"Touch Me not, for I am not yet ascended to My Father" John 20:17.

Mary Magdalene had more reason than almost anyone else to mourn the death of the Lord. He had cast seven devils out of her, so she owed her sanity, her humanity to Him. But she had watched Him die on the cross. He was gone, and His healing power would be known no more. All that was left for her was to mourn His past greatness. Her unspeakable joy when she became the first person in all the world to know the great message of Christianity has resonated through the ages. What must she have felt that first Easter morning!

Yet into this moment the Lord injected a strange note. In her joy she must have embraced Him, for He cautioned her, saying, "Do not touch Me (cling to Me) for I am not yet ascended to My Father." It seems a strange thing to say to one whose joy was so full; yet the Lord, who is infinitely kind, spoke what was needed. She still did not know Him. She had thought He was someone who could die, but He did not know death. She had thought evil people could hurt Him, but He had transcended all evil. She had thought of Him as her Master, a great teacher and leader, but He was Her God.

"I am not yet ascended to My Father." But He was! He had glorified His Human on Good Friday, and now He was one with the Father. So why did He say that? The point is that in her mind He was not yet ascended to the Father. She thought of Him as less than God. If she was to be conjoined to Him, she had to lift up her thought about Him.

This same idea is contained in other words of the Lord, "And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself" (John 12:32). We have to elevate Him in our minds above an earthly idea: we must acknowledge Him as God if we are to let Him draw us up to Himself.

What was true of Mary was true also of the Christian church. It always had trouble seeing that the Lord Jesus Christ is the one God of heaven and earth. Many good Christians have worshipped Him in their hearts, and learned that great truth in the world to come. But the church itself taught a divided trinity.

And now, today, the Lord has revealed in the Writings for the New Church that He is indeed God. He has ascended to the Father, even as He promised, and we can worship Him, and touch Him. For He came down to earth so that we could touch Him - that is, be conjoined with Him and feel His healing power. We might say, therefore, that today this promise has been fulfilled. "I ascend to My Father, and your Father; and to My God, and your God." We believe that the Writings for the New Church were given so that people may see that the Lord is the one God. This is the cornerstone of our faith. "The Lord God Jesus Christ reigns, whose kingdom shall be for ages of ages."

But that is only partly true. The story of Easter is not only a record of past events. It tells of the future for all people. In the spiritual sense of the Word, each of us goes through the spiritual journey of these stories, and Mary's experience is ours as well. For those who believe in the Writings, this spiritual story must also be told.

Mary was a good woman. Seven devils had been cast out of her, representing the Lord's power over evil in us. She was, however, deeply despairing because of the Lord's crucifixion. It seemed that her religion was dead, because its inspired leader was dead.

Each of us will face great challenges to our faith at times. The Lord Himself will seem to be gone from us. Our faith will seem to be bowed by the trials of life. And who is the Lord? Where is He found? Today, with us, He comes through the pages of His Word - through the Old Testament, the New Testament and the Writings. For it is there that we know Him, there that we feel His qualities. We know His mercy from the Word. We know His compassion, His love, His pity. He shows us the nature of His power. He tells us what He thinks, what His laws are, what the conditions under which we reach heaven. In the revelation of the beauties of heaven are found His love for us, and in the realities of hell His pity and His provision for those who do not want Him.

Because we have the Word the Lord can be felt in our hearts as a presence. Without that knowledge, we will not feel Him. He will be there, but a very distant presence.

In times of distress it feels that He is dead to us. His Word has proved powerless, the forces of evil have prevailed. As the passers by mocked Jesus on the cross, so it seems that harsh reality mocks our faith. Mary Magdalene was at Calgary. She saw His death - or so she thought.

Early in the morning she came to the sepulchre. Easter morning represents a new state, in which the Lord is about to show Himself. But she did not find Him. Why not? The spiritual reason is that often we see the Word wrongly. She expected to see Him lying dead - or sealed off by a great stone We too, if we think in a limited way of the power of the Lord's Word, almost expect to see that its power is dead to us, because that is what we have experienced.

All of a sudden He was there! He stood, and asked her the same question the angels had asked, nd added another: "Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?" What beautiful questions, at the moment when her sorrow was about to end, her search to be over! The Lord calls to us in His Word when we are in despair, when things seem hard, when we can't seem to love beautiful ideals any longer. "Why do you weep?" "Whom do you seek?"

She thought He was the gardener. The Writings do not give the internal sense of these words, but a garden signifies intelligence in the Word.

Sometimes we think of the Writings as a gardener. They are wonderful books, which give us insights. As a gardener tends plants and trees, so the Writings help lovely ideals to grow and thrive in our minds. As the gardener weeds and protects the plants, so the Writings show us how to overcome evils so that we may follow our ideals.

But a gardener is a mortal human being! Mary was not seeing clearly! It was the Lord God of heaven and earth who stood before her. So she asked Him for limited help. Please take me where He is so that I may grieve over Him.

