We are all too familiar with sob stories such as this: A wife loses a husband and decides to live as a depressed woman. She resolves not to live anymore but simply exist in total disregard of the children left to her care. Desolation gets the better of her and she fails to see that not everything is lost, and that her children are supposed to be seen as blessings left for her to nourish and care for as a shining remembrance of the husband she lost.
As a pastor, I have always been approached by people who feel like they have the whole world on their shoulders. In all those situations, my advice is almost always the same: Never let your sorrow drown whatever blessings you still have, no matter how meager they may be.
While the event in the Gospel (JOHN 20:11-18} is known to most as the “Great Recognition,” we cannot miss the fact that Mary failed considerably in recognizing the Risen Christ. Seeing Christ just in front of her, she thought He was the gardener who took away her Master’s body. She even heard Him speak but failed to recognize the tone of the voice that she has heard consistently in the past three years. So, what brought about her initial failure to recognize Him?
She looked intently on the tomb — where Jesus was, that dark corner where she saw His lifeless body. And so she had her back against the Risen Christ.
That much is true for most of us. We miss seeing the glory because of too much attention on the shame. We don’t see the blessings because we dwell much on the curse. Tears are inevitable but they should not blind us in seeing the glory before us.
