 | CLM 397 Touch Me not! (2) |
Wed, 26 Mar 1997
Clergy/Leaders' Mail-list No. 397
... Continued from CLM 396
TOUCH ME NOT! By Gerald Palo (Part 2)
The gradual revelation of the risen Christ
Modern critical theologians have seen it as an inconsistency
that Mary should not recognize Jesus, whom she had known well and
had seen only days before. They overlooked the fact that the
form in which she had most recently seen and touched him was that
of a mangled corpse, taken down from the cross, prepared, and
laid in a tomb. Who after the same experiences would not fail to
recognize him alive and well in the misty dawn in the garden?
Examination of the text in its total human context should have
disposed of this question at the outset. Stated in terms of the
crude materialism of critical theology, the question should have
dismissed itself, yet in a far deeper way it is a valid one. It
became for Rudolf Steiner a touchstone for the revelation of a
most important spiritual fact. Steiner, speaking from the point
of view of spiritual science, answered that the risen Christ
manifested himself gradually to Mary and the disciples, stage by
stage, at different levels of consciousness, and in different
forms than the totally integrated bodily form in which he
appeared during his incarnation (7). We have seen one dimen-
sion of this stage by stage revelation in the details of his ap-
pearance to Mary as described in the twentieth chapter of John.
Mary Magdalene and the Mystery of the Physical Body
So far we have examined the more psychological dimension of
Christ's appearance to Mary. The gospel narratives about her
point to an even deeper spiritual meaning in the words, "Touch me
not", that reaches to the very depths of the mysteries of the
physical body itself. Mathias Gruenewald's painting of the
crucifixion on the Isenheim Altar depicts the mother of Jesus and
Mary Magdalene in a parallel relationship. They both assume the
same pose, but in starkly contrasting ways. The Virgin is
dressed in a perfectly clean and pressed nun's habit, standing
somewhat away from the cross. She has fainted and is supported by
the beloved disciple, leaning back but in a standing position.
Her hands are pressed together in a prayerful gesture. Mary
Magdalene has sunk to the ground directly beneath the cross. Her
clothes are in disarray. Her long, beautiful, wavy hair cascades
down, covering her loose and unkempt, almost like a cloak. The
open display of a woman's hair would be a sign of wanton
immodesty, but here its undulating abundance reveals pulsating
life beneath her disheveled outer garments. Her hands are also
pressed together, but with fingers extended in a tortured,
twisted gesture that mirrors as much the hands of the Crucified
as those of the Virgin. The Virgin is in a swoon, her pallid
countenance almost serene, as if she were in communion with
events on a totally different plane. Magdalene's face quivers
with grief, straining not to be overcome by it, but she is awake.
While the Virgin's eyes are closed, hers are wide open. A
transparent veil covers them, perhaps to indicate the "veil of
the senses". She gazes up through it directly at the body on the
cross, the very vision of which seems to support her as the
disciple supports the Virgin. She has sunk to the ground but
holds herself up, fully experiencing the earthly scene out of her
own strength and consciousness. She is as united in soul with
grim outer appearance of Christ's physical torture as the Virgin
is removed from it. The physical appearance of each woman
reflects, as it were, the inner relationship of her soul to the
crucifixion. The Virgin is as if blind to the outward physical
manifestation, having never lost sight of his living spiritual
presence, she communes with him on a higher plane. Magdalene is
as intimately bound to the earthly sensual as the Virgin is to
the spiritual. Magdalene receives Christ's passion and death in
all its cruel intensity. She suffers alongside him, even bearing
some of the physical signs of his suffering in her own body and
countenance. Gruenewald's parallel characterization of the two
women reveals two sides of the spiritual-physical reality of the
incarnation and death of the Christ Jesus.
Caring for Jesus
The Gospels give evidence throughout of Mary Magdalene's
special relationship to the fleshly body of Jesus. With one
exception, the appearances in which she is identified by name are
those connected with the crucifixion and burial. We have Luke to
thank for the single reference that establishes her part in
Christ's ministry from its outset:
And it came about soon afterwards, that he
began going about from one city and village
to another, proclaiming and preaching the
kingdom of God, and the twelve were with him,
And certain women, which had been healed of
evil spirits and infirmities, Mary, called
Magdalene, out of whom went seven devils, and
Joanna the wife of Chuza, Herod's steward,
and Susanna, and many others who were con-
tributing to their support out of their pri-
vate means. (Luke 8:1-3)
A number of enlightening details are presented here. First,
the early association of Mary with Jesus and the disciples,
unmentioned in the other gospels, is established. These women,
of whom Mary is the first named, were intimately associated with
them from the beginning. Luke speaks of them as if they were of
equal importance to the disciples. That they were supporting the
men out of their private means corroborates the tradition that
Mary was a wealthy woman. Her association with the wife of a
high government official affords further confirmation.
Her connection with the physical body is established at the
beginning. She and the other women, high and low, must have
labored heavily to keep up with the requirements of Jesus and the
twelve. In our Sunday school imagery of how it was then we are
inclined to forget how much work, as well as money, was involved
in caring for their daily material needs. They had left their
homes and families to travel continually across the land.
