April 4, 2021: Don't Hold On
Don’t Hold On
John 20:1-18
Rev. Rhonda Blevins
Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. Then the disciples returned to their homes. But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, “Do not hold on to me, because 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 she told them that he had said these things to her.
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I think every family probably has stories they tell on repeat—the stories that come up time and time again, usually something stupid that someone did. One of the stories that comes up from time to time in my family hails from my childhood. My family was a boating family; we spent every warm weekend on the lake. And being a boating family, it was kind of expected that you would learn how to waterski. My brother is five years older than me, so I don’t remember firsthand the incident I am about to tell you, but since this is one of those stories that is on repeat in my family, I believe I can tell it, if not accurately, at least with the same embellishments the story has obtained over the years.
The story goes something like this: my brother was just a little tyke, five maybe six years old, when my parents decided to teach him how to waterski. If you’ve ever had someone teach you how to waterski when you were five or six years old, picture a three-sizes too big life jacket pushing up over your head, bobbing up in down choppy lake water, skis that feel as long as the Ever Given blocking the Suez Canal—not just one, but two skis! Remember, five, maybe six years old. So you’ve got the life jacket, the skis, the bobbing, the roar of the boat engine, and the parent in the water with you barking orders. And then the parent hands you the ski rope. “Keep your skis together. Drag your bottom until you’re up on the water. And hold on tightly to the rope. Got it? Ready?” Then yelling to the boat captain, “OK!”
What happened next is the stuff of legend. The boat took off, but there was no dragging of the derriere. My brother’s skis got behind him, followed by his little legs, but he managed to follow one of the instructions . . . he held on to that rope! Legend has it that my brother held on to that rope for the next 43 minutes as the boat sped around the lake, his body now plank, bobbing along the top of the water. They say he drank 78 gallons of lake water that day. All because he refused to let go.
Sometimes it’s better if you don’t hold on. This is true both in waterskiing and in poker.
Kenny Rogers sang a song about that:
You’ve got to know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em,
Know when to walk away, know when to run.
Mary Magdalene, on the very first Easter morning, has done the reasonable thing and “folded.” Jesus was dead. Mary had witnessed his death firsthand. She had been there as Jesus spent those three excruciating hours on the cross. Mary had been there when they placed his cold, limp body in the tomb on that unholy Friday. And now Jesus is dead. It is over. And so, before the break of dawn on Sunday, Mary is doing the thing you do when someone dies—she is going to tend his corpse. She would have done it yesterday, but it was the Sabbath . . . it was illegal to walk that far, illegal to tend a corpse. So before first light on Sunday, the next day, Mary walks two miles to the tomb.
But when she arrives, she sees that the stone to the tomb has been moved, and Jesus’ body is no longer there. Terrified and distraught, she runs back two miles to tell Peter and John, “They’ve taken him!” she cries out. “I don’t know where he is!” Peter and John and Mary then run to the tomb together, John outpacing the other two. John stops at the entrance to the tomb, but when Peter arrives, he enters the tomb. John follows. They find the linen wrappings that had covered Jesus’ body lying there, the special face covering rolled up and placed separately. Peter and John, uncertain of what, if anything, they can do, leave and walk home. Mary stays outside the tomb, crying, perhaps breathless and sweaty from the literal 10k she has already done that morning back and forth from Bethany.
Through her tears, she looks into the tomb when she sees two angels, one sitting at the head and the other at the feet at where she saw Jesus placed on Friday. “Why are you crying?” they ask her. “They have taken away my Lord; I don’t know where they have moved him.” And then she turns and sees Jesus, but she doesn’t recognize him. “Why are you crying?” he asks her. Presuming him to be the gardener, she says, “Please tell me where you have taken him, I will take him away.” And then, Jesus speaks her name. “Mary.” And in that moment, Mary recognizes the risen Jesus, crying out “Rabbouni!” It seems that perhaps she tries to hug him, because he tells her, “Do not hold on to me because I have not yet ascended to the Father.” Other translations say, “Do not cling to me.”
Why would Jesus tell her not to cling to him? Here are some possible answers to this questions people have discussed over the centuries:
That in his resurrected form, Jesus didn’t have a physical body (but this the ancient church deemed this a heresy).
That it was a gender thing (but Jesus allowed, for instance, the “sinful” woman to kiss and wash his feet with her hair).
Maybe he hadn’t gotten the vaccine yet and was worried about catching COVID. 6’ social distance, Mary.
Jesus’ own stated reason leaves us scratching our heads a bit, “Do not hold on to me because I have not yet ascended to the Father.”
