Daily Bread

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 round and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus.

Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping? For whom are you looking?’ 
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.

"Don’t hold onto me" — Sometimes we have to let go of what we think we know of Jesus to know him as he is.

I grew up with a Sunday School picture of God as a benign Jesus who was long ago and far away. Then, one April day, as a 6 year old, I stood in the sunshine, tears running down my face. "God loves me!" I knew. I knew it as surely as I knew the melting snow meant spring was coming.

I am not sure when that image of God morphed into Someone who had a set of rules for me to follow, and was either angry when I didn’t — or worse — deeply disappointed in me because I never measured up.

I wanted so much to please him. I loved him and knew I was loved at some level but there was always an emptiness in my fierce obedience. There was a longing for that little girl’s sense of being delighted in and cherished by God.

It is a subtle temptation to think that if we just try hard enough, are good enough, etc. that our efforts can outweigh our failures. And in some weird way, it is holding onto a sense of our own power to believe we can achieve some unknowable level that will bring us up to God’s standards so he will love us.

What does that say about God’s character and the nature of his love if it is only there when we are good enough?

Still, the voices of our own self-condemnation and failures shout our unworthiness so loudly. Sometimes it takes the crucifixion of our own upside-down pride and our preconceived ideas to nail those lies about God to the cross, and that process can be hard.

Then, like Mary, the grief overwhelms, and in our hopelessness — in our very weakness — the gentle voice that speaks our name with such love-power is louder than our sobs, and all we thought we knew is superseded by a glorious new way of seeing and hearing and being with Jesus.

If we will determine not to hold on to our past images and understandings — like Mary — we can run for joy to tell the story. The story of Love Incarnate who walks with us on wounded feet and holds us tenderly in scarred hands.

Oh dear Jesus,
In the glory of your awesome resurrection power,
you reach out with scarred hands,
still bearing the nail-marks of your sacrifice for me.
When I feel your tender touch,
may I fall on my knees in awe and wonder.
As I grasp your feet in worship,
fill me with the fearless power of your love
that I may tell your story in word and deed to all I meet this day.