Do You Recognize Christ?

You are here

Do You Recognize Christ?

Login or Create an Account

With a UCG.org account you will be able to save items to read and study later!

Sign In | Sign Up

×
Downloads
MP4 Video - 1080p (160.31 MB)
MP4 Video - 720p (96.69 MB)
MP3 Audio (2.96 MB)

Downloads

Do You Recognize Christ?

MP4 Video - 1080p (160.31 MB)
MP4 Video - 720p (96.69 MB)
MP3 Audio (2.96 MB)
×

Jesus spoke Mary's name to get her attention. Is God able to get your attention?

Transcript

[Darris McNeely] Christ is our teacher, and we are His disciples. That's a lifelong process, a lifelong role that we are called to. But do we really see and understand that Christ is our teacher? There's a story from the events in the morning, after Christ's resurrection, when the disciples came to the empty tomb, found the stone had been rolled back, and they were confused, and not understanding what had happened. In John's account, the way he puts it here, with Mary, who comes now to prepare the final preparations of the body, she finds an empty tomb, and she's weeping, thinking that the body has been stolen, that they put her Lord's body someplace that she doesn't know. And Christ speaks to her as he sees her there in the garden. And He said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?" And she thought that he was a gardener. And she said, "Well, if you've carried him away, tell me please where you've laid him, and I will take him away." In other words, I will take care of him. So she did not recognize Christ, the resurrected Christ, speaking to her at that moment. Then Jesus said something else in verse 16 of John 20, Jesus said to her, "Mary..." He uttered her name. Now, this was Mary of Magdalene, from a city on the shore of Lake Galilee, Sea of Galilee.

A lot is said about Mary that is apocryphal or not true. We really don't know a lot about her background, but she was a disciple. She was a follower to this very moment and indeed loved Jesus as her teacher. And I think what it comes through and what she does in the moment that He utters her name, when he says, "Mary," and it says, she turned and said to Him, "Rabboni," which is to say teacher, then she recognized who He was. It was not the gardener. His body had not been stolen. It was the resurrected Jesus. And she recognized him and she wanted to worship Him at that point. But here's the point that I think is important.

In this woman's life, it seems that perhaps the only person who had ever spoken to her deep down in her heart was Jesus of Nazareth. That's why she forsook all and followed Him as a woman, in that time among the other women, and the men, the disciples that were with Christ all the way to this point in time. He was the only one who had ever spoken to her in that way to her heart and helped to heal, to bind up whatever was broken to salve over what was scarred from her life, whatever it was, and that inspired her devotion.

And in this moment, when He said her name, she knew who she was speaking to. You know, earlier in John 10 is the record of Christ saying that, "I am the true Shepherd. My sheep hear my voice." In this occasion here, Mary, one of His disciples, one of the sheep, heard, not only His voice, but His voice saying her name. And in a way, that reached her heart, and then she recognized who He was.

When we are a disciple of Jesus Christ, He speaks to us, we respond, and we develop a relationship, where He knows us, and He does know us, just us He knew Mary. And He knew how she thought, what made her life, and what she needed to hear, and the importance of the gospel to her. Christ knows the importance of all of that to us in our lives as well. And when we respond with that acknowledgement that we do know Him because His voice, His teaching, His presence in our life has changed us, then we truly have that disciple-teacher relationship that allows us to recognize Christ, not only speaking to us, but guiding us in our life. That's what's important.

That's BT Daily. Join us next time.