Touch me not? Why not?
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
And we have heard the sweet reports of his resurrection, we have heard them! Sweeter than honey to our taste are they! So let us recount these glad reports again on this glad Easter Day. And especially the report of the first witness to the resurrection, Mary Magdalene, as we recounted in the ancient Sequence Hymn for today: Dic nobis Maria, quid vidisti in via? That is, Speak to us, Mary, What did you see in the way? And that hymn continues, inferring from the Gospel’s account the words of her glad reply. She must have said something like this: The tomb of Christ, who is living, and the glory, I saw, of his resurrection; Bright angels attesting, the shroud, and the napkin. Yea, Christ my hope is arisen; He will go before you to Galilee. Ah, my Hope, my Joy and my Confidence! Mary saw the first evidence of his resurrection at the tomb. Bright angels brought tidings, that she might believe. They directed her gaze to the shroud and napkin. See, the shroud and napkin could not hold him; their captive corpse has sprung to new life, freed forever from their grasp. Mary, What did you see in the way? Yea, Christ my hope is arisen, she now tells his brethren, as it was told to her; He will go before you to Galilee. For from Galilee this trumpet of life and salvation must sound; from Galilee of the Gentiles, that is; for these tidings must now be spread by four Gospels to the four corners of the earth, that all may hear and believe, and likewise exclaim with Mary, Christ my hope is arisen! She was the first to know this, but not the last! For we ourselves know it, beloved! We know it now! And with the whole Christian Church in heaven and on earth we rejoice today, and say, Christ my hope is arisen!
But Mary, you saw more than this, did you not? For we have the words of your continued report, in the Gospel. What did you say? Speak to us again! For we know more fully that you actually lingered in the garden that morning, weeping, and then you saw him yourself, but at first you did not recognize him, when he spoke to you and said, Woman, why weepest thou? Whom seekest thou?; And you replied, supposing him to be the gardener, and asked him where he might have laid your Lord, that you may take him away. And then what? Tell us, Mary. O joy! Then what? Then he called out your name: Mary. And at once you turned yourself, and you recognized him, you knew him, you saw him; you were the first to see him, to lay your eyes on him. Rabboni!, you cried out, which is to say, Master! Ah Mary, What did you see in the way? You saw the Way! You saw the Way himself! With your very eyes, now through the traces of the tears you had just been so bitterly shedding. O Mary, you saw Jesus himself! The Answer for a pining soul and a sad countenance, whose prayer at last was answered! What prayer? The prayer of a longing heart, a prayer such as this one that David had first prayed: When thou saidst, Seek ye my face; my heart said unto thee, Thy face, Lord, will I seek. Hide not thy face far from me! Here, Mary, that longing prayer was finally answered; here, in the garden, you saw at last his face! And so you cried out, Master! Master!
For now you saw for the first time just how rich and complete is his mastery. He is Master in an absolute sense, not merely as others might be called master. He is master over all, for now he, having died, stands alive on earth before you. He lives! He is master over death and the grave. Death’s mightiest powers have done their worst, and Jesus hath his foes dispersed; Let shouts of praise and joy outburst, Alleluia!
And he is master over sin, too. For he rebuffed all of sin’s temptations, but bore all their penalties as well. He resisted every enticement to do evil, but suffered the consequences of all evildoing. He was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification. And so he is the Banishment of all guilt, however genuine; he was crucified for us, to take away our guilt, and he now here stands, alive again: Master!
And Satan is defeated and smashed. The source of all wickedness and lies and murder, the cause of all evil in every place, Satan, the very heart of darkness, is vanquished this day. His domain is stripped from him, and all his armor wherein he trusted. His lair has crumbled and all his legions have been crushed beneath the finishing blow of the Almighty, the Incarnate One, Christ the Crucified, risen from the dead. Master!
Master indeed, over the earth, for he is the living redeemer, the owner of all things. See, he holds the bill of sale: he made the purchase. Not with gold or silver, but with his holy, precious blood and with his innocent suffering and death. He stands alive here before Mary, on the very earth he once created, which was lost in sin and death, but no longer. Now he is owner: Master. All power in heaven and on earth is given to him now.
So now, Mary, speak to us again! What happened next? When you saw him you sprang to embrace him then in your trembling arms, and by your exultant heart! But he forbad it, saying, Touch me not! Touch me not? But why not? Because, he said, I have not yet ascended to My Father, but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father, and to my God, and your God. And what can this mean, but that you, Mary, may touch him then! When? When, he says, my brethren have seen me, and when they have received from my mouth the Spirit of their Apostleship, and when I then ascend to my Father and theirs. Then you may touch me, Mary! And you shall indeed touch me then, and share forever in the blessed touch of my living flesh, through their ministry; for when their absolving hands touch you, I will be touching you; and when their inspired lips preach to you, it is I who will be speaking; and when by their ministrations they distribute to you my very Body and Blood, it is I myself who shall be distributing these blessed elements, and because they are My own Body and Blood, then especially, Mary, as nowhere else, and in never a more personal or genuine way; then you shall touch me; and it is not only you that shall touch me; but throughout the whole world until the end of the age, wherever my people are gathered together in my name: they shall touch me too, for I am risen from the dead not only for you, Mary, whose tears have ceased, but for all of them, so that their tears might also be wiped away; for them, who like you have pined away and longed for me, for all of them who have all likewise been held captive in the clutches of sin and its certain wages of death, for them, who have all known sorrow and pain, and depression and grief, and the touch and sting of death; for them, that all of these things may vanish because now they may touch me.
Mary Magdalene, the first to witness the resurrection, and who therefore was the first to rejoice in its effects, is most assuredly not the last! And behold, now she has touched him, and is forever comforted in his eternal embrace! For now she rejoices in the Church Triumphant, now she touches him and is made alive; and now the same touch and life is here for all of you. For now is Christ risen from the dead, and the four trumpets of his glorious resurrection have sounded to the four corners of all the world, and still today are they heard! Do you hear them today? Do you see? Do you touch? Do you believe? Verily you must believe, for their sound is gone out in all the earth, and their words to the end of heaven. And the earthquake of that first Easter sunrise has now filled the words of the glad tidings, and so let the very earth quake again today, and let all creation now rejoice, and may every heart cry out, Master! And let us touch him, and eternally rejoice, and say, Christ my hope is arisen! Yea and amen:
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
