Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned toward Him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means Teacher.) -John 20:16
Three days after Jesus had been crucified and His body taken to the tomb, Mary Magdalene was one of the first to visit the tomb, and on her arrival there, she noticed that His body was missing. Her first reaction was to run to Peter and John to tell them what happened. They all came back to the tomb, and looked for themselves and believed what Mary told them. Eventually, everyone except Mary Magdalene left and went back to their homes. Mary just stood outside of the tomb crying. She bent in and took another look into the tomb, and she noticed two angels, and then she heard a voice behind her saying, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?” At first she thought it was the gardner that was speaking to her, so she was pleading with him to tell her where he took Jesus’ body, but then Jesus called her by name (see the verse above), and she recognized His voice and immediately turned around and responded.
I have a sister, and many people say that we sound very similar on the phone, but something happened this weekend that just really spoke volumes to me about the way the Lord speaks to us. I called my three year old nephew on the telephone, and when he first heard me say hello, he thought I was my sister, but then I called him by a pet name that only I call him, and he immediately recognized my voice and responded with excitement.
As I read the verse above, I remembered the conversation with my nephew, and the Lord spoke the following over me. I believe that He said to me, ‘oftentimes, when I speak to my children, they don’t immediately respond because they don’t necessarily recognize my voice, but for those that have spent time with me and gotten to know me personally, I call them in a way that only I call them, and then they recognize my voice.’ If I never spent any personal time with my nephew and allowed him to get to know me intimately, he would not have recognized my voice, but because of the relationship we have and the amount of time that we have invested into getting to know each other, he recognizes certain things that only I say to him in the manner that I say them.
Do you recognize the Lord’s voice? Or do you still confuse His voice with others? Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 11:14, And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. That is, just as Jesus speaks to us, Satan speaks to us as well, disguised as an angel of light, and many of us have fallen prey to his tactics because we do not necessarily recognize the difference between their voices. It is imperative that we get to know our Lord intimately so that we can recognize His voice amidst the thousand other voices that run through our heads. When we spend time intimately with the Lord through Bible Study and meditation, prayer, quiet time, etc, we begin to pick up on certain intricacies in His voice that help us to recognize it better.
Can you tell your children’s voices apart? Can you recognize your spouse’s voice? Can you tell your sibling’s voices apart? Why? Albeit it is because you have spent a lot of time with them and you know them intimately. It works the same way with the Lord. Mary recognized Jesus’ voice because He called her in such a way that only her Rabboni, whom she knew and loved, calls her. My nephew recognized my voice because he recognized something that only I do. Do you know Jesus’ voice that well?
I leave you with the words of Christ from Revelations 3: 20. Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with Me. Do you hear His voice?
Grace and peace be with you.
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