Hearing Your Name

 

Outside the tomb on Easter, Mary heard her name.  From the tomb where death was contained, life broke out in new ways that called Mary’s name.  From the unmanageable ache of grief, a seed of unimaginable love/possibility was planted.  Let the blessing that echoes off the empty tomb stir within you today awakening you to be an “Easter-ing” person in creative, daring, loving, and life-giving ways:

 

The Magdalene’s Blessing For Easter Day—Jan Richardson

You hardly imagined standing here, everything you ever loved suddenly returned to you,
looking you in the eye and calling your name.

And now you do not know how to abide this hole in the center of your chest, where a door slams shut and swings open at the same time, turning on the hinge of your aching and hopeful heart.

I tell you, this is not a banishment from the garden.

This is an invitation, a choice, a threshold, a gate.

This is your life calling to you from a place you could never have dreamed,
but now that you have glimpsed its edge, you cannot imagine choosing any other way.

So let the tears come as anointing, as consecration, and then let them go.

Let this blessing gather itself around you.

Let it give you what you will need for this journey.

You will not remember the words— they do not matter.

All you need to remember is how it sounded when you stood in the place of death
and heard the living call your name.

 

Listen, friends, for today, God calls your name.  Amen.