One Garden, One Word

“But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb, and as she wept she stooped to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one at the feet. They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “Because they have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” Saying this, she turned round and saw Jesus standing, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom do you seek?” 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, “Rab-bo’ni!” (which means Teacher).” (John 20:11-16)

Here is a situation I frequently find myself in: I am in adoration, perhaps with a group. The band is playing a powerful song and the people around me are praising God or deep in prayer. Clearly everyone around me is having a very holy experience right now.

And yet I myself am a whirling mass of confusion. My pride blares up, my pain from my sin, my frustration. I try so hard to understand what I’m thinking or hear God’s voice; yet the more I try the more I end up trapped in frustration and doubt. I don’t even know who God is anymore, or who I am, or why I should worship Him.

I’ve come to expect these spiritual attacks now. At first I just thought I must be insincere in my faith or seriously missing something. The confusion is blinding; my pride makes me resentful. I feel like a toddler who is so tired that they give a tantrum when they have to go to bed.

When Mary Magdalene first saw Jesus, she was clearly confused. She thought he was the gardener who had hidden Jesus’ body (the fact that John includes this amuses me). She’s confused about who Christ is. She’s trying to fix it, find a remedy. In the midst of her grief and chaos, Jesus says her name.

“Mary.”

I think this is my favorite line in the entire Bible. You can literally hear the love and gentleness in Jesus’ voice as He says her name.

Jesus doesn’t need her to understand, or to fix things, He just wants her to hear Him say her name. He says her name. He doesn’t explain it, or say, “Oh, I’m not actually the gardener,” or tell her where she’s wrong. He just wants her. He wants her to simply be there, to accept His love.

You can feel her frenzy stop. She lets go of all the ideas whizzing through her head, her confused ideas about how to find Jesus and who she’s talking to. She turns Jesus and responds to her name being said by saying His name.

“Rab-bo’ni.”

I’ve learned when I’m surrounded by confusion to give it to God. It took me a long time to learn this lesson. I say, “God, I am a silly eighteen year old girl who has a lot of pride and a lot of fears and who doesn’t understand why you love her or who You are or who she is, but even though I’m not much I give everything I am to You.”

And that’s enough.

I can rest in God, trust that He understands me better than I do, and that He does love me. I don’t have to fix things, I don’t have to understand it all. I can just feel His love, rest in His arms.

And He says my name. My name. This isn’t just a general invitation; He doesn’t say, “Hey, everybody.” He specifically asks me to rest in His love. “Katie.” He calls me out of the confusion into His gentle embrace by my name. When I really think about what I want, I know it is this: an invitation to be known completely, to be loved completely, to just be.

Pope Francis said two words that I often find myself returning to. They are, “proceed calmly.” We can turn ourselves inside out trying to diagnose our spiritual life. But in the end, the only thing that matters is this dialogue between Jesus and Mary Magdalene, Jesus and the soul. It is the dialogue between two great thirsts. It is our deepest longing to be called by name and to rest in an embrace.

“Mary.”

“Rab-bo’ni!”

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