“Why are you weeping?” the angels ask her as she leans into the tomb. Mary Magdalene is not ashamed of her emotion; she is not hesitant in her answer. She is missing her Lord. No, she does not fully grasp the great theological mysteries of the passion and the resurrection that she is about to encounter. She cannot explain that she leans in to look because everything about Jesus indicated there was something greater coming on the other side of his hideous death. All she knows is that she is there because she is looking for her Lord. And that is enough to lead her straight to the Resurrected One. Whatever has brought you to the tomb weeping, know that you are made for resurrection joy. Stay, lean in, and look for the Lord.
Before you know it, he will be there beside you in all his glory. And he will fill you with a joy that bubbles over and overflows and sends you out as an apostle of the Good News. And when you see him? Oh, when he calls your name and you recognize his voice? You will be transformed! You, friend, will become a new creation, one who has drawn near to Christ in sickness and in suffering, in sin and shame, and been made new. You will become one who now knows that the end of the story is that he defeats it all and comes back to offer us a life of hope. And then he sends us to offer that hope to a world so desperately in need of it. He is calling your name. Do you recognize his voice? Turn, friend, and in his face, be reminded of who it is he says that you are.
— from the book Who Does He Say You Are? Women Transformed by Christ in the Gospels
by Colleen C. Mitchell
//Franciscan Media