Why Are You Weeping?

John begins the morning while it was still dark. Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. His telling returns us to that first discovery. Before describing anyone inside the tomb, he follows Mary as she runs away from it to find two disciples.

She came to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved. “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb,” she said, “and we do not know where they have put Him!” The open entrance had sent her looking for help. Her report was of a body taken away and a place she did not know.

Peter and the other disciple set out for the tomb, running together. The other disciple outran Peter and arrived first. He bent down and looked in at the linen cloths lying there, but he did not enter. John pauses with him at the entrance until Peter reaches the same place.

Peter went into the tomb. He saw the linen cloths and the cloth that had been around Jesus’ head, rolled up and lying separately. The body Mary had reported missing was not there. The account attends instead to what remained, distinguishing one cloth from the others.

Then the disciple who had arrived first also went inside. John says that he saw and believed, and adds that they still did not understand from the Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead. The account gives both statements together. Then the two disciples returned to their homes.

But Mary stood outside the tomb weeping. The men’s departure does not carry her out of the scene, and John stays with her. As she wept, she bent down to look inside. She had brought others to the tomb, and now she looked into it again herself.

She saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had lain. One was at the head and the other at the feet. John places them at the two ends of the space from which the body was missing. They spoke to the woman looking in.

“Woman, why are you weeping?” they asked. “Because they have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I do not know where they have put Him.” Her answer still concerned the absence that had sent her running to Peter. She could name whom she had lost, but she could not name where He was.

When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there. John identifies Him for the reader before Mary recognizes Him. She saw a man outside the tomb, and she thought He was the gardener. The person she was seeking had entered her sight without yet becoming known to her.

“Woman, why are you weeping?” Jesus asked. “Whom are you seeking?” The first question repeated what the angels had asked; the second brought her search into words. Mary answered the man she believed might know what had happened to the body.

“Sir, if you have carried Him off, tell me where you have put Him, and I will get Him.” She asked for a location and offered to go herself. Peter and the other disciple had gone home, but Mary was still trying to find Him. She stood speaking to Jesus about where Jesus might be.