Coffee With God

Reflection: John 20:11-18

We are once again told of the resurrection experience of Mary Magdalene. John narrates that she saw two angels in the place where the body of Jesus was placed. Although Jesus’ body is absent, John says one of the angels was facing the head, and the other faced the feet of Jesus. Perhaps John was suggesting the image of the cherubim guarding the “mercy seat” of the Holy of Holies in the Temple. The “mercy seat” represented God’s invisible presence in the Temple and, indeed, of God’s presence in the world. With the stone rolled back, the Holy of Holies is empty. God, in Jesus, had exited the tomb to be available to the whole world. This image of the empty tomb as an emptied Holy of Holies is similar to the image of tearing of the Temple veil recorded in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke. Mary turned away from the tomb and saw Jesus outside, in the garden, but mistook him to be the gardener. We are in the new garden of Eden. This garden is where new life is born. Mary’s turning round and What she was about to see would turn upside-down everything the world had known so far. The movement to Easter faith requires turning one’s back on all the previous assumptions and world views. As in the first garden, where there was a prohibition – “do not eat,” here in the new garden, there is a new prohibition too – “Do not touch me…!” Fr. Paulson, in his reflections for this year’s Bible Diary writes: the new prohibition “corrects the temptation to grab divinity by force instead of receiving it in gratitude.” Jesus sent Mary as the first apostle to the disciples to tell them about his ascent to the Father. His disciples had deserted him at the time of his passion, but now he calls them brothers. Despite their deserting him, he had not deserted them. In the course of the Last Supper, Jesus had said to his disciples, “No longer do I call you servants … I call you friends.” But now, he seems to say: “I no longer call you friends … I call you brothers”. If Eve, the first parent, brought the disastrous news to Adam, Mary now brings the good news of redemption to the disciples. Do we recognise our brother Jesus not only in our prayers and in the reception of the Holy Eucharist but also when he walks by our side in the lives of our brothers and sisters around us and in the ordinary events and circumstances of life?