Retain or Forgive

If you forgive the sins of any, their sins have been forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they have been retained. (John 20:23)

This verse has been a severely perplexing one for me for as long as I can remember. Something about the way it has been translated in nearly every version of the Bible just comes across in conflict with most of what I am learning about the nature of God's character. Either there is a major revelation needed about God that I have not yet seen (and that is always likely the case in many areas), or quite possibly the religious biases of translators has infected the renditions of this text to reflect the way they tended to view things. At this point I am leaning more toward the latter.

When I read this verse again this morning I stopped and asked God's Spirit to unpack this for me. I know God is willing to answer such requests, for He assures us that the Spirit is ready and eager to teach each one who is humble and open to learning more truth about God from His Word.

One thought that came to my mind was to begin looking for what others might have written about this. But I immediately dismissed that thought, for to do so would be like an act of unbelief on my part, assuming that God is unwilling to share truth with me firsthand. I have learned over recent years that God is far more faithful when we give Him a chance than we are often ready to believe. And when I give Him opportunity to teach me directly from the Word and by His Spirit, He has many times ravished my heart with surprising and refreshing revelations I could have never dreamed of and that I might never find by looking for other's opinions.

That is not to say I should never learn from others. I believe that God also speaks to anyone ready to be guided and taught by His Spirit. Different people may see different things in various passages, for each person has a unique perspective on life and truth. But I have come to believe that God wants each of us to come to Him directly first and give Him first chance at teaching us great things which we never before imagined before we chase off to study other people's opinions, whether they be inspired or not. By allowing God first place as our teacher and personal tutor, I believe we may find real truth much quicker and then He may lead us to similar revelations He has given to others to confirm and solidify what He has shown us.

That was a lot to explain a very simple point. But I feel compelled to explain myself sometimes which can take far longer than maybe necessary.

As a result of choosing to seek God as my tutor first to explain this verse for me, I decided to go to the Greek and see what clues I might find there. Almost immediately I began to see that the way this has usually been translated is not necessarily reflective of what Jesus was trying to get across. Rather, what I found there was far simpler than how it comes across in English. And although I lack training in how to read Greek and there may likely be much more there than my abilities can grasp, I highly suspect that a lot of preconceptions have also gotten mingled into the way most translations render this verse.

In the Greek there are far less words in this verse than what we see in English. But those words seem very potent to me, especially after studying in depth the teachings of Jesus in Matthew 18 that I have come to believe constitute the very heart of the message of salvation. In that chapter I was exposed to stupendous truths that I had never encountered before as I soaked in it intensely for over three months. What I discovered there were clear instructions on how we are to relate to offenses, which is translated from the very same Greek word that is here translated sin.

What I find very significant in this verse in the Greek is the lack of something that is often emphasized in the English renditions. In many translations it appears that Jesus is almost implying that the disciples were given some sort of authority to control whether other people could be forgiven of their sins or not. The way that so many translations read makes it sound like they were given authority commensurate with God to decide who should be pardoned and who would not. Quite possibly this slant was inserted into the text by subsequent people with vested interests in asserting assumed divine authority to intimidate and control others in ways that not even God uses. Abuse of authority has long been a serious problem in religion and Bible versions have too often been manipulated to imply support for such ideas even though they are out of harmony with its original intent.

Another problem with understanding this verse comes from so many people's serious misunderstanding about the whole issue of forgiveness. For anyone not clear on the real truth about forgiveness (and that includes most in my opinion at this point), it can be very confusing to figure out what Jesus was trying to say here.

If a person assumes that forgiveness is more along the lines of a pardon from God rather than an issue of holding onto or letting go of a grudge/offense, then what I am about to share will only be confusing. I have shared extensively on much of what I am learning about forgiveness elsewhere, and it is important to have that as the context for looking at this verse. But in short, what has become clear to me is that our problem with sin is not over an offended God waiting for us to grovel or impress Him enough in order to convince Him to let go of offenses He holds against us. Rather, the obstacles that prevent us from being reconciled to God are the offenses we hold against others as well as against Him. God is not our problem; the lies we believe about Him are our problem.

In the Greek there are different words that have been translated into the same English word forgiveness. This is one cause for much of our confusion in trying to understand the issue of forgiveness. Herb Montgomery is one of the best explainers of this concept and I highly recommend listening to his explanations of the two main words in the Greek related to this. Those words in Greek are aphiemi and charizomai. The difference in meaning between these two words that are both translated forgiveness are stunning and even liberating for those fearful that God has not forgiven them or struggling to know how to forgive others from the heart.

What I found in this verse by looking at the Greek is that it is very simple and straightforward, almost simplistic in nature. It is almost as if Jesus is stating the obvious so simply that it borders on insulting. But because of the dullness of the disciples who had been so intent on believing Jesus had come to carry out the agenda of the Jewish nation rather than to reveal the truth about God's character of love, Jesus had to make His point as direct and plain as possible to redirect their attention to what was most important for them to think about. That's what I sense when looking at this passage in its context.

In the Greek I see only 6 different words in this text. Two of them make up the word whosoever, so that leaves only four other words for the rest of the verse. Let me attempt to simplify it as close to the Greek version of this verse as I can in a rough transliteration of the verse. Here is the first part.

Anyone, whomever, offenses forgiven reflexively.

What I find compelling in the first half of this verse is that it strongly seems to suggest that forgiveness is more about the person doing it, letting go of the offense within their own heart, rather than what is happening to anyone else. The last word in this first phrase in the Greek refers to the person doing the forgiving, not the person being forgiven. This is very consistent with everything I learned about forgiveness in Matthew 18 where Jesus is trying to show us how important it is to let go of all offenses against everyone. This focuses attention squarely on how holding onto any offense poisons our own soul instead rather than making it an issue of keeping our blame focused on anyone else.

This fits very closely with the principle Jesus brought on in what is called 'The Lord's Prayer'.

And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.

For if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions. (Matthew 6:12, 14-15)

Here is my rendition of the second half of this verse.

Anyone, whoever, retains.

Yes, it really is that simplistic. There seems to be no inferences at all in the original implying that something we do can control other people's ability to be forgiven or not. Rather the entire point of these words of Jesus appears to me to be all about the effect that our choices have on ourselves and how to relate to the offenses inside of our hearts. If we refuse to let go of offenses they always react back on ourselves more than anyone else.

I looked through a number of versions for this text and found some that seem to be closer to what I am finding in the original. Here is one of them.

Whenever you forgive sins, they are forgiven. Whenever you don't forgive them, they are not forgiven.

(John 20:23 GW)

This reminds me of when a child has to be told something that should be obvious and very simple, yet because they are so confused they have to hear it in its simplest form. I sense that this is just what Jesus was seeking to do with His disciples becaue their minds were so full of confusion they could not make much sense out of anything at that point.

