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Morning Devotion for the Wednesday in Easter Week
April 23, 2025
Reading: John 20:11-18
Mary Magdalene stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. They said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping?" She said to them, "They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him." When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?" 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 Hebrew, "Rabbouni!" (which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, "Do not hold on to me, because 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.'" Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, "I have seen the Lord"; and she told them that he had said these things to her.
Meditation by Glenn Beamer
Jesus statement to Mary Magdelene, “I am ascending to my father and your father, to my God and your God,” brings into relief Jesus’ shared humanity with us. What is striking how Jesus presents himself somewhat ordinarily, as evidenced by Mary Magdelene mistaking Jesus for the gardener. Yet this presentation is followed by Jesus extraordinary claim that he had not yet ascended to his Father and her Father, to his God and her God. Jesus’ presence transforms from ordinary to awesome.
Pope Francis’ death yesterday brings to mind that Jesus calls us to be present to one another. I believe that Francis will be remembered not for doctrinal changes or halting, sometimes muddled, efforts at institutional reform, but for how he presented himself – sometime with humor, sometimes with grace, sometimes soberly and with humility. I remember he stopped his motorcade at the Philadelphia airport to bless a young boy with physical handicaps and developmental challenges. Others will recall his annual pilgrimage to a Rome jail to wash prisoners’ feet on Maundy Thursday. As an individual pastor Pope Francis revealed his deep commitment to serving God on earth.
During my first month at William and Mary, I went to a Catholic Mass with four of my hallmates. In that Mass I was overwhelmed by the Sign of Peace. As we shared God’s Peace, my hallmates revealed God’s presence to me in a way I had not experienced previously. Albeit a rather simple discipline that the Episcopal Church shares with the Catholic Church, the Peace can be an act of compassion and reconciliation, an act of redemptive love.
In my sophomore year, I was confirmed into the Catholic Church in the chemistry auditorium on campus. My four closest W&M friends were Catholic, and our faith and friendships grew in college and for decades beyond. Leaving the Catholic Church for the Episcopal Church would be a bittersweet experience although I was confident it was the right path to take.
Being Catholic helped me come to new understandings of prayer, devotion, perseverance, and redemption. I look back on my experiences in the Catholic Church with substantial gratitude – gratitude for my path to God, gratitude for what I have learned, and mostly gratitude for the scores of people who have been present to me.
However imperfectly, Pope Francis modeled the redemptive love God calls us to, the redemptive love Jesus shared by his presence with Mary Magdelene at the tomb. May Pope Francis rest in Peace with God.
Prayer
Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses,
As we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory,
Forever and ever, Amen.
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