One of the most astonishing things about the resurrection accounts of Jesus—another than the fact of the resurrection itself, of course—is that there is a distinction between resurrection and ascension.
In other words: Christ, now possessing a glorified body, did not immediately spring up to heaven.
This seems to be the point of that strange exchange between the risen Christ and Mary Magdalene in John 20:17: “Do not touch me, for I am not yet ascended to my Father” (Douay-Rheims). This admonition comes at the moment she has recognized in the mysterious gardener outside the tomb as the beloved Teacher she had known. We can imagine Mary rushing to Him, falling down at His feet, and embracing Him.
The seemingly shark rebuke that ensues seems odd—particularly since Doubting Thomas will soon be invited to touch Christ’s wounds.
Commentators have long agonized over what this verse means, seeking out some hidden spiritual and theological meaning—and there is one. But we will miss what it is unless we first establish the literal sense of what is meant here.
The Greek word translated as touch is haptomai (pronounced: hap’-tom-ahee). This word, in its biblical context often can be read simply as touch and that is how it is often translated. But it could also be rendered as fasten or bind to and that meaning seems to fit a little better here. One commentator—William Robertson Nicoll, a nineteenth century Scottish Protestant—suggests the obvious reading that would follow: Jesus is urging her not to fasten on to Him because He is not about to ascend to the Father. Some time will elapse before that happens.
And so, we are set up for what follows in the gospel accounts: a series of resurrection appearances by Jesus that stretch out over what Acts 1:3 tells us was a 40-day period.
We have, first, the other two women at the tomb (Matthew 28:1-10; Mark 16:1-8; and Luke 24:1-12), then to Peter (Luke 24:34), then to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus; then to the disciples in the upper room (Mark 16:14, Luke 24:36, and John 20:19). As Thomas Aquinas explains, “Now in order to manifest the truth of the Resurrection, it sufficed for Him to appear several times before them, to speak familiarly to them, to eat and drink, and let them touch Him.”
But there is a pattern to these appearances. Aquinas counts five on the first day. But then, only a total of five more are recorded after that, presumably right up the Ascension 40 days later.
“He appeared oftener on the first day, because the disciples were to be admonished by many proofs to accept the faith in His Resurrection from the very out set: but after they had once accepted it, they had no further need of being instructed by so many apparitions,” Aquinas notes.
In fact, however, there is a twofold dynamic to these accounts. On the one hand, there is the apparently decreasing frequency of Christ’s appearances. On the other, we see something else seems to be on the increase.
The encounter on the way to Emmaus introduces the basic pattern: while walking, Jesus expounds the meaning of the Scriptures to the two disciples. Then as He is about to part ways notice their plea: “But they urged him, ‘Stay with us, for it is nearly evening and the day is almost over.’ So he went in to stay with them.” (Luke 24:29, NABRE).
In fact, this translation understates the Greek. Urged is parabiazomai (pronounced: par-ab-ee-ad’-zom-ahee), technically meaning to compel by employing force (according to Thayer’s Greek Lexicon). We can picture the two disciples, so riveted by this stranger sojourning among them, grasping His arms as they tried to pull Him back from His path. This recalls for us Mary Magdalene’s instinctive clinging to Christ.
Stay is menó (pronounced: men’-o). It may be more properly translated as abide. Here one can’t help but note, that in the Gospel of John, the word assumes deeper theological meaning, referring to the way God dwells fully in Christ (John 14:10) and also to describe how Christians, in turn, are called to abide in Christ—as the lexicon puts it, “to be rooted as it were in Him, knit to Him by the spirit they have received from Him” (John 15:4).
That’s John, not Luke, so we can keep that meaning in mind without necessarily shoving it into the center of what is happening here. But its relevance seems to quickly come to the fore in what follows. Jesus relents and stays. And how is this ‘abiding’ with them experienced?
And it happened that, while he was with them at table, he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them. With that their eyes were opened and they recognized him, but he vanished from their sight (Luke 24:30-31; emphasis added).
What we have in this text then is another encounter with the resurrected Christ, but one in which He is recognized and received through the breaking of bread—an obvious Eucharistic moment. And this is further confirmed in their subsequence report to the disciples: “Then the two recounted what had taken place on the way and how He was made known to them in the breaking of the bread” (Luke 24:31).
Jesus will soon appear to these disciples. And again, Jesus shares a meal with them:
While they were still incredulous for joy and were amazed, he asked them, “Have you anything here to eat?” They gave him a piece of baked fish; he took it and ate it in front of them (Luke 24:41-43).
This motif of shared meals, then, seems to be radically escalated in John 21, where the disciples have spent all night fishing to no avail, but, at Jesus’ suggestion, a final try yields a catch so big that they cannot haul it in (verse 6). Then there is yet another meal—this time fish and bread, already prepared for them by Christ (verse 9). Then, finally, there is Jesus’ double injunction to Peter to ‘feed my lambs’ (verses 15 and 17).
Do we not, then, seem to have a twofold dynamic in these post-resurrection appearances? On the one hand, Christ’s visible presence on earth is becoming a less frequent occurrence. On the other, He seems to be pointing the disciples to a new manner of presence. Of course, what is being hinted at here can only be grasped by reference to the previous accounts of the institution of the Eucharist. Let us listen to the words uttered in Luke 22:19, just two chapters before we come to Emmaus:
Then he took the bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which will be given for you; do this in memory of me.”
Now we are in a position to uncover the mystical meaning to Jesus’ admonition to Mary Magdalene in John. And it seems to be this: that the means we cling to the resurrected Christ are through the bread and meat—the Eucharist. In other words, faith no longer comes through touching but instead through tasting and seeing with the eyes of faith (Psalm 34:9).
