This Guy

(Mary Magdalene's experience of the life, death and resurrection of Christ. Resurrection experience combining John 20:2-18 and Luke 24:1-12)
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I’ve been hanging out with a guy who I thought the world of. He’s no ordinary guy, people love him, he has this way about him that attracts normal people like you and me.

You see I’ve not lived the best of lives, I’ve done things wrong, I was pretty well off coming from a fishing village but at one point I was really troubled with bad spirits. They messed with my head and made me think bad things and do bad things. Not many people wanted to be near me but this guy

This guy....

This guy he was different...

He healed me. 

My mind and my body and I became better again.

So I followed him, I invested in him, time and money along with my friends Joanna and Susanna

We went with him wherever he went and we saw amazing things.

He didn’t just heal me, he healed so many people, I saw blind men see again, this man who was lowered into a house on a makeshift bed as there were so many people around they couldn’t bring him in the door. He couldn’t move got up but this guy told him to get up and then he started walking about. 
It was like having on the ancient prophets with us, but even better. 

He even brought people back to life, this little girl, a young man and my new friend Lazarus. 

We thought he was he messiah we’d all been waiting for.

We thought he’d come to overthrow the Romans, be our warrior but he was different. 

We loved him but the priest and leaders of the temple weren’t so enamoured with him.

They didn’t think some guy from Nazareth could be God’s son so when that’s who he said he was they were not too happy. 

Plus, he did things they REALLY didn’t like, it was bad enough when he started doing things on the Sabbath, like healing people, I mean what can be more important, healing people or observing the Sabbath. 
Well the priests had their opinion that’s for sure…

But then he started telling people their sins were forgiven…
Talk about taking their job from them… 

Plus, he started getting lots of followers and it threatened their ‘jobs’ so they started plotting to kill him. 

They started by trying to catch him out with tricky questions but I’ve never seen anyone be able to answer questions like him.

But then not long ago when he came into Jerusalem he came on a donkey and the people went crazy, treating him like a crusader, a warrior, someone come to save us from the Romans. He knew what he was doing but I think that was the last straw for the Jewish leaders…

And the unthinkable happened. 

They got to one of our friends. 

It was the best way to actually catch him as up until now they never managed it. He always slipped out of their grasp… To many people around who loved him to protect him.
They needed to get him when there weren’t so many people around…

They got to Judas. 

He was a good guy but never really got away from the pull of money. He used to look after the money for us so they offered him money to betray him and one night he did.

This guy was being weird the few days before.
It’s like he knew what was going to happen.

He started talking about dying and how he was going to be betrayed but we didn’t believe him. 
We didn’t want to believe him.

To us he was Gods son, our messiah. 

And lots of people thought so too.

But Judas did betray him, over the time of the Passover of all times, he told the roman guards where they could find him and with all things a kiss he showed them who he was. 

And they took him away.

That’s when people starting walking away and disappearing.

The next few hours got tough…

Our friend Peter denied him. I mean Peter! He was right there during EVERYTHING. Even this time when he went up a hill and they said Elijah and Moses appeared. You don’t get closer than that…
But while this guy was being questioned the people outside recognised Peter but he denied even knowing him.

He said that would happen too. 
I mean who knows the future?

But then it all went totally pear shaped.

He went from Pilate to Herod and back to Pilate.

They both found nothing to charge him with, but in that short time the leaders and priests managed to rile up the crowd who had to gathered.

I don’t know how it happened, it makes no sense, but before we knew it they were calling for him to be put to death.

Pilate said no and tried to appease them by flogging him.

It was awful, we couldn’t leave him, but it was horrific to watch and they seemed to enjoy every moment.

These people who days before were cheering for him. From Hosanna to Death in days.
What was going on. It was all going wrong. This man I’d invested my life in. 
It was going, just so badly.

But the flogging wasn’t enough.

Death, Death, Crucify, Crucify.

And they got their way.

He was exhausted, they had kept him up all night, questioning him, flogging him, mocking him.

