REFLECTION
John’s telling of the events on the first Easter Sunday is chock-full of details: descriptions of linen cloths, two disciples racing toward the tomb, one disciple peering in the tomb–but Peter bravely entering the tomb.
The most tender of details, though, is what happened when the risen Christ meets Mary Magdalene in the garden after the two disciples went home. Mary is weeping thinking she has lost the person closest to her. She didn’t recognize the man standing right in front of her, thinking him to be the gardener.
And then Jesus calls Mary by name. And when she hears her name called, her eyes are opened, and her soul is flooded with joy.
What happens next might be the most important lesson for us on Easter Sunday: Jesus tells Mary to go tell the others. The point, I think, is that the good news of the Gospel–manifested in Jesus who had just overcome the power of sin and death–is a treasure, not to be bottled up and kept to ourselves, but to be shared.
Why? Because Jesus didn’t just come for our sake, even if Jesus knows us intimately enough to know our very names. Jesus lived, died, and was raised for the sake of the world, which is how John begins his Gospel: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only son…” (John 3:16).
This Easter, let us take the joy and peace that we feel and allow ourselves to be instruments of God’s good news by the way we share it beyond ourselves for the sake of those whom Christ came to save.
WRITTEN BY | Rev. Pen Peery