Jesus Appears to Mary
“Jesus saith unto her, Woman, why weepest thou?” John xx. 15.
‘nr^HE ministry of comfort — that is the meaning of this incident. The great Shepherd of the sheep has been brought again from the dead through the blood of the everlasting covenant and He begins His shepherd work just outside the empty tomb by calling ‘’ His own sheep by name.” Presently He will go after His straying sheep, Peter. Then He will reestablish the faith of two wavering sheep, and then He will go to the fold and quiet the hearts of His excited and disturbed sheep.
But He begins with the sheep who weeps. It illustrates Jesus’ method of comfort.
We have here a tear-blinded disciple. Jesus is there, but she sees Him but dimly through wet eyes, anb dottier interpretationss 93
and supposes Him to be the gardener. She was not so very far wrong after all. Jesus is everything, including Gardener. “Ye are God’s iCor. in tilled ground,” says the apostle; and so the divine Gardener ploughs us, breaking up the hard fallow-ground of our hearts; passing the harrow over the sown seed, and then most tenderly watering it with the dew of Hermon, and calling the south wind to blow upon His garden “that the spices thereof may flow out,” and then, forgetting in the harvest joy the hard day of the plow and the harrow, we are ready to cry, ‘’ Let my beloved come into his garden and eat his pleasant fruits.” Mary was not far wrong when she supposed Him to be the gardener, but that morning He had put His hand to the shepherd staff and not to the plow.
But Mary was weeping and she could not see Him for tears. That Hosea x.
Fsa.
cxxxiii. 3.
Song iv.
16.
Psa. xxiii.
4.
The bad
use of
sorrow.
^0 iom in ttie 3i[nn
How Jesus
consoles.
Matt. V. 4.
Why weepest thouf
John XX.
IS.
Matt, xiv.
IS the bad use of sorrow, to let it hide the Consoler. The right use of sorrow makes of tears a thousand lenses through which Jesus is drawn nearer.
Notice the method of the divine consolations. Be sure it is written that we may study it. Be sure the method has not changed, nor ever will change; so that if we see how Jesus comforted Mary Magdalene we shall understand how He will seek to comfort us when we sorrow.
First, He asks a question, “Why weepest thou? Whom seekest thou?” But did not Jesus know? Oh, yes, He knew; but He also knew something else. He knew that the beginning of comfort for Mary would be to tell it all to Him. When John Baptist was slain his disciples ‘* took up the body and buried it, and went and told Jesus.” There was wisdom beyond words in that. A grief is half assuaged when anb (letter interpretations it Is told, and If It Is told to Jesus it is already half sanctified.
And, secondly, Jesus called her by name. Consider the inner meaning of that. What was it but the assurance of personal interest, personal sympathy? If Mary was a subject of a kingdom working automatically by means of self-enforcing laws, that is one thing. If she was exalted to be the personal friend of the King, that is quite another thing. If Jesus is touched by, and takes account of, only the aggregate of human sorrow in a collective kind of way — so many millions of human tears reported to-day as against so many on the corresponding date a twelvemonth ago — that is one thing. But if Jesus has time to think of Mary’s tears as if there were no other weeping one on earth, time to put her “tears in a bottle,’’ time to say, ‘’ Mary,” that is quite another thing. Ah, if we will only ‘’ tell Jesus” He will
‘Mary!
John XV.
15.
Psa. lvi. 8.
y Room in tt Mn
Comfort
through
work,
John XX.
17.
‘Rahbonil”
I Cor. i.
3f
Three
turning
points in
Acts,
find means to prove that He thinks upon us!
And, thirdly, Jesus gave her work to do. Go to my brethren
and say” That is a great
medicine for weeping eyes — to ‘’ go, say” some glad thing to others who are cast down. It is not the whole cure, but it is a necessary part of it.
So comfort begins when we tell Jesus; grows mightily when He makes us see how intimate and personal His love is, and is complete when we go to bring gladness to other sad hearts.