Clinging to Jesus

Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church

24 April 2016 11.00am

Listen to this sermon here:
https://soundcloud.com/bloomsbury-1/2016-04-24-am-simon-woodman#t=21:51

John 20:17  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.'"

 

I finished reading another novel this week.

          Now I should admit that this isn’t particularly unusual for me,

                   because I do read a lot of books.

          But even so, I always find the ending of a book

                    something of a bereavement.

For me, when I’m reading, I enter into the story:

          the characters become real to me

                    and losing them at the end of the last page

                    can feel like a bereavement.

I don’t want to let them go.

          I want to hang onto them, to cling to them,

          to find out what they will say and do next.

It can be very hard to let go of the friends I make in the stories I read.

          And I know I’m not alone in this,

                   because the whole industry of fan-fiction is designed to cater for those

                    who want to know more about the characters they have come to love.

Sometimes, if the book I’m reading is part of a series,

          I need to plough straight on into the next one,

                    not losing the characters that I’ve come to know so well,

                    wanting to see what happens to them next.

But sometimes, what I really want to do

          is go back to the beginning and start reading it again

          now that I know how it ends

And here’s my question:

          In what way does knowing the ending

          affect the way we engage the story?

Of course, there is one golden rule with novels,

          that I try desperately hard not to break.

And that is the rule that one should never, ever,

          turn to the end and read the last page.

To do that is to break covenant with the author,

          it has something of the air of cheating about it.

But of course, once the ending is properly known,

          any future re-reading of the story

          has to take place in the light of what is now known

          about the outcome of the story.

And this is exactly what we have going on

          in our reading today from near the end of John’s gospel.

It’s not quite the last page, because there’s a little bit after it,

          but it’s certainly part of the concluding narrative of the story.

So – are we cheating, by hearing the story of the resurrection

          without reading all the way through to get there?

Well, I want to suggest that we’re not,

          for one very good reason.

John’s gospel, as with all the other gospels,

          was written for people who already knew the ending.

Not a single person sitting there in the first century,

          hearing John’s gospel read to them for the first time,

          would have been wondering, at the crucifixion scene,

          whether this was the end of the line for Jesus.

This is a story that’s been written for those

          who are already part of the next instalment.

And so we need to hear the account of Jesus’ appearance to Mary

          from the perspective of those

          who already know the end of the story.

The significance of this narrative isn’t

          that Jesus is, in some way,

          still very much alive and with his disciples.

Rather it is that the encounter with the risen Christ

          needs to go somewhere.

It is a story about the significance of the events,

          rather than the events themselves.

And so we come to the characters in the story.

And don’t hear me wrong here,

          I’m not suggesting that there was no such historical person

                   as Mary Magdalene, or Simon Peter,

                   or the otherwise anonymous disciple whom Jesus loves,

                             or even Jesus of Nazareth himself.

But what is certainly true for us,

          is that we don’t directly encounter the historical figures

                   that lie behind the gospel stories.

We meet them instead through the words of the gospels.

          So, here in John’s gospel, we meet John’s ‘Mary’, John’s ‘Simon Peter’,

                   John’s ‘beloved disciple’, and yes, John’s ‘Jesus’.

They become real to us as we read them into being in our minds;

          and people long-dead come to life in our lives

                    as their stories take breath

                   and are breathed into being once again.

And so it is that Mary Magdalene reaches out

          to try and cling onto the man she encounters

          in the garden outside the empty tomb.

The usual translation of this verse doesn’t really do justice

          to the force what of John is trying to put across here.

Jesus’ response to Mary is often translated as ‘don’t touch me’,

          which can seem very odd given that only a few verses later

                    Jesus is happily inviting Thomas to not only touch him

                    but to put his fingers into the wounds of crucifixion.

And there has been much, in my view unnecessary, metaphysical speculation

          about the nature of Jesus’ resurrected body,

          and why Mary isn’t allowed to touch it.

But I think this is to miss the point.

We’re not talking here about Jesus’ physical historical resurrected body.

          We’re talking about the resurrection of Jesus as it is encountered

                   within the narrative of the gospel of John.

