In the Garden

That Sabbath following the crucifixion of Jesus had to have been the longest day of rest that Jesus’ disciples had ever experienced. It was their first day to sit shiva for the man they thought could never die.

But they were wrong, and all the things He had promised them about a coming kingdom and His words about rising from the dead were the furthest things from their minds. Mary anxiously grieved and awaited the dawn when she could return to the tomb and give Jesus a proper burial. To add more spices to the seventy-five pounds of myrrh and aloes that Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus had already used to anoint Him. She must honor Him. Do something to help ease the ache in her soul.

Can you imagine her confusion when she looked into that space where she expected to see a decaying, wrapped body of her Lord, only to be startled by two white-robed angels sitting where His head and feet should be? I wonder if their words even penetrated, because though she responded to their question, “Dear woman, why are you crying?” she did not wait for them to say anything more.

Instead, she turned to leave, probably half stumbling through blurred vision. Then another man appeared and asked her the same question. “Dear woman, why are you crying?” But that man added, “Who are you looking for?”

Did this man know where the body of her Lord had gone? He must have been the gardener, for who else would be standing near a garden tomb? Grief messes with our thinking, and Mary was clearly not processing what her eyes were telling her. Jesus wasn’t there.

Where was He?

And then He called her name. “Mary.”

When Jesus calls our name, as Mary learned in that instant, we are never the same.

Prayer: Lord, we cannot imagine the grief Mary felt that Sabbath between the crucifixion and the first day of the week, when she intended to go back to the place where they had laid her Lord. She’d watched You die. Despite all she had lived through, this could have been her darkest moment of all. Then You called her name. And she knew. You keep Your promises and she believed. Help us, Lord, through eyes of faith to know You as she did and believe.