
John 20:17a “Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father.”
In his book “Unlocking the Secrets of the Feasts,” Michael Norton writes:
“We immediately observe another thing in John 20:17, which had always puzzled me. When Mary recognized the resurrected Lord, He tells her, “Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say to them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God.” I never fully understood why He said that to Mary. Why couldn’t she touch Him? I discovered the reason when I read what Flavius Josephus wrote about the barley. He explained that the Jews could not touch the barley before the day of firstfruits. Once the barley sheaf was presented to God by the priest, the barley crop could be harvested for use. Since Jesus was the Firstfruits, He had to go to the Father before anyone could touch Him. We see that after He had been to the Father and back, Thomas could touch Him. As John 20:27 states, ‘Then He said to Thomas, ‘Reach here your finger, and see My hands; and reach here your hand, and put it into My side; and he not unbelieving, but believing.”
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