Tuesday Within the Octave of Easter, April 19, 2022

John 20, 11–18

Mary Magdalene stayed outside the tomb weeping. And as she wept, she bent over into the tomb and saw two angels in white sitting there, one at the head and one at the feet where the body of Jesus had been. And they said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken my Lord, and I don’t know where they laid him.” When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus there, but did not know it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” She thought it was the gardener and said to him, “Sir, if you carried him away, tell me where you laid him, and I will take him.” Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni,” which means Teacher. Jesus said to her, “Stop holding on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am going to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” Mary went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord,” and then reported what he had told her.

St. John does not tell us explicitly that Mary Magdalene returned to the tomb of the Lord after she delivered her news of the stone being rolled back from it, but we see here that she has.  This is critical for us to understand as we piece together from the four Gospels the series of events immediately following the Lord’s Resurrection.  

“Mary Magdalene stayed outside the tomb weeping.”  At this point, Mary believes that not only has she lost her Lord, but now even his dead Body has been taken from her.  He had given her back her life when he had expelled the seven demons from her and she had followed him ever since.  She had watched him and listened to his words and found life in them.  Her love for him was deep and personal.  While others might have loved him for what they thought he could do for them, she loved him for himself.  She was one of the very, very few who followed him after he had healed them, and of these, the only one who had stood at the Cross.  The Evangelists do not identify her as someone’s sister or daughter or wife, simply from her town of origin.  For her, Jesus Christ was everything.

“And as she wept, she bent over into the tomb and saw two angels in white sitting there, one at the head and one at the feet where the body of Jesus had been.”  John gives us such vivid detail here.  We can almost hear Mary telling John of this later on.  The verse is also confirmed by what we know of ancient Jewish burial practices.  Inside the tomb was a bench, carved out of the stone of the cave.  A body would be laid upon this for anointing and wrapping before its being placed in a recessed stone shelf.  The fact that the Lord’s Body had been laid there and then left reminds us of the haste with which Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus had to work so that they were done before sundown marked the beginning of the Sabbath.  It also shows that they intended for the Lord’s Body to be properly anointed and wrapped after the Sabbath was over.  Mary saw two angels, according to John.  Matthew writes of only one, but we can understand him as indicating by this only the angel who spoke while omitting that more than one angel was present.  This is fitting to his style of writing.  The angels sit “one at the head and one at the feet where the body of Jesus had been” to show that the place he he had lain was rendered sacred and also to emphasize that the Body was no longer there.  John does not describe the angels but does tell us that they were clothed in white, the color of purity.

“Woman, why are you weeping?”  The voice of the angel is calm and his question is direct and succinct.  “They have taken my Lord, and I don’t know where they laid him.”  They took him when they arrested him, when they hauled him up before Pilate, when they drove him out on the streets of Jerusalem, carrying his Cross, and when they lifted him up on the Cross.  Now even his Body is gone.  There are times too in our lives when we are so distraught that our troubles seem to take away our Lord from us.  “When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus there, but did not know it was Jesus.”  Now, she is sitting within the tomb complex but outside the tomb itself.  Jesus would have stood outside the complex, but not very far away.  “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?”  The Lord repeats the angel’s question and adds one of his own.  It is a bit of a strange question for a stranger to ask of a woman at a tomb.  Presumably she would not be looking for anyone but was mourning her dead.  He is drawing her attention to himself in this way.  His is not an idle or polite question but an offer to help her search.  

“She thought it was the gardener.”  That she though he was the gardener of the place shows that this area is a proper cemetery with a caretaker and not simply a wild place outside the city.  The tomb was owned by Joseph of Arimathea for the use of his family, though it had not yet been used.  This may speak to the relative youth of Joseph.  Mary’s thinking that the Lord was the gardener also tells us something of his appearance.  He seems not to have appeared to her in such a way that his terrible wounds were evident.  We may wonder though that she does not recognize him, but it speaks to the depths of her grief that she could not.  “Sir, if you carried him away, tell me where you laid him, and I will take him.”  Her words might sound odd to us.  But Mary knew that this was not the tomb owned by the Lord’s family, which would have been outside Nazareth, and, not knowing that Joseph of Arimathea owned it, she supposed that the gardener of the cemetery had removed the Body of the Lord from it.  She offers to take the Body herself, though she has nowhere herself to put it.  

“Jesus said to her, ‘Mary!’ She turned and said to him in Hebrew, ‘Rabbouni,’ which means Teacher.”  He spoke to her with such tenderness and love, gazing deep into her eyes and heart.  He only spoke her name, but at once she knew who this had to be, no matter how impossible it seemed.  It is very seldom for us to read in the New Testament of anyone addressing another by name.  Jesus is addressed as “Lord” or “Teacher”, but never by his name.  The rarity of this being done heightens for us the sense of how significant it was that the Lord calls Mary Magdalene by her name at the time of his Resurrection.  So shall he call each of us by name at the time of our Resurrection,.

“Stop holding on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am going to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.”  The Greek text says something like, “Do not touch [yourself] to me”, not “hold”.  St. John Chrysostom comments that the Lord tells Mary this so that she might know that his Risen Body must be treated with greater deference, as though it had become more holy.  Later, he will slow Thomas to touch his wounds, though John does not tell us that Thomas actually does so, but this is in order to increase faith.  Mary did not require such an increase, since her faith brought her to the tomb while Thomas’s lack of faith caused him to be absent when the Lord first appeared to the other Apostles.

“I am going to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.”  The Lord makes clear that he has not risen from the dead in order to resume his life on earth, but goes back to the Father in order to intercede for us.  “My Go and your God”.  The Son also makes clear that his relationship with the Father is very different from theirs: he is the only-begotten Son, while they are adopted sons.

“Mary went and announced to the disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord,’ and then reported what he had told her.”  John does not say that the Lord disappeared from her after speaking to her.  Mary departs from the One whom she loves with all her heart in order to obey his command.  She tells the Apostles, “I have seen the Lord.”  That is, with her own eyes.  We see the Lord with the eyes of faith, and we tell others, with words and deeds, what he has told us.