Be still. Close your eyes for a moment and imagine that Jesus just walked into the room. This is the way I used to begin my fourth-grade religion class. What amazed me is that each of them saw the same thing: Jesus was tall, wore a white robe, was gentle and kind. I then had them imagine Jesus coming up to them individually and had them tell Jesus what was bothering them at that moment. I was surprised that each of them had the same image of Jesus, which confirmed that he was there and was real.
Today we read a familiar story of a woman who had a real-life meeting with the risen Jesus (John 20:11-18).
“Mary Magdalene stayed outside the tomb weeping…she bent over into the tomb and saw two angels in white sitting there…And they said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping?’”
She explained her problem to them.
“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.”
Ironically, the very person she was looking for was standing right behind her. He even spoke to her. We are puzzled that she did not recognize him and thought he was just the gardener doing his rounds. Jesus was so real and so near her, yet she didn’t even know it was he. Apparently, the resurrected body of Jesus took on a different appearance, or perhaps, knowing that Jesus was dead, Mary Magdalene’s mind could not adapt to the possibility of him being alive.
She thought that the gardener had taken the body of Jesus, so she asked him where he had laid it.
“Jesus said to her, ‘Mary!’ She turned and said to him in Hebrew, ‘Rabbouni,’ which means Teacher.”
Mary did not recognize Jesus by appearance, and she did not even recognize his voice when he asked her whom she was looking for. When he shifted to a personal tone of voice and called out her name (notice the exclamation point), her heart awakened, and she recognized Jesus.
Instinctively she fell down and grabbed hold of him.
“Jesus said to her, ‘Stop holding on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and tell them…”
Jesus’ risen body was real and touchable. If he were a spirit or an illusion, she could not have grabbed hold of him. Yet, for some reason, he did not want her holding onto him because he had not yet returned to his Father. Jesus was still in process and for some reason did not want to be grabbed. He would not be available in this form forever. We find out later that he made himself recognized in the breaking of the bread—the Eucharist. It is in this concrete form that he is now available to all of us.
Like Mary Magdalene, those who seek Jesus with all their hearts will find him. Though he is nearby, even now, we might not recognize him. At a special moment he will call out our name, and our hearts will know that it is Jesus—the one whom every human being longs for.
Let us make it a practice to close our eyes and imagiine Jesus coming up to us. What burden do we want to share with him? What does he say to us?
“This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it” (Ps 118:24).
