Go and Tell
John 20:14-17 "Having said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, 'Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?' 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 Aramaic, 'Rabboni!' (which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, 'Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brothers and say to them, I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'"
After Joy Davidman died, C.S. Lewis filled four notebooks trying to hold onto her. What he discovered was that grief kept distorting the very thing he was reaching for. He couldn't see her face distinctly in his imagination anymore. The harder he tried to remember her, the more he found himself substituting what he called "a mere doll to be blubbered over" for the real woman. Grief wasn't preserving her. It was replacing her with something smaller, safer, and false.
Lewis was one of the most brilliant minds of the twentieth century, and even he couldn't think his way past it. Grief gave him the wrong search criteria. He kept looking for what he'd lost, and the looking itself was pulling him further from the truth.
Mary Magdalene came to the garden on Sunday morning with that same instinct. She came looking for a body.
It was still dark when she arrived (John 20:1). She came with burial spices prepared during the Sabbath rest (Luke 23:56), ready to finish the work of anointing a corpse. This is what love does when it runs out of options. It goes to the grave and brings what it can.
But the stone was rolled away. The tomb was empty. And after Peter and John came and left, Mary stayed. Weeping in a garden at dawn, staring into a hole where her Lord used to be.
Two angels asked her why she was crying. She answered without flinching: "They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him." Then she turned around and saw a man standing behind her. She assumed He was the gardener. He asked the same question the angels asked: "Why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?"
She was seeking a corpse. He was standing right in front of her, breathing.
Here is what grief does: it gives you the wrong search criteria. Mary was so locked into finding the dead version of Jesus that she couldn't recognize the living one. Her devotion was extraordinary; this was a woman delivered from seven demons (Luke 8:2), whose entire identity had been rebuilt by Jesus. But her categories were fixed. She came for a body, and anything that didn't match got filed under "gardener."
Then He said her name.
"Mary." One word and everything shifted. John says she turned, which means she had looked away from Him. She heard her name in His voice and spun back around. "Rabboni!" The Aramaic is personal, intimate, the word you'd use for someone you knew, not a title you'd give a stranger. She recognized Him the way sheep recognize the shepherd: by the sound of His voice calling their name (John 10:3-4).
We spend more time than we realize looking for the dead version of things Jesus has already made alive. The faith that used to feel electric. The prayer life that used to come easily. The sense of closeness to God we remember from a retreat, a season, a younger version of ourselves. We keep returning to the garden looking for what we lost, and we walk right past what's present because it doesn't match what we're searching for.
And Jesus does for us what He did for Mary. He speaks our name. Through a verse that suddenly feels aimed at us. Through the still small voice of the Holy Spirit. Through a moment in worship where the distance collapses and we realize He's been standing there the whole time, and we were looking the wrong direction.
But notice what happens next. Jesus told her, "Do not cling to me... but go to my brothers and say to them..." The encounter ended with a commission to go and tell. In first-century Judaism, a woman's testimony was not admissible in court. And Jesus chose this woman, this former demoniac, and her female friends as the first people to carry the resurrection. The gospel's first evangelist was someone the culture would have dismissed on sight.
That's how Jesus has always worked. He finds you in your grief, calls you by name, and then sends you to speak what you've seen. Being found is the beginning, not the end.
Today: Lewis filled four notebooks trying to hold onto what he'd lost. Write down one thing God is doing right now that you've been too busy grieving the old thing to notice. Name it and thank Him for it.
Prayer: "Jesus, You know my name. I worship You for being the God who speaks first. Forgive me for clinging to the old version when You have made me new and are doing something new. Send me the way You sent Mary: to go and tell of Your goodness in my life. All because of Jesus. In His name, Amen."
-PK