John 20:17

John 20:17

Ascension the Condition of the Spiritual Contact

I. The brief saying of the text is pregnant with the deepest doctrine. It teaches us how poor a thing is bodily presence, even if it were the presence of the Saviour. It teaches us how they err from wisdom as well as from reason, who would reproduce upon earth in holy sacraments, the corporeal presence of the risen. How little can they have entered into the first principle of the Gospel, "God is Spirit," or into the first axiom of Christianity, which is, The lowest spiritual ranks in the nature of things above the highest carnal. The true contact with Christ presupposes His ascension; it is only by ascending far above all heavens that He can really fill all things. "Touch Me not; for I am not yet ascended."

II. The risen Saviour tells this sorrowful yet suddenly comforted disciple that she must not cling to Him. In itself, that sounds cheerless and unsympathetic. Then we begin to say it is quite true, as the Romanist seems to tell us, that Jesus Christ Himself, though we call Him our Saviour, is too holy, too Divine, to be approached without some sort of mediation. Let us find some intermediate saint, angel, or virgin whom we may approach and cling to, since He Himself has spoken the Noli me tangere.And yet the voice was very sweet and very tender which forbad the touching. Surely it promised the very access which it prohibited promised in the name of the Ascended that which it postponed in the person of the Risen. Yes, that which we could not do, with any amount of permission namely, the touching of the visible Saviour that which is no loss therefore to us, whatever it may have seemed to be to her is here opened to us, living after the ascension, as the very privilege and possession of our discipleship. "Touch Me not, for I am not yet ascended;" but now He is ascended, and He may be touched, clung to, and dwelt with.

C. J. Vaughan, Temple Sermons,p. 416.

The Resurrection Change.

These words imply

I. A change in our Blessed Lord Himself. While the teaching of the New Testament establishes a real organic connection between that which died and that which rises again, it intimates also a mighty change. When Mary saw the Lord she felt that death had been conquered; she knew not the change which death had made. And, therefore, His forbiddal of her loving touch. She puts out her hand to lay hold of Him, as of old; and lo! He draws Himself back in the mystery of His resurrection life, as though to break to her the solemn truth, that in Him the mortal had put on immortality, and might not bear contact with the dying. "Touch Me not." It is the measure of the change which shall pass upon all, in dying and rising from the dead.

II. Again, the words of Christ indicate not only a change in Himself, but in His relations with His followers. It is worthy of notice here that, though our Blessed Lord permitted not the touch of Mary Magdalen, yet a few days later he invited the touch of St. Thomas. The cause of this various action is not far to seek. Mary did not doubt the reality of the Being who stood beside her. She required to be drawn on from a too material love to a love more spiritual in its nature. St. Thomas required to be convinced that what he saw was no illusion of the senses. The fault of the one ended where the fault of the other began. And yet, while Jesus Christ thus withdraws from the touch of Mary, He intimates the approach of a time of renewed close communion with Him. If He forbids her touch because He was not yet ascended, He thereby manifestly implies that, when He had ascended, then she should touch Him without rebuke. What is this? It is the opening out the vital doctrine of the real spiritual contact which exists between the servants of Christ, and Christ upon His throne. The Redeemer here seems to intimate that, when once He had ascended to the Father, there should recommence a close intercommunion between Himself and His disciples. He draws the woman from a lower to a higher love from a carnal to a spiritual touch; He bids her not stretch forth her hand, but lift up her heart; not seek to detain Him on earth, but to rise herself towards heaven.

Bishop Woodford, Sermons on Subjects from the New Testament,p. 54.

The Magdalen's Touch

Consider the warrant which the text gives us that Christ is ascended for real communion; what the measure of that communion is.

We must remember that to Christ's own feeling, the circumstance of the invisibility of His presence would make no difference. Our Lord feels just as much present with His people now, as when His bodily eyes saw them and His natural voice spoke to them. Therefore to Him it is just the same now, as if anybody really touched Him. To us, it is an exercise of faith to realise that. But to Him there is no alteration at all, since He was upon the earth. Now the act of Mary, of touching Jesus, whatever that touch was, must have been expressive, first, of the faith she had, that her own Lord and Saviour was again at her side; for, as she saw Him, she said simply, that one most beautiful of words, "Master." Thomas, too, when he touched, felt much the same. And our Saviour's repulse to Mary speaks only and exactly the same language as does the attitude of Thomas. Both exalt the spiritual power above the natural touch. The soul's embrace of the unseen in both is made greater than all bodily evidence. "Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed." It was the action, too, of adoring love. Our Saviour's words strikingly united those two feelings, as meeting in that higher touch, to which He directly led her now. "Touch Me," he virtually said, "Touch Me in your heart, when I am ascended." As the things of this outer world come and go, as they will, and all change and all die, we find that the things we touch, and cannot see, are far more real and far better than all that ever the natural senses know.

J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons,2nd series, p. 130.

I. There are three arguments for the ascension of Christ the external argument, the internal, and the personal. (1) The apostles declare that they saw the Lord ascend into heaven. Could they have united together and propagated a story which they did not credit? (2) The standing proof of the ascension of Christ to heaven is to be found in the mission and work of the Holy Spirit. (3) The personal argument for the ascension of Christ arises from the experience of His believing disciples.

II. The consequences of Christ's ascension are (1) The completion of His work of atonement; (2) The stability of His Church, together with the supply of all that is needful to the perfecting of it through the work of the Holy Spirit; (3) The ascension furnishes to the faith and hope of individual believers a sure resting-place.

III. Encouragements which the ascension of Christ affords to believers. (1) It fortifies them against the assaults of their spiritual enemies. (2) It warrants them to count with the fullest confidence upon experiencing heavenly sympathy.

A. D. Davidson, Lectures and Sermons,p. 518.

References: John 20:17. R. Rothe, Preacher's Lantern,vol. i., p. 615; J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons,2nd series, p. 130.; vol. ii., p. 36; Contemporary Pulpit,vol. x., p. 79; Preacher's Monthly,vol. i., p. 306; vol. iii., p. 227; vol. v., p. 172; S. Cox, Expositions,2nd series, p. 45; Spurgeon, My Sermon Notes: Gospels and Acts,p. 166; M. Dix, Sermons, Doctrinal and Practical,p. 133; Homiletic Quarterly,vol. i., p. 85; vol. xviii., p. 222. Joh 20:18-27. Preacher's Monthly,vol. viii., p. 367.