Easter Day 2004
Do not hold onto me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father.
That’s what Jesus says to Mary Magdalene when she realises who it is she is seeing at the tomb. I can imagine her, her eyes full of tears, not seeing very clearly. It was early morning. Perhaps she had been crying ever since He was crucified. Suddenly, her eyes are opened to the fact that the man standing before her is not the gardener, but is in fact The Risen Christ.
She’d found His tomb open. She’d told the Simon Peter and another disciple about the open tomb. They found the tomb empty. And she realised that Jesus, the one she loved, the one she followed, the one she had so much faith in, was gone. There was not even a body to show that he had been there at all. Just some folded grave clothes. There was nothing left. She had nothing left to cling to but her memories.
We like to have something to cling to. It’s quite natural really, especially in the rough and tumble world in which we live. We cling to the ideas, beliefs, attitudes and understandings about our world that support a more comfortable existence, maintaining a world we think know, even if it is not nice. We even cling to people, and sometimes to unhealthy aspects of ourselves. We know that sometimes change is scarier than what we know, even if it what we know isn’t doing us any good.
Jesus says to Mary Do not hold onto me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. A better translation of this is Mary is Do not cling to me. It more a sense of holding on tight, refusing to let it go. Why is this a bad thing? Well, Mary is clinging to the pre-good Friday Jesus, the Jesus she knew, the Jesus she could touch. This is the Jesus she anointed. She thought he was gone. She mourned him, she grieved for him. She missed him. She clung to that person she had known.
But Jesus wasn’t, of course, by this time, dead. He had risen. He is risen. But she was so distraught at losing the Jesus she knew that she failed at first to recognise the Risen Jesus. She even asked him a question, assuming Him to be the gardener. It was only when he spoke her name that she recognised Him. Hand then her first response was to turn to him and address him as teacher. This is how she knew him. The teacher, the rabbouni, was the person she had lost. This is when he tells her not to cling to him.
You see, the risen Christ is more than a teacher. He was no longer the wandering Prophet who had upset the temple authorities. He was more than the one who preached so well, who healed and taught, who ate and drank and loved. This was much more. The self-emptied, self limited incarnation, the Son of God, Jesus the Christ who died on the Cross was gone, and Mary had found the divine Son of God, the risen Christ, the same person yet different.
Mary was one of the few followers of Jesus who seemed to get it right. She understood what Jesus meant more often that the others. Simon-Peter was always getting it wrong, being impetuous and foolhardy, putting his foot in his mouth, but Mary was wise. She sat at Jesus feet and listened, and responded appropriately. She knew and loved Jesus the great Teacher. She had great faith in Jesus. She knew that He could have prevented Lazarus from dying. She understood that Jesus would have to die, and did that great thing we heard of a few weeks ago, where she anointed His feet and wiped them with her hair. If any of the followers of Jesus could have recognised the risen Christ, then she was the one. Yet it took her a minute, and when she did recognise him, he told her not to cling to him.
What would her clinging do as far as Jesus was concerned? Could her clinging prevent him from ascending to God? I do get that impression from what Jesus says and it is possible.
You see, there is only one thing which can limit God’s ability to work with us, within us and around us. It isn’t some other supernatural power, although perhaps those against us can influence us. Ultimately, the one thing that can limit Gods power is us humans. We all have our images of God. Most of them are different, some a little bit different, and some so completely different as to seem like an entirely different deity. But none are the same, and none are entirely accurate, if only because of the limited nature of our human perception of the divine. They may be partially accurate, yet none can ever expound and explain the true nature and being of God. Our language and concepts are not enough. And this is the key. If we allow ourselves only to experience the divine in the ways we find acceptable, and we close ourselves off to other expressions of God working in our lives, then we are clinging to a God who is not real. If we maintain a Sunday school image of Jesus, then we are limiting His power in our lives because we will refuse to see it. We just won’t believe it is possible. If we are not open to other views of Jesus in the world, then we are clinging to him. We are holding him back in our relationship with him. Mary Magdalene, in wanting to hold onto the pre-death Christ, is clinging to one version of Him, the incarnated, human version of him, and in so doing, her mind would not be predisposed to seeing the divine, ascended Christ and His influence in her life. This is not helpful, and Jesus knows this. So the risen Christ instructs her not to cling to him.
So I guess the lesson for us, as we gaze at the empty tomb, and look about for the risen Christ, is to not limit ourselves to seeing Christ where we most expect to see Him. Look for him in unexpected places and situations, in unexpected people. Don’t cling to a Jesus who is not risen, or is limited by our own feeble imaginations and beliefs. Don’t trap Jesus here on earth, in our world. Allow Him to work in our world, but to be free of it. Allow him to be ascended to the Father. And maybe His presence will be a little more discernible in our lives. Perhaps miracles might occur. And perhaps our faith might become a little more enlivened.
Amen.
