Barbie versus Jesus

”Don’t cling to Me,” Jesus told her, “for I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to My brothers and tell them that I am ascending to My Father and your Father – to My God and your God.” John 20:17

Jesus met Mary Magdalene near the tomb after His resurrection. The grieving woman did not expect to see Him alive and did not recognize Him until He spoke her name. It seems natural that she would have rushed to Him and thrown her arms around Him, perhaps kneeling before the Master and clinging to Him.

Commentators will tell us many things about this passage, often focusing on the “not yet ascended” – which is significant. There is much here for deep theological discussions about atonement and the blood of Christ. Yet I think there is a simpler lesson as well that can help us in our daily walk.

I have two cats and a dog. I love them and care for them, but they are mostly outside animals. The dog has a very nice house of her own, and the cats like to sleep it the safe confines of the barn. They don’t come in the house often. One of the cats occasionally likes to come into my office and drink out of the toilet bowl in my bathroom. She was in here a day or two ago and I was reminded of her brother. He was a very large, very distinctive-looking creature. In fact the two of them have similar markings, but she is lower to the ground. He followed me everywhere when I was outside, and he had to come into my office every morning. We had bonded and were close. A person who hated me took advantage of an opportunity to kill my little friend. I did not see it but I know what happened, and it oddly corresponded to a dream I had some months before.

I felt great sadness when I realized my buddy wasn’t coming back. Even worse, perhaps, I didn’t have the closure of having his body and burying him. I had no choice but to forgive the person and place my loss in God’s hands.

As I looked at my cat walking around, checking the vents, just as her brother always did, I heard the verse I quoted above. “Don’t cling to Me.”

We focus on forms. Sometimes it is difficult to see past a form. Jack Ingram does a song called “Barbie Doll” wherein he warns a friend against a girl who is “real good-lookin’ but she’s got no heart at all” – rather like Barbie.

I am neither deist nor pantheist. God is in this world, speaking to us, working on us, manifesting His love and will, for the most part, by way of our fellow creatures, human and not so human. My gracious little friend was just such a manifestation, as are those that remain with me.

The risen Christ tells Mary not to cling to the form to which she had been so devoted. He would ascend to the Father, but not just His Father – your Father and your God, and mine. He had dwelt with them, but must depart. He tells them in John 14:17 that the Holy Spirit will not only be with them but in them, and through the Spirit, Jesus remains forever with us.

There are many beautiful things in the world. They are all temporal and passing away. No matter how much we love a cat, a dog, or a person, at some point, we will see them no more, or they will see us no more. Yet the love remains, just as the Spirit of Truth remains.

Despite all the ugliness and disappointment we face in life, there is no such thing as lost faith, lost hope or lost love. Don’t cling to a form. Rejoice in it as it fulfills its purpose. And cling only to God.