Today's Meditation
John 20:10-12
Then the disciples returned to their homes. 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.
Today's reading was part of the Easter passage that we read yesterday, but there is something that struck me as interesting when I reread it this morning. In the account given to us by John, we have Mary Magdalene going to the tomb early in the morning. She saw that the heavy stone covering the tomb was open, but she did not go in. Frightened, she ran to get Peter and John. Before she left that morning, perhaps in her grief, she didn't even think about the stone covering the tomb and how she was going to move it in order to purify Christ's body. But, she arrived and the stone was removed. Peter and John ran to the tomb. They both looked in and found that Jesus' body was no longer there. They immediately left and went back to their homes. "But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb." This is what struck me this morning; the two disciples, Peter and John, didn't wait. They hastened on to go home. They didn't ask questions, they didn't weep, they didn't wait for even a moment. They simply pressed on to be about their business - in this case, racing home and hiding away. But Mary, stood weeping at the tomb. She didn't push back her emotions. She let them overwhelm her with grief and waited. And in her anguish, in her tearful patience of trying to understand what happened; she was rewarded with the message of the angels and, ultimately, with the appearance and an encounter of Christ.
Sometimes we move on too quickly. We have a tendency to push through the emotions, too quickly. We don't sit there, in patience, allow the emotions to overwhelm us, allow the questions to rise up. We are uncomfortable with not being in control, with not having answers, with not knowing. We forge on. Sometimes too quickly. Mary waited. And in her grief and patience she was rewarded.
This is a time for patience. This is a time of mourning what we've lost, weeping over the past. We've spent far too long thinking that we could just press on as if the world has not changed, as if things will always be as we remember them. They weren't, they never were, and we aren't the same people we were even a year ago. But as Mary waited and as she wept, she was rewarded with a prize far greater than what Peter and John left with. So shall we, if we have the patience to wait and allow the grief to overtake us for a moment. And then look and see the reward!
I, for one, can't wait to see it!
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