John 20:17-18
Jesus said to her, “Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord” – and that he had said these things to her.
Many have puzzled over the first part of this wonderful passage, making mysteries where there ought not to be any. Because Jesus tells Mary that He hasn’t yet ascended to His Father and that she should stop clinging to Him, some have suggested that this means there’s something about His body that isn’t completed yet. He’s risen, yes, but in some kind of mysterious way they say. But that’s not what’s happening at all.
He tells her not to cling to Him. Does that mean you can’t touch the resurrected body? Well, that’s not it because He soon encourages Thomas to touch Him. What’s likely happening is that Mary is so emotional, so overwhelmed that He’s alive, that she clutches Him in joy and simply won’t let Him go. His response, therefore, is that it’s okay to let Him go because He’s not truly leaving – ascending – for another 40 days. “I’m still gonna be here,” He’s telling her. “Go and tell the others about this.”
This brings us back to one of the great truths about the Lord Jesus Christ, which is that He’s God among us – He is both personal and transcendent. It’s a truth that, though impossible to fully get our heads around, is worth the effort of a life of contemplation. Jesus Christ is the sinless savior that you wrap your arms around and won’t let go! He has the power to lay His divine life down for our sake and to simply pick it back up again. Yes, He has this unfathomable power and depthless love for us too. He is the holy one of Israel, His righteousness so white and pure as to blind us and yet at the sound of His voice, when He speaks our name, breaking through our trauma and tears, we hug Him with all our might! What a picture of our salvation. Eve took the fruit first in the garden and ate and now Jesus appears to a woman first after leaving the tomb.
So, when we read that salvation is of the Lord we have this scene in mind. Mary didn’t arrive at the tomb due to any great intellectual or theological prowess; she didn’t discover Him risen by her great detective skills. No. He came to her as He comes to us. He speaks our name and we suddenly know that all our sins and guilt are washed away in that tidal force of divine love. And we see this as the great truth of Christian life too – all will come before the Lord Jesus Christ, either in faith or to face judgment. They have this conversation outside the tomb that represents the death sin deserves. Adam and Eve were warned that if they ate from the tree in Eden that they’d surely die and now Christ has crushed the head of the serpent and stands there talking with the new woman in the new age.
This brings us to His charge to Mary. He says, “don’t cling to me” because life as a Christian is a life of mission. Jesus came into the world to save sinners, not to bask in His personal intimacy with the Father that He had from all eternity. He came to save sinners and now Mary is sent to tell “his brothers” that He is risen. He is the firstborn among many brothers! This is the guarantee of salvation. This is the place of rest for the wearied soul. A Christian’s toil must never include worry about final destination in that Christ here announces that He ascends in righteousness to the Father and that we are His family. To say “my Father and your Father” is to declare that we are loved by the most High and that our transgressions against Him have been forgiven because of Christ. This is the point of Scripture to look to for your assurance of salvation. Christ is raised and announces that He will ascend to sit on His throne. This is what Paul means in Romans 1 when He says that Jesus was declared to be the Son of God by His resurrection. Indeed, He was no mere preacher or prophet but the holy Son of God.
More still, He sends her to tell them…He sends her on a mission and it’s a mission of the divine family, which is the church. Women at that time had virtually no standing in either Jewish or Roman law. An old line of prayer passed down from the period was, “I thank you, Lord, that you haven’t made me a dog…or a woman.” A lonely Jewish woman at the height of Roman power had no political worth whatsoever. Nevertheless, Mary is given the first audience with the risen Savior of the world! And then she’s sent with the incredible message of salvation to the others. So, the next time you’re tempted to think you are of small account, think of this. Mary is as low as a person can get in society and yet Jesus loves her and being loved by Jesus Christ is, ultimately, the only distinction that really matters in life.
Lastly, we learn that Jesus’ first message is to his embattled disciples is reconciliation to both the Father and each other. Remember how Adam and Eve hid in the garden and how Adam blamed God and Eve – anyone but himself – for his fall. This is what sin does; it devastates relationships. Jesus could have told them Himself, but he sends Mary. We don’t know why the Lord does things the way He does. That’s not for us to know, but to marvel at. She goes with a message not only of salvation but of brotherhood in the Lord and we should never forget this. We are saved into a family of believers and not in isolation. This should check the highly individualistic impulse of American Christianity, which tends to dismiss corporate worship and fellowship. His first message is the big one. “You are saved and secure because I ascend to the Father…your Father and mine, for we are family and I’ve sent Mary to tell you.” He doesn’t come to save them from Rome or from financial hardship as those problems, and all others like them, are but consequences of man’s great affliction: sin. Jesus has conquered sin and its handmaiden, death, and now He announces the adoption of sons and daughters of the Kingdom.
In all, we remember that the great troubles of our life occur when our eyes aren’t fixed upon our blessed Savior. That He tells Mary here, of all the things He could say at that critical moment, to go to the disciples with this message tells us what the central issue of Christian life is. We are free from sin’s curse now…free to love God and be loved by Him and free to love one another, no longer burdened by shame, guilt and fear but set free at last through faith.
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