Being Known and Being Held

It was raining today. I always expected God to send sun every Easter, because you know, “New Life!” But then I remember God operates on a different time and calendar than we do.

When I finally dragged my feet toward Christ Church this morning, it was still drizzling. I trudged down O’Connell street, passing the Easter Rising commemoration parade and barricades of ambling tourists who formed canopies of interlocked umbrellas. As I tried to maneuver around them, I was frustrated. They were too unaware to notice that the “locals” had places to go.

When I arrived at the medieval Christ Church Cathedral, the bells were ringing. The knave was packed, so sat on the right side near the front, which gave me a great view of the choir’s opening procession. Oh and the choir! Their Gregorian chants had harmonies and a resonance unlike anything I’ve ever heard. It was truly heavenly.

When the service began, I remembered why I loved Anglicanism. We recited liturgy, bowed as the cross processed, and lined the aisles for communion. I couldn’t tell if the people in line were participating as an act of tourism or reverence, but either way, I was too busy thinking about the organ and brass music, the angelic choral voices, and the gospel reading.

Only thirty minutes before, they had read the gospel, following similar motions to the ones I had followed when I was an acolyte. The LEMs brought the metal cross and burning candles to the center aisle. As a congregation, we turned toward it. Like sunflowers.

The gospel reading was from John 20: 1-18. It featured the typical resurrection story of Mary Magdalene visiting the tomb and finding Jesus’s body gone. She weeps and a man asks, “‘Woman, why are you weeping?”

She responds, “‘They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.’” I’m sure we know this kind of despair—a hopelessness, an absence so great there is nothing to do but weep.

He asks again, “‘Woman, why are you weeping? For whom are you looking?’” She does not look toward him, nor hear his voice. She does not realize that he is with her.

In fact, she assumes the man is the gardener. Through her tears, she tells him to lead her to the body if he has taken it away. She will take the body and honor it properly. I imagine she is facing away, crouching over the place Jesus’s body would have been. I imagine it is dark and echoey in that tomb.

As she cries, he says, “Mary!”

And she turns toward him, knowing she has just heard her Lord. And what does she see? Light breaking through the darkness. The feeling of being completely known and loved.

Then I began to cry. I still am.

I have heard this story thousands of times, but I have never heard someone read Jesus’s line, “Mary” with such tenderness and wholeness. I wonder what was going through Mary’s mind and heart upon hearing her name from a voice, a man, a God who loved her, saw her, held her when she believed no one would.

She calls him Rabbouni! and he responds by saying “‘Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father.’” Instead, he tells her to go tell everyone that the Lord is risen. Today and forever.

I still tear up thinking about this reading because recently I have fallen into cynicism and despair about pretty much everything—politics, friends, writing, environmental issues, the world. I haven’t gone to church in weeks or therapy in months. I am concerned with achievements—excelling in academics, getting accepted to journals, making the best friends. Life just feels like an endless conveyer belt of checkboxes. As I trudge down that road, I continue hoping that the next box might finally be enough for them, anyone, to see me, love me. But even I know, I’m chasing false hopes, because this will never be, could never be enough.

Like Mary, I do not know he is with me.

But I am deeply consoled by this story—Jesus knowing Mary’s name. Jesus knowing our names, seeing us completely in our despair, our hurt, our brokenness. And loving us wholly amidst it.

And perhaps, I am also strangely consoled by his words, “Do not hold on to me” because of how they echo the gentle words of Psalm 46:10: “Be still and know that I am God.” When I was growing up, my bible study leader, Beth, told us that the psalm is about resting, trusting, and learning to be held by God. She compared God to a fire fighter who holds on with steadiness and sureness, even when the person must let go.

Honestly, I am horrible at being still. I hate it. I love controlling my life—grasping, clinging, orchestrating everything the way I want. And yet, at the end of the day, maybe I do want to rest, and also, to be held. And loved. Maybe we all want that.

So when Jesus tells Mary not to hold him, he means, he is already holding her.

She will not lose him.

We will not lose him. We never will.