Jesus Appears to Mary Magdalene

The life of the spirit is a love-story. God seeks the soul, wooing her away from sin, but later the soul must seek for Him when He hides Himself from her. This divine love-story is the story of Magdalene; it is the theme of the Song of Songs: It must find its counterpart in my own life. I will identify myself with Magdalene in her sorrowful search and her wonderful finding of Christ early on Easter morning.

Read John 20:1-18
I will set the scene, seeing the women and Magdalene "with anxious love aflame," carrying their ointments at early dawn to the tomb of Christ.
I ask to share their ardent love, which seeks God, and him only and above all.

"Why are you weeping?
Because they have carried away my Lord . . . and I cannot tell where they have taken him."

"I searched for my heart's love, and searched in vain. Now to stir abroad, and traverse the city, searching every alley?way and street for him I love so tenderly! But for all my search I could not find him . . .”  (Song of Songs 3:1-3)

"Woman," Jesus said to her, "why are you weeping? For whom are you searching?"

"I met the watchmen who go the city rounds, and asked them whether they had seen my love." (Song of Songs)

"If it is you, Sir, that have carried him off, tell me where you have put him, and I will take him away."
Jesus said to her, "Mary." And she turned and said to him, "Rabboni. . .”

"Then when I had scarce left them, I found him, so tenderly loved; And now that he is mine I will never leave him, never let him go." (Song of Songs 3:4)

Then Jesus said, "Do not cling to me thus; I have not yet gone up to my Father's side. Return to my brethren and tell them this: I am going up to Him who is my Father and your Father, Who is my God and your God."

Lovingly and gratefully I will ponder these words; the final achievement of the Redemption: My Father, your Father . . . My God, your God.

"Love is a fire no waters avail to quench, no floods to drown; For love, a man will give up all that he has in the world and think nothing of his loss." (Song of Songs 8:7)