Encounters with Christ: Mary Magdalene & The Disciples

Text: John 20:11-23

No one will ever accuse me of needlessly holding onto things. I consider myself organized, if not clutter-loathing. An older relative of mine, on the other hand, lands far on the other end of the spectrum. She just so happens to currently have seven cars parked in her driveway. And though I get frustrated having to play automobile Tetris each time I go to her house for dinner, her reasoning for possessing these cars is actually quite sweet—they belonged to her loved ones.

Among the vehicles are her father’s Cadillac, her mother’s Honda, and the barely-driveable GMC minivan that her now-grown children practically lived in for most of their middle-school and high-school sports careers. I’ve tried multiple times to convince her to donate these cars to a charitable organization, but she just can’t bear to let go. She wants to hold on.

This sentiment of holding on to the past is one most of us can, at least somewhat, relate to. But it is even more exaggerated and understandable when we see Mary experiencing the risen Christ for the first time. When Mary finally realizes that the man talking to her outside the tomb is not the gardener but Jesus Himself, she addresses Him as “Rabboni,” meaning “my great teacher.” She sees Him as the person He was to her in His time on Earth, the man in the flesh, not what He is now—her Lord and Savior.

Of course she would want to hold on to Him! He was the man who had quite literally set her free from the hold of demons. He had been her friend and her mentor. The last time Mary had laid eyes on Jesus, He had been brutally murdered—crucified—and she’d been weeping over the loss of Him for the past three days.

But Jesus wanted more for Mary than for her to cling to the past. He wants more for us, too. He had returned to give an assignment and to make a promise.

“Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”
-John 20:17

Jesus gives a similar commission when He appears to His disciples, who are locked in a meeting room upstairs. He greets them with peace but does not linger. Instead, He promises that His very presence will be with them now and into eternity. With a first-hand account of His resurrection and Jesus’ guarantee of help from His Holy Spirit, the disciples are sent off to do the work of setting others free with the message of the gospel (Matthew 28:19-20).

Jesus calls us, as the Church, to that same beautiful work. Are we sharing the good news of His life, death, and resurrection? Are we parking it away in our hearts, or are we passing it on? What keeps us from sharing the gospel with those who need its truth just as desperately as we do?

If the sound of Christ’s commissioning words in John 20:21, “I am sending you,” causes a lump of fear, or pride, or disbelief to rise in your throat, remember this: when we take the gospel to others, just like those first disciples, we are not sent out alone. We bring with us His Word, planted in our hearts (Psalm 119:11). We bring with us the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:11), Who grows good fruit in us (Galatians 5:22-23). We bring the security of knowing our home is not here, but in eternity with God (Philippians 3:20).

This holy work—done in fellowship with the very Spirit of the risen Christ—is an immeasurable gift, worth more than anything else we cling to. We have been invited to tell a lost and aching world the truth of the resurrected Jesus. We’ve been asked to tell others Who He is and how fully He loves us. By God’s grace, may we do that today and every day—right here, and to the ends of the earth.