He calls your name

By day, she could push those gruesome images deep down into her stomach. She could somehow control or ignore the worst of it by moving through menial tasks. When she’d close her eyes to sleep however, the heart-wrenching event would come to her in the most horrible way.

First century crucifixions could do that. Maybe they were supposed to do that.

The Romans used such a dreadful method of death to diminish crime or keep the good on the path to staying good.

He wasn’t even guilty. Instead, He was the one who called and welcomed children onto His lap. A common woodworker’s Son, so non-descript in appearance, He returned sight to the blind. He restored hearing to the deaf. He fed thousands with the contents of a little boy’s lunch. From a place of love that could be seen, He called out His friend from four days of death in a tomb.

And yes, He literally and metaphorically walked on water.

Gentle, intelligent, and so privately personable and good-natured, He was a friend, teacher, mentor, and advocate. Marginalized Himself as a prophet from nowhere Nazareth, He knew about blocks and barriers. With this, He defined and fought for a new, radical religion that was indeed inclusive.

And He was dead.

So, how could He be alive?

Yet standing before her, He was there. He called her name, “Mary.”

Jesus calls our names, too.

We live in the structure of time, of course. But God? The Omnipresent is not governed by a clock. What happened to Mary in the garden on the Sunday we now call the first Easter Sunday is happening now because Jesus, like God, does not operate in our linear sense of time.

In our most awful places of distress—and Mary was in an awful place of distress—Jesus called her by name. The same is true now. Jesus calls our name.

Most of us are not anticipating hearing our name called by the Son of Man. After all, we’re busy. Things to do.

Mary wasn’t roaming the nearby grounds waiting for Jesus to show up and say hello. Stunned, shocked, and likely still holding the burial spices she had carried with her from her home—spices she intended to use over the dead body of the God Man who touched her soul and her very life—she didn’t imagine her dead-now-living Jesus would meet her, let alone speak to her.

But He did.

And He still does. He still speaks.

Jesus was crucified because He didn’t overturn the oppressive Roman government. He didn’t do EXACTLY what the crowds wanted.

He’s not doing everything He can to overturn our oppressive world now, either. And this is cause for people not to believe in Him, or even to tune Him in when He calls.

“If God is so good, then why is the world so bad?” is the question asked that divides us. If you are familiar with the Easter story, you know Jesus’ cross stood between the crosses of two criminals, one of His left and one on His right. One criminal turned to Jesus and asked about eternal life. He met Jesus in heaven.

The other criminal never met Jesus beyond the cross. He didn’t hear Jesus, even when Jesus was beside Him.

Jesus doesn’t force love. Instead, He calls us to it—by name. In His name, He calls us to bring light to this messed up, broken world one person at a time. One story at a time.

I imagine Jesus remains crushed by the one who died beside Him. I also imagine He is never going to stop calling us because eternal death isn’t His goal. Eternal life is.