And so we need to meet the story on its own terms,

          and to hear it as readers who have already encountered

                   the resurrected Christ in our own lives,

          present with us by ongoing encounter with the Spirit of Christ.

The simple translation ‘don’t touch me’ is inadequate,

          and we need to delve a little deeper

to the more accurate rendering of ‘don’t cling to me’,

          or ‘don’t try to keep me’, or ‘don’t try to possess me’.

This isn’t about whether Mary can touch Jesus.

          This isn’t about the nature of Jesus’ resurrected body.

It is about the fact that Mary has to let Jesus go.

          She cannot keep him, she cannot possess him,

                   she cannot cling onto him.

We know Mary Magdalene from earlier in John’s gospel,

          when she is standing near the cross with the other women,

                   watching Jesus die.

And the other gospels similarly have her playing a part in both

          their crucifixion and resurrection stories.

Luke’s gospel even gives us a bit more information,

          telling us that she received healing from Jesus

          for the seven evil spirits that had possessed her.

This is clearly a woman whose name is known

          throughout the early Christian community

          as a person who was close to Jesus during his life.

And here we are shown her crisis in the garden,

          as she meets the resurrected Christ for the first time.

What is immediately clear is that things are very different now,

          but that she still wants them to be the same.

She wants to cling onto the Jesus she has known.

          She wants to hold fast to the Jesus of history.

And she has to be told that this isn’t the way it will be.

          Her encounter with Jesus has to move from the physical to the spiritual.

          She has to learn to let go of the earthly Jesus

                   and to embrace the new experience of the resurrected Christ

                   that is to be found in through lived encounter with the Spirit of Christ.

For Mary, there is no going back to before the cross,

          the resurrection doesn’t negate or undo

          the decisive moment of the crucifixion.

The physical body of Jesus dies on the cross,

          and the resurrection does not render that moment void.

Rather, those who, with Mary, encounter the resurrected Christ

          do so from the perspective of those who already know the ending.

At the time of John’s gospel,

          written some sixty years after the crucifixion,

the disciples of Jesus in the late first century

          knew that they didn’t encounter Jesus

                   walking and talking with them,

                   eating with them,

                   and touching them.

They knew that they didn’t meet Jesus in the same way

          that the disciples in the gospel stories had met him prior to the crucifixion.

Rather, they encountered him speaking to them

          through the words of the stories about him,

they met him by his Spirit present with them

          when they gathered together in his name,

they met him as they broke bread and shared wine

          in memory of his death on the cross,

they felt him touch them in the waters of baptism,

          as their lives were transformed by divine encounter

          and their sins were forgiven.

And this is the journey that Mary must make

          in these closing pages of John’s gospel.

She becomes the archetypal disciple,

          making the journey we must all make

          in our encounter and ongoing relationship

          with the resurrected Christ.

Because this is where the Jesus of history becomes the Christ of faith.

          This is where crucifixion gives way to resurrection.

This is where death gives way to life,

          and despair is transformed into joy.

This is the new world from beyond breaking in upon Mary

          as it breaks in upon all those who embrace the resurrected Christ.

This is the kingdom coming on earth, as it is in heaven.

I often think that contemporary Christianity

          has something of a problem with the resurrection.

Most Christians seem quite happy with the cross of Jesus,

          and we have our finely drawn arguments

          about the nature of atonement.

But we don’t seem to know quite where the resurrection fits into things,

          and my concern is that the resurrection

                   gets relegated to being a kind of cosmic publicity stunt,

          the sole purpose of which is to prove that Jesus is the son of God

                   and allow us to know about what happened at the cross.

Mary’s encounter with the resurrected Jesus

          takes us beyond such problems,

and points us to a more profound way of engaging the resurrected Christ.

The resurrection needs to be more

          than a cosmic publicity stunt which validates the cross.

It needs to become an invitation to a new way of living,

          a gateway to a new way of being.

And a key to this is to be found in the way Mary relates to Jesus.

          Did you notice what Mary called Jesus as she tried to cling onto him?

