Knowing Us By Name

I was deeply touched this week reading the account of when Mary Magdalene encounters the empty tomb. Of all the people we read of in the New Testament, she certainly knew and had a special bond with the Savior of the world.  She sensed his goodness and felt of his divinity.  She knew that he would redeem her soul for he already had.  Luke's first description of her as "Mary, called Magdalene, out of whom went seven devils" (Luke 8:2). Recall the words of the master to her sister Martha when Mary chose to sit at his feet rather than to perform her household tasks, "But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her" (Luke 10:42).  She was also rebuked by Judas Iscariot for anointing the Lord with copious amount of costly oil at the last supper.  Said, Jesus, "Why trouble ye the woman? for she hath wrought a good work upon me.  For ye have the poor always with you; but me ye have not always.  For in that she hath poured this ointment on my body, she did it for my burial" (Matthew 26:10-12).

I find it significant that the very first person that Jesus appeared to after his resurrection was this woman who loved him so much.  He had changed her life.  She feasted on his words, trusted in him and would do anything for him.  Indeed at that moment she had come to finish the embalming of his body.  How she must have suffered and sorrowed in those dark days.  To add to her grief, when she arrived at the tomb, the stone had been rolled away, the body was gone!  Horror stricken, she ran to tell the apostles.  They came and saw the empty tomb and then left.  She remained, weeping outside the tomb.  As she looked in she saw two angels who asked her why she was so distraught.  Replying that her Lord had been taken she turned and saw a man she took to be the gardener "and knew not that it was Jesus" (John 20:14).  He asked her, "Woman, why weepest thou? whom seekest thou?" (vs 15).  In my minds eye, I can picture Mary, so full of grief and anxiety that she started just bursting forth, pleading and begging with the man to see if he knew what had happened to the body, telling him that she would care for it.  One word changed her entire outlook.  One word spoken by the Savior of the whole world ceased her babbling.  One word was enough for her to know him.  Jesus simply said, "Mary" (vs. 16).  Her tears turned to those of joy.  Her heart leaped for joy.  Her soul filled with the hope that was lost.  Answering, she simply replied, "master."

I firmly believe that it is possibly to personally know Jesus Christ, the creator of the world, the one who is the author of the salvation for all the human race.  It is possible because he knows us.  To a young boy seeking the truth in prayer he appeared with his Father.  The first word spoken to him was simply "Joseph."  He knows me and he knows you as well.  After showing Moses a vision of all the worlds that he created, of all the inhabitants thereof, and of the heavens above, he told him "Behold this is my work and my glory-- to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man" (Moses 1:39).  He did not say "men" but "man."  He atoned individually for all of our sins.  Through the ordinance of the sacrament he has asked us to take upon us his name.  We can do so because he has taken upon him ours.  That is why our burden is heavy and his is light.  He knows us by name because he has experienced and suffered all that we have and will ever go through.  If there were only one soul on the earth, you, he would still descend into the valley of death and go through the atonement  just for you.  I know he would do so because he already has, for each of us, one soul, one name at a time.