Consider the requirements for provisioning and preparing meals on
the way for thirteen adults plus the women themselves. The
dishes had to be washed; the beds had to be made, today on the
road, tomorrow in a house in a village, next week in a tent. The
laundry had to be done, as well as all the other cleaning that
goes along with human life. Clothes had to be made and mended.
And none of this must be done in a haphazard or slovenly way.
Certainly they must have had flowers at mealtimes and in their
devotions, flowers that had to be gathered and arranged. And
candles and lamps, too. The meticulous requirements of the many
Jewish festivals as well as the weekly Sabbath had to be attended
to. Of course all this would have to have been moved about from
place to place, to one degree or another, and more permanent
stores of provisions and sleeping quarters must have been
maintained in several of the towns and in Bethany and Jerusalem,
places they visited frequently. Readers who have had to care for
just the vestments and paraphernalia used in the Act of Consecra-
tion of Man may appreciate the physical labor that Mary and these
women carried out day by day for three years.
Breaking Free of the Old Body
Luke says that the women had all been healed by Jesus. This
too points to the special concern with the body that occupied
Mary Magdalene throughout her association with his ministry.
This association throws light on her presence at the crucifixion
and burial and on the fact that he chose her as the first to
behold him on Easter morning. She had devoted herself to caring
for his bodily needs for three years. It was possibly her hands
that washed the blood and gore from his body before it was laid
in the tomb (8). This entire period of service of the "old
body" can be seen as a kind of schooling in preparation for
receiving the resurrection of the new body.
Mary Magdalene is often identified with the sinful woman of
the city who clung to Jesus' feet, bathed them with her tears and
dried them with her hair with, with Mary of Bethany, the sister
of Martha and Lazarus, who anointed them with oil, and also with
the woman caught in adultery. Though the gospels do not confirm
them directly, the case for these identifications is compelling
(9). It is characteristic of the gospels that they tend to omit
connecting life threads that might focus too much attention on
the biographical details of individuals and divert attention from
the central theme of the narrative. Yet all these episodes
underscore Mary's intimate connection with Jesus's physical body.
In the places where Mary Magdalene is mentioned by name, her
special connection to his body is repeatedly emphasized by her
behavior: in Galilee, at the cross, at the burial, and in the
garden Easter morning.
Whatever her own bondage to the fleshly body had been, Jesus
had begun the healing of it in the casting out of the seven
devils, and for three years she had been his pupil in the myster-
ies of it. Yet when she saw him crucified and buried, it was as
if the attachment to the "old" body arose from the depths and
reasserted itself one last time. This attachment, while it
hindered her at first from being able to behold Christ directly
in the new body, had been of critical importance, for it bound
her in continued service to him not only during the crucifixion
but throughout the three days of his burial in the earth.
Faithful unto death
Mary Magdalene's devotion to Christ's body never flagged.
While others left the scene or succumbed to sleep, she watched
him suffer, remaining by the cross until there was nothing left
but the lifeless corpse. While the scriptural evidence is not
definitive, it appears that his mother may not have been present
when the body was removed, and possibly not even at the moment of
death (see John 19:27). But Mary Magdalene remained. Surely she
must have assisted as the body was removed from the cross and
carried to the garden tomb. (May we even surmise that in the
pietas of Renaissance art it is not the fifty year-old mother of
Jesus, but the young Mary Magdalene who holds the lifeless body?)
She clung tenaciously and with unshakable devotion to the fleshly
remains whose lifelessness was a sign of the passing over the old
body to the new. She clung to the tomb, her gaze fixed intently
on it (Matt. 27:61) and continued to return to it, even after it
had become an empty shell. In the garden before the Risen One
himself she demanded that he direct her to the corpse that was no
more. When Jesus appeared to her in the new body, she again
asserted the habits bound to the old, through the longing to hold
him. The body of mortal flesh can be held and possessed, at
least to a degree and for a time, but not the body of resurrec-
tion. Holding was no longer either possible or necessary - or
rather, a new kind of holding in freedom and love was now
possible - and Jesus taught her this. "No longer do you need to
cling to me! The flesh is not where I am any more, or where you
are either in the true, redeemed nature of your being." So his
words, "Stop clinging to me", are both a comforting reassurance
to Mary of the reality of his presence and a liberating word that
accomplishes her release from bondage to the old flesh, a casting
out, as it were, of the eighth devil. By accompanying Christ to
the cross and grave Mary participated in his death, died with him
so to speak. In the garden on Easter morning he did not forsake
her but raised her up with him.
From Pupil to Teacher
Having followed Christ in the old body through death and
into the tomb, Mary emerges as the first pupil in the new school
of the mystery of the body of Christ's resurrection. She, who
knew his old body perhaps better than any other human being, was
the first to behold him in his new body. The fact that he chose
to reveal himself to her indicates that she was not merely an
emotion-bound, if devoted, follower but rather his intimate pupil
in the profoundest of his teachings, prepared and worthy to
receive the new revelation.
