Rabboni

Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned and said to Him in Hebrew, “Rabboni!” John explains that the word means Teacher. The man she had asked about the missing body was Jesus, and now her answer addressed Him as the person she knew.

A moment before, she had offered to go and get Him if someone would tell her where He had been put. She had spoken to the angels of her Lord being taken away. Now the search reached the person standing before her. John gives the recognition through a name spoken and a title spoken back.

He does not describe a gradual change in her face or give an account of what passed through her mind. Jesus said her name, and she answered Him. The exchange is brief after all the movement of the morning: Mary running, the disciples running, the looking into the tomb. Here the account rests on two voices.

“Do not cling to Me,” Jesus said, “for I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go and tell My brothers, ‘I am ascending to My Father and your Father, to My God and your God.’” He gave her a message and named the people who were to receive it. Her next movement would take her away from the tomb.

John records the instruction about clinging without describing Mary’s hands or the movement that preceded it. Then the words turn toward His brothers. Jesus speaks of His Father and their Father, His God and their God. These are the words Mary is given to carry from this meeting to the people who have not stood here with her.

Earlier, she had run to Peter and the other disciple with news that the Lord had been taken from the tomb. She did not know where He was, and she had asked for help by telling them what she had found. Now she has been sent with something else to say. The message comes from Jesus Himself.

Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord!” John does not describe the journey or say how quickly she made it. He brings her from the encounter to the announcement. The woman who had stayed outside weeping now speaks to the disciples of the person she has seen.

She also told them what He had said to her. The account keeps her declaration and His message together, giving her more to report than the fact of recognition. She had heard Him speak of going to the Father. She delivered the words entrusted to her as well as the news of their meeting.

John gives no reply from the disciples within this passage. He ends with Mary’s announcement and her report of Jesus’ words. Earlier that morning, the two men had entered the tomb and seen the cloths before returning home. Mary is the first in this account to see Jesus alive and bring that news to them.

The woman Luke introduced by name, with seven demons gone out of her, had followed the story through to the burial place. She had watched, returned, and remained outside weeping when the others left. Now she had seen Jesus and heard Him say her name. Mary Magdalene went to the disciples, told them she had seen the Lord, and gave them His message.