These men had possibly become so depressed from how events had gone totally opposite of what they had expected over the past two days that they felt like they had lost all hope. And in one respect it might have been a good thing, for their hopes had long been misplaced in that they had been clinging so strongly to false expectations shared with their fellow Jews as to what the Messiah was supposed to do for them. Jesus had not yet gotten their attention away from all their own goals and dreams and expectations for both themselves as well as what they wanted from Him. Now He needed to rivet their focus on what they must think about in the present to move them in a new and different direction from where they had been trying to go for so long.

On top of that, consider all the injustice and violence they had just witnessed against their Master. They were very likely in danger of being seriously poisoned with the bitterness that springs from dwelling on such injustice. If all the offenses they had witnessed over the past few days were allowed to occupy their hearts, they would be in serious danger of slipping into the pit in which Satan traps all who follow that path. In the book of Hebrews it is called the 'root of bitterness.' This is an evil root-cellar that no one should fall into. Forgiveness was the key to their freedom, and Jesus was keen to remind them of this so they could begin to come into harmony with His way of living and His spirit.

Our greatest danger from sin is not only the damage that it causes all around us, but most of all the damage that holding onto an offense causes in our own heart. Holding onto offenses is sin, and in the Greek it is the same word. When this becomes clearer in our thinking it can begin to make more sense to us why God never needs to let go of an offense – for God never sins! This begins to explain why God's forgiveness – the absence of offenses in His heart – is unconditional, for He never allows offenses to reside in His heart to start with.

Many of our assumptions about God's forgiveness mistakenly involves thinking that we need to get Him to change His feelings towards us, to convince Him to let go of His offenses over our sins against Him. And while this is nearly always the case in our relationships to the sins others commit against us, it is never the case in our relationship with God. God never, ever takes offense or He could not be sinless. Once we get that straight in our head we can begin to better understand the real power in the truth about forgiveness and how it relates to each person involved.

Quite likely the disciples were harboring feelings of offense towards those who had just crucified Jesus. In addition, that very morning Mary and other women had shown up claiming to have seen Jesus personally, yet the text seems to indicate that they had refused to believe the women. Very possibly these men had taken offense at the women, thinking that if indeed it were true that Jesus was alive, He should have come to the men first instead of only revealing Himself to women and expecting the men to believe only on their testimony.

To allow women to be legal witnesses was completely contrary to all custom and tradition for them, so it is easy to see why these disciples simply could not bring themselves to have that much faith simply based on the testimony of some 'sentimental, emotional women'. After all, the testimony of any woman was not even acceptable in their court systems so they likely felt justified in refusing to believe their testimony no matter how insistent the women were that they were speaking firsthand truth.

Given what John records about what happened when Jesus did finally appear to the men, it seems clear to me that His actions were something along the line of a rebuke to them, not unlike when He reprimanded Thomas for his unbelief. Jesus had to explicitly show them the wounds in His hands and side in order to convince them that He was indeed alive. This was far more evidence than any of the women had needed in order to believe in Him, and it is a sad narrative of the penchant all too many of us have as we resist embracing the truth about God's attitudes and His love towards us.

God's most difficult obstacle in the war to win us to faith in Him is the pride and unbelief fueled by the offenses harbored in our hearts. The major problem that sin causes within us preventing us from trusting fully in God is caused by the offenses that we cling to, refusing to let them go freely like Jesus demonstrated at the cross. The disciples were still a long way from emulating the example of Jesus they had just witnessed over the past few days, for they had much still to change to become more like Him. That is why I believe Jesus started His this teaching session with them by making a most fundamental point to begin – let go of all your offenses. When you let go of the offenses that are poisoning your hearts, then you will be freed to begin to grow more in grace and be empowered to embrace more glorious truths that I came to share with you.

In essence, what I hear Jesus saying to them in this verse, as well as to me, is this:

Anyone who chooses to let go of offenses will be free of offense. The main point here is freedom.

Anyone who refuses to let go of an offense will be entrapped by his refusal.

What Jesus is expressing here is yet another of the fundamental principles of reality that governs all of God's creation. It is similar to what He had said to Peter in the garden earlier – those who take up the sword will die by the sword. He had also articulated it in His teachings much earlier when He pointed out that the measure we choose to use against others will be the measure that will be used against us.

Tellingly, this verse comes directly after Jesus breathed on them and then in essence begged them to receive the Holy Spirit. This verse too has long been a bit mysterious to me until placed in the context that I am now seeing here. I believe Jesus was intent on getting His disciples to move in an entirely different direction from where they had ever gone before. He longed for them to see reality from a completely new perspective, from heaven's perspective. But they were still so caught up in their confused notions of what constituted the God's kingdom that they were still resistant to accepting the Spirit of Truth that He was longing to impart to them.

Notice that it does not say they were actually filled with the Spirit. It only indicates that He invited them to receive it. I suspect that if they had let go of their offenses and unbelief right then that they might have experienced an outpouring of the Holy Spirit right then. But they were still too full of confusion and offenses at this point to accept what Jesus longed to give to them, so they had to wait for another 50 days before they were finally emptied of all their offenses. Then they became receptive to this wonderful gift that Jesus had offered them right from the start.

I hear Jesus speaking to my own heart here too. I still feel all too dull of understanding and still have subconscious offenses deep inside against people who have wounded me in the past. I long to be freed of all these offenses and to also receive this gift of the Holy Spirit. I am sure Jesus is just as eager to breathe it on me as He was to impart it to those disciples. But quite likely it is the offenses still resident inside of me that prevents Him from having the space He needs to function effectively inside me. Like the disciples I am still filled with to many false notions of how the kingdom looks like or is supposed to operate. I need much more grace and healing and bonding into the body of Christ before I will be ready for that outpouring of power that will shake the world around me.

God, give me more grace along with more truth. Do whatever it takes to cleanse me of all offenses and resistance to You so that I can be liberated to become a clean and efficient channel of Your power and love and truth to the world around me.

The Same Father

Jesus said to her, "Stop clinging to Me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to My brethren and say to them, 'I ascend to My Father and your Father, and My God and your God.'" Mary Magdalene came, announcing to the disciples, "I have seen the Lord," and that He had said these things to her. (John 20:17-18)

As I ponder how Jesus might have felt when He spoke these words to Mary, I can't help but wonder if He didn't have a playful smile, almost like a child planning a surprise to spring on someone he loves. Clearly He did not immediately reveal Himself to Mary to relieve her sadness right away when she arrived. It is almost as if He planned an elaborate setup with the nearby angels to draw her into the place where He could spring the surprise on her to create the greatest reaction.

