Scripture Reading: John 20: 11-16
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. They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher).
For us, this is probably one of the most painful accounts in the whole Passion story. How could we bear it? How could we bear having God taken away from us? We identify with Mary’s heart wrenching lament and we identify with the feeling of loss and helplessness. But John Donne points out that there are many ways that Christ is “taken from us”, that, in essence, we are separated from Christ. And, as we must admit, many of them are of our own doing. We can lose sight of Christ for all kinds of reasons: perhaps we have experienced a hurt or a loss so deep that we can no longer sense God’s presence in it; perhaps we have held on so tightly to doctrines and understandings of God that no longer make sense to us that we cannot see God anywhere else; and perhaps, perhaps, we have just let our lives consume us, falling so victim to the temptations of “busy-ness” and the feeling of being overwhelmed that we no longer have time to stop and see God.
“But,” as Donne says, “if we do not return to our diligence to seek him, and seek him, and seek him with a heavy heart, though we began with a taking away—other [people], other temptations took him away—yet we end in a casting away, we ourselves cast him away since we have been told where to find him and have not sought him.” In other words, no matter what the reason that God has been taken away from you, no matter why it is that you cannot seem to be able to see God, neglecting to seek God is the same as casting your Lord away all over again.
Admittedly, seeking God is sometimes hard. In fact, sometimes seeking God is downright painful. But that is what this journey of faith, this walk to the Cross, is about. It is about our act of seeking God, of stripping away those things that stand in the way of our seeing God, of getting rid of those things that do not allow us to see ourselves as God sees us, and of surrendering ourselves and our lives to that journey. It is about seeing the God who has already sought us out, the Christ who has found us. Donne reminds us that “Christ is at home with you, [Christ] is at home within you, and there is the nearest way to find [Christ].” In There Is a Season, Joan Chittister tells a story from the Sufi mystic tradition:
“Where shall I find God?” the disciple asked the elder. “God is with you,” the
Holy One replied. “But if that is true,” the disciple asked, “why can I not see
this Presence?” “Because you are like the fish who, when in the ocean, never
notices the water.”…It is not that God is not with us; it is that we are
unaware.
Discussion Questions:
1.) What things cause you to feel that “your Lord has been taken away”?
2.) What stands in the way of your seeking Christ?
3.) Where are you likeliest to find Christ?
So go forth and seek the God who is always with you!
Grace and Peace,
Shelli
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