MERRY MONDAY BY PARRIS BAILEY-
“But Mary stood without at the sepulcher weeping: and as she wept, she stooped down, and looked into the sepulcher. 12, And seeth two angels in white sitting, the one at the head, and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain. 13. And they say unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? She saith unto them, Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him.” John 20:11
This story has always captivated me. Mary staring at a empty tomb is an interesting picture of the story in Song of Solomon when “her beloved is gone” after He puts His hand on the door dripping with myrrh. Sometimes we can become so careless about maintaining our relationship with The Lord. “I have put off my robe and cannot put it on again”—said the shulamite woman to her lover. In the gospel of Mark, He reminds us who this Mary was- “Now when Jesus was risen early the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven devils.” I am sure once she saw the grave empty, the whole earth seemed empty to her. The tomb just stared at her back, mocking her. Once Peter and John left the tomb, she stayed behind taking it all in. The shock of the past few days all flashing through her memory. The rigid form, the unanswering lips and blank eyes, the lifeless body all speak of death. Why did she leave the tomb in the first place? I love the fact she lingered in that empty place, taking in the sepulcher with the linen cloth laying on the stone slab, tears flowing from her broken heart. She is so self absorbed that the vision of angels doesn’t comfort her, for she “has no room for wonder for it’s another voice she is looking for.” (Interpreter’s) She had but the thought, “they have taken away my Lord” and thinking everyone knows why she is there weeping she sees the gardner and says, “Sir, if thou has borne Him hence….”
What is interesting about this moment, is that Jesus could have gone anywhere to visit with the highest and most important—But “to mourn His presence is to desire and to invite His presence, and to invite His presence is to secure it.” (Interpreters)I believe her sense of need is what eventually appealed to Him -if you call He will answer. Your beloved will come to your dead tomb.
Interpreters Commentary goes onto say, “To seek Christ is to feel as Mary felt, to see with practical constraining clearness as she saw, that he is the most precious of all possessions and that to be like him is the greatest of all attainments, it is to see his character with clearness and to be persuaded that, if the world gives us opportunity of becoming like him and actually makes us like him, it has done for us all that is vital and permanently important.”