Easter Day April 20
‘See you there’
Dear Mary Magdalene,
The bizarre events on Friday afternoon must have been bewildering and excruciating for you. I did notice that you were there and while you may not think that you were doing much you just being there meant everything to me. Sometimes it’s just a matter of turning up and being there. It’s the timeless and true principle of just being seen to be there. Nothing much needs to be said and even less needs to be done. I did see you there just as surely as you saw me there.
I reckon you went away at the end of the day thinking that was it. It was all over. That you would never see me again. Ever! If I could have spoken to you as you tottered away, I would have said just three simple words.
‘See you there.’ As simple, as puzzling, as profound as that. Just ….’See you there’.
But this morning you have learnt what those three words really meant. You came to the tomb and found the massive stone rolled away. The tomb itself was empty. And when you looked there were angels inside. While it might not have felt like it, you were exactly in the right place at the right time. You were there. You were simply being the superb Mary Magdalene that I have always known you to be. You were pummelled by your grief, but all that was about to change because I saw you there and you saw me there. You just didn’t quite know it … yet. But you would.
I asked you why you were crying. Who is it that you are looking for?
And thinking I was the gardener, you replied “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”
Part of what you were asking was simply this. Am I in the right place? Is this where I should be because, what I am looking for, what I came for is not here and if he is not here, then where is he?
And so with my own tears of joy, I told you in one swift word that you were exactly where you should have been. You were there.
“Mary”
The one word said it all. You are here. I am here. And it was marvellous for us to share these few, fleeting, exceptional seconds where both of us were where we should be.
But there was work to do and I sent you off to the other disciples. See you there.
There would be a few times more when I would ‘see you there’. Unexpectedly, without preparation, palaver or fanfare, just turning up and seeing you there. It would take some time and reteaching to understand what the empty tomb, your name, the angels and my three little words would mean for you, for the disciples, and for the world.
See you there Mary
Rabboni
It’s a simple little letter that was never written but I hope will be helpful for you. Perhaps the following might also be helpful.
To you and to all people I offer a simple treatise on Resurrection 101.
‘See you there’ means that the tomb is not the cold, hard, bitter end that we had all once feared. That death itself is transformed and transfigured into something else entirely. Tantalisingly just beyond our comprehension, but all the more alluring and exciting because we simply can’t squish it tightly into a bottle and sell it. We can’t break down, measure and list the ingredients of the heady brew we call resurrection.
And from there you see, it’s a simple but comforting little puddle hop to the realisation that when it comes your turn and my turn to close our eyes in death, The Teacher will speak to you just as spoke to Mary, by name., his little words. At that moment … when everyone else is in floods of Mary Magdalene-type tears; weeping with all the passion that she exuded,… “I will see you there”
For every one of us there are moments in our life when we wonder… is this where I am meant to be? What on earth am I doing here? And the answer is often a cement pylon of silence which is code for Yes! You are exactly where you are supposed to be. Here again those three simple words. ‘See you there.’
Every time you are confronted by death. Sudden or expected. Tragic and unexpected, a sweet release from a twisted cancerous body, at every funeral you attend into the future, the subtext is there for you to grasp tightly. Often it isn’t quite as clearly enunciated as we would like. Sometimes it is hidden in the photos and the eulogies and the tears. But as you leave the funeral and wonder ‘What’s it really all about?’ …The tagline you can hang onto is the simple message of the Risen Christ on the very first Easter Day. He will call you by name and encourage you to go and spread the good news of the angels and the mysterious gardener. And he will whisper to you and you will hear his words tickling your ears ruminating in your heart. Massaging your soul. ‘See you there.’