 | CLM 396 Touch Me not! (1) |
Wed, 26 Mar 1997
Clergy/Leaders' Mail-list No. 396
TOUCH ME NOT!
THE SOUL OF MARY MAGDALENE AND THE BODY OF CHRIST
By
Gerald Palo
9080 E. Eastman Avenue
Denver, CO 80231
palo@netcom.com
Jesus saith unto her, "Touch me not. For I have
not yet ascended to my Father."
(John 20:17, King James)
This famous saying of the risen Christ to Mary Magdalene has
provoked much discussion about the nature of his first recorded
appearance on Easter morning. The story is related in the
twentieth chapter of John. Mary, seemingly distraught and
confused, realizes at the sound of her name that her beloved
master is really alive. Her sorrow turns to uncontainable joy
and she rushes to embrace him. But then he seems to rebuke her
with the words, "Touch me not", as they are rendered in English,
me mou aptou in Greek. Commentators have puzzled over this
command. They have supposed that Mary saw Christ's resurrection
body in a kind of halfway state, somewhere between death, resur-
rection and ascension that required him to restrain her, as if it
were impious if not actually dangerous for her to touch him
(1). A commonly accepted interpretation of Christ's words to
Mary is that they are a loving but stern warning that she is not
permitted to touch him, because he has not yet ascended to his
Father. Somehow, the commentators seem to imply, an "ascension
process" must take place so that it will be all right for a
mortal human being to touch his resurrection body without occa-
sioning some unspoken dire consequences.
But what is this ascension process? It is not mentioned
anywhere else in the Bible (2). Christ could not have been
referring to his being taken up into the clouds forty days later,
for within a matter of hours others were clinging to his feet,
apparently without discouragement (Matthew 28:8-10). He ate with
the disciples on the road to Emmaus that same evening, and one
week later he commanded Thomas to touch him. And it makes no
sense that Mary would be permitted to touch him after he had
ascended, since with the Ascension forty days later he would
remove himself altogether from perception in individual bodily
form. The widely accepted interpretation of the famous words
seems to derive solely from the translation of the words them-
selves, without any other contextual support. A closer reading
of the story and a look at the original text will throw a
different light on Christ's words and also reveal much about the
psychology of those concerned and of his compassionate insight
into the condition of the souls of those to whom he revealed
himself.
Christ and the Soul of Mary Magdalene (3)
Mary, traditionally portrayed as an emotionally volatile
woman who has a deeply personal relationship to Jesus, stands
weeping, beside herself with grief at the tomb. She is one of
the few people, mostly women, who have remained by the cross
throughout his agony. She has seen him die. She has accompanied
the burial party and seen the tortured corpse laid in the grave.
Grieving and confused at the rapid course of unexpected and
horrifying events, she nevertheless has prepared spices for the
final embalming and come early in the morning to do her duty of
preparing the corpse of her teacher for burial, only to find the
tomb open and apparently desecrated, the sacred body stolen.
Imagine the horror and confusion she must have experienced. It
would be enough to break even the strongest man or woman. If one
pictures the events vividly enough in all the grim details, Mary
Magdalene emerges as an emotional but by no means helpless woman,
for when almost everyone else has either fled or become paralyzed
through confusion and fear, she determines what is needed and
takes firm action. Seeing the stone rolled away, she does not
even pause to look into the tomb but concludes that the body has
been stolen, turns and runs back to get help from Peter and John.
And so she ran and came to Simon Peter, and
the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and said
to them, "They have taken away my Lord and I
do not know where they have laid him." (John
20:2)
Their way lighted between the setting full moon and the
glimmering dawn, all three return to the tomb, the two men
running ahead and leaving her behind. They look inside and
leave. Mary arrives, once again alone at the tomb. But she
cannot tear herself away. Rather, she clings to the tomb, the
empty husk of a cocoon that no longer holds the physical remains
of her Master. Her mind is fixed on the missing corpse. Now she
stoops and looks into the tomb as the disciples had done. But
she sees something that they had not seen, the two angels.
But Mary was standing outside the tomb weep-
ing; and so, as she wept, she stooped and
looked into the tomb; and she beheld two
angels in white sitting, one at the head and
one at the feet, where the body of Jesus had
been lying. (John 20:11-12)
She is so preoccupied with the idea that the Lord's body has been
stolen that, unlike the other women (Luke 24:5), she does not
even register fear at the sight of two strange figures in the
tomb.
And they said to her, "Why are you weeping?" She
said to them, "Because they have taken away my
Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him."
(John 20:13).
Her distracted, matter-of-fact answer is a mechanical repetition
of her earlier report to the two disciples. Her single minded
preoccupation with finding the body borders on distraction and
makes her oblivious to everything else.
At this moment the risen Christ appears to her. Consider
her state of mind. What would have happened had he appeared to
her in full, recognizable form at that moment, whose horrible
death she had just witnessed and whose stiff, bloodied corpse she
had perhaps handled only a short time before? It could well have
driven her insane, or at least her mind might have refused to
accept the evidence of her senses, causing her to recoil in fear
at the apparent vision of a ghost. Anyone who even in the tamest
of circumstances has seen someone who strikingly resembles a
recently deceased friend or loved one can appreciate what such a
vision might have done to her.
But Christ understands this and knows that here in the
garden, early in the morning, he must gradually awaken her
consciousness to the reality of his risen presence. A close
reading reveals how he does this step by step, lovingly caring
for the precarious state of her soul. His first appearance to
her senses is not to her sight but to her hearing, and that not
even by speaking. Following her reply to the angels one might
expect that she would have waited for their answer or perhaps
continued by asking them, "Do you know where they took him?",
But something causes her to turn away from the angels.
