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"Do Not Hold Me" |
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In John’s telling of the Easter story, he tells of how the two disciples went to the tomb and found it empty. They returned to their homes in Jerusalem wondering what they had seen. But Mary Magdalene came behind them and lingered in the garden by the tomb. She saw a man there that she took to be the gardener and she spoke to him. After she spoke, the man turned to her and called her by name, and in the speaking of her name, she recognized that he was, indeed, the risen Christ. Then he said something to her that seems a little odd. He said to her, “Do not hold me.”
There are some who read this and understand it to mean “Do not touch me. Do not embrace me. Do not touch me because it’s not proper and it’s not right to touch the risen Christ.” But I don’t think that’s the primary meaning of that text. I think when Jesus said to Mary, “Do not hold me,” he is saying to her, “Do not restrain me. Do not hold onto me and hold me back. Let me go.”
In our everyday spirituality, sometimes we like to think about Jesus being at our side with Jesus walking beside us, day by day. That is a good thing, in a way, but in another way, I think it misunderstands where Jesus is. I don’t think Jesus is so much beside us as he is out ahead of us. Remember that the thing that he said to his disciples most often was “Follow me.” You cannot follow someone who is walking beside you. You follow someone that’s out ahead, and is beckoning you, and luring you ahead. And so, on this Easter morning, I would say to all of us gathered here, do not hold him, but rather follow him.
First of all, let us follow Jesus to all the scenes of our greatest joys. Now sometimes we think of Jesus and we hear him described as a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief, and that is well and good, but that isn’t the whole story. Remember – it was this Jesus who turned all that water into wine at the wedding. It was this Jesus who his opponents accused of being a glutton, and a drunkard, and a friend of tax collectors and prostitutes. It was this Jesus who knew friendship at its deepest level, with his disciples, and with Mary, and Martha, and Lazarus. Jesus understood what it meant to have people who care, and who support, and who walk the ways of life together.
Jesus has gone before us into life’s greatest joys; into those relationships that are most important and he beckons us to follow him there. Not to hold him. But to follow him.
I also think Jesus invites us to follow him into a life of meaningful service. For Jesus knew, and demonstrated, and taught us, that the only life that is really meaningful, the only kind of life that gives deep and abiding satisfaction, is the life that is given away to others in service. It is the life he lived; the life among the poor, among the hungry, among the sick, among the grieving, and just as Jesus found his life among the hurting of his own time, so also he invites us to follow him, and to find our life, and to find the meaning and the purpose of our life. He invites us to find that kind of abiding satisfaction that makes life truly good and to find that by following him in a life of service to those in need.
Jesus said, “Do not hold me, but follow me.” Yes, and we are also to follow Jesus through the valley of the shadow of death. It may seem as if our mortality is not something of which we want to be reminded on an Easter morning, but there is no Easter without Good Friday. There is no resurrection without the cross. There is no eternal life without death. Jesus has gone before us and understands all the suffering, all the losses, all the hurts and regrets that we may experience in our shadow of the valley, and he invites us to know that wherever we walk in those dark valleys, his footprints are already there ahead of us.
“Do not hold me, but follow me,” and so also on Easter, we are invited to follow him through death to life. We are invited to follow him in the resurrection. We are invited to follow him in life everlasting. The resurrection is a promise; it is the hope, it is the power of God’s love, and God’s mercy over all that is deadly in life, and Jesus beckons us still to follow him. To follow him, yes, even in the resurrection. As the New Testament says, “He lived a life like ours that we might live a resurrected life like his.”
“Do not hold me,” Jesus said, “but follow me.” Follow me into all the joys of your life, for I will be there. Follow me into lives of service, for there you will find me. Follow me in death and in life beyond death. “Do not hold me, but follow me.” Amen