What a joy I experienced Easter Sunday, this past Sunday, being at Easter Service with all of us of MoM who could make it.
Halleluiah!
What a joy to see your faces, hear your voices, watch you treasure each other.
Halleluiah!
Just a story:
I wonder how Mary of Magdala felt on that morning that she ran to the tomb…not
Halleluiah
.
Depression:
She was traumatized by that crucifixion. Her brain was seared with his painful death, and then traumatized by the hurried burial. Mary was compelled to follow the Jewish tradition. The burial tradition is so important to Jews that today in 2020 Jewish women prepare the deceased body of a female for burial; the same is true for men. It is a ritual of anointing, wrapping, and burying within 24 hours. And there was the dead body of Jesus, this perfect body imperfectly prepared, his burial hurried because it was almost sundown of the Sabbath…no
Halleluiah.
And Sunday, Mary runs to appropriately and perfectly re-prepare his body, his precious body. This is the only thing she can do for him after he suffered so much because of his message. She runs, burdened with linens and oils, to prepare the perfect body of the perfect person who had brought the perfect message.
So, she runs. She never expects to find hope but it is hope she will find…but first, wait.
It’s not him. It’s an angel. Where is he? She is longing and searching for what is now, her Christ. No hope yet.
Hope:
Now Mary is seeking, searching and asking for Jesus. He appears. She is filled with hope. She knows instantly that all he revealed in his parables and aphorisms are ‘Truth.’ She has hope. She knows it is no longer him the man but spirit, the Spirit of God, the Divine Christ.
Just maybe the Easter Truth is about the internal spiritual journey that we are all going through at this Easter season. We hope the journey brings us to an experiential relationship with the Spirit of God, one of submission to the will and love of the Spirit. Christ continues to reveal God to us as compassion and love.
Now, we are seeking, searching, and asking for the compassion and love of Christ during these difficult times of the pandemic.
Maybe this is just one of the Easter stories.
Halleluiah!
Yours in Christ - Deacon Jane
