Who Are You Looking For?

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[Resurrection Station #1 -- John 20]

"Who are you looking for?”

Mary Magdalene is back at the empty tomb. That morning, she had come to finish anointing the body of Jesus and discovered that the body was not there. And after running to tell the boys the stunning news, she returned to the tomb, weeping.

Sobbing too hard, it seems, to recognize Jesus himself standing beside her, talking to her, asking her why she is crying . . . “Who are you looking for?”

You see, Mary wasn’t really looking for Jesus – I mean, not a living, walking, talking, breathing Jesus who calls her by name. She was looking for a corpse. She kept asking people where they had taken his body. That’s all that she thought was left.

I look for Jesus. At least I think I do. But I wonder how often I am looking for a living, walking,
talking, breathing Jesus. The Jesus I have looked for in the past, I fear, was probably pretty corpse-like. Cold doctrine. Hard facts. Literal history.

But doctrine does not breathe. Facts do not walk or touch. And history doesn’t call me by name. That’s all dead stuff. Important, I suppose . . . but dead.

Jesus is something else. Someone else. I keep going back to the N.T. Wright quote from my last post: that his resurrection begins the colonization of earth with the life of heaven. That new heaven and new earth described in Revelation that we all say we’re looking forward to – it’s not some ethereal existence in a spiritual state somewhere out there in another dimension. It’s a new EARTH – a very earthy earth. The new Jerusalem is coming down from heaven to a reborn and redeemed physical earth with reborn and redeemed physical people. And Jesus’ resurrection two thousand-some years ago was the signal that the heaven and new earth are already starting. WE are the start. He sent us to colonize.

So, if I want to see a living, walking, talking, breathing Jesus, I suppose I need to look for him in his living, walking, talking, breathing colonists. In the people who are being resurrected the same way he was. In the people who live in him . . . that is, who live in love.

The couple who are opening their home to Ukrainian refugees.

The lady who sends regular texts and FB messages to check on the well-being of friends in emotional distress.

My financial advisor who gave me more of her time and energy than I paid her for to put my mind at ease about my financial security.

Y’all, I don’t even know if my financial advisor is a Christian. In fact, there’s a chance she isn’t. But Jesus is God, and God is love, and I believe her loving behavior toward me is the influence of Jesus somewhere in her life, and that begs my acknowledgement.

Because the saddest part of Mary’s story, folks, is that the man she was crying over was standing right in front of her face, “but she did not realize that it was Jesus.”

Could Jesus be standing right in front of my unseeing face? Seriously, if the Lord Jesus Christ is living here in my space, showing me love . . . being friendly while ringing up my groceries, looking for money in the school budget to raise my salary, listening patiently to my stories of frustration after a long day . . . the very LEAST I can do is acknowledge his presence. How awful it would be to miss him entirely!

My task for this week of Eastertide: Look for Jesus. All around me. He is risen, and he is here. Lord, help me recognize, appreciate, and thoroughly enjoy your company.


["What's a Resurrection Station?" you ask. Glad you did. Click here.]

[Ready for the next one? Here's R-Station #2.]

Comments

  1. JennyApril 4, 2024 at 10:10 AM

    Amazing post. Very inspiring and insightful! Love you cousin! ❤️

    ReplyDelete

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