“My Father and Your Father”—The New Relationship - All The LORD is near Daily Devotionals for 2024

I ascend unto My Father, and your Father; and to My God, and your God.
John 20:17

"My Father and Your Father"—The New Relationship
Mary of Magdala was once so fully under the power of the devil that seven demons had to go out of her before she was set free. The Lord Jesus cast them out (Mk. 16:9), and thereafter she, with other women, helped Him in His ministry (Lk. 8:1-3).

What a transformation! No more bondage but pure, full-hearted attraction to Him in His greatness and grace. Mary lived for Him because He was everything to her, as He should be to us (Col. 3:11). So it was a shattering experience for her, with the other women, to witness His death on the cross (Mk. 15:37-41).

But her devotion would not suffer separation from Him, even after His death. She said, thinking that she was speaking to the gardener, "Tell me where thou hast laid Him, and I will take Him away" (Jn. 20:15). We might criticize her for not listening when the Lord foretold His resurrection, but the Risen One saw into her heart and found love to answer His love. He said her name, as He must have done many times before, and she responds in astonished joy, "Rabboni" (v. 16).

No doubt she reached out to Him, but He had something better for her than the earthly relationship His own had enjoyed with Him before the cross (2 Cor. 5:16-19). He was going to ascend to His Father, and in view of this He transforms her again, this time from a Jewess grieving the death of her Messiah to the joyful bringer of the glorious Christian truth that the Lord Jesus "is not ashamed to call [us] brethren" (Heb. 2:11), but delights to associate us with Himself in His relationship with His Father and His God in manhood. Yes, "in Christ" we are sons together before a Father's face, and holy, and without blame before God in love (Eph. 1:4-5). This is the Christian "Me and you" at its zenith, to be enjoyed fully in glory (Jn. 17:24).

Simon Attwood