“Woman, why weepest thou?”/ “Why seek ye the living among the dead?”
Afflictions of
Christ and His body
As we meditate on the passion of Christ, the passion of Christ will be incomplete if we do not consider the afflictions of the members of His Body. The members of His Body fill up in their flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ for the sake of His body, which is the Church (Col.1:24). During the Lenten days, we meditate only on the sufferings of Christ and not on the sufferings of hundreds of the members of His body who either suffered martyrdom or suffered in many ways.
Though Christ suffered and died for our sins on the Cross, yet there is something lacking in his afflictions which needs to be filled up by the members of His body, the universal Church. Today, the Church is facing afflictions either due to persecutions or due to sufferings in other ways. If you are of the body of Christ, you will definitely feel the agonies of those undergoing afflictions in His body.
Paul in his epistle to Corinthians (2 Cor.11:23-33) described his great sufferings. Paul did not seek divine deliverance or angelic deliverances in all his afflictions. If you are minister of God, the Holy Spirit exhorts you to take time to meditate on the afflictions of Paul.
“Are they ministers of Christ? (I speak as a fool) I am more; in labors more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft,
Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one,
Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep;
In journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren;
In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and in thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness.
Beside those things that are without, that which cometh upon me daily, the care of all the churches…….”
When the governor was guarding the city with a garrison to arrest him, there was no angelic deliverance of Paul which had happened when Peter was imprisoned. Paul was let down in a basket through a window in the wall, and escaped from the hands of his enemies.
Paul faced unbearable physical tortures by way of beatings with stripes and rods. He received 39 stripes from the Jews and that too, five times. Paul faced perils everywhere in the world. God even did not give him a favorable weather for his ministry. There was not a single place in his life-time which was without peril. He did not covet comforts for his body. He suffered hunger, thirst, nakedness, weariness and painfulness. Apart from these physical sufferings, the care of all the churches came upon him daily. Paul’s ministry was not on a comfortable dais or pulpit. These days, when we face a little suffering or persecution, we feel demoralized and do not want to serve Him.
I request you to read the
biography of a great woman of God who lived and died for Christ in
On the first day of the week,
Mary Magdalene went to the tomb of Jesus early, while it was still dark, and
saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb.
Dearly beloved in Christ Jesus, will you envision that you had gone to the tomb along with Mary Magdalene? In your life, you have lost all the hope of living with your estranged spouse or you have lost the hope of restoration of things that were stolen by the Devil or you have lost the hope of divine healing.
The Holy Spirit exhorts you today to see the empty tomb and the resurrected Christ through the eyes of Mary Magdalene. Like Mary Magdalene, you should be the first person to see the resurrected Christ in your life today. Your hope has now risen from the dead. The impossibility has now become a possibility. Remember that when Christ rose from the dead, you also rose along with Him.
In your life, there must be an empty tomb. Because of your lack of faith in Him, you had buried Christ in a tomb. But Christ cannot be buried for long. Even if you are faithless, He remains faithfully and cannot deny Himself (2 Tim.2:13). This is the secret of His love for you.
If you see the empty tomb today, you will definitely see the resurrected Christ by your side. Today you do not see the crucified Christ but a resurrected Christ. Your hope has now risen from the dead. You will now find that the stone of unbelief placed by you on your life had already been removed.
The Holy Spirit exhorts you to be like Mary Magdalene who was the first person to see the risen Christ. Though she was possessed by seven demons, which the Lord had cast, she had the great privilege of seeing the risen Christ at first. On this first day of the week, why cannot you be the first person to see the risen Christ? Mary Magdalene rose early in the morning when it was still dark to go the tomb of Jesus. Oh, this is the right time for you to commune with the risen Christ. You should henceforth give first priority to Jesus in your life. Your first thought in the early morning should be on Him only. Let the other disciples like Peter and John follow you.
Mary Magdalene was the first person to break the news of the empty tomb to Peter and John. She did not walk but ran to tell them that the Lord was taken out of the tomb by the Roman soldiers and that they did not know where they had laid Him.
When the late comers like Peter and John saw only the empty tomb, and went away to their houses, Mary stood outside by the tomb weeping. She could have also gone home after seeing the empty tomb. But she was relentless in her pursuit of the risen Lord. Though she had seen the empty tomb, yet she did not rejoice but wept. Though she was not a woman of faith, yet she loved the Lord because she did not go home but was weeping. Her love for the Lord outweighed her faith. The risen Christ looks into your heart for your love more than your faith.
As you stand near the empty tomb weeping, you receive a message of the angels, “Woman, why weepest thou?” Today, this angelic message from the Glory of His Cross Prophetic Ministries comes to you. As you turn around, you can hear His voice, “Woman, why weepest thou?” A new hope dawns on your spirit now as you read this message.
