Did Jesus really say: "Mary, get your hands off me!" ?

An interesting verse in the resurrection account of John:

¹⁵ Jesus *said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?” Supposing Him to be the gardener, she *said to Him, “Sir, if you have carried Him away, tell me where you have laid Him, and I will take Him away.” ¹⁶ Jesus *said to her, “Mary!” She turned and *said to Him in Hebrew, “Rabboni!” (which means, Teacher). ¹⁷ Jesus *said to her, “Stop clinging to Me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to My brethren and say to them, ‘I ascend to My Father and your Father, and My God and your God.’” (John 20:15-17)

I find v.17 fascinating. It is yet another one of those times when I tend to cringe at something Jesus says, almost certainly due to a lack of being able to see the actual body language and nuanced inflections. I tend to hear this as a harsh: “Mary, whatever you do, just do not touch me!” reprimand, which is wholly out of character.

The rule of thumb is this: When Jesus sounds harsh, it is because our culturally biased visualization has mistakenly injected the harshness. In reality, it's not there.

In this case Occam prevails, and the simple and obvious explanation is probably correct. Jesus is saying, in effect: “Mary, you don’t have to cling to me as if to anchor me to the earth. There is plenty of time. I am not ending my physical presence on the earth for some time, so don’t worry that I’m about to leave you for good.”

I will unapologetically speculate that all this would have been evident to an eyewitness who saw the gentleness and love with which Jesus spoke these words to Mary.