Paschal Meditation: Mary and Thomas

"Do not hold on to me.” | “Reach out your hand and put it in my side." — John 20:17, 27

In the house, the risen Jesus came and stood among the disciples, spoke a word of peace, and told Thomas, “Reach out your hand and put it in my side” (Jn 20:27).  In the garden, Mary Magdalene saw the risen Jesus when she turned around, away from the tomb.  He spoke her name, drying her tears with his voice, and told her, “Do not hold on to me” (20:17).  Why does Jesus say, in effect, to Thomas, “Touch me,” but to Mary, “Touch me not”?

Noli me tangere, "The Queen Mary Psalter" (early 14th c.)

To Mary, Jesus explains, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father.”  He tells her not to cling to him, because he must be “taken away” (cf. 20:2, 13, 15) again.  (He had already been taken from her twice: once at his death, and again by being taken away from his tomb.)  She, who was standing near his cross and came weeping to his tomb, must not hold on to her Master, because he is going away.  He is going away, but she will hold on to him in faith.*  He is going away to prepare a place for her, and will come again and take her to himself, that where he is, there she may be also (14:2–3). 

But not her alone.  She will not take away for herself (20:15) “the faithful martyr” (Rev. 1:4), but she will be taken by him with all his own.  And not yet, not yet, because now Jesus sends her to bear witness to him (20:17).

Like her Lord, she is a faithful witness, telling the disciples what he told her (20:18). But they do not believe, until the Lord reveals himself to them (v. 20).  Likewise, Thomas, who still has not seen the risen Lord for himself, refuses to believe their testimony until he sees what they have seen—and going further—can even put his finger in the mark of the nails and his hand in the pierced side (v. 25).  (Is this a characteristic hyperbole from the disciple who brashly declared to the others, “Let us also go [with Jesus to Jerusalem], that we may die with him” (11:16), but was not with Jesus at his death?)

Doubting Thomas, Breviary, France (early 14th c.)

Jesus reveals himself to Thomas in the same way as to the other disciples: speaking peace (20:19, 26) and showing his wounds (vv. 20, 27).  The risen Lord even commands Thomas to do what he (Thomas) had demanded:  “Put your finger here...put [your hand] in my side” (v. 27).  And adds, “Do not be unbelieving, but believing.”  Does the Lord, in humbly granting what Thomas asks, lead Thomas to the humility of faith?  For we do not read that Thomas put his hand in the Lord’s side; rather, amazed, he responds with a cry of faith, “My Lord and my God!” (v. 28)  Thomas’ answer is like that of Job after the Lord answered his demands out of the whirlwind (Job 40:60), and Job responded, “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but not my eye sees you; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes” (42:5–6).

“Touch me,” Jesus tells Thomas; “Touch me not,” he tells Mary.  But he speaks one word to both:  "You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit (Jn. 15:16).  Do what I command you (15:14).  Love one another as I have loved you (15:12).  Follow me (21:22)!"

* Cf. Augustine, Tractates on the Gospel of John, 121.3.