Jesus saith unto her, Mary. She turned herself, and saith unto Him, Rabboni; which is to say, Master.
—John 20:16
Here we have the first manifestation of the risen Savior, to Mary Magdalene, the woman who “loved much” (Luke 7:47).
Think of what the morning watch meant to Mary. Is it not evidence of the intense longing of a love that would not rest until it had found the Lord it sought? It meant a separation from all else, even from the chief of the apostles, in her longing to find Christ. It meant the struggle of fear against a faith that refused to let go its hold of a wonderful promise. It meant Christ’s coming and fulfilling the promise: “If a man love Me, he will keep My words…and I will love him, and will manifest Myself to him” (John 14:23, 21). It meant that her love was met by the love of Jesus, and she found Him, the living Lord, in all the power of His resurrection life. It meant that she now understood what He had said about ascending to the Father, to the life of divine and omnipotent glory. It meant, too, that she received her commission from her Lord to go and tell His disciples of what she had heard from Him.
That first morning watch, waiting for the risen Lord to reveal Himself, became a prophecy and a pledge of what the morning watch has been to thousands of souls since! In fear and doubt, and yet with a burning love and strong hope, they waited until He breathed on them the power of His resurrection life and manifested Himself as the Lord of Glory. They had scarcely known Him because of their feeble human understanding; but when He breathed on them, they learned—not in words or thought, but in the reality of a divine experience—that He to whom had been given “all power…in heaven and in earth” (Matthew 28:18) had now taken them into the keeping of His abiding presence.
And what are we now to learn? That there is nothing that can prove a greater attraction to our Lord than the love that sacrifices everything to Him and rests satisfied with nothing less than Himself. It is to such a love that Christ manifests Himself. He “loved us and [has] given Himself for us” (Ephesians 5:2). Christ’s love needs our love in which to reveal itself. It is to our love that He speaks the words, “Lo, I am with you alway[s]” (Matthew 28:20). It is love that accepts, rejoices in, and lives in that word.