                   She called him ‘Rabbouni’, which John tells us is Hebrew for ‘Teacher’.

          Mary was still stuck in the role of student, to Jesus’ role of teacher.

                   She was a disciple, and he her master.

Jesus counters this by re-writing the script, by changing the language.

          In the post-resurrection encounter with Christ,

                   those who would be his disciples

                   find that he is no longer their master, but their brother.

Three are 120 instances in John’s gospel

          where God is identified as ‘father’,

and yet this verse is the first time that God is mentioned

          as the father of anyone other than Jesus.

John 20:17  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.'"

In the new world that comes into being at the resurrection,

          God moves from distant-other to present-father,

                   from elemental force to parental love,

                   from wrathful dictator to enfolding grace

          And Jesus moves from master to brother,

                   from Lord to friend.

The new Moses becomes the new Adam

          as humanity is reborn in the resurrection of Christ.

God comes near and greets us as lost children welcomed home,

          and Christ is no longer merely an intermediary between us and the divine,

          dispensing words of judgment and guidance.

Rather, he is most fully God with us,

          present with us by his Spirit in each moment of each day.

And yet it seems to me that so many of us, so much of the time,

          keep trying to cling onto the Jesus of history.

We want the master who will teach us, and tell us what to do,

          we want the Lord who will sit in judgment on our enemies,

          and uphold our righteousness before the unfaithful.

We treat the stories about Jesus

          as if they were synonymous with the historical Jesus himself,

rather than invitations to encounter the resurrected Christ

          in our lives by his Spirit.

We cling onto our preferred version of Jesus,

          and persuade one another that he is ours to keep and control.

And so we need to learn the lesson of Mary Magdalene,

          that in order to have Christ with us, we need to let go of him.

If you look at Mary’s journey through our passage this morning,

          we see her making three distinct moves.

She begins the chapter in the darkness of un-faith,

          in despair at the cross and the confusion of the empty tomb (vv. 1-2, 11-15).

Then she recognizes Jesus in the garden, and moves to a conditional faith,

          she can see him, but still can only see him as Rabbi,

                   as teacher, as master and Lord (vv. 16-17a).

          And so she tries to cling to him, to keep him familiar and close.

But the third stage of her journey of faith is the move

          to one who has truly encountered the risen Lord,

          and who is then able to bear witness to the truth of this new world

          that has come into being by the power of the resurrection (v. 18)

And John’s gospel encourages all its readers to undertake this journey of Mary,

          from the darkness of unfaith,

          to the confused joy of partial faith,

          to the gracious outpouring of resurrection faith.

We must take care not to get stuck at partial faith,

          where Jesus is Lord and Master, but not yet brother and friend,

          because that way lies legalism and grace-less religion.

We need to discover God as our loving father,

          drawing us to him in love and embracing us as long lost children.

Because if God remains distant and other,

          then our faith remains theoretical and abstract.

To end where we began,

          we are those who know the ending.

We are living the end in the present,

          and we read into being the stories of our own lives

          in the light of the presence of the resurrected Christ in our midst.

A church like Bloomsbury, with our emphasis on social justice

          and our seeking to participate in the transformation of the world,

can find it very easy to relate to Jesus as our inspirational teacher,

          and to God as our guiding principle.

But I wonder if sometimes we are so good at following Jesus

          that we miss the fact that he is our friend and our brother.

I wonder if sometimes we are so good at worshipping God

          that we miss the loving embrace of a parent who longs to hold us close

          and speak words of deep comfort to our troubled struggling souls.

And I wonder what it means for us to let go

          of our well-known and dearly-loved Jesus of history,

in order to encounter the mystery of the resurrected Christ in our midst

          in a new and transformatory way.

What might it mean for us to discover through mystical experience

          the presence of Christ in our community.

What would it mean for us to meet the Spirit of Christ

          in ways yet to be made known,

as our lives find their fulfilment and peaceful resolution

          in the love that draws all things to their perfect conclusion.

We already know the ending,

          so let’s live in the light of it,

          and see what a difference that makes to the story we live by.