We now move to John’s account of the words of the risen Christ. And so we come with Mary to the tomb:
11 Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb 12 and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.
John 20:11-15
13 They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?”
“They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” 14 At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.
15 He asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”
Mary, John tells us, came first to the tomb and saw it empty, ran to tell Peter and John, and now has come back to the tomb, and sees it empty, but with angels seated in the tomb instead of the body. She does not expect resurrection – rather the lack of a body increases her distress and confusion. “They have taken my Lord away, and I don’t know where they have put him”.
Then she turns from the tomb to the garden and sees Jesus, but does not realise it is Jesus. But Jesus sees her, and his first words to her, as to the disciples on the road to Emmaus are words asking questions. “Why are you crying?” “Who is it you are looking for?”
Jesus does not overwhelm her with his presence, but rather he asks questions to draw out her response, to hear what she will say, and to allow her to express her confusion to him. She responds as if he was the gardener and asks him what he has done with the body.
Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”
John 20:15
“Thinking he was the gardener” – and of course, in a very real sense he was the gardener. Jesus was the one through whom the first garden was created. Jesus is the Second Adam, the firstborn of the new creation. In this scene he walks in the garden he has created, the sign of a new world to be. Jesus succeeds, where Adam failed, in doing his Father’s will.
So she wasn’t far wrong, even in her confusion, and it will just take a word to put her into her right mind once more.
16 Jesus said to her, “Mary.”
John 20:16-17
She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”).
17 Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”
Jesus reply to Mary’s question is simply to speak her name – and in that speaking she recognises hin. As the disciples on the road to Emmaus recognise Jesus around the meal table, so Mary recognises in the simple act of Jesus speaking her name. It is striking that it is in the act of naming her that she recognises him. It seems to indicate that she is used to hearing her name spoken by Jesus. Jesus knows her by name.
Recognising him she seeks to hold on to him, which he refuses – now is not the time for holding on to this experience – instead Mary has a job to do – she needs to go to the disciples – to the brothers, and tell them that Jesus is ascending to the Father.
But note the way he talks about his disciples. They are his brothers. They have the same heavenly Father, and the same God – the relationship that Jesus has with the Father is now available to his disciples. Jesus has to ascend to the Father to bring about the way this relationship works.
Mary cannot cling on to him, cannot look back to what has been. Jesus’s resurrection marks a new stage in the relationship. The relationship loses the sense of physical closeness, but now a new relationship to the Father is opened up. Jesus’s disciples are his brothers, they have a new identity as God’s dearly loved children.
This scene in the garden changes everything for us. We don’t see Jesus physically in the same way as Mary did, but we can know that he calls us by name. He knows us as we are. He relates to us as individuals. He brings us into his family and into his new creation. He calls us to be part of his project of bringing about a new world. We are to be signposts and heralds of a day when that scene in the garden will reach its final fulfillment and a new world will come into being.
Listen for his voice calling your name, and play the part he calls you to.
Ponder these words, again from Timothy Dudley Smith
Above the voices of the world around me,
my hopes and dreams, my cares and loves and fears,
the long-awaited call of Christ has found me,
the voice of Jesus echoes in my ears:
`I gave my life to break the cords that bind you,
I rose from death to set your spirit free;
turn from your sins and put the past behind you,
take up your cross and come and follow me.’
What can I offer him who calls me to him?
Only the wastes of sin and self and shame;
a mind confused, a heart that never knew him,
a tongue unskilled at naming Jesus’ Name.
Yet at your call, and hungry for your blessing,
drawn by that cross which moves a heart of stone,
now Lord I come, my tale of sin confessing,
and in repentance turn to you alone.
Lord, I believe; help now my unbelieving;
I come in faith because your promise stands.
Your word of pardon and of peace receiving,
all that I am I place within your hands.
Let me become what you shall choose to make me,
freed from the guilt and burden of my sins.
Jesus is mine, who never shall forsake me,
and in his love my new-born life begins.
Joshua's Tree Rooted 