Saturday, April 11, 2009

Rabboni, My Great Master!

I am so excited about Resurrection Sunday which is also on my birthday! I am not quite sure where all the Easter commercialism comes from.  I will have to check that out later. Today I was reading about when Mary Magdalene went to the tomb of Jesus. I am referring to the account in John 20:10-18. She had been crying because she had looked in the tomb and he was not there. The angels asked her what she was crying about. She said "They have taken my Lord away and I don't know where they have put him." Then later Jesus, himself, asked her why she was crying. She thought he was the gardener and began to ask about the body. He called her name and at that point she realized that she was not speaking to the gardener but to Jesus, she said, 'Rabboni', which means master.

Rabboni is a form of the title, rabbi, that has three forms. The term rabbi was a title of respect placed on learned men like teachers, doctors, lawyers, which basically meant master. "Rab" meant 'master', "Rabbi" meant 'my master', and Rabbon or Rabboni meant 'great master or my great master, respectively'! So when she said Rabboni, she was saying LORD of LORDS. There is no one greater! She was not referring to him as a mere man using the title that she would use when speaking to a man. The bible says that even Sarah obeyed Abraham calling him Lord in 1 Peter 3:6. Mary was speaking to Jesus with the greatest honor that the title held, RABBONI!  MY GREAT MASTER!

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