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.
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