A Tight Grip

 

A Tight Grip

If this is your first time reading, welcome. It's good to have you here today, and if you are a returning reader, I pray that you see something new today as well.

Let's jump straight in because we've got a lot to cover. 

This week's passage is found in John 20:11-17

"¹¹ Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb ¹² and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.
¹³ They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?”
“They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” ¹⁴ At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.
¹⁵ He asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”
Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”
¹⁶ Jesus said to her, “Mary.”
She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”).
¹⁷ Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”

Now this week's message comes from a lesson that I have been facing all week. Pastor Rob Bell released a series of videos called the Nooma series in order to give a different spin on teaching the word of God. The Bible is not twisted in these videos, it just gave a new medium to sharing the word. One of these is titled Today, and it uses this passage.
  
In this scripture, we have seen Jesus be crucified on the cross, dieing the worst death that any of us could have imagined. Those closest to Him watched as He struggled through His last moments. 3 days have passed and Jesus's friends visit His tomb often to grieve their loss. We observe this moment though with an odd twist at the end. 

You see Mary Magdalene was a close friend to Jesus, and she has witnessed His death. Upon seeing Him alive, she moves out of her shock in towards Him to embrace Him, but Jesus doesn't embrace her and say everything is alright. Instead He tells her to let go, and to go and spread the good news. 

What does this mean? Why would Jesus ruin this moment for her, why not sit in the glory of it having defeated death and celebrate the embrace of a dear friend? Time is not static, it is a continual thing. You see so often in life we want to pause and just stay in the moment, without moving on towards what is to follow.
  
I am one of the worst offenders of this, as many times I have looked to a moment in the past saying how great that moment was. How I wish I could go back to some of the "glory days". But what does that say about now, about the moments at hand. You see Mary was excited to have her Jesus back, she was excited for things to return to how they were. But they can't. Jesus didn't come back to life, defeat death, and conquer our sins to return to His life pre-crucifixion. Jesus came back to offer a chance for us to join Him as He joins the Father.

Great things happen all the time, glorious and awesome moment occur in our lives. Jesus intended for those moments to come, we get to experience love and joy in those times. The warning that we are receiving though is that we aren't to hold onto these moments because they are fleeting. We hold on so tight to a moment sometimes, that we blink and that moment has gone from the present, to now being in the distant past.

I often look at my past and wonder what I could have done better, what I messed up at, or even what I did well. Do you know what happens in these moments though? I miss out on what is at hand. I am so focused on what has happened then, that I miss now. Jesus gives Mary a role in the present, to go and spread the good news. Find your role. Jesus is calling you to something right now, He has an urgent plan for you, but sometimes we miss it. We focus so much on future things to come, or moments in the past, and deny His plan for right now. 

The truth that I have learned while trying to wrestle with this message this week is this: We can't grab hold of what is in store for today, if we are so busy trying to hold onto yesterday. So let go.

Rob Bell closes the video with this, and I feel it is appropriate to end our time today, thank you for reading and God bless.

"So may you accept the past for what it is. May you celebrate what needs to be celebrated and grieve what needs to be grieved, and then may you receive from God a new spirit. One for here, now, today."