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| “Mary Magdalene Questions the Angels in the Tomb,” “Jesus Appears to Mary Magdalene” and “Touch Me Not,” by J. Tissot. Brooklyn Museum / Public Domain. |
My, oh
my!
John’s
Easter Morning Gospel [Jn.
20:11-18] is full of the word my
spilling time and again from the lips of both Mary Magdalene
and the Christ: MY
Lord, MY Teacher, MY brothers, MY Father, MY God.
Moreover,
even as Christ uses the word your
he does so to encourage his disciples to share HIS use of the word my: MY Father who is YOUR
Father, MY God who is YOUR God.
This
Easter Morning, Mary Magdalene was the first to use the word my.
MY Lord— this was the first time in John’s
Gospel that anyone called Christ MY Lord.
The
second and only other time was the apostle Thomas who called Christ MY Lord and MY God.
Mary
Magdalene, just in saying They have taken MY Lord, is already holding on
to him with words— no mention of hands.
After
she realized he was standing before her, the Gospel bothers to say she spoke in
Hebrew: Rabbouni.
That
is a form of the Hebrew word rabbi, a title for a teacher.
Others
in the Gospel have already given Christ the title rabbi.
Mary
Magdalene was the first to call him Rabbouni— which in truth means MY Rabbi (MY teacher).
First
MY Lord,
now MY
Teacher— she is still holding on to him with words again— no
mention of hands.
The
Lord answers straightaway: Stop holding on to ME, for I have not yet ascended to the FATHER.
He
goes on to hold out for her that she should hold on to the FATHER instead: to my Father and YOUR Father, to my God and YOUR God.
My,
oh my— my, oh my!
At
the heart of this short meeting in a garden abloom with possessives, the Lord
pointed away from himself and to the Father.
Stop holding on to me, for I have not yet
ascended to the Father.
It
is as if to encourage us to join him in holding on to the Father: to my Father and YOUR
Father, to my God and YOUR God.
However,
there is not only a Father to
hold on to.
For
the first time in the Gospel, the Lord uses the word brothers to refer to his own disciples.
Furthermore,
he calls them MY brothers.
But go to MY BROTHERS and tell them, ‘I am
going to MY Father and YOUR Father, to MY God and YOUR God.’
Christ
the Son of God, now that he is risen in glory from the dead, now that he is
more unlike us than before, now he holds on to us as his brothers and sisters.
As
a man who was to die as we die, he never called us brothers.
But
risen in glory from the dead, more unlike us than ever before, now for the
first time he calls us his brothers— MY brothers.
That
is his sign and his word that we are to share in his resurrection and share in
his ascension and share in his God and share in his Father.
That
is what OUR risen Lord holds out for us to hold on to.
OUR resurrection, OUR ascension, OUR God, OUR
Father!
My, oh my, indeed!
Turn. Love. Repeat.
