Liminal: occupying a position at, or on both sides of, a boundary or threshold.
It is difficult, at times, to remember that God is here. That God is present even in these times of war, persecution, extra-judicial arrests, and economic struggle. We never thought that this would describe our country, again. When will we leave in the past these injustices and instead live into the abundance and peace God lays before us?
Mary Magdalena feels a need to be at the burial place of Jesus. She has yet to fully understand what her good friend Jesus is up to. I wonder if she is like me, wanting at times to be present at the place my loved ones are buried. To contemplate. To remember. To find comfort. To grieve. In some ways she is in a liminal place: between death and life.
Jesus comes to her in this place between death and life, between crucifixion and resurrection. He does not pontificate on the theological importance of this moment. He does not correct her. He does not give her a big long speech. He just says her name, "Mary." When the world is spinning out of control, and she is contemplating her life after her friends death, Jesus gives her what we all desire, presence. He sees her and then in that moment she sees him, fully. This is where peace begins.
In this liminal moment, when it truly feels like the world is changing, instead of trying to understand, or trying to out argue "the other side," what if we just called each other by name and to truly see each other. I think these moments call us to feel the "inbetweeness," to embrace an opportunity to live between death and life without fear, without worry for tomorrow, without trying to fix it.
What does Jesus say in Matthew?
And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today's trouble is enough for today. (Matthew 6:27,34)