What was His tone of voice? His facial expressions? His body language? I am pretty sure it was not the austere, somber tones that religion so often imposes onto our perceptions of this event. Jesus had long taught His disciples that we must become like a little child if we are to enter the kingdom He had come to bring. That means that He too might have taken on the flavor of how a child might act when conspiring to spring a surprise on one of his siblings. I can see Jesus grinning with anticipation, maybe even suppressing some giggles as He can hardly contain His eagerness to see the shock of surprise one of his most loved friends is about to experience.

Remember, the last time she handled His feet she had been in a room full of skeptics who had been critical of both her and Jesus. When that had occurred, she had felt humiliated by nearly everyone except Jesus. But Jesus had stood up for her, had publicly defended her; He had openly affirmed her passionate expressions of affection for Him and had rescued her from her fears and the shame that had been intended to wound her even more deeply.

Up to this point she had still been afraid to really take hold His feet with the kind of passion she really longed to express. It was true that she had been compelled by her love to pour out her most expensive gift on His head and feet, but as the foul spirit of criticism exploded in the room she had again felt ashamed and began rushing to clumsily mop up the mess that was fueling all the dirty, hateful looks from those around her. Instead of enjoying a moment of intimate affection with Jesus as her heart had so longed to do, she had been forced to settle for a quick 'kiss' so to speak. She had been compelled to draw back from what her heart really longed for to try to find an exit from the deteriorating situation that had been created by the cold reception she had encountered from the other men in the room.

Last time she had looked at Jesus' feet they were fresh from the wounds of being nailed to the cross, bloody, distorted, and lifeless. She had watched in agony as the only man who had ever really loved her died a mysteriously agonizing death caused by something internal to Him that had sucked the very life out of His soul in just a few short hours, much quicker than crucifixion would normally have done. Maybe she had sensed, like few others could, that it was partly the heavy weight of her own sins that He had removed from her heart, that was now siphoning away the very life that had done so much to deliver her from condemnation and death. Nothing could effectively describe the feelings she must have experienced as she watched Him suffer alone on the cross and finally say that it was all finished.

I wonder if she had then wrestled all weekend trying to piece it all together to figure out just what it was that had been finished. Intense feelings of hopelessness likely overwhelmed her time and again as she emptied her heart in buckets of tears with no one able to console her effectively. Her Savior and best friend had died – now what? She was such an emotional person that looking for intellectual solace in the Scriptures was probably not much of an option for her. And even if it had been the confusion and incompleteness of everyone's understanding of what Jesus was all about had prevented anyone from having much idea of what was transpiring in these strange events.

Mary was the kind of person who followed her heart almost transparently. Because of this she had been exploited over and over as different people had seduced her into trusting them only to exploit her trust and abuse her natural beauty for their own pleasure. Then they would turn and publicly shame and condemn her for what they had done to her.

But in sharp contrast to all of that, the only real Friend who had ever given her hope, who had treated her with utmost pity, tenderness, respect and had fearlessly stood up to all the others in her defense was now suddenly absent from her life. Did she feel abandoned? Betrayed? Forsaken? Her emotions and brain could no longer sort things out; nothing fit together to make sense any more. All she knew was that nothing could ever take the place of this Man who had loved her so intensely, who had delivered her time and again, who had brought hope into her life and had shown her true love for the first time.

Now He had been falsely accused, condemned, viciously treated and was now dead. Her heart must have felt hopeless, afraid, alone, deserted, devastated. Yet she still could not stop following her heart and so she found herself again looking for her Jesus, her defender, her only real friend. Even though He was dead, somehow there seemed to be nothing else to do but to go back to be close to what was left of the only person who had brought life and hope into her soul.

Yet now, after a string of very confusing discoveries one right after the other that made no sense to her, she found herself confronted by a stranger that she assumed might be the culprit who had removed the body of her only true friend. Maybe putting Jesus into a nearby tomb that was not His own in their hurry to finish before Sabbath had violated yet another rule that someone was going to enforce. Maybe they had taken Him to the dump where the trash smoldered day and night where they put all the other victims of crucifixion because they thought He did not deserve a proper burial. In response to His question about who she was searching for, she asked to please have access to His body so she could do whatever she could to show how much she loved Him still.

Of course this was all a setup. This encounter had been carefully planned and coordinated with the angels in the nearby tomb. Jesus knew Mary's heart far better than even she herself and arranged this whole sequence of events to strategically poise her for the most intense reunion possible. Jesus knew the intense pain that was driving Mary to search for His body, but I think He wanted to create the optimum moment to enhance the intensity of their joy when she finally caught sight of reality. He also did not forget all the other hurting disciples who also needed comfort and chose her as His witness to give them opportunity to engage in the kind of faith that millions would need to experience in future generations who would not have the same opportunity to see Him physically like they did.

I ponder how each person in this story related to their need to move into real belief as Jesus wanted them to have. Ideally the optimal kind of belief would have been to embrace the truth as had already been recorded by the prophets in Scripture, not needing to see or touch Him in person in order to believe. But no one was prepared to believe in Him on that basis at this point, so Jesus had to go to whatever lengths necessary for each person in order to induce living faith in their hearts. They then could in turn become witnesses to encourage others to believe. In these stories we find that each person had different levels of evidence required to bring them into saving belief.

Belief as John constantly seeks to show us in his writings, is not just a head knowledge, an assent that some fact is true. It is a very dangerous assumption that far too many people hold and teach today, that when the Bible speaks of belief or faith, that all we need to do is to agree to some fact or doctrine or creed. This is a counterfeit of true, saving faith as presented in the Bible. Real faith/belief always involves a relationship of trust that in turn not only results in actions in harmony with it, but involves an inner healing of the soul. What the disciples needed more than anything at that time was a belief that could counteract the intense pain and fears they were feeling inside. While it is true that they needed to believe certain facts about Jesus in order to be 'saved', what they needed most was to be restored to proper perceptions of what was real, who Jesus really was and most of all how God felt about them. This is the kind of healing, unifying, restorative kind of faith that saves us both now and for eternity.

In Mary's situation, it appears that even though her heart was more intensely emotionally attached to Jesus than possibly anyone else, her need for evidence seemed to be very high. The hints Jesus had provided along her way to encourage belief were passed by, for her emotions had so blinded her ability to think and reason that she could not fit it all together. Any person who had followed Jesus for very long could have recalled the repeated times He had spoken about His impending death on a cross, and she seemed to have picked up on that previously. But He had also mentioned more than once that He was going to rise again on the third day. But that part seems to have become lost for all of them.

