Jesus says to her, Touch me not, for I have not yet ascended to my Father; but go to my brethren and say to them, I ascend to my Father and your Father, and [to] my God and your God.
The risen Jesus meets Mary Magdalene at the tomb and, before she can hold on to Him, sends her away with a message. Why does He refuse her touch, and what is so new in that message?
The refusal is not a rebuke of her love. One writer looks closely at the verb behind the older rendering "Touch me not":
Our Lord's words to Mary Magdalene are not quite given by "Touch me not." A better rendering is, "Do not handle." He tells her not to give in to her impulse to take hold of His person… here the action is continuous. That gives the force: "Do not persist in clinging to me."
She wanted her Master present again on earth, as before. One writer traces her instinct to the hope of the faithful few in Israel:
She stands for the feelings of the godly Jewish remnant. She would cling to her risen Lord, thinking that now He has come back — no longer in humiliation but in resurrection glory — He will take His place on earth as the rightful Heir of all things. But Mary and the remnant must learn this: before the glories of the kingdom, God has still greater glories for Christ, and far deeper blessings for His people.
In Matthew's account the women take hold of His feet, and He does not stop them. The difference is two kinds of faith, not a contradiction:
In the coming day of the Lord's presence, faith will have an Object it can see and touch, so to speak. It will be like the faith of the Jewish women who, when they saw the Lord after His resurrection, "took hold of his feet and worshiped him" (Matt. 28:9). But on that same day the risen Christ trained Mary Magdalene in a higher kind of faith — a faith that needs nothing visible or touchable in its object, and reaches right through to the Unseen Presence on high… She was surely to learn from His words that earthly relationships with the Messiah were now on hold, and heavenly ones were about to begin between the ascended Saviour and His own.
The word He sends them is as striking as the word He withholds from Mary.
The Lord can speak of His disciples as "My brothers". He had never called His disciples His brothers before. But through His death He has sanctified them, and He is not ashamed to call them brothers (Hebrews 2:11). Just as the bride in the Song of Songs can say, "I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine", so Mary, in the love of her heart, says, "My Lord", and Jesus, in the greatness of His love, can answer by calling His own "My brothers".
The message names God twice, and each name says something different about Christ:
Now Christ stands in two relationships with God, His Father. He is a perfect man before His God; He is a Son with His Father. We are to share both these relationships. He announced this to His disciples before He went back to heaven. His own words open up its full extent: "I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God."
The two pronouns are deliberate. One writer notes both the order of the names and the line that is never crossed:
And is there not real beauty in this, that "Father" comes before "God"?… The tenderer relation comes first. Still, as more than one writer has noted, it is not "our Father," nor "our God." That could not be. Whatever the grace, nothing ever closes the distance between the Creator and the creature — not in that sense… But His Sonship is unique, even though these words also stress that His God and Father is also ours.
That distinction shapes how we speak of Him:
He is not ashamed to call us brothers. But when we remember who He is, and what He has done for our eternal blessing, it would be quite out of place to call Him "our elder Brother," as so many Christians do. Let us keep to the wording of Scripture. Let us show the deep reverence that fits us, while we rejoice in the wonderful relationship He calls us to enjoy.
The place He was going to was not for Himself alone.
He did not leave us until He had finished a work in the world. On the ground of that work He has brought us into the very same relationship with God that He Himself, as man, stands in… From now on His Father is our Father, His God our God, His home our home.
- Released, not refused. The words mean "do not persist in clinging." Jesus does not push Mary away; He sends her, because His people will now know Him in a heavenly way, not the old earthly one.
- Higher faith. The women in Matthew held His feet, and He let them. Christ trains Mary in a faith that reaches an unseen Presence on high.
- New name. Only now, His work done, does He call the disciples "My brothers" — a name He never used before His death.
- Shared place. As Son He has a Father; as man He has a God. He shares both relationships with those He calls brothers.
- Kept distinct. He says "My" and "your," never "our." His Sonship stays unique. Yet His Father is our Father, His God our God, His home our home.
Mary of Magdala comes bringing word to the disciples that she had seen the Lord, and [that] he had said these things to her.
The risen Christ had just told Mary Magdalene not to cling to Him, but to go with a message. This verse is her obedience. It brings the first announcement of the resurrection to His followers, and it comes through a woman with no rank among them.
She treated the Lord's words as an order to obey. One writer notes what she had to learn first, and how fast she then went.
Before Mary could carry such a message she had to know its truth herself. She had to learn that from now on she could never again know Christ as she had known Him on earth, in flesh and blood... Whether she grasped much or little, having received her commission she hurried to carry it out. It was a privilege indeed to be the bearer of such news, and she showed how she valued it by her exact and speedy obedience to the command she had received.
"These things" were not just news of an empty tomb. They were His words in verse 17, where He calls His followers His brothers.
"Go to My brethren." He is not ashamed to call the disciples His brethren... Now He has finished His atoning work, and He openly owns this blessed fruit of it. Faith receives more than forgiveness of sins through His shed blood. Believers also stand in the closest relationship to Himself, the risen Man and Son of God. They are His brethren... And they learn that they are now related to Christ in His new place. So they enter into His own blessed and everlasting relationship with His Father and God. "And say to them, I am ascending to My Father and your Father, to My God and your God."
Mary was not one of the twelve closest followers, and she had understood little at the tomb. One writer sees that as no barrier.
Despite her ignorance — despite the unbelief inside that ignorance — Mary was the one who was to be the first witness of His resurrection. She was the first evangelist of the new order of things His resurrection sets up... Now again a woman's heart, more devoted than His foremost disciples, is to carry the message that has gladdened it to these men, in the energy of its new-born gladness. She becomes, as it were, the apostle to the apostles! How it tells us of the way the heart becomes the leader of the mind into the truth of God.
Another writer sees the same pattern across God's work.
The Lord delights to take up the weak and the lowly to carry out the highest service. How often a great work of God has begun with what is small and weak in the eyes of man. Christianity comes in with a Baby in the manger. The Kingdom begins with a grain of mustard seed, and the new, heavenly relationships are made known through a weeping woman.
Her report had two parts: what she had seen for herself, and what He had said. One writer names what fitted her to carry it.
When Mary came to the disciples she said, "she had seen the Lord, and that He had spoken these things to her" (John 20:18). That is the kind of ministry to which you refer.
John does not tell us how the disciples took it. Another Gospel does.
Charged with that message, Mary, her sorrow turned into joy, went to deliver it. First saying, "I have seen the Lord" (John 20:18), as we should rightly read, she passed on what the Lord had said to her by the tomb. What reception she met with, John does not tell us. We learn elsewhere (Mark 16:11) that they did not believe that she had seen the Lord alive from the dead.
That writer reads her message as direct speech — "I have seen the Lord" — which is how the ESV gives it too.
- Love first. Her qualification was not rank or understanding. It was her love for Christ, and that love made her the first witness of the resurrection.
- Gift given. She carried more than news of an empty tomb. She carried the words of verse 17: the Lord now calls His disciples His brothers, and they share His own relationship with His Father and His God.
- Weakness chosen. God's great works start small. A Baby in the manger, a mustard seed, and heavenly relationships told out through a weeping woman.
- Sight told. She told what she had seen and what He had said to her. Nothing borrowed, nothing invented.
- Obedience regardless. She went at once, and they did not believe her. Carrying such news was still a privilege.