Seeking and Finding: the tale of grief and resurrection

The Gospel of Easter Morning – John 20:1-18

Mary of Magdala came while it was still dark.

        What devoted love.

She was no doubt exhausted with grief –

        yet unable to sleep –

        feeling a piece of her missing –

        maybe like her heart outside her body…

Rather than lay there tossing,

        She arises and goes.

She will tend to the body of her Lord,

        and mourn…

        perhaps at the sight of her Beloved’s face,

        her heart might find solace

        and breathe again.

While on the way, she wonders who will roll that stone away.

Much to her surprise – it’s been done!

BUT, where is Jesus?

He’s gone!

GONE!

They’ve taken him – and now! NOW!

Tears blind and sting her eyes.

Grief is now anger – maybe even hatred –

HOW COULD THEY DO THAT?

HAVE THEY NO RESPECT FOR THE DEAD?

She runs. Faster than she has in years.

Breathlessly, she delivers the news.

Peter and John – they run. They look. They see.

They believe – in spite of understanding.

But what about Mary? Do they console her?

I’d venture a no…I think they walk away –

        Awestruck.

        Contemplating what this must mean,

        They wander back to the Upper Room,

        Dumbstruck – silent – in a daze.

Mary stands a few yards away watching and weeping.

She watches the two men walk away in a daze – changed.

So, she ventures to peer inside.

Two men – angels – greet her, “Woman, why are you weeping?”

Responding like the Beloved in Song of Songs, she cries –

I am searching for my Beloved!

        Where is he?

On my bed at night, I sought him whom my heart loves –

        I sought him, but I did not find him.

I will rise then and go about the city;

        In the streets and crossings, I will seek

        Him whom my heart loves.

I sought him, but I did not find him.

The watchmen came upon me as they made their rounds of the city:

        “Have you seen the One whom my heart loves?”

…I had hardly left them

        when I found Him whom my heart loves.  (Song of Songs 3:1-4b)

In her deep grief, Mary seeks.

She doesn’t cower. She goes. She goes to find him.

        And she does.

In her deep grief, Jesus comes to her. (First!)

Jesus reveals his resurrected self to one whose heart is broken,

        shattered by grief.

Hers is the first heart to be healed.

Hers is the first story of resurrection encountered to be told.

Because of her great love.

Her great love that became tremendous grief –

        that kept her awake at night.

Her hunger for love had led her to Jesus –

        And had kept her at his side.

        And now – in a word, her own name – he heals her heart, again.

        And now – in a word, he sends her out:       

        The first evangelist.

Proclaiming good news to those in fear:

        I HAVE SEEN THE LORD!

        (I have found Him whom my heart loves!)

ALLELUIA!

Praise be to our God.

Mary Magdalene and I, we go back. Well, not too far back. On her feast day in 2017, I was on my (infamous) pilgrimage to Ireland. (Now infamous because it’s “where Nigel and I met” – which is true, but this fact sometimes overshadows all the powerful healing God was doing in my life through that trip. Nigel was part of that. …and now being able to love Nigel and call him my husband, those are great gifts that I certainly never expected as fruits of that)

Her feast day in 2017 fell on the Saturday of our trip – we’d been together 6 days and had 2 more full days as a group. Our Mass that morning was said in a small, Benedictine Priory in Cobh. To prepare, I usually read the readings on our drive to the church – just in case, I would be asked to read. I didn’t this day.

Mountain approached and asked if I would read. Of course, I agreed. As I stood behind the metal gates separating the sanctuary and sisters from us, my heart gasped as I read the words. How could I proclaim these words from the Song of Songs? It has now been one year since my Beloved has departed from me, and I search – for what? For whom? Ugh, the grief.

It was the hardest reading I’ve yet done. …and during/after Mass, my little grieving heart sobbed. Not cute tears, seeping out the edges that can quickly be wiped away. Literal sobs of grief for …honestly, I think 20 minutes. Our pews were like old-fashioned school desks, and I had just laid my head down upon that desk and sobbed. My heart was broken…and I didn’t know what I wanted any more. I’d been praying a Novena to St. Anne during the trip, but I didn’t even know if I wanted the same things that I’d always wanted, anymore. I just knew that my heart, my heart was broken…and didn’t know how or what to ask. I was empty and awaiting…something, but I knew not what - ready to be filled by the Holy Spirit.

