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nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or<br />
low, thinkable or unthinkable – absolutely nothing can get between us<br />
and God’s love because of the way that Jesus our Master has<br />
embraced us’ (Romans 8:37–39, The Message).<br />
PAUSE AND PONDER<br />
How do you respond to the idea that God can be your<br />
Father – and that if you are a Christian, nothing can<br />
separate you from his love for you in Christ?<br />
THE TRANSFORMING POWER OF<br />
LOVE<br />
So, what can we learn from Mary’s encounter with the transforming<br />
power of Jesus’ love? And how can we, too, come ‘alive’, as we<br />
encounter his risen presence today?<br />
First, we can know, as Mary did, a new sense of our God-given<br />
identity. Prior to meeting Jesus, it’s highly likely that Mary’s identity<br />
would have been dominated <strong>by</strong> a sense of oppression, which would<br />
have had a massively damaging effect on her core identity. That was,<br />
until she met Jesus and was set free <strong>by</strong> his liberating love. She went<br />
from being dominated <strong>by</strong> darkness to becoming a follower of the light<br />
of the world. This was dramatically reaffirmed in the ‘light’ of that first<br />
Easter morning, as she saw and then recognised her beloved, now<br />
alive again, loving her, affirming her identity and calling her <strong>by</strong> name!<br />
This can be true for all of us, too. As John later writes in one of his<br />
letters: 15 ‘See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we<br />
should be called children of God! And that is what we are!’ (1 John<br />
3:1). Put simply, the key to you and me knowing our identity, is to
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