20 Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. 2 So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” 3 Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb.4 The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5 He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in.6 Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, 7 and the cloth that had been on Jesus’s head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. 8 Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed, 9 for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. 10 Then the disciples returned to their homes.
11 But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb, 12 and she saw two angels in white sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. 13 They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” 14 When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. 15 Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.”16 Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher). 17 Jesus said to her, “Do not touch me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ ” 18 Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord,” and she told them that he had said these things to her.
John 20:1-18 (NRSVUE)
Mary is unmoored. She is grieving, bewildered, uncertain, and afraid. I am right there with her. Every morning when I open my phone to check the news, I am ready to weep. The current mix of empire and religion is different than what Mary faced, but it still doles out violence. It still sows despair. In fact, empires run on despair—because people who feel helpless or hopeless are so damn manageable. By the end of this passage, Mary’s perspective has been turned around. She has encountered the resurrected Christ. And this means she has work to do.
Jesus was killed on Friday, and the Jewish community of which he was a part observed the Sabbath from Friday evening to Saturday evening. This made early Sunday morning the first opportunity to tend his body (as depicted in the Synoptics) or to mourn by his grave (as depicted in John). Yet when Mary arrives at the tomb—a rock-hewn cave—the large stone that had sealed it has been moved. She is distraught that someone has moved Jesus’s body. It is painful that she does not know where he has been taken.
“Where” has particular significance when applied to Jesus in the Gospel of John—where he came from and where he was going. In chapter 6, Jesus describes himself as having “come down from heaven” and says he will ascend to “where he was before” (Jn 6:38,62). Jesus is the one who comes from God and goes to God. To understand this is the substance of faith.
Even imperfectly grasped, the truth that Jesus came from God and goes to God was the basis of the community that formed around him. It was a community in which hungry people were fed, poor families celebrated with fine wine, life-threatening fevers were healed, and even the dead were not beyond the life-giving power of God’s love. Mary Magdalene and the other disciples had turned their lives upside-down in order to be part of such a community. Those who believed in Jesus—that he came from God and would return to God—were promised the power to become children of God (Jn 1:12-13).
One of the central themes of the Gospel of John is that Jesus offers a new kinship structure in which a person’s identity would not be constrained by the status of their ancestors, nor by their proximity to the power of empire. Rather, believers could recognize themselves–and everyone else–as beloved children of God.
On that first Easter morning, the disciples do not understand how the humiliating spectacle of Jesus being tortured and executed could possibly align with what Jesus had told them about what would happen next. The crucifixion appears to be a crushing demonstration of the power of empire. The passage tells us that Simon Peter and the beloved disciple “as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead” (Jn 20:9).
Mary weeps, mourning the loss of her friend and her hopes. Upon seeing that the stone has been removed, she runs to tell Simon Peter and the beloved disciple that “[t]hey have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him” (Jn 20:2). This is a far cry from ascending to God. Not only is the important question of “where” unanswered, but Jesus has been subject to the power of an unknown “they” rather than going somewhere of his own volition.
Mary looks inside the tomb and sees two angels. (So great is her distress that the text does not even note a reaction of surprise.) They ask her why she is weeping. How could she possibly summarize all the grief she is feeling? She has lost her friend, the anchor of her community, the reason for her hope, the possibility of a better world. So she simply repeats herself: “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him” (Jn. 20:13).
When Jesus himself appears, Mary does not immediately recognize him. This is typical of other accounts of the resurrected Jesus—he is bodily present and yet different enough that it takes a bit more than sight alone for recognition. Jesus, too, asks why she is weeping. Mary thinks he is a gardener and might be responsible for moving Jesus. “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away” (Jn 20:15). Unwittingly, Mary has attributed Jesus’s movement to the correct person. She has seen Jesus as the victim in this series of events, subjected to torture and crucifixion and the desecration of his grave. It is only when Jesus calls her by name that Mary understands to whom she is speaking, both in the sense that this is her friend, Jesus, and in the sense that Jesus truly is the Son of God. In this Gospel, the crucifixion is, on one level, the work of the Roman Empire in conjunction with Jewish authorities. On another level, which is both more important and more difficult to perceive, Jesus is in charge of everything that happens. He lays down his life as part of his embodiment of God’s love for the world, and then he takes it up again to clarify the unconquerable truth of that love (see Jn. 10:18).
Mary reaches out to Jesus and he responds, “Do not touch me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God’ ” (Jn 20:17). Jesus shifts Mary’s action away from himself and towards the other members of his community, the disciples Jesus now acknowledges as his siblings.
Jesus’s directive to Mary assures her that the promise made in John 1 that believers would be given the power to become children of God still holds true. Jesus is from God and is still going to return to God—on his own steam, no less. Furthermore, all that has been accomplished in Jesus has already given believers the promised power to become children of God. Jesus’s Father is their Father; they are siblings in the household of God. One can imagine him saying, “I know it does not seem like the kind of community we envisioned is still possible, but it is. Not only that, it is already begun.”
Mary immediately understands the assignment. The truths that the followers of Jesus had believed–that he came from God and was going to God, that they could become children of God–were still true. Empires (Roman or any other) try to convince us that they have all the power, but this is an illusion and a lie. All four Gospels depict Mary Magdalene as the first witness to the resurrected Christ (Matthew 28:9, Mark 16:9, Luke 24:10, John 20:14-18). She preached the Good News to the disciples, reminding them that their true identity was not subjects of empire but children of God.
Decades ago I was a teaching assistant for the renowned theologian, Letty Russell. She was a fierce woman who had little patience for nonsense. Graduate school being difficult, one day I ended up weeping in her office. She asked me why I was crying and I explained that I felt I had no community among my classmates. Letty (as she invited students to address her) basically scoffed at me and said something like, “your problem is you are disappointed when you don’t find community where you expect it to be. You need to learn to recognize community wherever you find it.” The next day she called me and gave me a list of tasks to accomplish. It took me a while to figure out that “to-do” list was Letty’s form of pastoral care, and her reprimand was the best advice I’ve ever been given.
The tasks Letty gave me that day were not remarkable. I was to make photocopies for a class on Feminist Theology, and to make phone calls related to some very local activism she had gotten me involved in. Mundane work. And yet, those photocopies helped a group of students identify and reject the false identities put upon them by patriarchal structures and imagine new ways of understanding themselves. Those phone calls helped organize resistance to a university plan that would save money by getting rid of the distinctive spaces that fostered community. And in doing this good work set before me, I found the community I longed for in unexpected places.
I find myself weeping rather frequently these days. Like Mary, I am afraid that the future I hoped for is not coming. Reading the limited scraps of reporting available on the war between the U.S., Israel, and Iran, the future looks bleak. The kind of community many of us grew up aspiring to—one of democracy and increasing equality—seems unlikely if not impossible.
But those of us who weep with Mary also hear the assignment she was given–to turn to her community and remind them of the unconquerable truth of God’s love. Mary’s role is exalted in retrospect but I imagine that many of the tasks involved in her work were repetitive and even mundane. No photocopies or phone calls were involved, but perhaps it was no more glamorous in the moment than the items on my “to-do” list from Letty. Identifying the deceptions of empire. Connecting in local activism to foster and protect community.
This passage in John articulates Christian hope: that God’s love for the world is still the fundamental truth of reality, even when things are at their worst. While grief is justified, despair will not help a damn thing. In turning towards our siblings and treating them as God’s beloved children, we may catch a glimpse of a better future already begun.
