Have you ever wept like Mary Magdalene when you sought but could not find the One whom your soul loves (Song 3:1-2)? This experience of grief in the spiritual life may occur when a dearly cherished image of God has been shattered and laid in the tomb. It is painful to go back to the crevice in your heart where you have buried this God, and yet you don’t know where else to go. You don’t want to go anywhere else. You desperately wish the opposite were true. You peer into the tomb, only to find the corpse . . . absent. Even that has been taken away; there is nothing to hold on to. Nothing remains.
Your grief is pierced by a voice calling your name, a voice you recognize because of how it makes you feel—intimately known and loved. It is Rabbouni, the dear Teacher! The God whom you thought was dead is risen! His presence is transfigured somehow, as is Mary’s perception. She discovers that Jesus’ presence can only be held by his leaving again. This is a different kind of departure—not the kind that leaves your heart with a harrowing emptiness, but rather a hallowing emptiness in which the Spirit moves, making all things new (Gen 1:2; Ps 104:30; Rev 21:5). Mary can let Jesus go because the Resurrection reveals the God of life who never abandons us, who gives us his Spirit, who abides with us always. It is how grief becomes joy (John 16:6-7, 20). We, too, can announce with Mary: “I have seen the Lord!”
