On a whim…

John 20:17 NRSV

“Jesus said to her, ‘Do not hold on to me…”

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She does not recognize him at first.

Not because he is hidden. Because grief has arranged the world in a way that leaves no room for anything else. She is looking for a body. Something that can be found, carried, returned.

She is still speaking when he interrupts her.

“Mary.”

Not an explanation. Not an argument.

Her name.

And in that moment, everything shifts.

Recognition does not come through sight. It comes through being addressed. Through hearing what only one voice can say in that way.

She turns toward him.

Not gradually. Not cautiously. All at once.

“Rabbouni.”

She reaches for him.

Of course she does.

Not to test what she sees. Not to prove it. To hold it. To keep it from being taken again. To close her hands around what has already been lost once.

And that is where he stops her.

Do not hold on to me.

Not a rejection. Not a withdrawal. A boundary.

What is now present cannot be held the way it once was.

Resurrection does not return things to their previous form. It is not resuscitation. It does not restore what was lost so that it can be kept again. It changes what it means for something to be real.

She is not being asked to let go because he is leaving.

She is being asked to let go because he is no longer confined to what she can grasp.

The garden is quiet.

No crowd. No explanation. No resolution offered.

Only presence.

She does not understand it.

She cannot hold it.

And still, she has encountered it.

We are often taught to look for clarity. For something that settles the moment, explains what has happened, secures what has been given.

But this moment refuses that.

She is recognized.

She responds.

She reaches.

And she is interrupted.

Not so that the moment can end—

but so that it can become something she cannot possess.

Silence would have left her alone.

Quiet allowed her to hear her name.

And what she heard was not something she could keep.

Only something she could receive.

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Prayer

God, teach me to receive what is real, even when I cannot hold it.