The First Joy

John 20:11–18

Phrases that spoke to me today:
•  Mary stayed outside the tomb weeping.
•  “They have taken my Lord, and I don’t know where they laid him.”
•  “Jesus said to her, ‘Mary!’”
•  “Stop holding on to me.”

Applying the Word to My Life:
I went to a couple retreats growing up that really did affect me. I came out of them feeling different like I had been to the mountaintop. On the drive home, everything felt sharper and more alive. But within a day or two, I was usually back to normal. I had experienced something real, but I couldn’t understand why it went away. Then years later I went to NCYC with my oldest son, and I was back on the mountaintop. On the ride home, I was determined not to let this moment go. I did not know exactly what that would mean yet, but I knew I could not just go back to usual.

Mary Magdalene’s life changed when she first encountered Christ. He had not just encouraged her or helped her manage things a little better. He had driven out seven demons and pulled her out of a ruined life into a new one with Him. That first encounter was powerful enough to make everything after it different.

The Gospels do not linger over what her life looked like before, but they make clear what happened after she met Christ. She stayed near Him. She followed Him. She was one of the few who remained at the Cross with His mother when so many others were gone. That kind of closeness does not come from a passing emotional moment. It comes from a life that has really been given over.

It is almost impossible to imagine her grief as she saw the Passion, death and burial. Mary is not just sad that someone she loves has died. She is standing in the place where it looks like she has lost the One through whom her whole life had been made new. With Christ gone, does everything go away? Is it all over? Was it all even real?

The longing in her voice only makes sense because of what He had already done in her. She wants to know where they put Him. She wants His body. She is not ready to walk away. You do not feel the sorrow of His absence like that unless you have first let yourself live close to Him.

Then Jesus says her name. That is the moment everything turns. Mary does not reason her way into the Resurrection. She does not slowly work it out from the evidence in front of her. Her heart already knows Him. She recognizes Him because the One who had already called her out of darkness calls her again. The risen Christ does not just appear to her. He addresses her personally. He draws her out of grief, confusion, and loss into life with Him again.

And even then, He does not simply hand her back the old life she had before Good Friday. “Stop holding on to me” is not rejection. It is movement. Mary cannot stay with Him now in the old way. What she had before was real, but now Christ is drawing her into something deeper. The relationship is not being diminished. It is being deepened. The One she found before the Passion and lost at the Cross is now risen, and He is leading her into a life with Him that is greater than what she had known before. He is not just giving her comfort. He is drawing her farther in.

That is where this reading reaches us too. It is not enough to have moments where Christ feels close if we keep returning unchanged to the old life. The difference between a passing high and a real relationship is that, at some point, closeness has to become a way of living. Prayer has to become part of the structure of our days. Church cannot stay at the edge. Community cannot stay optional. If we want to stay near Christ, then life actually has to change.

Christ never stops calling us closer and inviting us into a deeper relationship with Him. If we do not feel that closeness, then the question is whether we are living in a way that keeps us near enough to hear Him and follow where He leads. And if we are not, then we need to look for ways to change the shape of our lives so that closeness to Him can become real.

Because Mary’s tears show us something important: only people who have really let Him close know what it is to miss Him like that. And her joy shows us something even better: when the risen Jesus calls our name, He is not just trying to make us feel better. He is calling us into a life with Him that is deeper than the one we knew before.

My Response for Today:
Today, I will set aside ten quiet minutes to pray and ask Jesus to draw me closer instead of slipping back into usual.