Page - 41 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 02/01

“This Voice Has Come for Your Sake” | 41www.jrfm.eu 2016, 2/1, 35–47 his true identity. She calls him “My rabbi” and must have embraced him, because he says, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father.” Many have tried to explain this odd statement, but Raymond Brown is right, I think, in say- ing that the point is that the relationship to the earthly, bodily Jesus is over.12 They cannot simply go back to the way things were. Mary’s recognition comes by a combination of seeing, hearing, and touching. An- other, parallel encounter appears a few verses later, when Jesus appears to the dis- ciples in hiding (20:19–21). He speaks to them, then shows them his wounds. Only when they have both heard and seen do the disciples get it: “Then the disciples re- joiced when they saw the Lord.” Interestingly, Thomas, who is not there with them, demands to see and touch Jesus: “unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe” (20:25). But he is chided for his demand when, eight days later, Jesus seems to dare him, saying, “put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe” (20:27). Thomas never does so, and as with Mary Magdalene, knowing Jesus by touch is problematic. This chapter, which most agree is the final chapter from the evangelist, embraces all the normal ambivalence about knowing by way of the senses. There is running, crying, seeing, hearing, embracing, resisting embrace, fear, doubt, and joy. It begins in literal, predawn darkness, as a grieving Mary Magdalene approaches. It moves to- wards real and figurative light, as the day ends with all but Thomas believing because they have seen the Lord. Finally Jesus confers the Spirit on the disciples by “breathing on them”, a physical act that echoes the God who breathed life into Adam in Genesis. Sense experience allows us to apprehend truth and know the other, but it is imper- fect. The characters show a range of human emotions, frustration at bodily limits, the partial and gradual quality of knowing the other, and the impossibility of holding on to the other. Yet the text promises knowledge that reaches beyond the finite self and softens boundaries based in time, space, difference, and identity. The Father and Son are bound up with one another, folding in believers. Jesus prays that those who believe in him “may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us … I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one” (17:20–23). The Paraclete is the bodiless extension of Jesus that accompanies the community after his departure. Realised eschatology claims that believers live in two kinds of time and already live in a rarefied state, taking part in eternal life (16:21–23; 17:21–23). John invites us to think about the problems of being human. First, he speaks to the problem of human longing and desire to heal separation. Second, he suggests 12 Brown 1970, 1013–1014. See also D’Angelo 1990, who cites a parallel in the Apocalypse of Moses, where Adam is in the process of returning to life and tells Eve, “don’t keep touching me”. D’Angelo suggests a concept in which death is undone by stages and the process of return to physical life is fraught with danger and impurity.