yet ascended to my Father? As for Go and tell my disciples, I am ascending to
SERMON 2291 313 and saw the angels. Fancy that, the angels hadn't shown themselves to Peter and John, and they showed themselves to the woman! Undoubtedly, my dearest friends, what is being impressed on us here is that the weaker sex was more persistent in seeking him because it had been the First, as I said, to lose him. The angels see her, and say, He is not here, he has risen (Mt 28:6). She still stays there and goes on crying, still doesn't believe; she was assuming the Lord had vanished from the tomb. She also saw Jesus; she doesn't think it's Jesus, she thought it was the gardener, she's still demanding the body of a dead man. If you, she says, have taken him, tell me where you have put him, and I will take him away (Jn 20:15). What use to you is something you don't love? Let him be given to me, she says. If she was looking for a dead man like that, how can she have believed he was alive? After that the Lord calls her by her name. Mary recognized the voice, looked up at the Savior; and answered him as really now himself, Rabboni, which means Lord (Jn 20:16). The proper way to touch Christ is to touch by faith, like the woman with the issue of blood. Believe like that, and you have touched him
There's something greater which you don't realize
2. What's the meaning of what comes next: Stop touching me; for I have not yet ascended to my Father? As for Go and tell my disciples, I am ascending to my Father and to your Father, to my God and to your God (Jn 20:17), this surely raises no problem. Iam ascending to my Father, because I am the only-begotten Son;3 and to your Father, because you have been adopted, and you all say together, Our Father, who art in heaven (Mt 6:9). And to my God and to your God. Not mine in the same way as yours; my God, you see, because I have become man; your God, because you are always men. It is in this respect, you see, that the Father is Christ's God, because he has become man; by the same token he is his own God, God of the creation of the only-begotten Word. Inquire of the psalm: You, from my mother's womb, are my God (Ps 22:10); before my mother's womb, my Father; from my mother's womb, my God. So there's no problem here.
That other thing does worry one a little, because of those whose under¬ standing of it is less than perfect; what can it mean, Stop touching me; for I have not yet ascended to the Father? Recall, when he appeared to his disciples, and they thought he was a spirit, what he said to them. It was read yesterday. Why are you troubled, and why are thoughts coming up into your hearts? See my hands and my feet; touch and see (Lk 24:38-39). To men he said Touch, before he ascended to the Father; and a woman was not to touch, except when he had ascended to the Father? So what are we to understand? Far be it from us to understand it like this:4 Mary was looking for a body to see; we, in order to understand, should be desiring his spirit. Stop touching me; for I have not yet ascended to the Father. What does Stop touching me mean? Don't simply believe this far; don't get stuck at the man. There's something greater, which you don't realize. You see me, humble on earth; you touch me, and you remain