Daily Thought for Sunday 20th April 2025
“Who are you looking for?”
John 20:15
Heart pounding
Peter Wood
Heart pounding
Eyes wide
Time had stopped …
And he had gone
As quickly as he had appeared.
I am left feeling dumbfounded, blindsided …
Immobilised by shock and amazement.
So many questions fly through my mind
as the dazzling experience
begins uploading from my body to my brain.
I realise that I have been standing there
in that damp tomb for several minutes
Standing, stunned …
Then with energy refilling my emptiness
I hastily gathered myself and exited
into the brightening light of the morning.
Bouncing along the road
my feet hardly touching the ground
I got to where they all were
On making out their shapes I forced the words out as gasps,
‘I, have seen, the Lord,’
*****
Death-defying hope
escaping the entombing darkness
As his followers we believe in resurrection not resuscitation.
Jesus is changed. Love is unbound.
Who are you looking for?
A dead body lying in grave clothes or a person speaking the word of life to you?
Jesus gentle question to Mary invites deeper knowledge.
This is an unexpected encounter.
Mary had probably slept badly. She had trudged wearily to the tomb. She had come to tend the body, to remember and to grieve her friend and master.
But her solitary act of commemoration is disrupted and she has the encounter of her life.
An encounter not simply with Jesus but with Jesus the risen Lord!
Jesus the cross bearer
Jesus the death defier
Jesus the hell harrower
Jesus the hope of the world.
Each encounter with the risen Lord transforms.
‘He has turned our mourning into dancing’.
Shall we pray?
God of Resurrection, come and fill my emptiness with the brilliance of your light and the fullness of your love so that I may run to tell others about you!
Thinking it through:
What for you are the transformative movements of resurrection?
There may be several. Write them down.
From … to …
Are there times in our lives and in our churches when we are looking to resuscitate things rather than looking for Resurrection?
What would it mean for us to look for the Resurrected Jesus?
Peter Wood is the Mission Officer for the Presbytery of Lothian & Borders.