When she had thus said, she turned herself back,
and saw Jesus standing, and knew not that it was
Jesus. (John 20: 14)
What is it that causes her turn abruptly away from this remark-
able sight of the two figures in the tomb? Perhaps Jesus had
approached walking, and she heard a footfall. She turns and sees
a man standing there. It is his deliberate intention that Mary
not recognize him yet. He inquires impersonally, as any stranger
on the scene might ask of a woman sobbing hysterically, the same
question the angels had asked. This may have been a ritual
question that one traditionally asked of a mourner.
Jesus said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping?
Whom are you seeking?" Supposing him to be the
gardener, she said to him, "Sir, if you have car-
ried him away, tell me where you have laid him and
I will take him away." (John 20:15)
Jesus's voice echoing the angels' "Why?" may have penetrated into
her soul, but her immediate condition of consciousness is not
jolted to awareness of his identity.
The Gardener
If Mary mistook Jesus for the gardener out of distraction,
he must for his part have done nothing to disabuse her. He may
even have taken extraordinary measures to giver her this impres-
sion (4). Anna Katherina Emmerich, the Austrian stigmatist and
visionary, reports an interesting detail in this regard. In her
vision of the scene Jesus carried a spade and wore a hat, leaving
very much the impression of a gardener and also somewhat conceal-
ing his face (5). Raphael's painting also shows him wearing a
hat and holding a spade. Fra Angelico and other painters show
the spade. The meaning of this symbol is profound, the sign of
the planting of the seed of Christ's body in the body of the
earth itself, with the Risen One himself tending it. Is the spade
only an artist's symbol, or did Jesus really carry one, its
repeated appearance in art perhaps deriving from an ancient
tradition passed down from Mary herself?
Mary shows that she is still interested in only one thing,
recovering the stolen corpse. Although it had not occurred to
her that the two angels in the tomb might have taken the body
("they have taken away my lord"), she does suspect the gardener
("if you have taken him away"). Does a glimmer of insight dawn
on her here, an awakening sense that it is indeed this One who
has "taken" the body? The extent of her confusion is revealed by
her totally impractical suggestion that she could physically
carry the heavy corpse back to the tomb. She seems to confront
the suspected grave robber with authority, commanding him to tell
her. There is a note of vexation in her words. According to
tradition, Mary Magdalene was a wealthy woman. She would have
been used to speaking to servants in a commanding tone of voice.
Apparently there is a pause before Jesus answers, for she turns
away from the "servant", back to the scene inside the tomb, most
likely to continue her conversation with the two angels. This
turning back is clear because when Jesus speaks the next words
she turns again towards him (20:16). He is in control of the
situation and knows exactly when and how to speak to her. Now,
in her determination to recover the body, she has to some extent
recovered control of herself and is more or less in a state of
day consciousness. The sun is perhaps risen by now. Jesus has
gradually come forward in sound, general human form, and voice.
Now he emerges from the shadows and allows it to dawn in Mary's
consciousness that it is he. In a moment, her confusion is swept
away and she awakens, without a trace of fear, to the happy
reality of his presence.
Jesus said unto her, "Mary!" She turned and said to him, in
Hebrew, "Rabboni!" (which means, Teacher). (John 20:16)
He takes care to say her name while her back is turned to him.
With the speaking of her name, Mary realizes it is indeed Jesus.
Only then does she turn and see him. He has prepared her soul
step by step for this moment of awakening. And she approaches to
embrace him.
Noli me tangere
It is at this point that the so-called warning words are
spoken.
Jesus said unto her, "Touch me not. I am not yet
ascended to my Father: but go unto my brethren
and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father and
your Father, unto my God and your God." (John
20:17)
Can it be that after such careful preparation Christ would
thrust her back by forbidding her to embrace him? Neither
theologically nor psychologically does the traditional interpre-
tation of the passage make sense. Even if he had appeared in
some kind of half-resurrected condition in the garden (somehow
not yet in control of his own resurrection body) his appearance
to Mary in such a state seems totally contradictory after the
careful way in which he had revealed himself to her.
A resolution can be found by examining closely the
translation of original text. The Greek words are me mou aptou.
The famous Latin Vulgate rendering is Noli me tangere. It may
well be that traditional reading of the Vulgate gave rise to the
'Touch me not' of the AV and the "Ruehre mich nicht an!" of
Luther. The forcefulness of tone of these translations led to a
long history of attempts to fathom the meaning of the words. But
a better translation of the Greek text would be, "Do not go on
holding to me". The New American Standard Bible renders it,
"Stop clinging to me". This reading changes the meaning
entirely. Now we can see that his words were meant to comfort
her and bring her back to her senses as, embracing him and
overcome by joy, she was unable to let go.
William Barclay points to the possibility suggested by some
scholars that the original text may have read, me ptoou, "Do not
be afraid" and was miscopied (6). This reading is echoed in
Mark 16:8, Luke 24:5, and especially in Matthew 28:10, which
seems to be reporting this very incident or one similar to it.
The sense of Christ's words might then be rendered, "Do not be
afraid. It is all right, Mary. You don't have to stay here
holding on to me. I haven't gone to my Father yet, but soon I
will. I am still here with you, but only for a short time in this
form. So go and tell the disciples while there is still time."
With either reading the words are revealed, not as a stern
forbidding, but as words of comfort and assurance that are
totally in harmony with Mary's state of mind, Christ's loving
understanding of it and, most important, his mastery of the
situation. This is consistent with his next command to her. In
the darkest of hours she had proved to be a woman of steadfast
loyalty and decisive action. Now once more she needs to pull
herself together by doing something, so he tells her: "Go...,
say..." Where a moment ago she had commanded him to lead her to
the body, now he commands her to tell the disciples the news of
his resurrection. Christ has led her step by step from mourning
and despair to the realization that he lives, and now he sets her
to action.
... Continued in CLM 397
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