Welcome to today's encouragement from Our Daily Bread.

Our Reading titled Known by God was written by Patricia Rabin.

After two brothers were separated by adoption, a DNA test helped to reunite them almost 20 years later.

When Kieran texted Vincent, the man he believed was his brother, Vincent thought, who is this

stranger? When Kieran asked him what name he'd been given at birth, he immediately answered, Tyler.

Then he knew they were brothers. He was recognized by his name.

Consider how a name plays a key role in the Easter story.

As it unfolds, Mary Magdalene comes to Christ's tomb, and she weeps when she finds his body missing.

Woman, why are you crying? Jesus asks in John, chapter 20, verse 15.

She didn't recognize him, however, until he spoke her name, Mary.

Hearing him say it, she cried out in Aramaic,

Raboni, which means teacher.

Her reaction expresses the joy believers in Jesus feel on Easter morning,

recognizing that our risen Christ conquered death for all, knowing each of us as his children.

As he told Mary, I am ascending to my father and your father, to my God and your God.

In Georgia, two reunited brothers bonded by name vowed to take this relationship to the next level.

On Easter, we praise Jesus for already taking the utmost step to rise in sacrificial love for those he knows as his own.

For you and me, indeed, he's alive.

Today's Our Daily Bread Devotional Scripture reading is from John chapter 20, verses 11 through 18.

Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the

tomb and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus' body had been, one at the head and the other

at the foot. They asked her,

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