Jesus says to her, Woman, why dost thou weep? Whom seekest thou? She, supposing that it was the gardener, says to him, Sir, if thou hast borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away.
Mary Magdalene stands outside the tomb at dawn and mistakes the risen Christ for the gardener. His two questions and her one answer show what love looks like while it grieves and does not yet understand.
Commentators offer different reasons why she failed to know Him. One points to the ordinary conditions of the moment:
She turned back, and there stood the risen Lord before her. She did not recognise Him at first. Perhaps the dim early morning light, and her eyes blinded by tears, may explain it. She supposed Him to be the gardener.
Another points to what she was not ready to expect:
Mary turns away from the angels in her sadness. Her sorrow and her devoted heart had brought the Lord near, though she did not know Him. She had known Him during His life on earth, but she was not prepared to know Him risen. The earthly relationship was all that she understood… In her heartbroken grief, she turns away even from Him!
The angels had only asked why she was weeping. The Lord adds a second question, and its wording matters.
It is not just a work we have to present, but a Person… When the Lord speaks to Mary He does not say, "What are you seeking?" Angels may ask, "Woman, why are you weeping?" But He says, "Whom are you seeking?" He has awakened in her soul affections that only He Himself can satisfy… Peter and John, after seeing the tomb, might go away home, but without Jesus Mary was homeless. Nothing could satisfy her but Himself.
Her mistake shows the gap between what a gardener can do and what a grieving heart needs:
She supposes Him to be the gardener — and what use is a gardener to her? He works on beautiful things that have neither sorrows nor souls. She has both. The things he tends grow and give off their sweetness for a day, then die and are forgotten. She is full of bitterness and cannot forget. She is not looking for flowers, but for "Him," the One who can heal the broken-hearted, who is Himself called the "Man of Sorrows"… The gardener may work among the graves. He may try to cover the bare ugliness of death with the beauty of nature. But a grave strewn with flowers is still a grave. The flowers fade, while the sorrow lives on… She does not want a gardener to decorate a grave; she wants her Lord to heal and satisfy her soul. And Mary's want is yours.
She says "him" three times without once saying who "him" is — and she, a woman alone, offers to carry away a body.
Many have noticed how completely Mary was taken up with her object. It never crossed her mind that anyone might not know whom she was seeking. Blessed absorption! There was no one else in all the world for her heart, so there was no need to say who He was. Notice too that there are no impossibilities to love. She was a weak woman, and yet she says, "and I will take him away"! I wish we all knew more of this unconquerable affection. It binds the soul to Jesus with ties that cannot be broken. It makes the soul willing, and even glad, to carry any burden He gives.
His first question touches her tears. One writer weighs both what her sorrow was and what His question was for:
The sorrow of love for Jesus, which grieves over His absence, is very different from the sorrow of the world that produces death. It soon passes into life and peace through the grace of Jesus… Grace would now step in… How often the same may happen to our dull hearts! But He never acts beneath His name, and He speaks so that we may know Him. "Jesus said to her, 'Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?'" This last was a leading question. Until a person knows Him, there is still darkness, even though there may be love… The Lord valued her staying at the tomb in sorrow, even though it was only an empty tomb.
- Sorrow — Her tears and the dim light hid Him; she knew Him as He had been on earth, not as risen.
- Question — Angels ask why she weeps; He asks whom she seeks, because only a Person can fill the emptiness in her.
- Gardener — A gardener can decorate a grave; only the Man of Sorrows can heal the heart that owns one.
- Love — She never names Him, sure that everyone knows who "him" is. She offers to carry the body herself: love sees no impossibilities.
- Voice — Love alone still leaves her in the dark; He asks, then He speaks, so that she may know Him.
Jesus says to her, Mary. She, turning round, says to him in Hebrew, Rabboni, which means Teacher.
A woman stands crying by an empty grave, mistaking her risen Lord for the gardener — until He says one word. That word is her own name, and her answer is a single Aramaic title, "Rabboni."
Up to this moment nothing had reached her — not the empty tomb, not two angels, not even the sight of Jesus Himself. Then He spoke.
One word dispels all the difficulty and doubt, the expression, not of our love to Him, but of His love to us. "Jesus says to her, Mary." The work was done, the great discovery made. He had died, He was now risen, and He appeared first to Mary of Magdala. She who had sown in tears reaps now in joy.
She turns again, though she was already facing Him. One writer stops at that small detail and links it to what Jesus had said about His sheep.
"Mary" falls upon her ear. That is all... He had said before, "He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out... and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice" (John 10:3-4). Do you and I know what it means when the Lord calls us by name like this?... Why does the Holy Spirit tell us she turned herself? We saw just now that when she saw angels she turned her back on them. Now she sees a man, and she turns her back on him. It was Christ she was looking for, but at that moment she had not found Him. But one word reveals everything to her: "Mary." She had heard that blessed voice before. It was the day He set her free from the sevenfold power of the devil.
The other disciples had seen the empty tomb and gone home. Mary stayed. Her past explains why.
She had been completely under the power of the devil, for the Lord had cast seven demons out of her. She had been greatly blessed, but her heart had been won to the Blesser. So at the empty tomb, when the disciples went away to "their own home," Mary stood outside the tomb weeping. Blessings were not enough for Mary; she could find no rest in this world without Christ. With Him she was happy, without Him she was desolate.
John translates the word for his readers. It carries more weight than the plain title "Rabbi."
But one word from His lips changes everything, "Mary." He calls His own sheep by name, and she knows His voice. Turning again, she says, "Rabboni." That is more than "Rabbi" (teacher). It means "my great Teacher." The wonder of the miracle of His resurrection does not even occur to her. All she thinks of is the One she loves, now there before her eyes.