If we think of the Writings as the works of a gardener, they cannot help us through the desperate moments of our lives. Their ideas are wonderful, but when our faith dies, the best they can do is help us to grieve. This is a very real temptation in all of us - even with those who say that they believe with all their hearts that the Writings for the New Church are the Lord's Word. Part of them still thinks of them as a set of lovely ideas, and fears that maybe they are too good to be true. Such a faith is fine when things go well, but it is not equal to the trials of life.

Then came the miracle. Jesus spoke her name. "Mary!" What a change came about in the way she thought of Him, as she looked at Him anew, and found her faith, and her Lord, alive. Yet even then she did not see. She called Him Master, and embraced Him, and He gently cautioned her.

In the dawn of a new morning, we find that the Writings can answer the problems of life. They don't die. They have power over all evil. This dawning faith is the joy of which the Lord spoke when He said, "You now have sorrow; but I will see you again, and you will rejoice, and your joy no one will take from you" (John 16:22). How eagerly we embrace that new-found faith. How gratefully we accept that the Word can solve our problems.

Yet there is one more step that we must take. "Touch Me not," the Lord said to Mary. The word He used can be translated as "Do not cling to Me." But it is the same word as was used when Jesus touched a leper and cleansed him; or when He touched Peter's wife's mother and the fever left her. The woman who had an issue of blood touched (or clasped) the hem of His garment and was healed; and Jesus touched Jairus's daughter, and she rose from the dead. So also the Lord touched little children, representing His protection of interior states of innocence.

"To touch" means to communicate what is one's own to another, or to receive from someone else; and the Lord's touch communicated His healing power. When He touched people's eyes, this represented His giving insights into the truth; when He touched them to heal them He removed the power of evil from them. But there was a condition: they had to believe in Him.

Now it was true that the woman with the issue of blood, or Jairus or the leper did not believe in a deep sense. The Writings say that they had a simple faith which precedes true faith, and the Lord accepted it as such. But their actions represent faith, and so the Lord's touch could heal them. By contrast, when the disciples' faith was not in the Lord as God, they could not heal. They failed to heal the demoniac boy. Peter had insufficient faith in the Lord's power over the waves, and he began to sink. Only when his sole remaining hope was in the Lord's power was Jesus able to reach out His hand and touch Him and lift him up.

"Touch Me not." The Lord said this to Mary Magdalene to represent to her, and to all future generations that it is not enough to regard Him and His Word as miraculous. He is God, and His Word is altogether Divine. It has power over death, and over all the forces of evil.

"But go to My brethren and say to them, I ascend to My Father, and your Father; and to My God, and your God." We need to lift up our vision of the Lord. Let us take one or two examples. The Lord came to earth to show Himself as Divine Man. He wanted people to be able to understand His qualities. For too long He had been invisible to the sight of frail humankind. He wanted them to know His love, to know His mercy, to sense what His forgiveness was like. He willed that we would see His qualities as the epitome of all that is human.

But our ideas of Him have to be lifted above that sight also. Take His forgiveness. He forgives freely. That is a beautiful idea, and we see that forgiveness clearly in the stories of the New Testament. But the Writings say that the Lord does not forgive as we forgive. When He forgives, he not only takes away our guilt, He takes away the power of evil over us! His forgiveness is so much more than human forgiveness. We need to lift Him up in our thoughts, and sense that amazing forgiveness that can overlook the hurt we do to His beloved children, but which also takes the source of our sin away, if only we cooperate. (That is why so many people refuse forgiveness, because they don't want to lose their evil desires).

Take the Lord's permission. He permits people to do evil. Yet the Writings say that He doesn't permit as we do. When we allow something to happen we agree that it probably ought to happen. The Lord allows evil, not as one who is willing. He doesn't want anyone to suffer. He permits as One who must for the sake of human freedom, and then He bends whatever is permitted towards good. His permission doesn't just let bad things happen, it works through them for the salvation of all.

You see, even when we know that the Lord is our Savior: even when we know that His Word has power over evil, we need to lift it up in our hearts and minds, and see that it is our God. Only then does it truly touch us - that is, conjoin us with our Lord, and heal us.

Are the Writings the work of the Divine Gardener? Do they have lovely ideas, do they weed out our faults and allow our loves to grow and flourish? Yes, surely they do. Are they our Master, able to break through our unhappy states and give us joy, even as Mary felt such great joy on Easter morning? Surely they are. But we are invited to see them as so much more: as the manifestation of our everlasting Father, as the source of all love in our lives, as the way to heaven.

And here is the lovely promise of Easter morning. It was the Lord Himself who led Mary through those three steps. He stood before her, allowing her to think Him the gardener, even as He allows us to see the Writings as the source of beautiful ideals, and little more. He then spoke and let her know who He was. So too He shows us the power of His Word, and through it shows us His presence. But He leads us ever upward when He calls us to see Him as God. "I do ascend to My Father, and your Father, and to My God and your God." It will happen, if we wish Him to touch us with His healing hands. "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to Myself." Amen.

(References: Arcana Coelestia 10023; John 20:1-19; True Christian Religion 108, 109)