Open Your Eyes

Another glorious spring day in Scotland. As I walked Dusty down the road towards the lane, I was surprised to notice the tiny buds swelling the ends of branches high on the trees that line the road. 

I was surprised, because although I walk this path twice a day, due to the nature of Scottish weather, I am not usually wearing sunglasses. Nor am I usually wearing any glasses at all. My sunglasses are prescription lenses, so what was fuzzy is suddenly clear.

What was fuzzy is suddenly clear. On Easter morning, Mary Magdalene stood outside the empty tomb, weeping. Grief-stricken already, her pain was compounded by her discovery that there was no body of her Lord in the tomb. According to Scripture, two angels sat where Jesus’ body had been, and they asked why she was crying.

Nearly every time angels encounter humans in Scripture, they preface their message with the soothing words, ‘Don’t be afraid’. Their appearance usually strikes terror into those to whom they bring a message.

Not this time. Mary’s grief is such that she is a step or two beyond terror. Her desperate sorrow dispels any fear she might otherwise have in the presence of these heavenly beings. 

Something makes her turn round at that point, and she sees someone she assumes to be the gardener. He asks her the same question. ‘Why are you crying?’

She’s clutching at straws, and asks eagerly if he has carried the body away somewhere else so she can go and get it. 

‘Mary,’ Jesus says. Not a gardener at all. She’d not looked at him clearly. ‘Mary.’

One word. Her name. Said, one imagines, with a voice full of emotion and love. Mary. She risked all. She didn’t care who she encountered. She wanted to serve her Lord one final time, and was heartbroken not to find his dead body. 

Her vision of the angels, and of Jesus himself, is fuzzy. Clouded with emotion. Out of focus.

One word brings it all into focus. ‘Mary.’ 

He’s alive. She went looking for a dead body, and she found the living Lord.

Jesus knows each one of our names. It takes only one word from him to bring him into focus for any of us. 

Linger and listen today.