Find Healing

Mary is not looking for a resurrection. She is looking for a body she can care for. She is mourning, in a deep grief that overtakes the body. When she looks directly at the risen Christ, she sees a gardener. Womanist biblical scholar Wil Gafney notes that this is not a failure of faith but a portrait of grief: grief narrows what we can perceive. She sees what she expected to see. And then he says her name... In a voice she has heard before, around fires and at meals and through Galilee. Everything shifts. The healing does not come through a process or a program or a resolution of her circumstances. It comes through a voice that knows her. Healing begins when you are named by someone who came looking for you. She is sent immediately: “Go and tell.” Healing is not for her alone. But not before that hug. She doesn’t want to let go. The woman who came looking for a body becomes the first person to announce the resurrection.