Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!”
So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. Then Simon Peter came along behind him and went straight into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, as well as the cloth that had been wrapped around Jesus’ head. The cloth was still lying in its place, separate from the linen. Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. (They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.) Then the disciples went back to where they were staying.
Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.
They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?”
“They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.
He asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”
Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”
Jesus said to her, “Mary.”
She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”).
Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them that he had said these things to her. - John 20:1-18
Again, we start with the dead body, but this time the dead body is missing. Mary, Peter and John knew what to do with a dead body, even if that dead body killed all of their hopes. But a missing dead body piled tragedy on top of the hope that had been dashed. Not only had Jesus been killed shamefully after a night of travesties, but if there was a body, their grief would have had a focal point and they could honor him in death. Mary found the body was missing and went to tell Peter and John. Their conclusion was Jesus must have been stolen and they went back, probably to quiz the other disciples as to who might have absconded with the dead body.
We try to search for answers to what we see, to explain the reasons behind the pain that we feel. When we're not feeling well, we try to find the reason for that feeling: the weather, what we ate, the contagious neighbor's kid, God's lesson plan, etc. When we're feeling depressed, we search for the reason that led us to feel that way. As with dead bodies and empty tombs, our imagination fills in the gaps with theories, hypotheses, rationales based on what we know because we want the world to make sense. Seldom do we leave room in our small brains for something else, something God will do. And I think that's ok, Be surprised. be blown away, be ok with not figuring out God's plan ahead of time. He's God. I'm not. Its his prerogative to outsmart me and all the people around me. My goal is to have my eyes open to see and my heart ready to respond to what God does without any equivocating.
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