Do not cling to me - 09

Well, it feels good to find that one of my all-time favorite authors agrees with my assumptions about this scene. In out text from John 20:11-18, we see Mary weeping and the searching for Jesus. There is a sense that she is not only morning the death of her master, but also the life she experienced over the past three years. It's good to rejoice in the things God has done in our lives. We should take time to mourn, but then get up and be ready for the next season. In this text from The Place of Help, Chambers give us a glimpse into the mindset of Jesus' disciples in this moment.

"The End of the Three Years . . . sitting over against the sepulcher. (Matthew 27:61) Those years had been a time of marvelous delight and joy, but they are finished now, and there is the pressure of pain in the termination of them. No greater sadness than that of the disciples can be imagined. They owed everything to Jesus, and now “He is not here,” and life has nothing more to hold out for them. We have all had the equivalent of those three years, a time of great joy while it lasted, but it is finished now, and we too have sat “over against the sepulcher.” * 
In my experience, one of the strongest indicators that it's time to move on is when you find Jesus is no longer in what you're doing. One day you wonder where the joy and sense of favor has gone. You feel you no longer fit in that place as you once did. Then you start searching for Jesus and find he is not there. He is waiting for you in the new season as he was for these disciples. Moving on is not a failure, it's not a lack of faith on your part. When God has something new in store for you, receive it, rejoice, and step up.
Matthew 27:59-61 (ESV) "And Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen shroud and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had cut in the rock. And he rolled a great stone to the entrance of the tomb and went away. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were there, sitting opposite the tomb.

Chambers, O. (1958). The Place of Help. Marshall, Morgan and Scott. 


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