Taken in sequence, the sparse details of her life indicated
in the gospels may be read as pointing to a path of spiritual
schooling. First there is the healing from the "seven devils", a
step of purification. Then a long period of preparation by
apprenticeship in labor, the kind of rhythmical repetitive work
in close proximity to Christ himself which, most certainly
accompanied by instruction and contemplation, would have
profoundly deepened her understanding, her self control, and her
mastery of will (Again we must marvel at the decisiveness and
presence of mind of this "emotional" woman at the cross and
tomb). With the events of Passion week Mary would have experi-
enced first hand and with powerful inner participation and
sympathy the original events of the stages of the "Christian
initiation", as experienced by mystics since the Middle Ages. On
this "way of the cross" the pupil works out of inward meditative
experience through the steps of the Passion, from the washing of
the feet through the scourging, crowning with thorns, crucifix-
ion, burial, and resurrection. The mystic experiences all this
inwardly, but Mary also experienced it from without as material
fact. If we accept the tradition that it was she who anointed
his feet and dried them with her hair, we can follow her on her
path from the first step, the washing of the feet, even before
Jesus did this for his disciples in the upper room.
She has advanced through all the stages as a "pupil" of the
mysteries of the Passion. When the risen Christ appears to her,
she addresses him as teacher. His words, "I have not yet
ascended to my Father", are directed to her in the expectation
that she will understand them. He now speaks directly to that
awakened higher part of her being of the divine brotherly
identity revealed in the words "I ascend to my father and your
father, my God and your God". And she does understand. She has
called to him, "Teacher!", and he answers her with the first
lesson of the new school: "Cling to me no more... go... say..."
She is the first to have embraced and taken into her own body and
soul the knowledge and the healing force of the resurrection.
And now she becomes the teacher of the resurrection to disciples,
saying to them out of deepest spiritual knowing, "I have seen the
Lord!" And so she teaches all those into whom the seed of
resurrection has been sown, yet who must abide for a time in
humble service to the old body while the new body is growing
within, until the moment is right and Christ calls it forth out
of its bonds.
NOTES
-----
1. Even Emil Bock gives passing acknowledgement to this inter-
pretation. Describing the events in the garden he writes, "She
puts out her hands to embrace him. But the stern warning meets
her 'Touch me not!' ['Ruehre mich nicht an' in German] The Easter
Mystery is not yet consummated." The Three Years. Floris Books),
p. 240. L. Collot d'Herbois' painting, "Noli me tangere" depicts
a fearsome, radiant etherial being before whom the shadowy figure
of the Magdalene cowers, presumably in terror.
2. Rudolf Frieling speaks of a sevenfold, stagewise revelation of
the risen Christ as revealed in the four gospels, beginning with
the first appearance to Mary Magdalene and ending with the
Ascenscion. (See "Die Sieben Oster-Geschichten in den Evangelien"
in his Bibel Studien. 1963. Stuttgart, Verlag Urachhaus. Also
published in his collected works.) What is challenged here is
the textually unfounded concept that some interpreters invent in
order to explain why he had to say "touch me not, for I have not
yet ascended...", as one would tell a child not to touch a hot stove.
3. For the many of the ideas of this essay, especially those
concerning the psychology of the encounter in the garden, the
author is indebted to Rev. Bill White, General Secretary, Garden
Tomb (Jerusalem) Association, whose little book, A Thing Incredi-
ble?, also contains many interesting ideas concerning the day of
the crucifixion and the unfolding of events of Passion week and
Easter morning. 1976. Printed in Israel by Yanetz Ltd.
4. Emil Bock points to the deeper reality of the risen Christ as
the gardener of the "new garden". The Three Years, pp. 239-240.
5. Anne Katherina Emmerich, The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord
Jesus Christ. Page 366. (Chapter titled, "The Holy Women at the
Sepulchre"). Christian Book Club of America. Hawthorne, Califor-
nia.
6. William Barclay. The Gospel of John. Volume 2. Revised Edi-
tion. Copyright 1975. Page 271. Westminster Press, Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania.
7. For a fuller discussion of the nature of Christ's appearances
on Easter morning, see especially the cycles, The Gospel of St.
John. (Hamburg), The Gospel of St. John in Relation to the Other
Gospels. and From Jesus to Christ.
8. For a discussion of the problem whether the body was washed
before being wrapped in the grave cloths, see Frederick T.
Zugibe, The Cross and the Shroud: A Medical Inquiry into the
Crucifixion. Revised edition, 1988. Page 133. Paragon Publishers.
New York.
9. See "A burning and shining light", by Baruch Luke Urieli in
The Threshing Floor, June-July 1992). Johannes Hemleben makes a
compelling case for it in his book, Evangelist Johannes (RoRoRo
paperback. Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag GMBH. Reinbek bei Hamburg,
1972).
----------------------------------------------------------
Gerry Palo palo@netcom.com Denver, Colorado
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