Here’s my best understanding as to why Jesus tells Mary not to cling to him—after the resurrection, Jesus’ relationship with his disciples must change. In fact, it changed so much that at various sightings of Jesus after the resurrection (including this one) Jesus’ disciples didn’t recognize him at first. On that first Easter Sunday and the days and weeks and years to follow, the disciples would be invited to participate in Christ in deeper ways, spiritual ways. The physical relationship they had with Jesus had to transition to a spiritual relationship with Christ.
The same is true for us.
I have a seven-year-old son—he loves coming to Sunday school and learning all of the great stories of the Bible. Sometimes I’ll ask him what he learned, and he’ll tell me with great excitement about Adam and Eve, Noah, and Moses and my most recent favorite, Shadrach, Meshach, and “To-Bed-We-Go.” His understanding is quite literal—he has not yet reached the age of abstract thinking—social scientists tell us that happens around the age of twelve or so. So my seven-year-old’s relationship with Jesus is quite literal, physical even.
The problem for many Christians, is that we stop going to Sunday school about the same age that abstract reasoning kicks in, and our growth stops, we find ourselves with grown up bodies but underdeveloped faith muscles. Maybe we’re even told along the way that it’s wrong to employ critical thinking skills when it comes to faith. So we get stuck there, with a seven-year-old’s literal, physical relationship Jesus.
“Don’t hold on to me,” the resurrected Christ tells Mary. We’re just like Mary. We want to cling to a literal, physical Jesus, but Easter bids us to grow into a deeper, spiritual relationship with the resurrected Christ.
Because I have a seven-year-old at home, I have a very worn copy of the beloved Eric Carle book, The Very Hungry Caterpillar. The caterpillar in the story is—you guessed it—hungry! He eats and eats and eats, and then on Saturday he goes on a binger: “On Saturday he ate through one piece of chocolate cake, one ice-cream cone, one pickle, one slice of Swiss cheese, one slice of salami, one lollipop, one piece of cherry pie, one sausage, one cupcake and one slice of watermelon. That night he had a stomachache!” The children’s book goes on to tell us that the caterpillar builds a cocoon and stays there for a couple of weeks. What the beloved children’s book doesn’t tell us is this: inside the chrysalis, the caterpillar must digest itself, releasing enzymes that will dissolve all of its tissues. It must be excruciating there in that dark cocoon. Yet this is what must happen for the caterpillar to live into its calling. This is what must take place so that a beautiful butterfly can break forth and fly free!
“Don’t hold on” Jesus tells Mary . . . and us. There is something deeper, something more beautiful that waits to be set free. That’s the new life in Christ that our faith promises. Not just that resurrection happened, but that it happens. And not just once in our lives, but over and over again.
Where are you in the cyclical nature of the faith journey?
Are you a happy caterpillar? Going through life without a care in the world?
Are you at the next phase where you’ve had all you can take of the stuff you’ve been eating? The consumerism, or the shallow forms of religion, or maybe the toxic habits or relationships destroying your mental or physical health.
Or are you at the most difficult and painful phase of the cyclical faith journey, hanging upside down in darkness, dying to self? It’s been a challenging year for so many people: loss of jobs, of health, even life. Are you in the chrysalis this Easter?
Or maybe you’ve recently emerged from that dark place and you’re learning to fly, beautiful and free! Breaking out of the chrysalis, as it turns out, is not the end of the story but the beginning!
“Don’t hold on” to a faith that worked for you when you were seven, but that maybe doesn’t work so well when you’re 37 or 47 or 87. The disciples who saw Jesus after the resurrection, at first, didn’t recognize Jesus until they were willing to re-cognate Jesus, to rethink, reset, renew their perception and understanding.
In waterskiing, in poker, and in faith, sometimes it’s better if you don’t hold on.
What are you holding onto that’s keeping you from living into the fullness of who you were created to be? What’s preventing you from recognizing Jesus anew? What are you clinging to that is blocking you from something deeper, more profound?
Last year on Easter most of the country was on lockdown. No live Easter services here at the Chapel, only a pre-recorded service that was a far cry from worshipping together, singing the great Easter hymns of faith at the top of our lungs, the song filling the room. As a nation and as a world, we begrudgingly entered the upside-down darkness of the COVID chrysalis.
And now, one year later, that chrysalis is breaking, we are beginning to break forth. How will we emerge post-COVID? Will we try to hang on to our old forms, our old ways of consumption? Or will we learn new ways to live and be, learning a more beautiful way, learning how to fly?
“Don’t hold on” to life we knew before COVID. This Easter, maybe we can find a deeper, more spiritual way to live and move and have our being.
Thanks be to God for hope of resurrection! Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed!