Don't Hold On

John 20:1-18

Don’t hold me.

That’s… not what you want to hear, not what you expect to hear, when you’re reunited with the most beloved person in your world. When you’re reunited with one you thought you’d lost forever.

 

But that’s exactly what Jesus says to Mary, in exactly that situation this morning.

Don’t hold on to me.

Ouch. 

 

That’s not what you came to hear this morning, is it?  

Many of us have had more than enough of “don’t touch”, “don’t get close”, over the last two pandemic years. So many of us have felt abrupt separations in our important relationships, and the hurt when re-connections break down. 

We don’t need that from Jesus, too.

Especially this morning.

 

This morning you came, perhaps, for the reunion. Came to this story for the restoration.

When Mary, standing alone, weeping, begging for some hint of the presence of her beloved, God-filled teacher and friend, hears her name.

Just her name.

Mary.

And that’s it, the moment we’ve been waiting for, even if we didn’t know we were waiting.

What was lost is found – a missing body, a teacher, a friend in need is right here again. What was dead is alive – Jesus himself, Mary’s hope, both now vibrant and renewed. 

Joy returns.

It would be enough to end the story there.

 

But that’s not how, or where, the story ends.

Into that moment, Jesus speaks, saying, Don’t hold on.

Don’t hold me.

 

It seems like those words, that moment, don’t belong in this story, in this morning of restoration and joy and promise, of hope restored.

Don’t hold on to love returned? Let go??

It sounds a little… heartless. Abrupt and cold.

But perhaps it’s not an interruption, not a distancing.

Perhaps, in the moment, those are words of love and promise.

Don’t hold on, Mary. You’re free to let go.

 

Perhaps, there outside the tomb, in the silence between the sentences John wrote, Mary and Jesus have been holding each other. Standing in that frantic and comforting hug you snatch someone into when you thought you’d lost them. Perhaps they’ve wept together in joy, tightening and loosening their hold in that cycle of remembered pain and glorious relief and mutual support and comfort that sometimes goes on until you don’t know what to do anymore. 

And then this is a gift:

Don’t hold on, Mary. You don’t have to hold on. It’s okay to let go.

 

More than okay.

It’s the next step, the step forward into life, into resurrection.

Because we can’t stay here.

Mary – and you and I – can’t stay at the tomb any more than Jesus can stay in the tomb.

 

For all the joy and release and relief and hope in that moment of recognition and reunion, we can’t live there.
Can’t get stuck there, where the joy and relief come from looking back.  New life – resurrection – insists we move forward.

The restoration of what was, what used to be, is not enough.
[[Restoration doesn’t erase the past, the loss, the revelations that have changed us, changed the world.]]

A return to normal is not the resurrection Mary needs; we need.

What we need is the transformation that shatters normal, and makes way for something new.

What comes next is the point.

 

That’s what Jesus says to Mary. I’m going to my father and your father, my God and your God. It’s a reference to what Jesus has previously promised – that his friends, you and I, would be transformed into the same close, trusting, intimate relationship with God that Jesus has had all along. That we’d become one with Jesus, as Jesus is one with the Father, unbreakably united, sharing God’s love and power. 

 

This moment of reversal and impossibility at the tomb is a fragment, a fraction of the so much more that we have been promised. The so much more that comes next, that is ahead.

 

Don’t hold on. Let go.
There’s so much more.

 

If Mary had held on then, had clung to that moment when she got Jesus back – when things were back to the way they used to be – then you and I would not be here today.
We wouldn’t be celebrating and singing and feasting today. No widely recognized holiday, no chocolate bunnies and no hundred varieties of marshmallow Peeps (that last might not be such a bad thing). No lilies in the church – no church at all!

 

If the story ended with a happily-ever-after fade on that restoration at the tomb, we’d have gone back to normal. Back to the normal of Temple politics and the daily grind and people cranky about Jesus’s radical ideas and shocking self-sacrifice and healing. Back to normal with death at the end, as the end.

 

The story has to go on in order for Peter, and the beloved disciple, and all the friends of Jesus to be transformed, to be filled with the Holy Spirit, commissioned to change the world. Mary has to move forward, they have to move forward, to bring that same transformation, that same freedom and power and joy to you and to me.

 

Normal isn’t enough.

Restoration isn’t enough.

Not then, not at the tomb or in Jerusalem after Jesus dies, and lives again.

Not after Jesus’ murder and death pointed out the holes and flaws in the first disciples’ hopes of Jesus ruling Israel.

Resurrection demands transformation. Demands that the disciples enter a world they’d never imagined, rebuilt on a foundation of abundant, undeniable life for all.

 

Normal isn’t enough, restoration isn’t enough for us.

Not after a war that shows us the holes and the flaws and the lack of safety and trust in the balance of power before.

Not after a pandemic that shows us the holes and the flaws, the lack of safety and compassion, the lack of economic resilience and of basic human kindness, in the way it was before.

Resurrection demands transformation. Demands that we let go of what was, and let go even of what’s been restored to us, and move forward, toward God, with God, to a world where protecting ourselves doesn’t come at the cost of risking others, where generosity and trust are the foundations of abundant, undeniable life for all.

 

We might not have come for this much transformation this morning.  You might, in fact, have come looking for a sense of “normal” to be restored. But here’s Jesus, restored to us, insisting that we can’t hold on to that. We must let go, and step into the glorious, risky, unknown.

 

Let go of normal impatience and frustration with the world as it is, and live as if our workplaces and grocery stores and court systems are meant to be life-giving instead of soul-draining.

Let go of normal protective pessimism and realism, and live knowing that the actions of care, generosity, and love that are within our reach really do make a difference. And discover that there’s more purpose and hope, more positive power to change the world, within our reach than we had ever dreamed. 

Let go of the normal frantic rush to do it all, the normal anxiety of our days, and live in the transformative trust that God has already done all we need.

Let go of the normal fear that we might not be good enough, might not be smart or strong or capable enough, might not be lovable enough, and live knowing that we are loved beyond all measure. 

 

We’re re-united, this morning, and it feels so good.

We bring our own losses, our own griefs, our fears, to this moment of reunion to be restored and healed.

But that’s not where the story ends. It’s not even half the story. 

So Jesus says – with all the joy of Easter in his voice and in our hearts – Don’t hold on.

 

Those are words of love and encouragement, today. A promise of abundant life and love beyond our wildest dreams.

 

Don’t hold on, beloved. Rejoice.

For what you can hold is not enough. There is so much more.

Embrace the joy with all your heart.

And then let go. 

Open your arms, your heart, your life, your soul, to what comes next.

To life and love, beyond all measure.

 

Can't Look Away

Luke 23:1-5, 13-25 
Moorestown Ministerium Ecumenical Good Friday service

I can’t watch. I can’t look away.

It’s obviously a put-up job, a made-for-publicity set of accusations, meant to condemn Jesus in the court of public opinion, not a legal court.

 

Pilate sees that, too. 

He tries to deny it. Tries look strong, decisive. But he’s giving in to the loud voices, the political manipulators and then the crowds, at every step.

It’s a foregone conclusion, despite all the grandstanding and delay, and it’s just so hard to watch it unfold.

I feel so helpless.

But I can’t look away.

 

It’s a familiar feeling – an experience I know from all parts of life, from high school social dynamics through congressional hearings and national “debates” and all kinds of workplace and family dramas in between.

Maybe it’s familiar to you, too.

 

There are bullies and a victim, or accusers and accused.

There’s someone whose job it is to do the right thing, see that the right thing gets done.

And yet you know all along that the force of “public opinion” – political expediency or majority rule – makes injustice, makes compromise with evil and oppression, a foregone conclusion.

You hate to watch.

You feel helpless.

But you can’t look away.  

Because it’s the only thing in the news sometimes. Because it matters, other times.
Because you can’t help hoping, even though you know it’s going to go wrong.

 

We can’t look away.

And I think, today, that that’s the point.

 

Oh, I want to read this story with you, and talk about how this motivates and transforms us to fight injustice. To learn to be the voice in the crowd that speaks up and says, “No, he is innocent, release him,” no matter what it costs.  To learn from this story to use our authority, our power, as Pilate might have, to save an innocent life, in spite of the pressure to concede.

 

And I think that lesson is there.

But before we learn that, we need to stop and feel the horror of our helplessness.

Feel how easy it is to let one man die for the sake of “peace”.
Feel, with Pilate, how impossible it is to do the right thing, sometimes, when the wrong thing is the only option you are offered.

Feel that helplessness, and the frustration, and the tragedy.

And not look away.

 

Because when we look away – when we tell ourselves this isn’t happening in front of us, to us, among us, either then or now;
when we tell ourselves we would have stopped it, could have stopped it, if we’d been there, 

we look away from ourselves. 

From our own truth, and even our own hope. We look away from the whole of the story.

 

We could not rescue Jesus. Still can’t.

And when we recognize that, we are able to recognize more deeply, more profoundly, the whole truth that Jesus rescues us.

Rescues us from all the sin and evil and helpless grief; from powerlessness, from the death that we cannot vanquish on our own. 

Rescues and heals us, so that we, in turn, can save and heal others.

 

That’s why we gather at the cross today, [at the arrest, at the trial, at the cross and tomb,] and sit face to face with our own powerlessness, our own inaction, in this story and so many others. 

We feel the wounds made by everyday compromise with evil, with oppression, with injustice, to keep the everyday “peace” in our own world. 

Because that’s how we remember that we cannot rescue ourselves,

and know and feel the wonder that Jesus never looks away from us, mired in that messy compromise, that helpless grief, 

looks at us, loves us, and rescues us.

 

It’s hard to watch. Of course it is.

But love will not look away.

  

Bare Your Soles

John 13:1-17, 31-35

Why are you doing this?
Why are you insisting on doing something for us that we could very well do for ourselves (probably have already done for ourselves today)? That’s really someone else’s job?
And why are you interrupting dinner to do it?

What are you doing, Jesus? Why?

 

You won’t understand – yet – even if I explain it, Jesus says. 

But if I don’t wash you, you have no share with me.

 

Which is enough in the moment, it seems. No one at that table wants to be cut off from Jesus. Probably even Judas wants a share, even though he’s about to break the relationship in another way. (And Judas gets a share – John would have told us if Jesus omitted Judas’ feet as he went around the table with his basin and towel.)

 

In fact, Peter – probably speaking for the rest of them – wants to ensure he doesn’t miss out. If foot washing ensures my connection with Jesus, let’s double down and get more. How about hands and head, too? 

You and I don’t want to get cut off from Jesus, either, if the only price is some mealtime  awkwardness and wet feet.

 

But I’m quite sure Peter doesn’t know – the other disciples at the table don’t know – and maybe we ourselves don’t really understand – just what this “share” is that Jesus is offering us.

 

Jesus knows, of course.

John, telling the story later, wants us to know, too. So he tries to describe it this way:

Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God…started washing his friends’ feet.

I think John is trying to tell us that in pouring water, wiping feet dry, getting his hands dirty and clean with us, Jesus is folding us in to that deep, certain knowledge of unity with God that Jesus himself is experiencing at this central, crucial point in his life and work.

 

Jesus is deeply rooted, absolutely centered in the completeness of his unity with God, profoundly filled with trust in God, God’s trust in him, and the certainty that nothing can separate him or us from God. And that’s what he’s doing to Peter’s feet. To all the followers and friends around that table.

 

Jesus takes all these feet in his hands – 

feet, meant to carry us where ever we go, 

feet which are our primary contact with ground and gravity and earth 

– takes our feet in his hands to ground us in that same complete trust, that same certainty of unity – that Jesus himself experiences with God all-powerful and eternal. With this odd act, breaking the norms of host and guest, master and servant, and manners at meals, Jesus roots us in the certainty that nothing can separate us – heart, soul, identity, body – from God, from Jesus himself.

 

I can feel a little shiver in the soles of my own feet as I say that.

Can you?

 

We are going to need that grounded, deep, certainty of our unbreakable unity with God, of being centered in God’s will and inseparable from God, in the days to come.

The days to come for Peter and Judas and John and James and Mary (and other Marys) and all the others around that table – when every one of their senses will demonstrate that that connection with God is breaking, that politics and death are absolutely separating Jesus from us, that their life-giving connection is over.

 

The days to come for you and me when the news suggests the entire world has lost any connection to God, and God has lost any connection to us. The days when the daily grind, the constant stream of unholy tasks and demands, or daily loneliness and losses, erode our sense of connection to one another, to ourselves, to God in any form.

 

Except, maybe, for a sense lurking in the soles of our feet, that Jesus has grounded us in an unbreakable love, a unity with God’s will, God’s transformative work, God’s life-giving wonder, that we share with Jesus, even in the face of death.

 

I want that.

I hope you do, too.

I want that for you.

Jesus wants that for you.

 

And more, too.

Do you understand? he says. (You don’t yet, quite, but maybe you will.) 

Do you get what I have done? he asks.

And that what I have done for you, you also should do for one another?

 

Jesus shares his certainty of unity with God through the skin of our feet, and we are to do the same.

To take other people’s feet in our hands – literally, sometimes, metaphorically more often – and ground that other person in the same certainty, the same identity, that unity and trust and confidence and wholeness, that Jesus is sharing with us.

 

We give ourselves a chance to practice that tonight, a bit.

We break a bunch of norms and take our shoes off in the middle of church and let someone else do for us what we can perfectly well do for ourselves (have probably already done for ourselves).
Let someone else wash our feet with Jesus’ hands and perhaps let Jesus use our hands to wash someone else’s feet.

 

We don’t do it just to be awkward.

We do it for the same reason we take a bite of bread and sip of wine from Jesus’ table, later. We do it for the same reason Jesus did it.

To share that unity, certainty, trust and assurance, that absolute wholeness of being fully engaged in the life-giving work of God. Share that with someone else.

 

When the time comes for you to bare the soles of your feet tonight, I’m going to ask you to also bare the soul of your self a bit – to deliberately open yourself to receiving Jesus insistence that you are unbreakably united with God.
When the time comes for you to take someone else’s feet in your hands, I’m going to ask you to reach into yourself for that assurance that Jesus has placed within you – however faint or strong it feels right now, reach into that – and offer it to the other person with your hands, and the water, and a towel.

 

When the time comes for you to offer other acts of loving service outside the church – to do for someone else a chore they could (perhaps should) do for themselves, do something that’s not really your job, whether it’s making a meal for your family or a stranger,
taking out the garbage (metaphorical or literal) at work or in an environmental cleanup,
or any other act of loving service – reach into that assurance that Jesus has placed within you, however deep or faint or strong, and wrap that unbreakable unity with God around the others you serve.

 

And when the time comes outside the church for you to accept those acts of love and care that you’d rather do for yourself, thank you, bare your soul a bit then, too. Intentionally open yourself to receiving Jesus’ hands on your ticklish, un-buffed, awkward feet, or your tender, awkward soul. Open yourself to Jesus’ insistence that you are unbreakably united with God, with Jesus himself, in life-giving love beyond all human measure.

 

It's a lot to ask.

But it’s not too much to give, or to receive. 

And Jesus insists we receive and share.

Will you put your soles, your soul, in Jesus hands?