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True loveTuesday, March 25, 2008
John 20:17-18
Mary went and announced to the disciples, "I have seen the Lord."
Like the others male and female, there were times Mary thought Jesus was more God than man. But they ate together, talked together, walked together. The heartbreak she felt at his death was for her lost friend. And now she was giddy with joy, seeing her best friend walking toward her alive after she was sure he was altogether dead and gone forever. Jesus includes her and the disciples in his world about-to-be. His Father is their Father. His God is their God. They are family. Maybe for Mary more than the men, it's always been this way. They have cast in their lot together. They share everything, all the triumphs and the failures. And in this particular family, God is as much a partner as anyone else. Not an invisible God, but God who talks and sleeps and eats and laughs and cries and even dies just like they do. Jesus won't be with them much longer, but the Holy Spirit will take his place. And they will be together again; physical death has lost its power. As Paul wrote in Philippians 1, "To live is Christ and to die is gain." God is with us now, and God will be with us then. God will be with us always. Even unto the end of the world. All these ways you have of being God, Lord -- Father, Son and Holy Spirit -- so many ways for you to love us, for us to be loved by you. Thank you. |
Like many men who cast giant shadows on the world's stage, Jesus was most human and real with the women in his life. He taught the disciples, but he loved the women. He drew Mary Magdalene to him with healing and acceptance, and she never left him. She knelt at the cross, and she hurried to the tomb as soon as she could be there, tending to the body of her friend.