I have seen the Lord.

John 20, verse 18.

Welcome to today's encouragement from our daily bread.

Our reading titled Love's Great Surprise was written and read by James Banks.

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, Woman, why are you crying?

They have taken my Lord away, she said, and I don't know where they have put him. At this, she turned around and saw

Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus. He asked her, woman, why are you

crying? Who is it you are looking for? Thinking he was the gardener, she said, sir, if you have carried him away,

tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.

Jesus said to her, Mary.

She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, Rabonis, which means teacher.

Jesus said, Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father.

Go instead to my brothers and tell them, I am ascending to my Father and your Father,

to my God and your God. Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news.

I have seen the Lord, and she told them that he had said these things to her.

Love's Great Surprise

In the classic sports fantasy film Field of Dreams, the character Ray Concella encounters his late father as an athletic younger man.

Upon seeing him for the first time, Ray comments to his wife Annie,

I only saw him years later when he was worn down by life. Look at him. What do I say to him? The scene raises a question,

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