READING:
John 1–18
Searching in the Dark
It is still dark when Mary Magdalene comes to the tomb. That detail matters—not just a description of the early hour, but a glimpse into the condition of her heart and her mood. It is the darkness of grief, of confusion, of that gnawing sense of absence. Darkness lingers—not just around her, but within her. Mary’s world has collapsed completely, and in that shadowed dawn she comes not to find joy or hope, but to find a body.
Jesus—the one in whom she placed her hope, her healing, and perhaps even her whole self—is gone. So she does the only thing left to do: she comes to look for him—to be with his dead physical body. It is her way of saying a private goodbye, of honouring his memory. She’s seeking something tangible to cling to in the ruins of her life. In the darkness of her soul, she is not expecting joy. Not imagining resurrection. Only to weep, to mourn, to keep company with death.
But the tomb is empty. Even her last hope of honouring his body is dashed. Her plans for that quiet, uninterrupted time are now cruelly erased. And when she sees the stone rolled away and the tomb empty, she doesn’t cry “Alleluia.” She says, in despair, “They have taken him away.” Her Easter morning begins in heartbreak and disbelief, overwhelmed by the apparent cruelty of others.
In the darkness and confusion of her world turned upside-down, she runs to tell the others, then returns to the tomb, and she weeps. She looks again into that place of death, and hears the words: “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?”
That question echoes through every heart that has ever known grief, longing, or disorientation: Whom are you looking for? What is it that you want or need?
In the midst of her confusion, Jesus appears—but she does not recognise him. She mistakes him for the gardener.
Whom are you looking for?
“Whom are you looking for?”
That is the question Jesus asks her. Her answer is practical, surface-level: “If you’ve taken him away, tell me where…” She cannot articulate what she truly longs for. Not because she lacks the words, but because she is overwhelmed—grieving, hurting, confused. Deep down, she simply longs for healing, for peace.
And perhaps that same question is one Jesus asks us—especially in the moments when our lives unravel, when we feel lost or broken.
“Whom are you looking for?”
He may even be asking you that question this Easter Day. What are you seeking?
Mirror of Desire
In the book Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, there’s a mirror called the Mirror of Erised—“Desire” spelled backwards. It shows the one who gazes into it not what is real, but what their heart most deeply wants.
Harry, orphaned and aching, sees his family. Ron his friend from a large family , feeling overshadowed, sees himself finally standing out and triumphant.
Dumbledore the wise headmaster warns and reminds the children that people have wasted away before this mirror—not because it is bad but because they became so obsessed with what they wanted that they forgot to live.
Called by name
Mary, standing by the empty tomb, is gazing into her own kind of mirror. She’s not looking for resurrection. She’s looking for the Jesus she knew—the body she came to anoint. She’s clinging to the past because it’s all she believes she has left. She’s searching for what she thinks she needs. But resurrection meets her not with the fulfilment of her desire, but with the truth—that love overcomes even death itself.
Resurrection doesn’t wait for her to understand it. Jesus doesn’t remain hidden until her beliefs about God are correct. He simply speaks her name.
“Mary.”
And the mirror shatters.
She sees—not a projection of her longing, but the living Christ. The same, yet transformed. The Jesus she knew, and yet somehow more. Not just with her in sorrow, but ahead of her in joy.
A new way of looking at the world
This is how resurrection works. It doesn’t give us back what we’ve lost in the way we expect. It gives us Christ, alive. And in doing so, it gives us back ourselves—not as we were, but as we are becoming.
The priest and theologian Sam Wells says the heart of the gospel is not that God fixes everything, but that God is with us—and then invites us to be with one another. Not to solve or control, but to share life.
Easter is not the moment when everything becomes easy. It is when presence becomes eternal. Jesus does not abolish death by avoiding it, but by passing through it—and staying with us on the other side.
So the question comes again: What are you looking for?
Not just at a tomb, but in your own life?
Do you want to be right? Safe? Admired? In control?
Exciting journey
Are you looking in the mirror of desire—or are you ready to hear your name? Ready to be seen, known, and called into new life? Ready to step into a journey of living, where resurrection breaks in, quietly and gloriously, in places we might least expect to see God ?
Because Jesus doesn’t call us to explain the resurrection.
He calls us to live it.
Not to cling to the past, but to walk into God’s future.
Not to understand everything, but to follow the One who knows your name.
As we leave the garden with Mary, we might remember the gentle wisdom contained in the children’s book “The Velveteen Rabbit” by Margery Williams. In it, the old Skin Horse tells the little rabbit that becoming Real isn’t about how you’re made—it’s something that happens when you are truly loved, worn and softened by life. “Real,” he says, “is a thing that happens to you… when a child loves you for a long, long time… then you become Real.” That is resurrection. Not perfection, not a return to what was—but the transformation that happens when Love calls your name. Like Mary, we are made Real not through understanding, but through being known. Christ is risen, and he makes us real by loving us—completely, eternally, by name.
In the hymn “I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say” there is a verse that reads
I heard the voice of Jesus say, “I am this dark world’s Light;
Look unto Me, thy morn shall rise, and all thy day be bright.”
I looked to Jesus, and I found in Him my Star, my Sun;
And in that Light of life I’ll walk, till travelling days are done
In it we hear of darkness giving way to light, of hearing Jesus’ voice and being transformed, This mirrors Mary Magdalene’s experience on that first Easter morning. And it might well mirror our experience and remind us of the hope of Easter .
Alleluia.
Christ is risen.
He is with us.
