My dear friend, Amber Durgan, has been a guest on the podcast before, is also my co-author of our book, Friendship Matters, and is a previous guest-poster here on the blog, most recently just last Sunday in her beautiful Palm Sunday post and this past Friday in her Good Friday post. Today, I am delighted to have her joining us on the blog again, this time for the third and final part of her Holy Week series.
In recent months, Amber has been learning about the power of the spiritual practice of gospel contemplation and of using your imagination to enter into a story from Scripture and thereby coming to a deeper understanding of it. May you come away inspired and equipped to do the same through Amber’s beautiful words today.
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Early that morning, I (Mary Magdalene) woke up groggy and disorientated. It was still dark, and I felt as if I hadn’t slept a wink for days. Truthfully, my sleep had been fitful, composed of nightmarish flashbacks to the moment they hung my Savior on the cross. I kept hearing His agonizing cries and seeing His head falling in surrender as soon as He said, “It is finished”. It was like a movie playing over and over in my mind’s eye.
I pulled my exhausted body out of bed and began to prepare the spice mixture needed to anoint His body. This was customary in our culture - we did it to prevent odors from decaying flesh. I also wanted to anoint His body as a final way of honoring Him. He had done so much for me, gifting me with freedom through His name. This act of anointing Him was the very least I felt I could do.
As I prepared the spices and got ready to leave my home, I half wondered if the happenings of this morning would plague my dreams, as well. Seeing my Savior, the One who knew me so intimately, lying cold and dead inside a borrowed grave. I still could not bring myself to understand. He said He was the Messiah; He had done miracles before our very eyes. He had set me free of demons, so why did He choose not to save Himself?
I know without a shadow of a doubt that He could have made it all stop if He had simply said the word. And yet there He had allowed Himself to hang, mocked and naked upon the cross. Nothing ever to be the same again. How could it be?
Walking slowly in the dark, I carefully made my way to the tomb, completely lost in my thoughts. Unsure of how I would remove the stone that sealed the tomb, I wondered if I should have brought others along with me to help me with the task ahead. My best efforts would end up wasted if I could not even open the tomb.
But that is not what happened. As I approached His grave, I realized the stone had been rolled away already. Without another thought, I ran as fast as I could to find Peter and John. They would know what to do. They must know.
Breathlessly, I gasped, “They’ve taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they’ve put him!” Right away Peter and John were on their feet racing back to the tomb as I followed behind. John arrived first, later reporting that seeing Jesus’ burial clothes folded so neatly caused him to stop short of going inside. Next, Peter came, and in all of his impulsiveness, he did not wait to enter the tomb but instead went straight into the heart of it.
I quietly watched these men from the outside. Giving them their moment. Needing my own. Standing there in that place crying for fear of what they had done with His body, I watched as the two men turned and quietly walked back home. No one said anything.
Once I was alone again, I ever-so-cautiously peered inside the tomb, not knowing what to expect but knowing it was surely not what I found. There were two angels sitting there, right where His body should have been. They questioned the tears on my face, wanting to know why I was crying. I could not put together in my mind why angels - of all creatures! - wouldn’t know the answer to this.
This was all so foreign to me - I had only ever heard of angels, never having seen one for myself. I filled them in, “They have taken my Lord and I do not know where they have put Him!”. They remained quiet. I wasn’t sure if it was out of reverence or if they knew something more, something I was not yet privy to.
I decided in that moment to turn around and go home, knowing I could not do what I came here to accomplish. I saw a man I supposed was the gardener and begged him, pleaded with him, “Sir, if you know what they have done with my Lord’s body, please, please tell me…” This was getting to be too much. Not only had they killed my Lord, now His body had gone missing. The nightmare continued, except this time I was not sleeping.
“Mary.”
I paused. Only one person in history had ever said my name like that.
Daring to look closer at this “gardener”, I gasped and practically leapt into His arms. “Teacher!!”, I exclaimed. My Risen Savor!!! Standing there speaking to me. A woman. I would be the first person He revealed His resurrected body to. How I wish I could have jumped in His arms that very moment. My Jesus was found. He was here, speaking to me. He was Risen indeed.
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Talk about some holy whiplash! Put yourself in Mary’s shoes as she wakes up and has this task of anointing Jesus’ dead body. What feelings or emotions do you think you would carry with you to the tomb that morning? Where do you find yourself in Mary’s story?
It has always been humorous to me that John included in his account that he made it to the tomb before Peter. Having two boys of my own, I fully know their competitive natures. Which do you see yourself reflected in more? Are you the more cautious (yet competitive) John who got there first but was reluctant to go inside? Or are you his slower companion who, while arriving second, didn’t let that stop him? How can you use this knowledge about yourself to draw closer to the Lord this Easter season?
Once alone, Mary gathered her courage to step inside. Instead of finding nothing, she is greeted by two angels and then Jesus Himself. Allow yourself to enter that moment. Close your eyes and imagine what it may have looked like from different angles (Mary’s, the angels’, Jesus’). When we do this, we aid ourselves in getting a better picture of the Gospel stories, which is why I have shared with you in this manner this week.
Happy Resurrection Sunday, friends! Thank you for journeying with me through Holy Week as we have taken the time to hopefully aid our understanding of these stories.
May you be blessed as you grow closer to the Lord and spend time with your families today!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Amber is wife to Lance and homeschool momma to their two sweet little men. Her family resides in Montana, “where the mountains meet the prairie”. She has been blogging on and off since 2006 and has a passion to see women live into abundance through finding their worth and identity in Christ alone. To that end she has co-authored two books – Walk By The Spirit (January 2020) and Friendship Matters (December 2020).
