God understands

from Helen

If I was to describe today it would be a celebration. We have journeyed with Jesus to the cross and now we arrive at the most joyous moment. The moment when we celebrate that Jesus is alive. Death has been conquered for ever. We are now able to live forever when we go to our home in heaven.

Jesus is alive and because  He is alive we know that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Every Easter I have to apologise because I get very excited about day. I always feel that out of kindness to everyone I know I should be muffled ! My favourite day of the year, the day when we celebrate that God loved and loves us so much that He not only died for us but He showed that He is almighty as He rose from the dead.

Jesus is alive and so we can celebrate. There is a problem with lots of rejoicing and that is that people don’t always feel like rejoicing because life continues for us and the pains that we had on Good Friday, the hurts that we hold are still here today. 

The difference is though that because we know Jesus is alive. So we know that He loves us and understands when we don’t feel completely like celebrating. It doesn’t mean that the resurrection of Jesus means any less to us. It just means that we may not want to shout.

In our gospel reading today (John 20:1-18) we heard of Mary seeing Jesus resurrected. To be honest when I was a child I never understood how she didn’t recognise Jesus. Except now I get it, because when you see someone in a different place to normal you take longer than you normally would to recognise them. For Mary she had seen Jesus die, she was going to the tomb to do all that she could do for Jesus now in looking after His body, she would hardly have expected to see Him alive. 

Mary recognised Jesus eventually, when she heard Him calling her name. There can be something so amazing when someone calls your name. It can be a really special moment. When I was a teenager I was at an international Anglican youth conference. We had been taken to a reception with the then Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey, I had met him and had a quick chat then I had gone and got a piece of chocolate cake. There I was happily enjoying my chocolate cake when I heard a voice say, “Helen, is Welsh. Helen please come and join in a photograph with other people from Wales.” The voice was George Carey, it was a pretty brilliant feeling. I did finish my chocolate cake quickly first.

If that is how I felt, imagine this rather beautiful moment for Mary. She was in despair and doing the best that she could now do for Jesus when all of a sudden she realised that she was talking to Him. Not only that but she realised it was Him when He called her name.

Jesus is alive and He calls our name. He looks at each one of us with love and He knows our name. He knows how we are feeling, He knows that we love Him and He looks at us and see someone He loves.

Back to Mary, rather understandably she didn’t want to let Jesus go. Jesus almost pushed her away, but it was only so that she could go and tell the others this amazing news. This news that changed not only her life but the life for all the other followers of Jesus. The news that changes us and our lives. 

We all have times when Jesus seems so close  to us that we went to tell everyone about Him. We have seen the Lord. Mary went and shouted to the others, I have seen the Lord. Can you imagine how excited she must have been and what a great feeling ? A feeling of complete joy and happiness. A huge moment of celebration. 

Before Mary saw Jesus she had been in shock and distress believing that someone had taken Jesus’ body away. She went and got Peter and another disciple and they followed her in distress running to see what had happened. There was no joy for them, just the pain and indignity that not only had their Lord, the one who was to save the world been crucified, now His body had been stolen. 

They rushed off to see what to do next. Mary stayed and ended up being the first person to see Jesus alive. I wonder if afterwards Peter and the other disciple were thinking, “that’s not fair, we didn’t wait and we missed out.”

This happens to us too we can see other people having a great time and wonder why we are missing out. Today is a day of celebration and it is a day when we can celebrate not only that God loves us and knows us by name but also that we don’t miss out. We don’t miss out because God is always with us, life can be tough but God never leaves us. 

Jesus is alive and we can be changed. Changed into more and more the person God would

have us be. That is more and more like Him. God loves you just because you are you and He wants you to know that He will be with you always. He will help you to be transformed constantly into His likeness. 

You see, God loves us and He understands that we love Him but sometimes we don’t feel like celebrating. God loves us and He understands that sometimes like Mary at first we don’t see what He has done for us and that He calls us His own. God loves us and He understands that sometimes we feel like we have missed out and that everyone else is better than us and more worthy. He loves us and He understands when we want to shout how good He is and what He has done for us. 

Most of all God loves you because you are His child, a child for whom He suffered death and was raised to life so that death would no longer be the end. We can rejoice, loudly or quietly, because God has set us free, free to be in a relationship with Him, a relationship with our creator. The best place for us to be. AMEN