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‘I am He that liveth and was dead; and behold I am alive for evermore.’
Rev_1:18
I. A change in our Lord Himself.
(a) The resurrection of the body means the rising again in some way of that which died and was buried. The dust, which was human, hath in it something which involves the development out of itself of a further life.
(b) But while the teaching of the New Testament establishes a real organic connection between that which died and that which rises again, it intimates also a mighty change. Does not the text (also 1Co_15:37-44) indicate this?
(c) Hence we may learn to take another and a more blessed aspect of death itself. True, death entered into the world by sin; humanity, that is, was subjected to it as a penalty of transgression. But it has become in Christ the instrument also by which these bodies are changed so as to bear the splendour of the everlasting morning.
II. A change in our Lord’s relations with His followers.
(a) If He forbids Mary’s touch because He has not yet ascended, He thereby manifestly implies that when He had ascended then should she touch Him without rebuke. His ascension would not separate Him from, but bring Him nearer to His faithful ones.
(b) Thus Christ draws the woman on from a lower to a higher love; from a carnal to a spiritual touch; from a clinging to Him with the limbs of the body, to an embracing Him with the arms of the soul.
(c) Do you ask, ‘How can I touch my ascended Lord?’ The reply is ready. He touches Christ, who, when crushed with the felt burden of sin, conscious of a force of evil continually mastering him, after vain attempts to get rid of his slavery by mere strength of will or the maxims of worldly prudence, casts himself into the whole system of Christ’s religion, clasping unto him alike Christ’s commandments and Christ’s promises, and looking and calling on Him for health and salvation. Yea, there is a more palpable touching of the Divine Lord still. What is the blessed Sacrament but the ordinance in which He offers Himself at a given moment, by a definite act, to the spiritual touch, to draw healing virtue out of Him?