Then they made him carry his own cross, and not just to outside the city on the road, they took him to a hill where everyone would see him. 
And to make the point that they thought he was a guilty they crucified two criminals with him.

It was the worst day of my life.

This man who I gave up my life for, I saw him struggle and die.

As he took his last breath he said ‘it is finished’

For us it was.
I felt my heart break
I fell to the floor
I felt physical pain throughout my whole body.
We managed to get the Romans to agree to let us take his body down so he was not hanging on the Sabbath and we laid him in a tomb which was given to us and rolled a stone in front of it.

Those of us that were left, we went into hiding but we had to go back, he was laid in a hurry before the Sabbath so me and some of the other women prepared the embalming spices and took them to the tomb.

The men didn’t come, I think they were too scared but we knew it needed to be done. 
He might not have been who we thought he was, as how could the son of God, the messiah, have died? How could he have left us?
But at the very least he was our friend and he deserved to be treated as we would anyone else.

It was the right thing to do.

Summoning up all our strength and courage we went, knowing the Romans and the Temple Elders were still on the lookout for his followers.

As we got near I knew something was wrong, there was a sense in the air and from a distance I could already see the stone was rolled away, but how? Why?

Could this get any worse?

We ran to the tomb and looked inside and the body was gone?

But the tomb was not completely empty, the cloth we wrapped his broken body in was there, neatly folded. Surely if someone had stolen his body they would take the cloth? Who would want to carry a naked dead body through the city? And even if they did who would take the time to fold the cloth and lay it so neatly with the smaller amount we carefully wrapped his head in at the top?
But there was something else in that tomb though, two bright figures, dressed in shining, dazzling white, 

They scared the life out of me and were so bright I couldn’t even look at them.

Then they spoke. Their words made me jump.

They told us he had risen from the dead.
I remembered how he brought Lazarus back and my heart began to lift, could it be possible?

Who could raise themselves?

But these figures told us to remember all he had told us before.

Those words came back like a crashing flood. All those times he said the Son of Man must die, the Son of Man will be handed over, the Son of Man will rise again.

The Son of Man will rise again, on the third day.
Friday, day one, Saturday day two...
Sunday… Could it be?

The other women they ran home, but my heart and mind were buzzing, so many thoughts so many fears, wishing it to be true but I saw him die, I saw his body broken and now his body wasn’t even there.

When the girl rose we saw the body wake up, same with the young man.

But his body, where was he?

I needed time, I needed space. So, I wandered the garden where the tomb was.
Eyes, fuzzy with tears and confusion I saw a man. I asked him if he knew. If he knew where this man was.

He said one word to me. 
‘Mary’

My heart flooded with joy. My friend, my saviour, my messiah. 

It was true, he was alive. 

This guy… this guy.

Jesus was this guy. THE GUY!

THIS GUY, THE GUY, JESUS!

He WAS and IS the son of God, and what he had said would happen had happened.

He came to this earth, born just like you and me, saw life in its rawness, felt it, touched it, lived it…
Then went to the cross, not for what he had done, but for what I had done.
He forgave my sins, he forgave many sins but we all knew sin needed sacrifice which hadn’t been made, but he was that sacrifice…

A sacrifice once and for all. 

He told me to go and spread the good news, the news that he was alive and risen from the dead.

To begin with the others didn’t believe what I and the other women had told them, 

Some of them ran to the tomb themselves, that was good enough along with that we told them.

For others, they were still a bit sceptical but then the impossible happened.

He appeared to us, in a locked room. Then disappeared.
Then he appeared again, then to hundreds.

Our Lord and Our saviour, IS alive.

He died and is alive.

Life has changed forever.

He changed my life, he healed me and many others.

He’s not here on this earth now in bodily form, but he sent his spirit of love and truth and grace and mercy so you can share in him too.

I’ve never known anyone who gives without expecting much back. But he does.

He just wants you to know he loves you. That’s all he ever wanted. 

And when you know that, when he touches your heart you change.

Don’t ask me how it works, I don’t know. It just pure deep love that changes you from within.

He died on that cross so we can all have it.

This guy, THE GUY, Jesus.

He loves you SO much.