Monday
John 20.15-16 “He asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?” Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.” Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”).”
The way someone who loves us uses our name is, quite literally, unforgettable. Mary’s grief had closed her eyes to the possibility of Jesus’ resurrection. Speaking her name opens her eyes, and unlocks new possibilities of hope, joy and a future. To believe Jesus rose again, to really believe it, is to look on the world with new eyes, through the lens of resurrection. In such a world, with God, all things are possible.
Tuesday
John 20.17 “Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, 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.’”
Of course she wants to hug Jesus, and to hang on to him, in that most human gesture of relief and new hope. But the risen Jesus cannot be tied down, limited by space and time, and the realities of everyday life. For the believer in the risen Jesus, the resurrection is the reality that now shapes and refreshes the colour of every other reality. “Heaven above is softer blue, earth beneath is sweeter green / something lives in every hue, Christ-less eyes have never seen.”
Wednesday
John 20. “Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them that he had said these things to her.”
This is the first eyewitness testimony to the resurrection, and it is a woman who tells a truth that reconfigures creation and announces a new creation. “I have seen the Lord!” In Greek, three words that declared life had changed forever. “Death is dead, love has won, Christ has conquered.” The last word belongs to God, and it is a word of life that banishes death’s finality, of light that overcomes darkness, of love that has refused to take no for an answer. “In Christ all God’s promises are yes.” Yes!
Thursday
John 20.19a “On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!”
When we’re scared we lock doors; either physical doors to keep harm out, or closed eyes as we hide the outside world and hope to stay hidden from harm ourselves. Fear is a deeply embedded emotion we all recognise, a source of anxiety that robs life of joy and peace. So what does Jesus say to the locked up and locked in disciples? Jesus the shepherd of souls, meets their fears with words of psychological precision. “Peace be with you.” As he promised, “My peace I leave with you…let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me.”
Friday
John 20.19b “After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.”
Thomas wasn’t the only one who needed proof, who had to be convinced. In the aftermath of their anguished witnessing of Jesus’ crucifixion, the unmistakable evidence of his death by Roman execution, the disciples now witness the wounds, the identity marks of their Lord, the Crucified Nazarene. That word overjoyed is an understatement; Luke says “they disbelieved for joy.” This news is both too good to be true, and too true not to be believed - then lived into for the rest of their lives.
Saturday
John 20.21-22 “Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”
This is John’s account of the disciples’ Pentecost. As at the creation God breathed into the first humans, so Jesus breathes upon them the promised Comforter, the Spirit who will enable and direct them, energise and teach them the things of Jesus. They are commanded to receive the Giving Gift, the Spirit of Truth, the Paraclete, who will be by their side no matter where they are, as the “Lo I am with you always.”
Sunday
John 20.23 “If you forgive anyone their sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”
These difficult words about who can and should be forgiven, are words spoken to disciples commissioned to preach the good news. Only God forgives, and the basis of forgiveness is faith in Christ, and trust in the faithfulness of Christ as Saviour and Lord. To hear the Good News of God’s invitation to life, and to reject it, is an act of self-judgement, a refusal of mercy because there is no sense of being in the wrong. Forgiveness is an act that saves a relationship, enables reconciliation, and makes the heart right. That is God’s work and gift, to whoever sees in Christ their own sin crucified, and God’s love reaching out to them, to ransom, heal, restore and forgive.
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