Reading

It is Tuesday in the First Week of Easter and here is the meditation for today, provided by Bishop Peter Johnson, the one who Ordained me to the priesthood in 2015.

Mary Magdalene stayed outside the tomb weeping. And as she wept, she bent over the tomb and saw two angels in white sitting there, one at the head and one at the feet where the Body of Jesus had been. And they said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid Him.” When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus there, but did not know it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” She thought it was the gardener and said to him, “Sir, if you carried Him away, tell me where you laid Him, and I will take Him.” Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to Him in Hebrew “Rabbouni,” which means teacher. Jesus said to her, “Stop holding on to me, for I have not yet ascended to My Father and your Father, My God and your God.” Mary went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord,” and then reported what He told her (John 20: 11-18).

Source:https://salvematerdei.com/2014/04/22/woman-why-are-you-weeping-3/

It was the women who remained faithful, at the Cross and at the tomb, they had waited with him in his dying and came to attend his broken body in the tomb.

Mary Magdalene had only one thing in mind – to find the body of Jesus, which she thought had been stolen. So, she disregards the question Jesus asks and gets right to the matter in hand: Are you the one who moved Jesus’ body, and will you help get it back?

She doesn’t realize that she is saying this to the risen Lord himself.

How can someone who believes in Jesus, meet Jesus and not know it’s Jesus?

Well, he wasn’t what she expected. His risen body was transformed.

I wonder if there are times when the Lord is present to me in a special way and I miss it because it is not what I expected.

Like right now?

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End bishop enter priest

Jesus meets us where we are and we tend to forget this and wait on some special event or place for his spirit to rouse us from our sleep.

Mary was certainly in the right place but had expected to find Jesus, dead in his tomb and his absence took her off her guard. Even when speaking to the supposed gardener she still sought a corps. Yet there Jesus was, transformed beyond her recognition, not dead but alive.

Jesus is alive with us in many situations, between Paul and Alfie, Paul and Mrs Paul, to all of you who are reading this; with my wife who cannot make up her mind whether she is a Theist or a Christian but who loves the human Christ. Jesus is with us in our Wednesday morning Bible Studies, where my liberal Catholic views sometimes clash with our Pastor who has a very different (Protestant) understanding.

Jesus is alive in us all in his Spirit that will remain with us until beyond the world’s end.