17 There is a clear contact between Mary’s
attempt to take hold of Jesus and the scene in Matt 28:9, where the women to
whom Jesus appears “seized” (ἐκράτησαν) the feet of Jesus and prostrated themselves
before him. In this context the term κρατέω is virtually synonymous with ἅπτομαι (so Bultmann, 687 n. 1). It is even possible
that Matthew’s statement about the women generalizes the action of Mary.
Remembering Eastern customs, we are probably to assume that Mary did just what
Matthew describes: she prostrated herself before Jesus and sought to clasp his
feet. It was an act of joyful adoration combined with a simple desire to hold
Jesus, not because she feared to lose him again, but in a perfectly normal
expression of affection. Blank remarks, “Contact belongs to the primary ways in
which man in this world becomes aware of outward reality. But meeting and
contact with the risen Jesus takes place on another plane, namely in faith,
through the Word, or in the Spirit” (170–71).
Bernard’s suggested emendation of μή μου ἅπτου to read μὴ πτόου “do not be afraid,” to
avoid the difficulty entailed in the next clause and the comparison with the
Thomas episode (671) is ingenious and plausible, and is even supported by the μὴ φοβεῖσθε of Matt 28:10.
Nevertheless, like all other suggested emendations of the NT text, it should
not be resorted to if sense can be made of the extant passage.
The rest of v 17 is one of the most perplexing sections in the Gospel.
The difficulty relates especially to the concept of ascension presented in it.
Mary is given a message to the disciples that Jesus is about to ascend to the
Father; why not rather that he is risen from the dead? If ascension is Jesus
going to the Father, how can that be separated from his death and resurrection
as a “lifting up” to the Father? Mary is told not to attempt to hold on to
Jesus because he has not yet ascended; Thomas is invited to thrust his hand
into the wounds of Jesus. Does the ascension take place between the two
occasions?
We begin with the observation that v 17 is reminiscent of Matt 28:10.
There the message for the disciples is that they are to go into Galilee to meet
Jesus (it is in the angelic declaration of 28:7 that the women are to tell them
that Jesus is risen). Matthew’s message thus assumes the resurrection of Jesus; so does the message through Mary. The last thing that the disciples
have learned about Jesus is that his body is missing; here they are to learn
that he is alive, and on his way to his Father to complete his saving task.
We should further observe that the emphasis in the word to Mary is not
the negative ‘I am not ascended,’ but the positive “I am ascending.” Lagrange
pointed out that v 17 should not be split into two halves, as was done by
Westcott and others, but be seen as one, and its unity maintained. He wrote:
“There is only a phrase with an opposition (indicated by the time) between ἀναβέβηκα, ‘I have ascended’ and ἀναβαίνω, ‘I am ascending.’ The message given to Mary
Magdalene is but a parenthesis, and the force of δέ must apply to ἀναβαίνω, thus: ‘Do not insist on touching me, for I
am not yet ascended to my Father; however, I will not delay much to go.… This
is what you must say to my brothers, that they may be better prepared than you
have been to understand the nature of my presence’ (511). The paraphrase “I
will not delay much to go” is better rendered “I am on my way,” since the force of ἀναβαίνω is “I am in process of going” (so BDR § 324,
3, modifying BDF §323.3). That suggests that the “ascension” to which Jesus
refers, which has not happened but which is on the way, relates especially to
the work that Jesus is accomplishing
in the completion of his saving task, i.e., in his mediation of the saving
sovereignty of God to the world. This work of his, for which he dies and rises
and ascends to the Father, has been made known to the disciples, especially in
the Upper Room discourses. We recall his promise to prepare a place for the
disciples in the Father’s house (14:2); to banish their sadness and fill them
with joy through reunion with them (14:18–19; 16:16–22); the new relationship
whereby the Father and the Son will make their home with them (14:21–23); the
new era of effective prayer and power in their service for God (14:12–14;
16:23–24); and above all the bestowal of the Paraclete-Spirit, who will take
the place of Jesus and expound his revelation to them and enable them to carry
out their mission.
The virtual replacement of the language of resurrection with that of
ascension is an indication that the two are fundamentally one, and indissolubly
bound with the death of Jesus. Schnackenburg thinks it possible that in the
Evangelist’s source the exhortation of Jesus to Mary not to keep holding him
was that she might go and tell the disciples that he was risen, and that the Evangelist modified the language to convey the
full import of Jesus’ resurrection as one with Jesus’ total saving work: “For
him, everything is compressed into Jesus ‘hour’, therefore it is not really
possible to dissect the event into death, resurrection, lifting up and
installation in heavenly glory” (3:318–19). The ascension in this sense,
accordingly, is not to be located at a date in the future; it is in process. It
is noteworthy that the vision of ascension narrated in Acts 1:9 is set by Luke
in the Gospel in closest association with Easter Day (Luke 24:50–51; the
impression is given that it happened on Easter Day, but that is through Luke’s
compression of his narrative). The Acts narrative is a parabolic action,
signifying the conclusion of the Easter appearances. For John the “ascending”
of Jesus is the conclusion of his “hour” whereby the salvation of the kingdom
of God is wrought. (See further the excellent expositions of this passage by
Brown, 2:1011–17, and Schnackenburg, 3: 317–20.)
The message through Mary is more than the simple announcement that Jesus
ascends. “Go to my brothers,” Jesus says, “and say, ‘I am ascending to my
Father and your Father, and my God and your God.’ “Clearly the “brothers” are
not the brothers of the flesh (contrary to Dodd, Historical Tradition, 147, 324), but the disciples (as Mary
understood, v 18). We may therefore interpret them as believers who by virtue
of the “lifting up” of Jesus and the impending bestowal of the Spirit are to
become sharers in his sonship with the Father. The distinction between the only
Son of the Father and the sons who by the Spirit share his sonship is naturally
assumed. But as Brown points out, it is not the difference but the likeness
that is proclaimed here: “The statement of the Johannine Jesus is one of
identification and not of disjunction” (2:1016). By way of illustration, Brown
cites Ruth 1:16: “Your people shall be my people and your God my God.” The
parallel is apt, but it should be noted that while it is Ruth who chooses to
come under Naomi’s God, it is the Redeemer who has chosen to come to us, and in
virtue of his total saving activity, living, dying, rising and ascending, makes
us the sons of the Father and the people of God. (George
R. Beasley Murray, John [Word Biblical Commentary 36; Dallas: Word,
Incorporated, 1999], 376-78)