Holy Week Portraits: Mary Magdalene (part 2)

Mary caught up with Peter and John just as they both left the tomb. Their faces confirmed what she had suspected. The body was gone, and they had no answers. Their Lord was gone. Both disciples headed in different directions, wandering. Mary stepped up to the tomb herself, not wanting to look but compelled to do so anyway.

There were the linens where her Lord should have been. Tears streamed down her face. Suddenly two men, dressed in white and bright as lightning, appeared in the tomb, sitting where the body was supposed to be, one at the head and one at the foot.

A voice from behind her asked, “Woman, why are you crying?”

Still surprised by the appearance of what she assumed to be angels, she answered, “They have taken my Lord away, and I don’t know where they have put him.” She turned away from the angels and saw a man standing there. She thought maybe he was the gardener. Perhaps he had taken Jesus’ body?

“Who is it you’re looking for?” the man asked.

“Sir,” Mary said, a little bit of hope rising at the thought that this man might know the answers she sought, “if you have taken him away, please tell me where he is, and I will get him.” She glanced back toward the tomb to hide a fresh wave of tears at the thought of seeing her Lord’s dead body.

“Mary.”

She turned and gasped, almost falling to the ground. “Teacher!” The man was Jesus Himself. Somehow it had been the whole time, but she hadn’t seen Him for who He was. She couldn’t speak but fell on her face at His feet and grabbed onto them, afraid he would melt away and she would wake up to find she’d been dreaming and it was the gardener after all. But his feet were solid. He was no ghost, and she wasn’t dreaming.

“Do not cling to me,” Jesus said, “for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”

Mary stood and looked at Jesus, her Jesus, the one who had rescued her from the demons. He was alive. He was really here. Everything He’d said had been true.

Jesus smiled at her, and she smiled back. Then she turned and ran to find John and Peter.