Tuesday of the Octave of Easter: John 20:11-18
It is easy for us to sympathize with Mary Magdalene in this Gospel story today.
From the time she first encountered Jesus – when He freed her from those seven demons that tormented her (Luke 8:2) – she loved Him with a love that was at once chaste and passionate. A combination that people, past and present, would dismiss as impossible – which is why rumors persist in some quarters about Mary Magdalene and Jesus having had some form of relationship, perhaps marriage.
It was her love for Our Lord – at once chaste, passionate, and insatiable – which led her to follow Him all the way to Calvary, to be near the Cross with Him, to see where He was buried, and then to come with two other women on that first day of the week to finish anointing His body. Even when they encountered an empty tomb and were filled with amazement, not knowing what to make of it, Mary Magdalene remained. Peter and John came and went, but she remained. She would not stop looking until she had found Him.
Jesus comes, at long last, risen from the dead. Mary does not recognize Him. She mistakes Him for the gardener. Finally, He calls her by name, and then she recognizes His voice. But at that very moment, when it seemed that all her longings had been satisfied, Jesus tells her, “Stop holding on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father.” Instead, He sends her to bring the good news of His Resurrection to all the disciples.
Let’s linger at the moment when Mary Magdalene finally recognizes Jesus. What mixed emotions she must have had! Yes, she finds Him, but then He tells her to stop holding on to Him. How confusing this must have seemed at first! How difficult to understand. It was as though Jesus was inviting her, then and there, to pass through a kind of dying and rising of her own.
What do I mean?
Imagine this scenario. Someone you love very much has recently died. You miss this person and grieve. Then, beyond all reasonable hope, this person is suddenly alive and with you again. Imagine your amazement, your bewilderment, your awe, your overwhelming joy. You have this person back! Your life will resume being what it was. This beloved person will be for you what he/she has always been, once again. It’s only natural to assume these things if such a thing were to happen to us.
So, too, for Mary Magdalene. We can easily imagine her believing that she has her dear Master back. Things will be as they were, before Jesus’ suffering and death. She will know Him as she had known Him before. or so she believed.
“No”, Jesus says, with a tone saturated with love. “Don’t hold on to me as I was. I will always be with you, but not as I was before. I have now died and risen. I will be with you in a new way. You may not see me physically for much longer, but I go before you. Wherever you go, I will already be there. Whatever you do in My name, I am with you. You need to let go of your old way of knowing Me, so that you can know Me in a fuller, deeper, more powerful way. I am risen, and will be with you always. I will overcome all sin, all evil, even death. Trust in Me. Know Me as I now am.”
Mary Magdalene’s Easter journey is our own.
Each one of us has come to know the Lord Jesus in a certain way. Each one of us may have favorite images that we use in speaking of Him. Each image tells us something true about Him.
But not everything.
As our lives progress, we find our images of Jesus tested. It’s not that they are wrong; it’s that they aren’t enough. The Lord is always more than any image, any word, can convey at any one time. So, as we journey in faith, the Lord will call on us from time to time to not cling too tightly to our current image of Him, but to be open to something More that He wants to show us.
At times, we find ourselves an Advent people. We may not have encountered the Lord ourselves in any strong personal way just yet, but others have proclaimed Him to us and we believe them. We wait in hope.
Then, we find ourselves challenged to be a Christmas people. The Lord reveals Himself to us in a beauty and a humility that enchants our hearts and turns out lives upside down – if we are open to this. We don’t stop being an Advent people; we learn that this Jesus we await is, in a sense, already given to us.
Then, we find ourselves challenged to be a Lenten people. Can we drink the Cup that Jesus drinks from? Can we be baptized in the same bath of pain as He? He asks this of us, not as a punishment, but because He takes our offer of love very seriously. He invites us to be where He is. Sometimes, that means Gethsemane or Calvary. The cup we must drink from will not look very inviting. It will seem repulsive. Yet it is the cup that Jesus Himself drank from. We drink, even if it repels us, even if we feel nothing when we partake of it – we do so in sheer faith, standing in the same darkness that enveloped Jesus in His Passion, believing in the promises of a God who passed through death Himself, and determined, in love, to watch one hour with Him there. We love Him. Where He is, we long to be. Even Calvary.
Then, we find ourselves challenged to be an Easter people. At times, the Lord offers us joy and love that is so intense, so deep, so broad, that it overwhelms us. It goes far, far beyond anything we can control or explain. It leaves us awestruck and lovestruck. It is what we always longed for, and now, here it is – or, at the very least, a generous taste of it. Can we accept it? Can we trust it? Will we allow our minds to explain it away or dismiss it? or, will we give ourselves over to it with abandon, letting the Lord love us as fully, as passionately, as chastely, as He loved anyone?
As our lives unfold, we will find ourselves visiting and revisiting each of these stages again and again. Each time, we are invited not to cling too hard to our older ways of knowing the Lord, but to trust Him as He shows us even more about Himself – in joy and in sorrow, in delight and in pain, in love and in emptiness. Each time, no matter how much the Lord shared of Himself, we will always want more. Like Mary Magdalene, we will become insatiable. We will seek Him wherever He is. We will willingly be with Him at Calvary, and also be with Him by the empty tomb at Easter. And He will always give us more. Sometimes, that “more” is overwhelming joy. At other times, He needs to use stronger medicine in order to open our hearts for still more of Himself. It may feel painful at first, but it will enable still greater joy later.
May the Lord, He who suffered, died, and rose again, be with each one of us and call us forth into newness of life!