Saturday, April 22, 2017

John 20:11-16

But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. They said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping?’ She said to them, ‘They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.’ When she had said this, she turned round and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping? For whom are you looking?’ Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, ‘Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Mary!’ She turned and said to him in Hebrew,‘Rabbouni!’ (which means Teacher). 

Named in love

I miss my name. Once, I longed for the day someone would call me “Pastor.” I am still honored and blessed by that title, even though the older I get the more I blush knowing I am unworthy of the office I hold. There are so many others who are so much better, and I know my frailties all too well.

But my longing simply to be named ‘David,’ as at my baptism, has nothing to do with the struggle of living a life worthy of my calling.

The soul longs to hear a voice of love, a voice of intimate acceptance calling you by name.

We ache for that voice whose warmth tells you that you are truly known and cherished as the vulnerable human soul you are, a voice that finds beauty in the very vulnerabilities we hide from the world.  

The heart has ears to hear the voice of love, and in hearing we know we are one, intimately bound to the love who calls our name. The result is joy, always joy.

Something like this happens for Mary.

She weeps outside the tomb. Jesus calls her by name, and she hears the Voice of Love intimately calling her to know that the dream of Love’s triumph is not just a dream but true.

She knows … Love lives and calls us by name … that we, too, may know.

Pr. David L. Miller