Her word was not wrong. But it belonged to the way she had known Him before His death.
Mary had rightly understood Him in the place He held among Israel. But that is not His place now. He would take a new place, and there He would join His own to Himself. This reminds us of what the Lord said in John 12: "Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone." Mary knew Him as "Rabboni" (her Lord or Teacher). He was indeed that. But now He would bring her into a place where she knew Him in a deeper and closer way, joined to Himself in entirely new conditions.
The story does not stop with Mary. One writer turns it on the reader.
There was only one Mary Magdalene on earth, and her heart alone knew its own bitterness. There is only one YOU, and your sorrow is your own. Jesus revealed Himself to that one Mary. He knew every pang of her heart, and He did it in a way that let her answer and call Him MY MASTER... I have not heard about Him only, I HAVE HEARD HIM. I know Him. He has come into the secret chambers of my soul, where a great sorrow had taken hold. I have welcomed Him. I am His, He has called me by name, and He is mine — RABBONI.
- Sought — Mary stayed at the tomb when the others went home. Blessings were not enough for her; her heart wanted the Blesser Himself.
- Called — Sight of Him did nothing; one spoken name did everything. The recognition rested on His love for her, not hers for Him.
- Recognised — The Shepherd calls His own sheep by name, and they know His voice. She had heard that voice on the day He set her free.
- Confessed — "Rabboni" says more than "Rabbi": not just teacher, but my great Teacher. Her whole thought was fixed on the Person in front of her.
- Carried further — The title was true, but it belonged to the place He had held among Israel. From here He draws her into a new and closer bond with Himself.
Jesus says to her, Touch me not, for I have not yet ascended to my Father; but go to my brethren and say to them, I ascend to my Father and your Father, and [to] my God and your God.
The risen Jesus meets Mary Magdalene at the tomb and, before she can hold on to Him, sends her away with a message. Why does He refuse her touch, and what is so new in that message?
The refusal is not a rebuke of her love. One writer looks closely at the verb behind the older rendering "Touch me not":
Our Lord's words to Mary Magdalene are not quite given by "Touch me not." A better rendering is, "Do not handle." He tells her not to give in to her impulse to take hold of His person… here the action is continuous. That gives the force: "Do not persist in clinging to me."
She wanted her Master present again on earth, as before. One writer traces her instinct to the hope of the faithful few in Israel:
She stands for the feelings of the godly Jewish remnant. She would cling to her risen Lord, thinking that now He has come back — no longer in humiliation but in resurrection glory — He will take His place on earth as the rightful Heir of all things. But Mary and the remnant must learn this: before the glories of the kingdom, God has still greater glories for Christ, and far deeper blessings for His people.
In Matthew's account the women take hold of His feet, and He does not stop them. The difference is two kinds of faith, not a contradiction:
In the coming day of the Lord's presence, faith will have an Object it can see and touch, so to speak. It will be like the faith of the Jewish women who, when they saw the Lord after His resurrection, "took hold of his feet and worshiped him" (Matt. 28:9). But on that same day the risen Christ trained Mary Magdalene in a higher kind of faith — a faith that needs nothing visible or touchable in its object, and reaches right through to the Unseen Presence on high… She was surely to learn from His words that earthly relationships with the Messiah were now on hold, and heavenly ones were about to begin between the ascended Saviour and His own.
The word He sends them is as striking as the word He withholds from Mary.
The Lord can speak of His disciples as "My brothers". He had never called His disciples His brothers before. But through His death He has sanctified them, and He is not ashamed to call them brothers (Hebrews 2:11). Just as the bride in the Song of Songs can say, "I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine", so Mary, in the love of her heart, says, "My Lord", and Jesus, in the greatness of His love, can answer by calling His own "My brothers".
The message names God twice, and each name says something different about Christ:
Now Christ stands in two relationships with God, His Father. He is a perfect man before His God; He is a Son with His Father. We are to share both these relationships. He announced this to His disciples before He went back to heaven. His own words open up its full extent: "I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God."
The two pronouns are deliberate. One writer notes both the order of the names and the line that is never crossed:
And is there not real beauty in this, that "Father" comes before "God"?… The tenderer relation comes first. Still, as more than one writer has noted, it is not "our Father," nor "our God." That could not be. Whatever the grace, nothing ever closes the distance between the Creator and the creature — not in that sense… But His Sonship is unique, even though these words also stress that His God and Father is also ours.
That distinction shapes how we speak of Him:
He is not ashamed to call us brothers. But when we remember who He is, and what He has done for our eternal blessing, it would be quite out of place to call Him "our elder Brother," as so many Christians do. Let us keep to the wording of Scripture. Let us show the deep reverence that fits us, while we rejoice in the wonderful relationship He calls us to enjoy.
The place He was going to was not for Himself alone.
He did not leave us until He had finished a work in the world. On the ground of that work He has brought us into the very same relationship with God that He Himself, as man, stands in… From now on His Father is our Father, His God our God, His home our home.
- Released, not refused. The words mean "do not persist in clinging." Jesus does not push Mary away; He sends her, because His people will now know Him in a heavenly way, not the old earthly one.
- Higher faith. The women in Matthew held His feet, and He let them. Christ trains Mary in a faith that reaches an unseen Presence on high.
- New name. Only now, His work done, does He call the disciples "My brothers" — a name He never used before His death.
- Shared place. As Son He has a Father; as man He has a God. He shares both relationships with those He calls brothers.
- Kept distinct. He says "My" and "your," never "our." His Sonship stays unique. Yet His Father is our Father, His God our God, His home our home.