Wednesday 22 April - Where are you looking for Jesus?

DAILY BYTE

After the disciples return home in the segment of the resurrection story we read yesterday, we are still with Mary, looking for Jesus. The gospel says she’s “standing” near the tomb weeping. Her “standing” in the Greek is a continuous motion – it’s as though she’s been standing, waiting forever for the Lord to rise with her, and she’ll continue standing, seeking him forever.

Two others have already confirmed that he’s not in the cave, but she still insists on bending down to look one more time. She says she wants to see Jesus with her own eyes! And having said this, she turns around and sees Jesus standing there - but doesn’t realize it is Jesus.

How often – sometimes when our eyes are flooded with tears, sometimes when our hearts are hardened with prejudice and hate, sometimes when our minds are stunted by blasé attitudes - are we not realizing when we see the risen Lord?

We travel thousands of miles to visit an empty, cold tomb, and we think we’re looking in the right places – but, he is right in front of us, and we don’t see him.

He asks her – whom are you seeking? Jesus didn’t really need to know who Mary Magdalene was looking for – he is God. (He probably already knew...) The question is for us. Are you really seeking the risen Christ? Or, are you blinded, looking for someone else entirely?

I had been reading The Quotidian Mysteries: Laundry, Liturgy, and “Women’s Work” by Kathleen Norris, and I was learning to see laundry as a way of meeting Jesus. I would somewhat “joyfully” haul the basket down three flights of stairs and deliberately swoosh the sheets over the washing line, all the while enjoying the God-created sunshine. It was a small slice of heaven.

But sometimes, I would go to hang my wash, and someone else would be there: a domestic worker, and oh, how she could talk. My pleasant little clothes-hanging-Jesus-in-the-sunshine world was interrupted with chatter.

But, she was unavoidable, and the more I saw her the more we talked so that every time I went out to hang washing, we found out a little more about each other. She found out I was a minister – a baby minister – as she calls me. I found out she is the wife of a minister, and I heard about her children, and I learned her name. If I came to the wash line singing – no matter what random Britney Spears song – she would say, “OHHH, are you singing for Jesus?” Every comment I made, she would respond with one about Jesus, usually ending our conversation with “It is good to work for the Lord, isn’t it?” No matter what kind of day I was having, I had no choice but to respond – yes – it is good to work for the Lord. Until I finally realized, she is not just the washing lady. My short time with her was time with the risen Lord.

Mary thought the voice she heard was just the voice of a gardener. Someone who was there because it was his job to be there. Someone ordinary, a servant. But she doesn’t really see him. God opens Mary’s eyes here to a stunning reality that Jesus is within the people around us – the people we often overlook. Jesus’ presence through the Holy Spirit shows no partiality. Every single ordinary person has the risen Lord in them through the power and grace of the Holy Spirit.

Philip Yancey talks about how “Author Frederick Buechner is struck by the unglamorous quality of Jesus’ appearances after resurrection Sunday. There were no angels in the sky, singing choruses…. Jesus showed up in the most ordinary circumstances… two men walking along a road, a woman weeping in a garden….” Jesus is not showing off with his supernatural resurrection! Jesus is showing people like you and me how to be resurrected with one another.

GUIDING SCRIPTURE:

John 20:11-15

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 around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus.
Jesus said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?" Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away."