Jesus and Mary
TRANSLATION
(11) Now Mary stood outside the tomb weeping, and, as she wept, she stooped to look into the tomb. (12) She saw two angels in white sitting where Jesus’ body had rested, one at the head and one at the feet. (13) They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She answered them, “Because they have taken away my Lord, and I don’t know where they put him.”
(14) Having said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she didn’t realize that it was Jesus. (15) He 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’ve laid him, and I will take him away.” (16) Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned and said to him in Aramaic, “Rabboni,” which means “Teacher.” (17) He said to her, “Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” (18) Mary Magdalene went and told the disciples, “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them all that he had said to her.
OBSERVATIONS
In this moving account of Mary Magdalene’s encounter with the risen Lord in the garden, several repeated words help us understand its message. As we would expect, several names were repeated: “Mary” (in vss. 11, 17, & 18), “Jesus” (in vss. 12, 14, 16, & 17) along with “woman” twice (vss. 13 & 15) and “Rabboni” (vs. 16), “Father” (three times in vs. 17) and “God” (twice in vs. 17). “Weeping/wept” is found four times (in vss. 11, 13, & 15). “Tomb” occurred twice (in vs. 11).
OUTLINE
I. Coming to the tomb weeping, Mary was surprised to see two angels sitting where Jesus’ body had been laid. (11-13)
II. Mary then met and recognized the risen Lord who then sent her to alert the disciples. (14-18)
IDEA STATEMENT
After his resurrection, Jesus first appeared to Mary in the garden to turn her sorrow into joy and to send her to tell the other disciples the good news.
APPLICATION
The designation Jesus used to refer to his disciples, “my brothers” (vs. 17), is highly significant. Not only were those who had followed his teaching and example considered learners but, by his death and resurrection, Jesus had created a family, brothers and sisters, who would not only be saved by his atoning work but be transformed into the sons and daughters of the Father.
The Apostle John described this transformation in his first epistle: “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are…Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is” (1 Jn. 3:1 & 2). C. S. Lewis envisioned what this would be like in one of his sermons entitled, The Weight of Glory: “It is a serious thing to live in a society of (virtual) gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship…There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations – these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit...”
To be like Jesus as a brother may seem inconceivable to us now, but in that glorious day when we have received our resurrection bodies and stand in the presence of our risen Lord, we will experience what Paul described in 1 Corinthians 2:9 (quoting from Isaiah 64): “But, as it is written, ‘…no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him.’”