What’s In A Name?
Dear Sutton and Savannah,
Sometimes the phone is a terrible task master. I once heard a wonderful reminder of the role it was intended to play: The phone was created for my convenience, I was not created for the phone’s convenience. However, when the phone vibrates, indicating an incoming call or text, and I look down to see your name as the source, I melt. I can hear your voice before I even answer the call. And then something in me shifts as I hear, “Hi Dad.” So, thank you for all you’ve done to make that two-word greeting so powerful.
-Dad
Inside Out Lectionary Letters
Year A - Easter Sunday (Texts, Art, Hymns)
Readings for Easter Sunday, April 5, 2026
Acts 10:34-43/ Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24 / Colossians 3:1-4 / John 20:1-18
Summary of John 20:1-18
In this Easter Sunday reading, Mary Magdalene goes to the tomb where Jesus was buried and finds the stone removed. She runs to tell Peter and John, who come, see the empty tomb, and leave. Mary remains, weeping. She looks into the tomb, encounters two angels, and then turns and sees Jesus, though she does not recognize him. It is only when he speaks her name—“Mary”—that she recognizes him and becomes the first to tell the others that he is alive.
Scripture as Mirror of the Soul
The gospel writer includes six characters in the telling of the resurrection story; Peter, John (the author of this gospel, self described as the disciple Jesus loved) the two angels, Mary Magdalene and Jesus. One path for exploration is to imagine what Peter, John and Mary were experiencing. But that could allow us to keep our analysis and reflection impersonal. Let’s take another pathway and consider what parts within us these three characters might represent.
Peter and John might represent the part of me that thought I had it all figured out. Life was just beginning to make sense and I thought I had things under control. Then catastrophe strikes. I’m not just bewildered, or confused, but I feel crushed under the weight of uncertainty and loss. I have tried to be faithful, and believed I knew what faithful looked like. What I didn’t realize was that I was putting more faith into my expected outcomes than into my inner restoration. I thought I was getting it, but now, I don’t know.
What part of me might Mary represent? Maybe that is the part that has been wounded and healed, and then wounded again. Shame on me for trusting again; for believing there was something better. I feel destined for disappointment. I go to the tomb out of respect for what I believed was good, but truth be told, I’m also going there to bury my hope. I tried the inner journey and now I feel lost. I’m not sure I would recognize love if it stood right in front of me.
All I want to do is run; to be anywhere but where I am, because I don’t feel like I know who I am anymore. But when the parts of me work up the courage to peek into the shadows of the tomb, I don’t see what I expected to see. That which I thought was buried in the shadows is not there at all. Just the divine voice within that patiently engages, and points me toward love, pure love. As I said before, I wouldn’t recognize it if it stood right in front of me, and I didn’t. Not until love said my name. And it wasn’t just my name, it was the way that love named my identity. You see, love knows me far better than I know myself. And in that moment, I feel like I can do nothing other than collapse at love’s feet, for the me I have longed to know has just been resurrected.