Interestingly, one of the main reasons that had compelled Mary to anoint Jesus with her perfume was because she was about the only person who had actually been paying attention when Jesus spoke about these things. All the other disciples had been very resistant to any such scenario because it clashed with everything they had ever believed about the Jewish Messiah. They had thus ignored these references and settled themselves in unbelief. But Mary had been very alarmed by Jesus' references about a soon-coming death and had decided to take Him seriously. That is why she had come to anoint Him at the feast of Simon, and Jesus had affirmed that in His response to her outpouring of affection at that time.

Now the foretold events had actually taken place. The death He had spoken of that had compelled Mary to anoint Him had just happened. All of Mary's worst fears seem to have been realized – Jesus was gone out of her life. But she could have not only recalled His words about His impending death but could also have remembered that He had also spoken openly of His subsequent resurrection from that death. Mary could have stopped to consider carefully His past words and thus could have been strategically poised to welcome His resurrection if she had chosen that option. But even though she had accepted His warnings about His death, she had overlooked those related admonitions to be conscious of the outcome of these events and His promise to return to life.

In the amnesia produced by her emotions dominating her awareness, Mary found herself looking for a dead body that no longer existed. Jesus was now living in a new glorified body, one like all will receive when the final glorious mass resurrection occurs for all who choose to trust in the power of God's love. It was love that brought Jesus to life and gave Him a glorious body, and that same love will give all of us a similar body if we will accept and believe in the truth about God that Jesus came to show us.

All of this chapter near the end of John's gospel seems intent on drawing us into this kind of saving faith. There are multiple references about our need to believe, just as each person in this incredible story also needed to believe. And while there were other stupendous issues involved in this event, the need for each person to come into belief is central to the whole story as John presents it. The question I have had for many years has been, 'believe what?' It is not enough to just keep insisting that we must believe. Belief is not an end in itself like it has all too often been presented by religion. There always has to be an object for belief to anchor itself on. Otherwise it turns into something more like a magic spell in which we illogically engage in mental gymnastics thinking that by doing so we can trigger some supernatural effect that supercedes the natural principles of God's universe.

Much of what is promoted about saving faith or belief today is more reflective of concepts of magic than based on truth and reality. Yet this whole system of 'magical' faith is actually a decoy in Satan's system, for it really displaces true faith and even insulates those trusting in it from perceiving their true need for the kind of transforming faith that can prepare them to live in God's presence. This notion is Satan's response to the glorious truth about God's love that Jesus revealed in His death and resurrection. In the intervening centuries Satan has masked over and diluted the potent power of the gospel by replacing it with a counterfeit gospel that now infects nearly every presentation about the cross and the resurrection. What is referred to today as faith is a very different thing from what Mary and John and Peter and all the others experienced as they came to believe in what Jesus had come to show them.

While it was very important that Mary needed to come to believe that Jesus was alive and not still dead, that was not the only thing her faith needed to grasp. Yes, she needed to begin with that, but as that seed of faith would begin to mature inside her heart, she needed to see how all the other pieces fit together as she began to grasp the much larger picture of why Jesus had come to live and die and raise Himself up again. Without this bigger context coming into view, these events become just disconnected pieces used to promote confusing views of God like what we see all around us today.

The core issue of salvation does not involve some supposed appeasement of an offended deity by the shedding of the blood of an innocent victim. That is the counterfeit scenario promoted by religion today and directly descended from ancient Baal worship. Rather, what we must begin to grasp in these stories is the central issue of our need for a restored relationship that has been ruptured by myriads of lies promoted by God's enemy to keep us afraid of Him, distrustful of His intentions towards us. This fear of God actually puts us in grave danger of being consumed by the very love meant to bring us life.

The great tragedy in the distortions of the real gospel by counterfeit gospels so many now have embraced is that they continue to promote the very attitudes of distrust about the heart of God that brought about the death of Jesus in the first place. Jesus was crucified by men defending what they believed was God's truth. Yet it was for the purpose of reconciliation that God sent Jesus to this earth, to make it plain to everyone that our problem with sin has nothing to do with how God feels about us but rather has everything to do with how we feel about God rooted in what we believe about Him.

Each person involved in this story of the resurrection had many false ideas and beliefs embedded in their heart and mind about how God felt about them. In each instance, God worked to convince each one, but designed to address their uniqueness in order to attract them to begin seeing God radically different than they had previously thought about Him before. The whole purpose of Jesus coming to this earth was to change all of our thinking about how God feels towards us as sinners. It was not to take some beating that God intended to inflict on us that Jesus came to die; rather it was to explicitly demonstrate under most severe conditions and treatment that it is sin that behind violence, not God.

Mary had lived all her life under similar delusions that permeated most of the religious culture of her day. God had been presented as being harsh, severe, exacting and waiting to harshly punish all infractions of His demands. In addition, she had experienced in her own life repeated exploitation, betrayal, shame and condemnation from the very people who claimed to represent God as His authority on earth. Mary's heart had been severely wounded by many lies about God that had been used to justify violence committed against her, so she needed the revelations of God by Jesus at least as much as anyone else. Wandering about in a graveyard in the darkness of the early morning that day, she was still looking for love just as the whole world has been looking for it since Adam and Eve.

It was in this context that Jesus was planning the surprise of a lifetime for her. She had passed up sign after sign like billboards marking out hints of life, failing each time to comprehend the truth that each one pointed to. But at each point along her way, Jesus was preparing her for the moment when her sorrow would be instantly transformed into irrepressible joy that could never be taken away from her again. She would come to see that not only did Jesus love her with an irrepressible, passionate love that would never stop, but more importantly God in heaven felt exactly the same about her as did Jesus.

It might be easy to dwell at length on the intensity of the emotional reaction that Mary felt when it finally soaked in that this man in front of her was actually Jesus and not just some stranger/garden caretaker. It is important to soak in this glorious moment with Mary and let our imagination marinate in the flavors of Jesus' presence. But we must go even farther if we want to enter into the kind of belief that John intended for us to find in this story. It is not enough to simply believe that Jesus rose from the dead, for indeed this level of belief can leave us vulnerable to the lies of the enemy that have since that time blinded the world to the real significance of the resurrection.. What Jesus wanted Mary to come to experience and pass on to others was embedded in words that we often skim over in this passage.

I ascend to My Father and your Father, and My God and your God.

No doubt Mary had every reason to be delirious with joy when she was reunited with the One who had done so much to save her from all the evil she had experienced. But Jesus was eager to move her to a deeper level of intimacy with Him by assuring her that His Father was also her Father; that His God was the same as her God. The whole reason Jesus came to this world was to reveal the real truth about His Father, and if we overlook this central truth we will not be able to enter into the deeper kind of belief urged throughout the entire gospel of John.

