Have you ever been going about your business and realize your wallet is no longer in your pocket or you've left your purse in a cart in the parking lot of the local grocery store. There aren't many words to describe the nauseating lump that forms in your throat much less the incessant pounding inside your chest making your heart feel as if it would explode at any moment. Those feelings are all mild compared to what happens within you when you turn around and cannot find your child. Emotions arise from within because we think we have lost something of great value. What joy and sweet relief washes over you when you go to that lost and found or drive back to the lot to find that item right where you left it. Your emotions are mingled with warm tears as you discover your child was hiding in the rack of clothing just a few feet away from where you were at the brink of panic. Think about how Mary Magdalene felt that RESURRECTION MORNING when she went to the tomb and the body of her Lord was missing from it's place. She had seen him crucified and knew he had been buried and the stone rolled in front of the tomb. Now that same stone was rolled away and the Lord had been taken and they didn't know where. The disciples still did not understand that Jesus had to rise from the dead. Mary remained at the tomb after the other disciples left and she wept. She spoke to two angels in white inside the tomb answering their question as to why she was crying, "They have taken my Lord and I don't know where they have put him." How heartbroken and confused she must have been, feelings of hopelessness and sadness washing over her. Then she saw Jesus but thought he was the gardener. She said, "Tell me where you have put him and I will go get him." At that point, Jesus spoke her name, "Mary" and miraculously her spiritual eyes were opened. She cried out, "Rabboni!" (One of Value!) This cry of her heart was so much more than this one word could contain. She had found her Lord, the object of her love, her trust, her source of life. She had found the One she had followed through the dusty countryside; the One who had delivered her from demons; the One who was the Way, the Truth and the Life. He was not lost from her, he was found! Everything he had ever spoken to her was real. She ran to tell the others, "I have seen the Lord!" On Easter, we who understand what the early disciples finally came to realize, celebrate the RESURRECTION of our Lord Jesus Christ and exult in the fact that "He is Risen as He said!" And through that RESURRECTION we have been raised to new life and that life is everlasting. Death had no victory over Jesus Christ, Savior, Son of God and death has no victory over Us who Believe, Joint Heirs with Christ, Children of the the Most High God! Happy Easter to you all! He has Risen Indeed!
(This Gospel account was taken from the Book of John, Chapter 20)
