{"id":5966,"date":"2014-10-29T00:05:33","date_gmt":"2014-10-29T07:05:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/?p=5966"},"modified":"2014-10-28T13:31:33","modified_gmt":"2014-10-28T20:31:33","slug":"theres-no-need-for-tears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/2014\/10\/29\/theres-no-need-for-tears\/","title":{"rendered":"There’s No Need for Tears"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mary stood outside the tomb weeping. As she wept, she knelt to look into the tomb and saw two angels sitting there, dressed in white, one at the head, the other at the foot of where Jesus\u2019 body had been laid. They said to her, \u201cWoman, why do you weep?\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\u201cThey took my Master,\u201d she said, \u201cand I don\u2019t know where they put him.\u201d After she said this, she turned away and saw Jesus standing there. But she didn\u2019t recognize him.<\/p>\n

\tJesus spoke to her, \u201cWoman, why do you weep? Who are you looking for?\u201d<\/p>\n

\tShe, thinking that he was the gardener, said, \u201cMister, if you took him, tell me where you put him so I can care for him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tJesus said, \u201cMary.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tTurning to face him, she said in Hebrew, \u201cRabboni!<\/em>\u201d meaning \u201cTeacher!\u201d<\/p>\n

\tJesus said, \u201cDon\u2019t cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go to my brothers and tell them, \u2018I ascend to my Father and your Father, my God and your God.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

\tMary Magdalene went, telling the news to the disciples: \u201cI saw the Master!\u201d And she told them everything he said to her. (John 20:11\u201318)<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\tThe angels asked Mary a question: \u201cwhy do you weep?\u201d From Mary\u2019s perspective, it seemed obvious: Jesus was dead, someone had moved his body, and now she couldn\u2019t even mourn properly. An already bad situation had gotten even worse.<\/p>\n

\tMoments later, someone else asked her the same question, \u201cwhy do you weep?\u201d She was distraught, she had tears in her eyes. Jesus was supposed to be dead. So she didn\u2019t recognize it was Jesus himself asking the question that time.<\/p>\n

\tJesus asked her the question for the same reason that the angels had. Of course they understood she was sad, and of course they understood why. Neither the angels nor Jesus were asking for enlightenment. They were asking to make Mary reexamine her situation. She didn\u2019t have a reason to weep anymore. Couldn\u2019t she see that?<\/p>\n

\tWhen Jesus spoke her name, she suddenly could see that. Her tears probably didn\u2019t vanish in that instant, but they certainly took on an entirely different character: they became tears of joy.<\/p>\n

\tMary realized her circumstances were radically different than what she had imagined. The storms and trials of life can buffet us so severely sometimes that we lose sight of the fullness of our own circumstances. Although our suffering is no less real, no less painful, if we can keep our eyes on Jesus, the storms of life will not buffet us quite as hard.<\/p>\n

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Mary stood outside the tomb weeping. As she wept, she knelt to look into the tomb and saw two angels sitting there, dressed in white, one at the head, the other at the foot of where Jesus\u2019 body had been … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":"yes"},"categories":[18,17,16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5966"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5966"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5966\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5968,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5966\/revisions\/5968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}