This statement to Mary must have had enormous emotional significance, for there is evidence that Mary likely had been orphaned possibly early on in her life. Living in a home with her brother Lazarus and sister Martha with no parents, she had possibly become an easy target for exploitation by male relatives seeking to replace her father. The natural effects of sexual abuse are shame, condemnation and humiliation which seriously compromise feelings about men in general and especially men purporting to act as father figures. With no loving father of her own and anyone pretending to love her, only to take advantage of her for their own selfish pleasure, her concepts and feelings about father figures would have been far less than affectionate or endearing.

This is one of Satan' strategies, to so darken our perceptions of the true meaning of a father that we react in fear rather than affection when we are told that God is our true Father. I wouldn't be surprised if Jesus didn't wait until this point in time before bringing up this issue of God as Father to Mary. In addition to all the abuse she had suffered, it is also normal for a young person to experience strong feelings of abandonment whenever a father dies prematurely, even though it is not really true. They can then develop resistance to bonding with other men because intuitively they are afraid that they will be abandoned by them as well.

Mary had finally come to allow her heart to become deeply attached to Jesus, the only man she had ever met who was really worthy of her trust. This is exactly what God desires for all of us. Yet after publicly risking her heart by displaying her deepest affections to Him in public, He too had soon after died and was no longer around to love her, reminding her of what had happened with her own father some years previous. This reminder of early and intense feelings of abandonment may have played strongly into Mary's reactions during these events surrounding Jesus' death, and it may also help explain why Jesus wanted to explicitly assure her, along with all His other friends, that they all had a common Father who would never abandon them.

Jesus was demonstrating that He was stronger than even death itself and that He was now strategically positioned as a fellow human in such a way that all humanity could rely on Him to deliver them from death as well as view God with new eyes. Everyone could now see Him as their brother as well as perceiving and relating to God as their ultimate Father that we all have been desperately longing for.

Jesus accomplished what was mirrored in the story of Ruth when she and her mother-in-law lost all the important men in their lives. By becoming a brother to us and reconnecting us with our heavenly far who will never abandon us, even in death, Jesus demonstrates the attitude revealed in the words of Ruth, that great example of love from the Old Testament.

But Ruth said, "Do not urge me to leave you or turn back from following you; for where you go, I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God."

(Ruth 1:16)

In the story of Ruth and Naomi, it is very clear that what was most important were the bonds of love and relationship between them, not any artificial relationship based on rules or demands. Thus we must also come to see Jesus, for He did not come to show us how to keep rules better in order to make God happy with us, but rather He demonstrated how to live in such intimate connection with His Father that His life naturally revealed what love looks like in relation to everyone around Him. Now He offers that same relationship to everyone willing to believe in what He revealed about the love of God for each of us.

Mary, like Thomas, seemed to need an extended amount of evidence in order to bring her to believe more deeply in Jesus at this point. It has been pointed out that even though Thomas had his doubts and stubborn streak, he was still the first disciple to ever confess that Jesus was his own God. I find that significant parallel to what Jesus says to Mary.

It is vital that we embrace the reality that God really is our Father and that Jesus wants us to consider Him as our brother while all of heaven longs for us to see ourselves as family. We are not just subjects involved in an impersonal political relationship to others like our governments operate here; we must begin to appreciate the importance of knowing that God is the only source of hope and life and love that exists anywhere. Not only is God and heaven our true family but this is the only option for embracing eternal life with all the richness and joy we were meant to experience from the beginning.

Bonding and intimacy with God is the whole point of a true relationship with Him and is His greatest desire for us. Religion has far too long misled us into thinking that what God wants is compliance and blind obedience to His demands. But Jesus made it clear to the disciples early on that He longs to take us far past the mindset of a servant or slave into a relationship of intimate friendship, a relationship of living like family. While it is true that in a healthy, loving family there will be synchronization with the way things are done in that family, the motives for loving cooperation have nothing in common with forced obedience, sullen submission or unthinking obedience to the desires of the parents. Rather, when true love is the motivation behind every action, it becomes a joy to live in interaction with wise, caring parents who have only the best interests of the children at heart in every situation. This is the kind of relationship God desires for all of us to have, both in our own families here on earth but especially in our connection to the family of heaven.

For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." (Jeremiah 29:11 NIV)

So I see in these carefully chosen words of Jesus to Mary an invitation to alter what each of us thinks and feels about both Jesus and His Father. To live in the family relationship Jesus talked about so often as the model of the kingdom He was setting up, He urges everyone to turn away from the misapprehensions about Him that have so poisoned our hearts so we can begin to enter into joyful trust in our real Father. He is eager to provide for all of our needs and longs to transform us with His unfailing love that heals us and restores us to the original design He had in mind when He created us.

Likely other disciples may also have had triggers from unfortunate history related to what the idea of father meant to them. This relationship is so often damaged by the malfunctions of our earthly fathers, myself included. For most of my life I have struggled with fears and distortions and deep resistance to love because of the weaknesses of my own father and the mistaken notions he had about how to raise a child. Inevitably my feelings about God were largely shaped by the experience of how my father treated me. Now any assertion that God is my Father has to confront all the reactions and triggers associated with the dysfunctions in my heart received from my earthly father.

So I too need to embrace healing from these words of Jesus to Mary and experience more healing in my own heart as well. I know that I need much remediation in the area of what a father is supposed to look like and act and feel towards his children. My own children are infected with similar fears and triggers about the concept of father as I received, for sadly I passed on a great deal of the negativity I received from my father in his misrepresentation of God. But that is what God's grace is all about, right? ... but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more. (Romans 5:20)

Jesus came to so identify with the human race that He could challenge their mistaken ideas about their identity coming from the character of Satan. By usurping the dominion of this world from Adam, Satan immediately infected humanity's sense of identity to reflect his false principles and attitudes. Now Jesus brings to us a new awareness of our true identity, for now all humanity is now 'in Christ'. For Christ did not die just for all who might believe in Him but for the whole world.

For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.

But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. (Romans 5:6, 8, 10)

For to this end Christ died and lived again, that He might be Lord both of the dead and of the living. (Romans 14:9)

For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive. (1 Corinthians 15:22)

Christ displaced Satan as the representative of this world in the heavenly councils and when He encountered Mary just after His resurrection He was on His way to heaven to confirm that this transition would be accepted. But because His deep compassion and love and tenderness, He postponed His own desires to wait and reveal Himself to His distraught Mary and then send her off joyfully to become His first ordained apostle to announce His victory over Satan's system, His new kingdom of family where all are welcomed to live in the healing, transforming atmosphere of His irrepressible love.

