John 20:15 - Exposition

Jesus saith to her , in the words of the angels, Woman, why weepest thou? These are the first words of the risen Jesus, for Mark tells us, "He appeared first of all to Mary of Magdala." And Matthew's summation of the entire narrative makes it clear that she was at least one of the first group who saw the risen Lord. He recalls her to herself. He seeks to assuage the grief of desolation, the bitterness of despairing love. As his first great Beatitudes had been "Blessed are the poor in spirit," "Blessed are those who mourn and weep," and "Blessed are the meek," so the first words he uttered after he rose from the dead were intended to console human weeping over the most irremediable of human sorrows. They are the beginning of a fulfillment of the Divine promise "to wipe away tears from off all faces." But the Lord adds, Whom seekest thou ? She has lost some one, not some thing. Questions these which he has been asking the souls of men and women ever since, when their grief and tears, their unconscious and unsatisfied yearnings after himself, have confused their perceptions and riven their hearts. She, supposing him to be the gardener , a friend, not a stranger, a disciple, not a Roman soldier or a hostile priest, perhaps some man who had been with Joseph of Arimathaea on the Friday evening, or even the senator himself, said to him, Lord , (Sir,) if thou hast borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away. This passionate burst reveals the blinding dominance of a fixed idea. She had no notion of the Resurrection. She was utterly overwhelmed with one bitter, cruel thought. The sacred body was to be embalmed with the precious spices which she had spent her all to buy. Others have forestalled her. Perhaps unsympathizing hands have been doing their worst. She does not know, in her terrified grief, if some wicked hands have not cast out his body into the valley of Hinnom. She seems to imply that the κηπουρός has heard the words of the angels, and her previous reply to them. She is so filled with one thought, that the him, not it, explains itself. She is reckless of herself, and does not stay to count the cost. Had she not poured the precious ointment on his feet, in happier days, and washed them with her tears? Of whom can she speak but of him who said, "Thy sins, which are many, are forgiven;" "She loved much;" "Thy faith hath saved thee"? So far all is preparation for the great revelation. "The Lord has risen indeed;" but, unlike what poetry or theology might have pictured, or the mythopceic faculty have woven out of its strong persuasion of the Lord's indissoluble life, he has chosen first of all to present this signal manifestation of spiritual corporeity to a loving heart crushed with grief, to one groaning over irreparable wrong, without a spark of hope, that death was indeed vanquished. But she who received the objective presentation was too much preoccupied to feel her footing and her home in two worlds. It was not "an enthusiast (une hallucinee, Renan) who gave the world (un Dieu ressuscite) a resuscitated God," but a doubter, a despairing, broken-hearted sufferer, who did not know him when she saw him.