Deep Calls Out to Deep

See I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.

Isaiah 43:19

Isn’t God always doing a new thing? Look at creation, the seasons change, there is a lovely rhythm to it.  I remember during Covid it seemed so many things were stopped.  In some ways, it felt freeing but in others, it felt stifling. It’s one thing to slow down but quite another to be told, no, you may not. Barry (my husband) and I went for a walk in this area where we love to take walks and I kid you not, it was like the Spring part of Charlotte’s Web when all the baby animals followed the parent animals in lines.  We watched the baby squirrels follow mama squirrel, the ducklings in an actual row on the pond behind the mom, and I learned a bizarre sound is made by a goose if you get too close to her goslings. Sorry, I was just taking a picture. But we laughed because no one could tell Spring not to come. Its schedule was unmoved by shutdown.

That was a beautiful change.  Some changes however are not easy and pretty scary. I was born eleven days late and I joke that even back then, change was not my thing.  I considered myself just fine where I was.  My very pregnant mother saw things quite differently. 

So how were Jesus’ followers doing with change the days following His crucifixion? To us reading the gospels it seems like every chance He got alone with His disciples, He tried to explain what the plan was, what was to come but we have the benefit of looking back on the events.  They were living them.  And believing Jesus was dead, was too horrible to handle. I try to imagine it.  What if I were them?  What if I didn’t know He was coming back soon, really soon, not the last day, but in a couple of days?  I can’t imagine what the Earth felt like the three days without His presence. Honestly, I don’t think I want to imagine it. But there they were–broken, depleted, terrified, and without their teacher.  Locked in rooms, in hiding. Well, not Mary of Magdala, she was on her way to the tomb.  She was going to care for the body of Jesus, but to her surprise, she couldn’t find it.  One would think a dead body wouldn’t be so hard to find.  They are usually pretty still.

She told a couple of disciples about her findings or lack thereof and they ran to the grave.  In typical male fashion the writer of John points out that he ran faster. Then the two disciples went back into hiding, but not Mary.  She stayed at the tomb and wept. And then…oh that new thing…

Taken from John 20:11-17

Woman, why are you weeping?

They have taken my Lord away.

Jesus said to her, “Mary.”

She turned and cried to Him, “Rabboni?” (which means Teacher).

Jesus said, “Do not hold on to Me…

There is so much to unpack here. First, I can’t jump quickly past her recognition of Him, when He said Mary.  He said her name. I am reveling for a moment in the thought of Jesus saying my name to me, face to face, what the sound His voice would have been like, me knowing that sound so intimately that though I had been looking at Him, I didn’t know it was Him until then. Jesus said her name. One day, I’ll hear Him say mine.

The next part that I feel this awesome attachment to is what He said to her then.  Do not hold onto Me.

I have heard people interpret this as she wasn’t supposed to touch Him and the one that harms my heart deeply, is the interpretation that this was because she is a woman.  I am not your biggest feminist, as a matter of fact, I say quite honestly, I am a feminist when it works for me but to believe people read this scripture as she wasn’t to touch Him because she is a woman absolutely kills me.  He first appeared to a woman. Plus, I feel something so much deeper in what He is saying. So being me, I took to researching what I could about this moment.

I found texts that the language they are speaking has a tense for which we don’t really have a proper interpretation. It’s sort of active and passive at the same time.  She called Him Rabboni and that is what she often called Him. He was her teacher.  And I imagine Mary so happy, Jesus is back, our mission is back on, yet still not understanding that this isn’t simply unfolding, this was always the plan. She probably thought, He’s back and we’ll go right back to doing what we were doing, His ministry and everything will be fine now. But He is full on divinity now, still in human form, that, by the way, is mind blowing! But I think of this active and passive tense and I think the best way to describe what is happening is don’t try to hold onto what was, what I was, embrace what I am now, what I’m going to be to so many.  Go tell my brothers! And that she did.

And they told us. He would appear more times, and He would ascend.  The Holy Spirit would come.  And we would come to believe.  Because He is always doing a new thing.  I think about how when I’ve had healthy guilt over my own sin that the devil has turned into shame and I would hear in my head, “Look what you did!” And then one day, that voice changed to one more like the Lord’s saying, “No Baby Girl, look what I did.  Look what I freed you from with my life and death and resurrection.”  Do not hold onto what you thought He was, let Him do the new thing.  It might be scary, but He is there.  Like He was intimately there for Thomas when Thomas doubted, like He was intimately there for Mary when He said her name, like He is intimately there for me every day, I feel it.  And like He is there for you.  Behold, He is doing a new thing.