Maybe sometimes you can only see angels through tears

I mentioned yesterday I am still using N.T. Wright's "For Everyone" bible study/commentary for my morning devotions. Today I want to share about a text that actually came before the one I wrote about yesterday. I've been thinking on it for days.

John 20:11-18 is the magnificent (though not magnificat) encounter between Mary Magdalene and the risen Jesus. Mary had gone to Jesus' tomb early in the morning and discovered the stone had been rolled away. She told a couple disciples and they raced over to see nothing left but Jesus old grave clothes. Then, it says, they returned to their homes.

Verse 11 starts with, "But Mary stood outside the tomb, crying..." She stuck around. Eventually she stoops down and looks inside...

Mary ends up seeing two angels, and someone she first thinks is the gardener but who turns out to be Jesus himself. Perhaps because she chose to hang round... crying. Maybe. I don't know. But it certainly didn't hurt.

I am fascinated by this text... the encounter... everything going on in and around and behind the scenes. And Wright has this to say on pp. 145-146:

"This stunning invitation comes as Mary acts out one of the oldest dramas in the world. Stand with her as she weeps. Think of someone you know, or have seen on television or in the newspapers, who has cried bitterly this last week. Bring them too, and stand there with Mary. Don't rush it. Tears have their own natural rhythm. Hold them -- the people, the tears -- in your mind as you stand outside the tomb. And then, when the moment is right, stoop down and look into the tomb itself. Be prepared for a surprise.

Where had the angels come from? They hadn't been there a few moments before, when Peter and John had been inside the tomb. Or maybe they had been. Maybe sometimes you can only see angels through tears. Whatever. When people are afraid, angels tend to tell them not to be. When people are in tears, angels ask why. Say it out loud. Whoever you've brought with you to stand here, listen to them say it too. They have taken away... my home, my husband, my children, my rights, my dignity, my hopes, my life. They have taken away my master. The world's grief, Israel's grief, concentrated in Mary's grief.

Now, as you stand with Mary and ponder her answer, and the answers the question would receive today from around the world, turn around and see the strange figure who's standing there. Who is he? What's he doing? Who do you think he is?"

I don't know about you, but that just melted me. Wright (and John) paint such a beautiful picture. And he goes on...

"Mary's intuitive guess, that he must be the gardener, was wrong at one level and right, deeply right, at another. This is the new creation. Jesus is the beginning of it. Remember Pilate: 'Here's the man!' Here he is: the new Adam, the gardener, charged with bringing the chaos of God's creation into new order, into flower, into fruitfulness. He has come to uproot the thorns and thistles and replace them with blossoms and harvests. As we stand there and listen, overhearing Mary's conversation (a typical sequence, for John, of people getting the wrong idea), let the pain of the people you're with speak itself into to Jesus, whether or not they know who he is.

Then listen for the name. It is greeting, consolation, gentle rebuke ('Come on! Don't you know me?') and invitation, all rolled into one. Of course we know him. Of course we don't know him. He is the same. He is different. He is alive, with a new sort of life, the like of which we'd never seen before. Let Jesus call your own name, and the name of whoever you've brought with you, whoever needs his love and healing today. And then take it from there. Let the prayer flow on into whatever new conversation is appropriate..."

Oh, man... that is a sermon right there. That gets me excited. It gives me hope!

I don't really know what more to say, but I loved reading that piece that day. It makes me smile just now writing it out again. Good, good stuff.

Peace out, my friends; and in.