It was only the day before yesterday that Mary Magdalene had been sitting in another place, waiting. It was on a hilltop in a place called Golgotha. She was sitting beneath a wooden cross. Hanging on that cross was her teacher and friend. He was dying a slow, painful death. Like many approaching their last hours or moments, her friend’s mouth was dry. He said, “I am thirsty.” After receiving a sponge soaked with a little sour wine, the friend hanging a few feet above her spoke what she imagined were the last words she would ever hear from him. “It is finished.”
But it turns out that it is not finished. Early on a Sunday morning, before the sun is up, Mary Magdalene waits in another place. This time in a garden in front of a tomb. The last time she had waited with her friend, she knew what she was waiting for. His death. She was present with her friend, keeping watch with him as his life slipped away. What is she waiting for now? A good question. Maybe waiting is all she knows anymore. A figure appears in the shadows. She assumes it is the gardener beginning his morning’s work. And the she hears a voice that is so familiar. “Mary.” What? My God, who is that? The grief that has been clouding her vision falls way in an instant, and she recognizes him.
“I have seen the Lord,” she runs to tell her friends. “I have seen the Lord.” But not until he had called her name. And of course he could not have called her name if she had not been waiting. Waiting for who knows what in the midst of grief and loss. Are you waiting for something? Maybe something you can’t even name? Be attentive. Listen.
I heard the voice of Jesus say, “Come unto me and rest;
and in your weariness lay down your head upon my breast.”
I came to Jesus as I was, so weary, worn, and sad;
I found in him a resting place, and he has made me glad. (Hymnal 1982, no. 692)
—The Rev. Lex Breckinridge
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