Clinging
Jesus said to her, “Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”
John 20:17, ESV
A few weeks ago, we passed the one-year anniversary of when our lives were dramatically altered because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Our ability to go on with the simple routines of our day-to-day lives – work or school, grocery shopping, getting together with family and friends, travelling–were altered. Either there were significant limits placed on those familiar routines, or they were eliminated.
With this first anniversary behind us, we are beginning to get the sense that we are near the end. With the COVID vaccination rates surging each day and more segments of our society becoming fully vaccinated, the end seems to be growing tantalizingly near. And so there have been many who seek to examine what the lessons from this past “season” might be for their industry, their community, our broader society, or just for themselves. As we move toward putting this long year behind us, many will continue to look at what new habits they hope to keep from those they adopted this COVID year. Others will seek to just “get back to normal life.”
Mary Magdalene was startled to see Jesus. She had found no dead body as she had expected when she visited his tomb. But now, here was Jesus, alive and standing before her. It all must have been a bad dream. Jesus quickly stops her racing mind, stops her from clinging to the past, clinging to who he once was. “Do not cling to the old image you had of me. Do not cling to who you once knew. Let me go so that I may become to you who I now am. Let me go so that you may become who you are now called to be.” And Jesus gives her a new vocation and a new identity by sending her off to tell the others that he lives.
Like Mary, if we cling to the old life, old beliefs, or old ways of doing things, we fail to mature in Christ and cannot move into the new identity or call that God continues to place on us. If we cling to “how things have always been” or “how we have always experienced God,” we remain stuck and fail to grow.
Over the next few months, do not rush to return to your “normal life.” Don’t cling to your old life, but instead seek to identify what you need to let go of in order to grow into who God is calling you to be and what God might be calling you to do.
