Jesus uttered her name, ‘Mary,’ and her sorrow turned into indescribable joy

HE was my RE teacher and went on to be a lifelong source of wisdom, encouragement and friendship. Fifty years on from where I first met him, Brian Young remains one of the key people who helped me begin (and sustain) my life of faith. When speaking of his own journey to faith in Christ he would tell how, as a teenager at a Christian youth meeting, he listened to a man at the front of the hall talking and said to someone sitting by him, “He is talking to me”.

That person had the insight to know that Brian wasn’t talking about the words of a human preacher, and encouraged him to respond to the God calling him by name.

Week after week during this season of Lent I have come back to this one overwhelming thought: names matter. When God calls us, he does not invite us to follow him as part of a large unknowable mass of people but as individuals, created uniquely in his image, who are loved by him.

Just as on that first Easter morning the risen Jesus spoke to a woman by name. She had come looking for his body to pay her final respects to theman she had loved, worshipped and watched die. Now she believed he suffered the final indignity of having his corpse stolen by his enemies. One word changed all that.

Jesus simply uttered her name, “Mary”, and her sorrow turned into indescribable joy. The path that she thought had led her to a dead end had suddenly opened up into a range of incredible possibilities.

Names matter. More than that, the astonishing reality of the Easter story is that every single one of us matters.

Jesus promised that not one of us would be turned away from his love, grace and forgiveness. Brian discovered it was true, as did I. As have countless millions throughout the last two thousand years.

May we all hear him calling our name this resurrection weekend.

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