When we embrace the reality that Christ embraced all of us whether or not we believe it, our very belief moves us into a far deeper level of being 'in Christ' where the transformation really begins to happen. This is why John is so urgent to help us to move into the saving kind of belief that the disciples experienced along with Mary. It is the saving faith in a God who loves unconditionally before we even know Him or even like Him. It is the faith that responds to encountering His love by reflecting it more and more in all of our relationships to those around us.

Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. (2 Corinthians 5:17-20)

Weepy Mary

But Mary was standing outside the tomb weeping; and so, as she wept, she stooped and looked into the tomb; (John 20:11)

As I have read this passage repeatedly over the past few days, it has struck me several times how much weeping Mary tended to do. It seems that many of the stories connected to Mary involve her weeping. And if, as some believe, Mary was the woman dragged before Jesus by authorities wanting to stone her for adultery, I suspect she was most likely weeping uncontrollably in fear and shame at that time too.

• Mary was undoubtedly near the cross when Jesus was dying, and most likely was weeping a great deal then.
• Mary had felt compelled to come in uninvited to a banquet put on for Jesus by her uncle Simon to honor Him herself with a most expensive and noticeable perfume, whereupon she lost control of her emotions and began weeping uncontrollably. While trying to clean up the mess she was making by pouring the perfume over Jesus head and feet, she added her tears to the mix and the whole thing became embedded on both her hair and Jesus' hair. At that time Jesus made it very clear that He both deeply approved of her seemingly dubious actions and also insisted that her public display of affection for Him would be intimately connected with the spreading of the gospel for the rest of history. (When it is not, I seriously question the authenticity of anything purporting to be the gospel that is being presented.)
• While it is not recorded as such, I wonder if when Mary was sitting at Jesus' feet with the other disciples, and then her sister came in and exploded at Jesus for not sending her back to the kitchen 'where a woman belongs', that she may likely have burst into tears at the scolding of her sister. Yet Jesus again defended her and gently rebuked Martha (which has become one of the main themes at women's conferences ever since).
• Right off, I can't think of any other specific stories where Mary is reported to have been weeping. But given that she had been delivered from demonic control up to seven times by Jesus, I can't help but think that during those dramatic encounters that there wasn't a lot of weeping taking place also.

In my imagination, I have associated Mary Magdalene with crying and vulnerability. But in addition I have also believed, as I have mentioned before, that Mary was a woman unusual in her capacity to love passionately and had what I believe, a gift from God of unusual beauty, both personality wise and in appearance (in contrast with her possibly plain-looking sister Martha). That is partially why she had been exploited so much in her life, both by relatives as well as by strangers. Such vulnerability in a world where exploitation is rampant is like a magnet, though victimizing anyone is never excusable.

Over the years as I have been coming to perceive God's ways more clearly, I am coming to see that the kingdom of God, including the way the rest of the universe operates and relates to each other, is one of incredible fragility compared to our ways of thinking. But it is precisely because it is so incredibly fragile that it is also stunningly beautiful. I am coming to see that the original design upon which God created everything may have included vulnerability as one of its most important elements.

Many years ago when I was a teenager I began struggling with the problem of emotional pain when it comes to relationships with others. Not that I didn't have any before that mind you, but what I am saying is that I was starting to become aware of an internal problem that was affecting my soul. I began to observe that as I increased my internal resistance, building emotional walls around my heart in attempts to protect myself from being hurt further by others, I was also quickly losing my own ability to enjoy not just love, but even appreciation for natural beauties of nature around me.

I could remember a time where I would sit on the edge of a cliff watching a sunset or some other beautiful scenery, that would be so painfully beautiful that I felt like I might explode. I remembered my confusion that beauty could even be painful and wondered what that meant. I remembered thinking that the only thing I could think of that might lessen the enormous pressure within my heart was if I could just have someone who cared about me sit next to me to share this experience with me. Somehow I sensed that if I could somehow share the intensity of the experience with someone else who also could appreciate it and know how I was feeling, that it might turn the pain into something more pleasurable.

But given the social circumstances of my life at that time and the kind of friends around me, that wasn't very possible. In addition, as a teenager with very conservative religious people in control of my surroundings, I found my heart feeling wounded repeatedly, and as a result I was withdrawing deeper and deeper behind emotional walls I was building up to lessen the pain I constantly felt. But what really frightened me was when one day I suddenly realized that in building these walls to protect myself from more pain, I now was becoming immunized to being able to even enjoy experiences of visual pleasure that before had been so painfully intense for me. That created a sense of alarm in my spirit and I began asking God what was going on.

I distinctly remember going outside alone one say and throwing myself on the grass with my face to the ground, wrestling with this problem and trying to make sense out of life in general. As I lay there trying to sort out these problems, it suddenly struck me like a thought from somewhere else, that what I was experiencing was a principle of reality that is unavoidable. This principle is this: that only to the extent that one is willing to open themselves up to potential emotional pain can they be capable to also experiencing positive pleasures. In fact, it seems to be like a mathematical formula, some sort of ratio kind of thing. For what I was sensing was that only to the extent that I would allow myself to be vulnerable to being hurt by others could I enjoy capacity to experience love from others or maybe even God.

I have to admit that I was not too happy with this revelation. Like most people I am not keen on wanting to open myself up to experiencing pain from others. I would much prefer to maintain walls around my heart blocking out anything that might threaten to hurt me, while still being able to fully enter into loving relationships with others. But what I was sensing then and have come to see later as an eternal reality, is that this is not how life is designed. We cannot have it both ways; either we must open our hearts to both love and potential suffering, or we harden our hearts through attempts to protect ourselves yet in the very process destroying our very capacity to experience true love.

The revelation of this life principle has reverberated in my mind ever since. But it has also helped me in discovering the real truth about God's kingdom as well as what Jesus demonstrated in His life here on earth. What I am coming to see in the life of Jesus is a man who took this principle completely seriously and lived it to the max. By never building protective walls around His heart, He became the most vulnerable person who ever walked this planet since Adam and Eve. But in doing so, and through allowing Himself to be exploited by those who did not value or appreciate this principle, He also effectively unveiled the real kingdom of heaven and reinjected it back into humanity in such a way that anyone choosing to follow Him and abide in Him could also escape the trap of sin.

As I meditated on Mary's life this morning it began to soak into my awareness that she was not alone in her penchant for frequent crying. And while most people around her viewed this as a symptom of weakness, and many were tempted to exploit her vulnerabilities and cause her even more damage, her emotional openness was only a dim reflection of the level of vulnerability that marked the life of Jesus. In fact, I believe that it was this very openness of Jesus that became the strongest attraction to Him for all those who had felt exploited in their own vulnerabilities. For when they saw a man who loved without reservation and refused to build walls of self-protection around His own heart, an intense desire was awakened in their own hearts to come closer to Him, for they sensed that this was the kind of life they had been looking for all their lives.