Reading this Gospel, immediately, the Holy Spirit was drawing me to Mary. I couldn’t leave her at the Tomb in her grief and bewilderment, I had to keep going with the reading (the Gospel stops with verse 11; I kept going for Mary’s sake). I imagine Jesus watching the 3 of them arrive at the tomb, watching his two disciples come to believe what they didn’t understand and his heart soaring – and then, fixing his gaze on Mary, bereft and alone.

Ugh. That is what it feels like to be a widow sometimes. I identify so much with her inability to sleep, so she arises and goes. She won’t stay wallowing. She will get up and DO SOMETHING for the man she loves. I know what it is like to stand alone and have those sobs rack your entire body…and you wish that someone could just hold you through it while your body lets go…yet that someone is gone.  (BTW – I am not at all insinuating that there was a romantic relationship with these two. I don’t believe that at all. …but I do think that Mary loved Jesus like he was her beloved; and Jesus loves us that way – and that love can exist in a pure, devoted way)

I love that our Savior is someone who sees our broken heart and COMES TO US. He doesn’t watch us weeping and walk away – to follow up with his buddies. No, he comes to Mary. He heals her. She encounters the Living God, the Resurrection – and her heart is healed. She is transformed powerfully through the encounter with the God who loves us – again. This time, she is sent out. Her first transformation led her to follow Jesus and never leave his side. Now, He sends her out – fully transformed, fully equipped with a message.

From my journal on the trip, I noted that “three people told me that my reading this [the Song of Songs passage on her feast day] is a sign. A sign of what? I don’t know. Have I found the one whom my heart loves?”

Yes, but.

Yes, in an amazing, miraculous way I have found more of Jesus in my heartbreak. I am in love with him more now than I was with Dan here. I have a much stronger, more profound, deep knowledge that I am loved – and I trust God’s heart more for me now than when Dan lived.

I do. I love Jesus more now than a year ago – and I want to love him more – I want more of him. I am no longer afraid of the Holy Spirit living in me – I WANT that. I want more of Him. More. More. MORE.

But…I still want to love a person. I want to be married. I want a family. I still want those things. I do.

The hardest part of grief is feeling you straddle two worlds. Two lives. One that feels broken, desolate, a promise dashed. One that hopes, that breathes, that lives, that laughs. Two hearts.

Like today’s words: Don’t. Go.  (Father always selected one word from the Gospel as our word of the day)

I don’t know how to live in two worlds. I don’t know what my “don’t” is…but my soul clings to Hope. My heart has been buoyed by Hope – and my Hope has a name, Jesus.

St. Mary Magdalene…pray for us.

Later that day, Nigel and I had our second conversation of the trip; the first where it was just the two of us. I told him about Dan dying. I told him about how hard this reading was. Father David later told me that the fact I read this was powerful for those listening.

Honestly, I don’t often think of Mary Magdalene, or call on her intercession. Yet, as I read this Gospel reading, the Holy Spirit has brought me back to her. In my twenties, I remember her described by her “great love” – as the one who has been forgiven much now loves much – and now, I recognize that great love manifesting as profound grief. She can teach us so much about loving Jesus. Seeking, searching; not stopping until we discover the Subject of our devotion and affection.

Father David instructs us that during the Passion, we are either suffering or in the tomb. Before we can enter the tomb, we suffer. While in the tomb, we wait. When I encountered Mary in Cobh, I was still suffering. In my suffering, I couldn’t see what could be next; I couldn’t even see what my heart desired or wanted. …and it wasn’t time yet for me to be able to articulate that. I needed to keep seeking - in HOPE - that the answer - the Beloved - would come. Don’t - give up hope. Go - home, Jessica.

My healing was still being worked out. I didn’t want to straddle two worlds, and God was healing my heart so that I wouldn’t. Mary was straddling two worlds - and Jesus tells her to be fully present in this one. To fulfill her calling and mission by proclaiming Good News - that she has found her Beloved. Don’t imagine that your grief here is eternal; grief is temporary because Jesus IS Resurrection. Go - fulfill your calling; live with Easter Joy no matter the circumstances. Don’t cling to grief - GO to your Beloved.