"One Shining Moment"

A Series on Lent
The stories of Passion Week – Mary Magdalene
(Click on the link below to read the verses.)
John 20:1-18 

[Lent is a 40-day season of personal reflection with the purpose to prepare your heart to celebrate the Lord’s Resurrection at Easter. In this series on Lent, we will be looking into the stories of Passion Week. How the people who were directly involved were impacted and how that applies to us today.]

  

Here we go again. It’s March Madness! That time of year when college basketball teams across the country believe that they can win it all. You don’t have to be a blue blood like Duke, Kansas or Kentucky. Anyone can win it!

And when they do, the song “One Shining Moment” will come across the TV airwaves around the world, as images of videotaped plays from the tourney are viewed. But especially of the team who won it all.

 

The ball is tipped and there you are
you’re running for your life; you’re a shooting star
And all the years no one knows just how hard you worked
but now it shows… in One Shining Moment

 

When he entered Jerusalem, Jesus seemed to be heading for his own “One Shining Moment”. But then the train fell off the tracks as he was betrayed, arrested, convicted and crucified. Even his closest followers all deserted him. That is, all except for the women, and one woman in particular.

 

She was a woman who at one time in in her life had been possessed by seven demons. In a culture that already devalued women, she would have been viewed as a social outcast at the lowest level of society. Yet, Jesus healed her. As a result, she became a valued follower of his.

 

She followed him across the countryside of Galilee supporting his ministry. She followed him when he was hung on the cross. She followed him when Joseph of Arimathea took his body to the tomb.

 

She was one of the first to discover that the tomb was empty. She was one of the first to learn that he had risen. She was the first to tell the other disciples. And, while she was crying uncontrollably from grief, she was the first person that Jesus revealed himself to.

 

¹⁶ “Mary!” Jesus said.

She turned to him and cried out, “Rabboni!” (which is Hebrew for “Teacher”).

^17a “Don’t cling to me,” Jesus said, “for I haven’t yet ascended to the Father.”    NLT

 

He called her by name, and she responded with the informal greeting of “Rabboni”. You could speculate that she felt indebted to him; that she never wanted to let him go again. No doubt, he had made her feel safe, secure and loved.

 

For Mary Magdalene, Jesus’ greeting was her own “One Shining Moment”. And when Jesus calls us by name, it is our “One Shining Moment”. And like Mary Magdalene, we can go tell others about it.

 

¹⁸ Mary Magdalene found the disciples and told them, “I have seen the Lord!” Then she gave them his message.     NLT

 

Copyright 2024 Joseph B Williams

www.lifelinebasketball.blogspot.com