the woman’s eyes. The old woman did not have dementia, she was simply very lonely. The woman confided in me that God had left her, worse, everyone had abandoned her. I looked up at her daughter and she simply stared helplessly. I knew what she was thinking, “I am here mom.”
Sometimes the one you are looking for is standing right in front of you, but you are locked away tight in your own tomb. Mary did not recognize Jesus, supposing him to be the gardener. She was searching, but she could not find. She needed to see, but was unable to open her eyes.
I do not know about you, but I find it hard, if not impossible to open my own eyes. I find it impossible to make myself see God or feel God’s care. Ask any depressed person and they will tell you that you cannot just make yourself quit being depressed. Heck, they cannot even make themselves get up out of the chair. How do you make yourself do something that you do not know how to do. It is like me telling you to just build a jet. Just do it. How? I do not know how, I have forgotten, or maybe I never knew.
I love the resurrection story in John, because it is about more than Jesus’ defeat of death…though that is important. What I love is that Mary does not find Jesus. In fact, she does worse than not find Jesus, she talks right to him and still cannot see him. Why do I love this? Because, when you are struggling in life, and you cannot “just” do anything, you need Jesus to call you by name. And, Jesus does. “Mary!” Jesus said to her. Only when Mary is called by name can “she turn…and said to him in Hebrew ‘Rabbouni!” (which means teacher). She does not search and find Jesus. Jesus searches and finds her.
You do not find, but you are found. Jesus is not yours, but you always belong to Jesus. Death could not hold him down, and neither can you. When Jesus searches, he always finds.
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