While the Bible does not report many instances where Jesus wept, a Jewish historian called Josephus reported that this Man was known for weeping quite often. Again, for many that kind of reputation might be viewed as a sign of weakness. But for those who long to live from their heart with freedom, they sense that it is really a symptom of being genuine, of being more alive, of having a willingness to embrace those around with the kind of love that intuitively knows this is how to thrive and really live.

Recently I attended a campmeeting in which I was invited to speak along with a friend of mine about some of our discoveries about God's character. As I prepared for those presentations, the closer we got to the actual time of getting up in front of people the more trepidation we felt about being vulnerable. We were afraid that people would argue with us, attack us and view our ideas as being heretical, maybe even insult us. Not too many people enjoy such treatment, and if they are I have doubts as to their ability to connect well with others. Most of us seek to avoid personal attacks and prefer friends who affirm us and accept us. But when it comes to speaking the truth we must be willing to take risks that people who disagree with us may react strongly when they feel their views are being threatened.

Yet at the end of these meetings my fears had been completely unrealized. In fact, what I felt was more along the lines of not just relief, but of growing amazement and appreciation. I was grateful that during the first time we had ever done anything like this, God had chosen a group of people who were more open-minded than any group I have ever encountered. Maybe He wanted to affirm us in this way and encourage us before tougher assignments later on; I don't know and I leave that completely in His hands. But what I did appreciate was the fact that these people were so eager to learn more truth about God's love for them and open to deeper insights into the nature of God's true character in contrast with the many lies being spread about Him from religions of every stripe.

I mention that in this context partly because I was reminded during those meetings of something God had confronted me with at various times in years past. After realizing the implications of that first revelation long ago lying on the grass with my face in the ground, wondering why it had to be this way, I felt impressed at various times that He just might call me someday to publicly testify for Him in rather unusual ways. He impressed me, or more likely asked me, if I was going to be willing to weep in public, maybe even before audiences as His Spirit would move in my own heart.

Now don't take me wrong here. I am not suggesting or even looking for opportunities to stand up in front of people and cry on demand. Quite the opposite, like most people I am rather fearful of feeling the shame and humiliation generally associated with weepy kinds of people. My background is from a family where the first time I can recall ever seeing my Dad cry was when my Mom died. And ironically during that very emotional moment, it was watching my Dad cry that disturbed me more than seeing my Mom die. So now you might get a sense of where I am coming from.

But God has been working on softening my heart for many years. That is not to say I have gotten very far, for I still feel all too hard inside, fearful and reluctant to cooperate with this apparent request from God. But at the same time He reminds me that this kind of testimony may well have far more weight in His kingdom than many sermons preached using compelling logic. He impressed me that one possible explanation why Paul was so effective in spreading the gospel was because it was so intensely personal for him that he frequently wept openly as he recalled the amazing grace of God extended toward him personally. Quite possibly it was the 'weepy' Paul that had as much effect on his audiences as it was the message of the real truth about God that moved them to embrace the kingdom he explained to them.

When I sensed that at these recent meetings I might be required to give God permission to move me to become emotional in public, I had to face this fear head-on and give him my decision. Knowing that God's ways are always better than mine, I told Him He could have His way, but I also asked Him to strengthen me and be close to me in that experience. I can honestly report that He did so, and although I tapped into deep emotions in nearly every meeting I presented, in doing so I felt drawn deeper into His love each time as His passion seemed to leak through me to infect other hearts.

So as I go back to the stories of Mary and all her weepyness, and contemplate the fact that Jesus was viewed by many as a wimp because of similar symptoms, from heaven's perspective this may often actually be more of a sign of being in touch with reality than others around us. While it is not popular to allow emotions to show (except maybe anger or disgust), I have been learning that if I ever want to live squarely in the kingdom Jesus is introducing that I must learn to be willing to let His emotions flow through me so that His love can take on real power as I pass it along to others.

No wonder Jesus said Mary's outburst of gushing, embarrassing affection should be shared everywhere the gospel goes. And wherever this story is not the ultimate illustration used to explain the kind of love God longs for all of us to experience, then I seriously question whether what it being presented is the real gospel; it may actually be found to be just a cheap imitation that has no power to save souls.

Abounding Grace

She turned around and saw Jesus standing there, and did not know that it was Jesus. (John 20:14)

I am going to take a risk today by talking about some of the things I sense I am finding in this chapter. I know it might be very unpopular to say what sounds like negative observations about Mary, but at the same time it also gives me hope. Let me explain.

In this story John seems to be focusing on the issue of how much evidence it takes to get each person to believe the resurrection of Jesus. Each person is coming from their own perspective and bringing their own baggage to the very same facts in the story which in turn affects how much evidence it requires to induce them to begin trusting God.

In verse 8 John says that when he entered the tomb right after Peter seeing the same things Peter saw, he himself believed, though he couldn't yet say the same for Peter. He is also careful to note that his own belief was not yet founded on Scripture evidence which I find rather interesting. He is sharing his own experience of belief with us, relating that although he had not yet put all the pieces together, he had enough evidence to move him from unbelief into trust.

I wonder if maybe the previous words of Jesus suddenly came back into his memory, words not that long ago spoken to all of the disciples about dying and raising Himself up again, that had gone right over their heads at the time. Maybe for John it suddenly clicked that the repeated expressions of Jesus needed to be taken seriously after all and that everything he was now seeing and experiencing were demonstration of what Jesus had been saying all along. For John, the evidence had become clear enough for him to choose to believe Jesus and trust that although everything still didn't make total sense that Jesus' words could be trusted and that He had indeed accomplished what He said He would. That sounds very much like the experience of Abraham come to think of it.

By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was offering up his only begotten son; it was he to whom it was said, "in Isaac your descendants shall be called." He considered that God is able to raise people even from the dead, from which he also received him back as a type. (Hebrews 11:17-19)

For what does the Scripture say? "Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness." Now to the one who works, his wage is not credited as a favor, but as what is due. But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness. (Romans 4:3-5)

For Mary however, it seems that her grief was so intense that she had gotten trapped by her emotions. She remained stuck in her initial interpretation of the evidence so that everything saw after that was forced to fit her original assumption, no matter how contradictory it might be. When she first arrived at the tomb where there should have been a number of callous soldiers and a large heavy stone blocking access to the tomb, she found everything very different with no soldiers and the large stone lying away from the mouth of the tomb.

