First Appearance of the Risen Lord
I. It was a real body that appeared to Mary. "Touch Me not," said Jesus. Then it was possibleto touch Him. If not, prohibition was unnecessary. Wisdom never tells us to do what cannot be done. The face that looked at her was not a grey, ghastly gleam; the voice she heard was not a dead voice. The form she saw was not a form that trembled in the twilight far within the tomb, but one that stood boldly forth in the warm, clear, cheerful day outside.
II. We have in the words "Touch Me not," a gentle reproof, pointing to the lack of spirituality in Mary's faith. Even her worshipping thoughts of Jesus seemed to rise no higher than an embodied presence; to her mind, the supreme object of faith could be touched with fingers; she could only think of a Rabboni Whose feet she could clasp, and to Whose garments she could cling. Just now, at least, her soul was cleaving to the dust, and was shut up in the world of sights, sounds and touches. The words of Jesus were to discipline and raise her faith, and to break to her the truth that He is no longer to be revealed under the forms of time, and in the world of sensation, but to the soul.
III. We are taught that although Mary had this check when beginning to touch the risen Christ, all the disciples may touch Him, now that He is in heaven. This is the natural conclusion from the language, "For I am not yet ascended to My Father." The word yet conveys the inference that when He was ascended, she might touch Him as much as she pleased.
IV. These words may have included an injunction to Mary not to delay her errand to the disciples. "Do not touch Me," might have meant "Do not linger." It is almost as if He had said: "Mary, there is no time now for tender intimacies, and protracted intercourse; I have this more important employment for you; go to them at once, for they must make haste if they would see Me; and you must make haste if you would give them fair notice." So now, Christ is always calling us away from the passive to the active from personal enjoyment to practical service.
C. Stanford, From Calvary to Olivet,p. 125.
References: John 20:11-18. Homilist,2nd series, vol. iii., p. 283; Homiletic Quarterly,vol. iv., p. 263.