Who among us does not resonate with Mary’s range of emotions in this story? We have grieved. We have been alarmed at an unexpected, unexplained, shocking discovery. We have been forced to let go of someone to whom we had hoped to cling forever.

Surely, the profound sadness of early grief is Mary’s companion on the lonely walk to the tomb. So recently having witnessed the horror of the violence against the Jesus whom she loved, and whom she knew to be innocent of any violence himself, she comes to attend to the body, expecting no doubt to wash away the evidence of violent injury – and in so doing to express her love, to come to grips with the finality of Jesus’ death while she attends to the body.

For Mary, there would be no more meals with Jesus; no more conversation; no more meeting of the eyes; the hands; the heart - as conversation and teaching and healing and fellowship took place among Jesus and his friends, family and disciples.

Many of us know the depth of this sadness. We have tenderly touched the body of a loved one; feeling in the touch the absence of life. We have touched – and in touching we have come at last to believe what we do not want to believe – the finality of death; to accept what we do not want to accept – the reality of loss.

I wonder if somewhere in the midst of her sadness, there wasn’t also anger at the injustice of it all. So many occasions of death are unfair; too soon – too tragic – too wrong; and none more unjust, tragic and wrong than the execution of an innocent at the hands of tyrannical forces.

Mary must have been just a little angry at the Roman authorities – so it perhaps wasn’t much of a leap for her to assume that they might have taken the body away.

But the text doesn’t really convey anger so much as alarm. Bodies do not move themselves, so of course she makes the assumption that it has been moved somewhere by someone. If Mary had meant to deal with her grief by attending to the body, she is now robbed of that opportunity by whoever has stolen away the body. Mary just wants those whom Jesus loved; not his enemies – to have possession of his body.

She shares her alarm with the other disciples – who do not share Mary’s alarm, but accept the absence of the body and perhaps accept it as enough evidence to generate resurrection faith.

So Mary is left alone – where she encounters Jesus. His resurrection body is not immediately recognizable to her – who comes to the cemetery expecting to see the dead up and walking around? One would expect an even greater sense of alarm, or even fear; but Mary simply conveys joy when Jesus speaks her name. Jesus has returned to some kind of bodily life; he is again physically present; his wounds are healed, there is no need for Mary’s balms and spices. If there was any anger that hoped to seek its expression through retaliation against the authorities among Jesus’ disciples, the resurrection takes away all possibility of retaliation. What is there to avenge? Jesus has been resurrected by God.

For Mary, for the disciples, and for us – the resurrection is restorative. The fellowship so much enjoyed with Jesus is now possible. The events of Friday do not matter – they have not taken Jesus away. Mary’s joy is nearly indescribable.

Naturally – she reaches out for an assurance of the physicality of this back-from-the-dead Jesus. Who wouldn’t want to check and make sure that this is real? But her hope of embracing and holding on to Jesus here in the garden is quickly stolen by Jesus himself. “Do not hold on, he says.”

Imagine Mary’s response. “Do not hold on! How could I not hold on? I thought I’d lost you forever, and now here you are again! Of course I’m going to hold on – you’re not getting out of my sight- I’ll protect you from your enemies – come home with me, I’ll feed you, make you comfortable, let the others know that you are back – that everything is back the way it was – the way it should be.”

But Jesus is clear. Do not hold on.

This gospel writer, who so beautifully describes human emotion, is concerned with something else. The Gospel of John, as we have seen throughout the season of Lent, is concerned with telling the Jesus story in order to generate faith among those who hear. “Believing” is this gospel’s word for faith.

And this gospel is very clear about what we are to believe.

We are to believe the nearly unbelievable. that the relationship that Jesus himself enjoyed with God during his earthly life is now to be possible for those who have faith in Jesus Christ.

Here is the first good news of the resurrection: God’s Easter people can experience alignment with the will and purpose of God for their own lives – we can be fully who God created us to be. Resurrection life if life in joyous relationship with God, whose will and purpose for our lives and for the world is expressed as love. The one who loves us is accessible to us.

Not through a historical figure – Jesus of Nazareth –but through the community that experiences his presence in their shared life. We call that community “church.”

In the New Testament – and particularly in John’s gospel – it is Jesus ascension that completes the circle of his life so that his relationship with God becomes possible for his followers. He has come from the one the gospel calls “the father,” and must return to the “father.” Jesus return to the father will give to Mary an even better future than that which they would have with Jesus. If Jesus is a physical person, he cannot live forever in this world.

But if Jesus sends the Spirit into the community of faith and makes possible in others through participation in the community a life just like his. . .in full communion with God – there is no historical end point for the mission and ministry of Jesus life.

If Mary were to cling to the physical Jesus- if her attachment to her past experiences with him, or her desire to undo what had been done – prevails, then the new possibilities for the future opened by God’s action in the resurrection would be blocked.

Faith is claimed at least in part by letting go. And make no mistake – in the Easter story, Mary is faced with letting go of someone she deeply loves, and whose physical presence brings her joy, and comfort and companionship and by whom she is deeply blessed. Someone so recently restored to her says plainly and clearly “Do not hold on.”

So here, in this Easter story, in the garden with Mary, we find a profound truth about the possibility of Easter faith for our lives. If we are to claim the faith that Jesus life-death-resurrection and ascension open to us, we have to grasp the power of letting go.

Resurrection faith is not about holding on.

It’s about letting go.

What has Jesus let go of in order to open this faith to us? He has let go of the possibility of seizing political power. He has let go of vengeance against his enemies. He has let go of his life.

And he has let go of personally organizing, guiding and shaping the community that would bear his ministry into the future. He has given up all control.

It will be up to Mary now – and Peter, the denier, and the beloved Disciple, and Thomas the doubter and the others. It will be up to them to carry on his ministry and his life in the world.

If Mary would have held on to what had been – we would not be hearing this story today. We would not have this path to relationship with God that Jesus opened up for us.

God has come to us in Christ.

Christ returns to God.

The circle is closed – and all of God’s possibilities for new life are opened to us.

So long as we don’t cling to the part of the circle in which we live so ferociously that we cannot receive the blessings of this divine life circle.

We have to hear Jesus words as words to us. “Do not hold on.” Do not hold on to the past. Do not hold on to anger. Do not hold on to resentment. Do not hold on to fear. Do not hold on to violence. Do not hold on to addiction. Do not hold on to control. Do not hold on to your own life.

The over-simplistic cliché “Let go and let God” comes to mind here. We have the power to thwart God’s offering of new life. We have to give up that power if we want this new life.

In religious language – it’s eternal life.

In the language of cosmology – it’s the continual possibility that novelty – something new and creative and beautiful – is continually being offered to the universe – and to your life – because the God we know in Jesus Christ has done this new thing.

In theological language – it’s hope. That which was dead is alive.

And so, with Mary, we move from “the body has been taken away!” – an expression of what can be known – to “I have seen the Lord” – an expression of what we know.

That is resurrection faith. This is the faith by which we walk out of this garden and back into the world – to re-present the Christ who loves us, and whom we have come to love.

We do not hold on to him. We give his life away by giving our life away. And so it goes.

The Lord is Risen; the Lord is risen indeed. I am looking at you. And I have seen the Lord.

Alleluia and Amen!