Her immediate conclusion about this unexpected situation was that someone had taken the body of Jesus out of the tomb and moved it somewhere else. Maybe in her emotion she thought they had done this just to spite her personally, I don't know. Emotions can distort a person's logic quite easily. We can become so self-focused in our desire to escape our pain that we can interpret everything to assume the whole world is bent on making our life as miserable as possible even if none of our conclusions fit the evidence. This is not unusual for a very immature person to do, but trauma can also have a way of causing us to revert into temporary immaturity in the ways we perceive reality.

Based on her emotions and the startling evidence she first came across, she must have concluded that indeed someone – likely her enemies and of Jesus – were bent on perpetuating the tragedy that had just taken place and had intentionally removed His body for spiteful reasons including a desire to make her grief even more unbearable. With this or some similar potential scenario entrenched in her thinking, everything she encountered after that was forced into this scenario created by her own imagination.

So she ran and came to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and said to them, "They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid Him."

(vs 2)

And they (two angels) said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping?" She said to them, "Because they have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid Him." (vs 13)

Jesus said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?" Supposing Him to be the gardener, she said to Him, "Sir, if you have carried Him away, tell me where you have laid Him, and I will take Him away." (vs 15)

It is becoming quite popular to point out the fact that Jesus appointed a woman to be the very first evangelist to tell others of His resurrection. I will not argue that fact. However, sometimes I wonder if the agenda behind such statements, evidently meant to counterbalance prejudice against women being involved in spreading the gospel with equal authority as men, has not been to overbalance a problem by creating a new one. It is easy to point out the obvious lack of belief on the part of most of the men in this story while highlighting the fact that the women seemed ready to believe. But what I am finding here does not necessarily support that supposition.

I have come to realize over recent years that sin at its core has to do with distrust, unbelief in the real truth about God and in God Himself rather than so much about 'doing bad things' or breaking rules. Dysfunctional behavior that we generally call sin is symptomatic of everyone who does not trust in God and in His ways. And like all symptoms, the only real way to effectively address them is not through focusing primarily on treating the symptoms but in treating the core causes of the symptoms. Treating causes rather than effect is far more effective though maybe not so popular with those who just want the pain and discomfort to stop immediately.

Given that our problem with sin has more to do with unbelief than with doing bad things, I am starting to see in this story that in essence Mary is 'living in sin' in her relationship to Jesus. I do not say this to denigrate her or shame her for being emotional. But the fact is that when she first sees the empty tomb, she jumps to a conclusion that someone must have it in for her and has taken away the body of Jesus and all she can think about is finding it again. She only wants to locate His body so she can grieve over it in person which she hopes will lessen her deep anguish. Because of this, everything that happens from that point on is forced through this conclusion that she is unwilling to reconsider no matter how much the mounting evidence challenges her assumption.

Think about this: she sees angels where the men only see grave cloths. Yet even with this supernatural clue and her dialog with angels, she still is not jolted out of her original assumption. (The experience of Balaam comes to mind.) Then she meets Jesus Himself who is seeking to help her reconsider her perception of reality; yet even with Jesus standing right in front of her all she can perceive is someone who might be the guilty 'they' that has to fit into her thinking.

This has the hallmarks of intensely embedded unbelief. I do not say this to be harsh, but with overwhelming evidence in front of her like this, most people would have by this time begun to question their original assumptions and consider that maybe they should consider a more consistent explanation. But again, intense emotional trauma can so narrow the focus of one's thinking that it is impossible for them to reconsider their original assumptions. Then anyone questioning them is challenged instead of honestly listened to with an open mind.

But here is where I see the good news appearing once again. But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more. (Romans 5:20 NKJV)

Let's just face the truth here; by her unbelief Mary was stuck in sin, for sin is unbelief. This is not to condemn her but to just be honest about what so many of us experience at times. We struggle to believe in God, not so much because we are rebellious but because we simply are unwilling to challenge our own perceptions of reality that are strongly controlled by our own emotions. Mary was unable to believe in spite of overwhelming evidence that for others might have easily caused them to believe in what was becoming so obvious. But in spite of this great obstacle of unbelief caused by the pain in Mary's heart, Jesus never became impatient with her or even rebuked her like He later did with Thomas. He simply kept bringing more and more evidence to her until she finally broke through the veil and into the glorious light of the truth about what God had in His heart for her.

It is no surprise then that the intensity of her joy was at least in proportion to the level of her previous grief. That is what can happen with high emotion-capacity people. What encourages me is when I think of another well known evangelist who had an experience not unlike that of Mary, though with a very different background. Saul of Tarsus was also a deeply passionate person with very intense emotions directed at vindicating the reputation of God as he understood Him to be. Saul was not persecuting Christian's out of rebellion against God but out of an intense desire to protect His reputation and purify His chosen people of dangerous errors.

In Saul's case, the evidence was also mounting over time creating increasing emotional pressure to reconsider his own assumptions. But he too kept resisting until, not unlike in Mary's situation, Jesus Himself had to get right in his face in such an obvious way that he couldn't miss it anymore. But in both cases, after they encountered the real Jesus – the true revelation of what God is really like and how much love and grace He has for each one of us – the switch from unbelief to passionate devotion marked their life from that point on.

God works with each one of us differently, for we each are coming from unique situations that have shaped us in very different ways. God does not become impatient with us when we cling to our unbelief long after others may have embraced the light and love waiting for us. But at the same time, we are individually free to keep living in unbelief even while we are encouraged to begin experiencing the joy of living in belief as soon as we are willing. The choice is our own, but the consequences of those choices can be eternal.

Mary might have believed much sooner if she had been willing to think past her emotions. She already had a long history of growing faith in her relationship with Jesus and in some respects already had far more evidence in her own life that many people do. Her own brother had been raised from the dead just days before all of this took place and he was likely even then at home with her sister possibly praying for her. I ponder what may have taken place that weekend in the home of Mary and Martha and Lazarus as Mary was consumed by her depression over the death of Jesus. Her own brother, living testimony of the power of Jesus to raise the dead, may himself have even found it impossible to break through the dark cloud surrounding Mary's heart. In addition the faith of her sister who had discussed this very issue with Jesus only days before and had chosen to trust Him just before the resurrection of her own brother – even that could not counteract the intense sadness of Mary. And amazingly, not even angels seeking to awaken her faith or even some curiosity in her could pull her away from her unbelief and her preconceived opinions about what was going on.

Yes, Mary did become the first evangelist to tell the story of the resurrection to others. But not until her high level of resistance was first overcome by an overwhelming amount of evidence. John had chosen to believe with far less evidence as did many others. Yet with each of them God dealt with them according to their own uniqueness as He drew them together into a body of caring believers.

Indeed, where sin (unbelief) abounds, grace much more abounds. And that pretty much describes the essence of Jesus – abounding grace personified.