Seeking | Who are you looking for?

Easter begins in the dark. 

Before the lilies, before the alleluias, before the sun rises—Mary Magdalene comes to the tomb. The one she followed has died publicly and brutally on a Roman cross. 

The stone is rolled away. She runs to tell the others: “They have taken the Lord… and we do not know where they have laid him.” She is not looking for resurrection—only trying to make sense of loss. 

She returns, weeping outside the tomb. 

If she is seeking anything, it is closure. A body to anoint. 

And in the quiet of that garden, she hears a question that echoes still: “Who are you looking for?” 

It’s a deeply personal question. How we answer it shapes what we see. 

Mary looks through the lens of grief. She sees angels but stays fixed on her loss. She turns and sees Jesus, but does not recognize him—assuming he is the gardener. She does not yet see that resurrection is standing right in front of her. 

Then he speaks her name—Mary. 

And everything shifts. Resurrection becomes visible. 

Easter reminds us that we, too, are always seeking—even when we don’t realize it. What we are looking for can either limit us or open us to new life. 

Are we looking for a God who confirms our fears? 
Or a God who surprises us with hope? 
Are we looking for what has been lost? 
Or for what is being made new? 

It’s more than an idea; it’s a way of seeing—it’s a way of being. As Wendell Berry says, we are called to “practice resurrection”—to live as if new life is already breaking in, even when we don’t fully see it yet. 

And this practice is not abstract. It’s earthy. Rooted in the world around us. 

Look outside. 

The ground is softening. The days are lengthening. What looked barren just weeks ago is beginning to stir. As the hymn puts it, “Now the green blade rises from the buried grain.” It’s a quiet testimony that life is stronger than death. 

This Easter season, may we practice resurrection by: 

• Planting something—flowers, vegetables, or even a tree whose shade we may never sit under 
• Stepping outside and noticing signs of life returning 
• Offering a word that helps someone else rise  
• Investing in what comes next, trusting that what we nurture today will grow beyond us 

Resurrection, after all, is not just something we believe—it’s something we live. 

In a world that knows loss and dying all too well, Easter invites us into the harder, holier work of rising—together. 

So this April, as creation greens around us, listen for the voice that calls you by name. 

And ask yourself: Who are you really looking for?

Because the good news of Easter is this: even in the dark, the One we seek is already seeking us. 

Blessings, Donna