Easter Tuesday | Tuesday 19 April 2022

Today is Easter Tuesday, the 19th of April.
Will and Kate James sing, ‘Were you there?'

Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble, tremble
Were you there when they crucified my Lord?


Were you there when they nailed Him to the cross?
Were you there when they nailed Him to the cross?
Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble, tremble
Were you there when they nailed Him to the cross?


Were you there when they laid Him in the tomb?
Were you there when they laid Him in the tomb?
Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble, tremble
Were you there when they laid Him in the tomb?


Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble, tremble
Were you there when they crucified my Lord?


Today’s reading is from the Gospel of John.
John 20:11-18
Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. They said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping?’ She said to them, ‘They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.’ When she had said this, she turned round and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping? For whom are you looking?’ 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.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Mary!’ She turned and said to him in Hebrew, ‘Rabbouni!’ (which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, ‘Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.”’ Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord’; and she told them that he had said these things to her.

Here in John’s gospel, Mary Magdalene alone is the first witness of the resurrection. Start this prayer by getting a sense of her bewilderment when the body of Jesus which she has come to anoint is nowhere to be found.
Her confusion deepens when she sees this supposed gardener. If you stand in her shoes, what is going on in your mind and heart at this stage of the story?
It is when Jesus speaks one word, her name, that she recognises him. Take a moment now to hear the risen Jesus speak one word, your own name, and notice what it’s like to hear that.

Listen, as you hear the story again, for the mission that Mary is given by the risen Jesus at the end of the passage.
Talk now for a moment or two about any sense that you have of being sent out with a message by the risen Lord.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.