Beauty Found Anew

There are many reasons I follow the teachings of Christ. By follow, I don't mean perfectly obey, but rather that I find glorious hope and grace to change my selfish ways. 

This Easter was another beautiful celebration of Christ's resurrection. Rejoicing with my family and church, we had a delicious breakfast together, watched the little children have an egg hunt on the lawn, danced in the street (my favorite part!), and worshiped. Music and dancing are two of the deepest ways I am able to express my emotions, so using them in praise of God on Easter seems very fitting. 

I'm not much of a girly-girl, but my heart melted a little (a lot) at the sight of my Bug in an adorable dress. She is working on walking while holding on to furniture or our hands. Today she even let go of me to take two wobbly steps over to the couch!

My favorite photo of Harmony

Of all the things I've read and heard this weekend about the resurrection, this has stayed with me the most. The lovely woman who blogs over at Journey Mama meditated on the story of Mary Magdalene, the woman who saw Jesus first after he rose to life, and imagined how Mary's reaction might have been. Reading these words reminds me again of why I follow Him: because He Himself is so beautiful.

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He may have been the first person ever to see value in her, to love her. She was left unloved, without him. She had been out of her mind, before. A used-up, broken woman who talked to herself in the streets. You know the type, you've seen them. He healed her. She traveled with his followers. She stayed with Him to the end.

And she went to the tomb to prepare the body, but then her heart went crazy! He was gone. This was the absolute end of her. She only wanted to care for the broken, empty body. And it was gone.

There was a lot of running. Running to find the men, the disciples, running back to the tomb. (Cool air of the morning, sun rising in the hills.) The men saw that she was right, ran off again.

And from Mary, weeping. Despair. Anguish and the worst kind of loneliness.

I want to truly find that moment, capture it, live it, when he identified her and she knew him. After she mistook him for the gardener, all he said was her name, "Mary." And she knew him.

"Rabboni!"

Anguish to beauty. She would never be unloved again.

Although I'm sure she always had to remind herself of that. And that is what I am doing this morning in meditation. The garden, the cool of the morning. The dust under her feet, the rocks sticking out of the earth. The earth under her knees, her despair, and then Him. His face. His radiance.

In my life on this earth I have been asked so many times, why I follow Jesus. Merely stating that I do is enough reason for people to tell me why I shouldn't. They tell me of the travesties that have been done by Christians, they tell me of historical inaccuracy, of relativism, of how mistaken I am. I have loads (heaps!) of thoughts about all these things. I can talk, I can discuss, and I do.

But there is only one real reason that I follow Jesus. It is because of him. Because of his radiance, his gentle beauty, the sweetness of His WHOLE Being. My Guru, my Master. "Rabboni!" Mary said. This moment is overlooked sometimes, but is one of the most important of his whole life on earth. No other god, no other teacher compares.

Because in his most triumphant moment, finally justified as the One who could destroy death, the first thing he did was comfort a girl, a broken ex-prostitute who nobody cared about. It was the first thing he did.

~ Rachel Devenish Ford, at Journey Mama