PENnED

I’ve been to Zion National Park in Utah four times and each time was a new experience. The fourth visit was quite a treat.

We hiked and about a mile later we came behind a refreshing mini waterfall that looked like white refined sugar dropping from a ridge above and against a dainty blue sky. I stood still and for a moment took it all in.

What an exhilarating experience it was of beauty and life!

I am not sure if my first “visit” counts because my family and I just passed through the canyon on our way home from a very long road trip that encompassed five states. And it was in the middle of the night!

But it is because we went through it in darkness that made the experience unique. Except for the zigzag road ahead and the spots that the minivan’s headlights would hit, I couldn’t see anything else.

But somehow I could sense that we were in some special place. Having such feeling, I stopped the vehicle on the side of the road and turned its engine off.

I looked up and I could make out the towering peaks silhouetted against a star-filled sky. The absence of artificial light made the stars looked so big, so bright and so close that I felt like reaching up and touching them.

In the stillness of the night, I heard the sound of a rushing stream coming from below the cliff, and then a silent voice within my heart said: Yes, this is a beautiful place. Too bad, you can’t see it.

I believed in my heart that it was a beautiful place. We all believed in our hearts that it was a beautiful place.

So as we exited the canyon, we promised ourselves that we’d come back. We kept our promise. And because we’ve seen that Zion is a magnificently beautiful place, we keep coming back!

Going through this year’s Easter Sunday text in John is like that journey through Zion in the middle of the night.

Mary Magdalene comes to the tomb while it’s still dark. Obviously, it is not literal darkness that grips and saddens her heart.

Rather, it is the darkness brought about by the fact that Jesus, who meant the world to her, is now entombed in this rock-hewn grave. His death has made her heart sink into depths of great sadness.

But there’s one more thing she needs to do now: pay her last respects. Perhaps from there she could move on. But to where?

Who really knows where. But for now, as far as her relationship with Jesus is concerned, she needs some closure.

But alas! The body of her Lord is not there. Did the authorities take it somewhere? Confused and befuddled, she weeps.

I’m not sure if in her bewilderment she sees the angels as angels. Even if she does, that does not seem to help. After all, she came to the tomb not to see angels but to see the body of Jesus… so she could anoint it and move on with life, albeit a lonely one.

What a dark moment for Mary. Yet it is in her deep moment of darkness—when she could not recognize the face of the person standing behind her—that she hears the voice of the flesh made Word speak her name: “Mary.”

Hearing Jesus’ voice, a light within her is turned on—the light of faith! She does not see the face of Jesus, but she definitely hears his voice!

Recognizing Jesus, she exclaims, “Rabbouni!” Mary has recognized Jesus not by his looks but by his words!

The words of Paul, the Apostle, ring true: “So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17).

Mary thought he was “the gardener.” Well, he is… but not an ordinary one.

This is the Gardener who, “in the beginning…swept over the face of the waters” and said, “Let there be light….” (Genesis 1:1-3).

This Gardener was the one whom John spoke about in the first chapter when he wrote:

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people” (1:1, 3-4).

So we find Mary in the Garden. No, not the one near Calvary. But the one in Eden, where she became a witness to God’s ongoing creation in Christ.

Mary heard the Word and she believed . And that experience forever changed her. It also changed the disciples who heard and believed the Word because of her witness.

And it still changes anyone who hears and believes in the flesh made Word.

As the Apostle Paul puts it, “…even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. So if anyone is in Christ, (she or) he is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

We believe not because we have seen; we believe because we have heard. “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe” (20:29).