4/12/2009
My Sistas,
I wonder what time Jesus arose Easter morning. It must have been very early because Mary Magdalene would have wanted to annoint His body with myrrh as soon as the Sabbath was over. John 20 says it was still dark when Mary went to the tomb and found the stone rolled away. Imagine her despair when she realized that her Lord had been stolen. He had already endured false arrest, accusations by spiteful haters, suffering unto death, and the
disgrace of being entombed in a borrowed cave. Now someone had stolen His broken body in the middle of the night. But then, oh the best part of the story. The whole reason for today.
The reason for the whole thing. He had risen! And Mary was the first one to believe. The Lord appeared to His dear friend Mary even before his beloved disciples. The disciples who had slept in the Garden of Gethsemane while Jesus prayed for the cup to be taken away from Him, “yet not as I will, but as you will,” Matt 26:39. The disciples who had filled 12 baskets with the scraps miraculously leftover from 5 loaves of bread and two fish that Jesus stretched to feed 5000 followers, Matt 14:13-21. The memory-challenged disciples who later wondered how in the world would He feed 4000 more followers with 7 loaves and a few fish. “‘Do you not remember, when I broke the five loaves for the 5000, how many baskets full of broken
pieces did you pick up?’ and they said to Him, ‘Twelve.’ ‘When I broke the seven for the four thousand, how many large baskets full of broken pieces did you pick up?’ And they said to Him ‘Seven.’ And He was saying to them
‘Do you not yet understand?'” Mark 8:4-21.
He appeared to Mary Magdalene first. Do I yet understand? Mary was so distraught thinking her Lord and friend had been stolen, desicrated even more than He already had been, that she was unable to see Him standing right in front of her. So caught up in her grief, so caught up in her despair, she could not see beyond her own tears. Her sight was so blurred by her
devastation, she almost missed Him as she confused The Risen Lord for the gardener! Not until He spoke her name did she recognize her Lord. “‘Mary!’ She turned and said to Him in Hebrew, ‘Rabboni!” John 20:16. He appears to
us girls in such a sweet and tender way that speaks to our hearts. I think that is how I will know I am in Heaven someday. Going home and hearing a voice call my name and knowing Who it is before I see the face, the face I have been seeking, the face I have wanted to look like, the face that has cried for me, the face that was scarred for me. Today I remember whose I am. I remember why I am. I remember the one
who is called “I am,” because He is everything. “God said to Moses ‘I AM WHO I AM,'” Ex 3:14. I remember His pain and suffering and I don’t want to miss Him through my tears.
Treasure Seeker,
Sandie