The gospels for both Easter Sunday and next Sunday come from John 20. John’s entire gospel stresses seeing and staying with as ways Jesus teaches his disciples. Jesus calls his disciples in John’s gospel by saying, “Come and see,” rather than, “Follow me” (1.39). In Sunday’s gospel three disciples come to Jesus’ tomb and see it is empty.
Mary Magdalene comes first at dawn. She finds the stone rolled back from the entrance to the tomb. When she sees the tomb is empty, she concludes Jesus’ body has been stolen and runs to find Peter and the beloved disciple.
The tomb in which Jesus was buried was probably a cave tomb with a small doorway maybe four feet in height. It would be necessary to stoop down and step inside the tomb. A wheel-shaped stone could be rolled back and forth to seal and open the tomb. Tombs had numerous burial chambers; bodies were placed on shelves around the walls of the cave.
Peter and the beloved disciple run a footrace to the tomb. The beloved disciple gets there first, peers inside, sees grave wrappings lying on the ground but waits for Peter to go inside. Peter, too, sees the wrappings on the ground and notices the headcloth carefully rolled up. But Peter hesitates to believe.
The beloved disciple, who won the footrace, has the model response: “He saw and believed.” Many wonder who the beloved disciple is and want to identify him with John, the writer of the gospel. However, the gospel deliberately describes this person not by name but with words that fit every disciple—a way to draw us into the story.
- With which disciple who goes to the empty tomb do you most identify? Who responds the way you would—Mary Magdalene, Peter, or the beloved disciple?
The Easter Sunday gospel ends with the beloved disciple’s model faith and doesn’t include Mary Magdalene’s journey to faith. Peter drops out of the narrative until next Sunday’s passage when the fearful community of disciples gathers on Easter evening and Jesus appears in their midst.
Mary Magdalene remains at the tomb, weeping, when the other two disciples leave. Her grief holds her there. Without her staying and searching for Jesus’ body, the Easter story presents only the mystery of the empty tomb but not the revelation that Jesus is risen.
Significantly, Mary Magdalene meets Jesus in a garden. After Jesus’ death Joseph of Arimathea and the Pharisee Nicodemus lay Jesus’ body in a new tomb in a garden near the site of his crucifixion (19.41-42). This garden setting echoes the Genesis garden, where God created and walked with the first humans. Easter is a new day of creation.
Twice Mary Magdalene faces the question, “Why are you weeping?” Twice she turns. The first time she accosts the man she supposes to be the gardener about where he has put Jesus’ body. She is seeking the Jesus she followed in ministry, looking to the past, grieving the one she has lost.
When the gardener speaks her name, Mary turns a second time, recognizing her teacher. Her faith opens to this new Easter relationship with Jesus risen to new life. She is looking to the future.
- What have you learned from staying with grief?
- What turnings have you experienced in your faith path?
Jesus commissions Mary Magdalene to tell the other disciples, “I ascend to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” Jesus makes her the apostle to the other disciples, the one he sends to proclaim the good news. Mary Magdalene returns to the others and announces, “I have seen the Lord,” and tells them Jesus’ words.
Mary Magdalene is the first of all of Jesus’ followers to have a personal experience of the risen Jesus. Like the sheep who know the shepherd’s voice, Mary hears her name and recognizes Jesus. She hears, turns, and believes.
In John’s gospel Mary Magdalene stands with Jesus’ mother and other women by Jesus’ cross. The other three gospels also name her among those who witness Jesus’ crucifixion, burial, and resurrection. They name her among the women who followed and served Jesus and came with him to Jerusalem from Galilee. John’s gospel pictures her as the first preacher of the good news.
- When has Jesus called you by name?
- Where have you recognized Jesus risen and present?
Sunday’s gospel includes several puzzling details. The beloved disciple outruns Peter but doesn’t enter the tomb when he gets there. Each disciple sees wrappings on the ground. Peter sees a head cloth folded. This is probably a cloth used to keep the mouth of the corpse closed.
In his Anchor Bible translation of John’s gospel, Father Raymond Brown connects these details with grave robbing, a problem so prevalent that Rome issued an imperial decree forbidding the practice. He thinks the presence in the grave of the wrappings from the body and the folded head cloth eliminates the possibility that grave robbers have taken Jesus’ body. Robbers wouldn’t take the time to remove the cloths and roll them up neatly. Brown thinks the foot race shows that the disciple closest to Jesus in love runs the fastest and believes first.
- What have you seen in your life that leads you to believe in God’s power to raise the dead?
- What do Jesus words, “I go to my Father and your Father, my God and your God,” mean to you?