DISCERNMENT
OF JESUS’ VOICE
In today’s Gospel, John
20: 11-18, Mary Magdalene has gone to the tomb looking for Jesus. She finds the tomb empty. Jesus’ body is
gone. Overcome with grief, she weeps
outside of the tomb. Two angels appear
one at head and the other at the feet where the body of Jesus had been. They
question Mary: Why are you weeping? She turns around and sees Jesus but thinks
he’s the gardener. He also asks her why she is weeping. She says to Him: “Sir,
if you have taken Jesus’ body, please show me where it is. I will take care of
it.” And Jesus says: “Mary”! When he
speaks her name, she recognizes the Lord and responds in Hebrew “Rabouni,”
which means “Master.”
How did Mary discern
that the gardener was Jesus? How was it that she recognized the gardener’s
voice as the voice of her Master?
First of all, Jesus is
looking for/waiting for her. If He were not seeking, she would not find. Second of all, Mary is engaged in the
discernment process, which we might outline, in this instance, into eight significant
steps: 1) She is actually looking
for Jesus. 2) She wants to find the One she has lost,
even if all she finds is his dead body.
3) She wants to serve Him, give Him something, namely, in this
case, a proper burial, one that shows the deceased the respect that is
deserved. 4) She allows no one to
distract her, neither the angels nor the gardener. 5) She is focused. 6) She knows for whom/what she is looking.
7) She does not give up until she finds the One for whom she is
thirsting, hungering, longing, desiring! 8) She personally encounters
the Risen Lord—this personal relationship with the Lord long preceded this
finding of Him in the emptiness of her
life at that point in time.
What about you and me?
Are we actually looking? Do we really want to find Him? Are we willing to be of
service, to give of ourselves no matter what the cost (Mary Magdalene could
have been arrested, put to death as Jesus was)? Do we shut out distractions and
stay focused? Do we know for what/whom we are looking? Do we persevere
in looking? Have we developed a personal relationship with the Lord in the
first place?
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