Lord and I don’t know where they have put him.” As she said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not recognize him.
Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Who are you looking for?” She thought it was the gardener and answered him, “Sir, if you have taken him away,
tell me where you have put him, and I will go and take him away.” Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned, and said to him, “Rabboni!”—which means Master. Jesus
said to her, “Do not touch me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them: I am ascending to my Father, who is your Father,
to my God, who is your God.” So Mary of Magdala went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord, and this is what he said to me.”
Reflection:
Everything in today’s gospel narrative points to the new
Garden of Eden where a new creation, re-creation, unfolds.
We are in a new garden of Eden, hinted at by the references to
the gardener. Garden is where new life is born and tended to.
If the devil initiated the breakup then, here the angels initiate the
reconnection with the “woman”, Mary. She mistakes Jesus for the
gardener; but he indeed is the new gardener, the new Adam.
The call and response—"Mary”- “Rabboni”—re-establish a
broken relationship in affirmative belonging and mutual
recognition. The prohibition to touch, while mimicking
Eve’s mischievous addition to God’s prohibition, corrects the
temptation to grab divinity by force instead of receiving it in
gratitude. The fatal expulsion then is replaced now with a total
affirmation of sharing Jesus’ own God and Father as our own
God and Father. If Eve brought disastrous news to Adam, Mary
now brings the good news of redemption to the disciples.
© Copyright Bible Diary 2022