We are more blessed than Mary
Magdalene because the Lord has given us His Holy Spirit Who indwells us. We not only see the resurrected Christ
through our spiritual eyes but also live in Him. Jesus told Thomas who had earlier believed,
“Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (John
“Why seek ye the living among the dead?”
The resurrected Jesus revealed Himself firstly to those who had gone to his tomb in search of His body. The angels told the women including Mary Magdalene who looked for the body of Jesus, “Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen!” (Luke 24:5-6).
Do we seek the living among the dead today? The living Lord is not present in the churches who do not believe in His power of resurrection or who believe in dead traditions or dead formalities, which have nothing to do with the doctrines of the Bible. The Holy Spirit moves in the midst of His people who worship Him in truth and in spirit and who do His will in His vineyard. The Holy Spirit does not lead any people who do their own will, which is quite contrary to the doctrines of Christ. Today we do not bring our actions in conformity with His Word. But we try to quote His Word to justify our unscriptural action by quoting the Word from its one side. We cannot find the living Lord in our midst when we are bent on doing our own will.
Then these women relayed the news of His resurrection to the apostles. However, the apostles did not believe them because the words of these women seemed to them like idle tales. What a pity! The apostles, who were with Jesus during His three and half years’ ministry and who witnessed the mighty miracles performed by Jesus, did not believe the truth of His resurrection. Jesus had told them umpteen times about His death and resurrection. However, they believed the truth of His death because they had either witnessed His crucifixion from afar or heard from those who had witnessed it. It is unfortunate that they did not believe the truth of His resurrection even after hearing the first-hand report conveyed to them by these women. The devil had blinded their eyes to the truth of His resurrection.
Similarly, we do not want to see through our prophetic eyes the brighter side of our life in Christ. However, we always look at our past life, our diseases, our losses or our past failures. Let us forget today the past but look unto the future, which has the power of His resurrection (Phil.3: 10). The Holy Spirit leads us to believe in the power of His resurrection.
Paul says, “That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death; if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead….” (Phil.3: 10-11). Paul first mentions about the power of His resurrection and then mentions about the fellowship of His sufferings.
Majority of the people of this world believe the truth of crucifixion of Jesus, and not the truth of His resurrection.
Even the two disciples, who were on the way to Emmaus, believed His crucifixion. However, they pondered on “the theory of His resurrection” through their power of reasoning. The same Jesus, Who was always with them as their Master and Teacher, appeared as a stranger to them now. Verse 16 says that their eyes were restrained so that they did not know Him.
Similarly, having claimed to have spent most part of our Christian life in fellowship with Him, we do not know Him and His body yet. We worship Him in our churches but do not know Him and His body. I want to make it very clear that knowing Christ means knowing Him and His Body, the universal Church.
The apostles believed Him only as “a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people (Vs. 19). Oh, they could not recognize Him as the Son of God after His resurrection. Their eyes of unbelief removed Him from their heart so that they could not recognize Him. Jesus rebuked them, “O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken….” (Vs.25).
He then expounded to them in all the scriptures the things concerning Himself, beginning at Moses and all the prophets. Nevertheless, they could not still recognize Him. When the Lord Himself expounded all the scriptures to them, they could not recognize Him. Similarly, these days, the people of God hear many sermons based on the scriptures but still do not recognize Him. What a tragedy!
Jesus even stayed with these two disciples at night on their request. Even during His stay with them, they could not recognize Him. When did they recognize Him?
“And it came to pass, as He sat at meat with them, He took bread, and blessed it, and brake, and gave to them. And their eyes were opened and they knew Him; and He vanished out of their sight” (Vs.30-31).
We should now know the most important truth of His resurrection. The bread is symbolical of the Body of Christ, the universal Church. As the people of God fellowship with one another in His Body, they do get revelation of Christ. In other words, we recognize the living Christ through His multi-member Body that was resurrected and glorified.
The apostles did not get
revelation of Christ even through the Scriptures when Jesus expounded the
scriptures to them and also when He stayed with them at night. Merely remaining
with a local church and without having fellowship with His universal body is not
enough. As I partake of the Lord’s Table in my church, I always remember the
universal Body of Christ, especially those members of His body who undergo
persecution in different parts of the world. WILL YOU PLEASE RECOGNIZE CHRIST
AND HIS BODY TODAY? You can find the living Christ only in the midst of His
people who are united together in His Body, and not in the midst of dead
churches who do not believe in the power of His resurrection and who are not of
His one Body. Let us not seek the living among the dead! im
(Job Anbalagan)