Whom are you looking for?

Tuesday in the Octave of Easter

Acts 2:36-41; Jn 20:11-18

Recognising someone's face or voice is very important - and intimate - to us. Think of a baby who stops crying as soon as he or she recognises his mother's face or voice. A friend of mine who had to spend years away from home because of work commitments was telling me how painful it was when he returned home and the younger members of his family did not recognise him.

On another level, I am sure that you have been following the debate currently making the rounds on the newspapers and the social media about a new technology: facial and voice recognition. Smartphones and computers are being developed wherein one of the main features is that it can recognise your face or your voice. This data would then be used as a security feature but it can also be used, for example for targeted advertisements, and therefore there has been a lot of controversy around it.

Today we have one of the most intimate scenes in the gospel of John. We see Mary of Magdala change. At first, she is absorbed in her own anguish, turned into herself, not able to notice even that Christ has risen from the dead. In fact, she doesn't even recognise Jesus.

Jesus manages to bring her to her senses by a simple question, "What are you looking for?" It is a sounds like a very simple and innocent question, but in fact is laden with meaning. It is similar to the question that Jesus asks the first two disciples at the beginning of the same Gospel. If Mary of Magdala does not even know whom she is looking for, then how can she recognise him? It is only once she realises that whom she is looking for that she recognises Jesus. She was looking for Jesus, the Son of God, then he cannot be among the dead but among the living.

In a way we have she same thing happening in the first reading. Fifty days after Easter Sunday, Peter is giving his witness of the resurrection by preaching about it, and those who were listening to him recognise Jesus, the Son of God. We read that they were "cut to the heart". Recognising Jesus is not something automatic like the smartphone or computer which recognises your face. Our heart must be willing to recognise and to welcome Jesus as was the heart of Mary of Magdala, as was the heart of these people who were listening to Peter. To recognise the Risen Christ with our heart means to be ready to change, to allow God to transform our anguish into the joy of new life that he has brought us.

These new disciples ask Peter what must they do and he replies that they must be baptised. this is the new life that we have already received at baptism. It is easy to stay as we are. It is easy to cling onto Jesus as Mary wanted to do. But Jesus wants us to grow into mature disciples and this is what his resurrection is all about.