Jesus Calls Us By Name - Easter
Reading: John 20:1-18
Preached on the beach at Marie Curtis Park at Sunrise (sorry there is no video)
I have always found this moment so beautiful. Mary is desperately searching for the one she loves. She thinks she has already utterly lost him to death and now she thinks even her chance to say goodbye was taken away. But all it takes is one word. Jesus simply speaks her name and her greatest grief is turned into her greatest joy. A life she couldn’t even imagine hoping for suddenly becomes a reality.
The interesting thing is that this shouldn’t be so much of a surprise, everything was pointing her to the fact Jesus was raised to new life: an empty tomb, an angel, Jesus’ words, but she brought death with her. It’s like she kept herself in the tomb. I wonder what death or loss we have carried with us, allowed to consume us and blind us from our God that is right in front of us.
Really if we think about it, it was not like her grief was incorrect or wrong, there was something real to grieve over. Just like our grief and loss is very real. The truth is that Jesus’ redemption and resurrection are greater, they overcome loss if we let them. They should be the things that point the way to a hope filled life.
Nonetheless, Mary stays. The other woman and the disciples leave and she remains in her solitude to look, to grieve alone. What was it about her that made Jesus appear to her first? I don’t know. Maybe it was her love, her desire not to give up, to see him again, the fact that she stayed, or all of them. Either way, Jesus comes to her and calls her by name.
Mary had seen and spoken to this gardener and yet she didn’t know it was Jesus, that is until he said her name. There is something about the way he said it that opened her eyes, that allowed her to see the amazing hope and reality of his resurrection. It wasn’t his voice as he had already spoken to her, instead, I believe that in saying her name he communicated love, friendship, and knowledge.
We all desire friendship and love. As much as some of us may be introverts we need community, belonging, appreciation and purpose. This is something that God gives in abundance and we talk about at length.
We also need to be known. We need a kind of relationship where someone knows everything about us, who we are, what we have done, and loves and welcomes us anyways. So often we can be scared of being known in this way, even our closest relationships because we have experienced rejection and hurt, but God knows it all and he still calls us by name.
He knows the ways that we have killed him, he knows the ways that we are still carrying death, fear, pain, and loss with us, and yet he still calls us by name welcoming us into hope and new life. Telling us to get out of the tomb. Reminding us that we should stop looking for the living with the dead. Showing us that in Jesus there is always life anew.
