11 But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb, and as she wept she stooped to look into the tomb. 12 And she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one 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.”
After telling the disciples that Jesus’ body is missing, Mary returns to the tomb. Perhaps she was hoping that John and Peter would have some idea about where to find Jesus. But they just went home. Mary must have felt all alone and abandoned. In shock as to why anyone would take Jesus’ body. Without a body, there is often no closure in grief. Mary didn’t have the advantage of hearing Jesus telling the disciples that he was going away or that he would send a comforter. She didn’t get to hear him tell the disciples that he was going to prepare a place for her. Before Jesus, she had seven demons possessing her and tormenting her. Without Jesus, what was going to happen to her?
Sometimes, we just want to make a bad situation all about ourselves. We don’t think about how it affects others. For Mary, this was serious, and she could have been weeping about what was going to happen to her now that Jesus was gone. She didn’t know that she would see the living Jesus again nor did she know that the Holy Spirit would soon come upon her and the rest of the disciples. Personally, if I were in that same situation, I would have probably made it all about me.
But Mary took one more look into the tomb. This time she saw two angels. Peter and John didn’t see them. According to Mark, Mary had already seen one angel sitting by the tomb and had told her and the other women that Jesus had risen. Somehow, his announcement didn’t register. These two angels want to know why she is weeping. Of all the things they could have said to her, they asked this. I don’t think angels really get people. The angel in Matthew that told the women Jesus was raised seems to be more intent on delivering his message than consoling people even though he does tell the women not to be afraid. After telling them Jesus is risen and to go tell the disciples, he finishes with, “See, I have told you” (Matt 28:7). It seems abrupt and doesn’t really connect with the women. The angel that freed the apostles in Acts 5:19 and the angel that led Peter out of prison in Acts 12:7-9 were just as abrupt. They are messengers and when they’ve done their job, they are done. They don’t stick around to make small talk. They didn’t even try to say any more to Mary.
Mary still doesn’t get it. In her grief and shock, she isn’t really listening to angels who have clearly told her Jesus is risen. She has one thing on her mind and that is trying to find out where Jesus’ body is. So, she asks them as if seeing two angels in an empty tomb were the most normal and unordinary thing possible. If she were really alert, she would have recognized them as angels and would have at least thought that the angels had taken him. But her question reveals that she believes some human agents had moved Jesus.
14 Having said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing, but she did not know that it was Jesus. 15 Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?” 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.”
With her eyes clogged with tears and her mind already made up that someone took the body, Mary doesn’t recognize Jesus. Also, being a woman in her society, she probably didn’t look directly at Jesus but kept her eyes averted. It is no wonder that she thought him to be the gardener.
Jesus goes one question beyond that of the angels. Jesus questions her, not because he needs to know, but because he wants her to start thinking differently. But she isn’t ready. She reverts to the same answer as she gave the angels. This time she says she will take the body. She really isn’t thinking very clearly. How could she possibly move Jesus’ body by herself?
When we are in a state of grief and shock, we sometimes need someone to ask us questions when we are headed in the wrong direction and making bad decisions. This is where some of the Psalms can be a lot of help, such as Psalm 42:11:
Why are you cast down, O my soul,
and why are you in turmoil within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
my salvation and my God.
We can always ask these questions of ourselves. When it comes down to the bottom line, we get out of sync with the Lord when we forget who he is and that our hope is in him. Our salvation comes from him.
16 Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned and said to him in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means Teacher). 17 Jesus said to her, “Do not cling to me, for 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.’”
Jesus speaks Mary’s name and suddenly, everything changes. Her eyes are open, and she recognizes Jesus. There isn’t any doubt about what has happened. Jesus is alive. I can imagine she runs to him and wants to give him a great big hug. Matthew says that Mary wasn’t alone but other women were with her. Perhaps, she is the first to see him then the others follow as she shouts for joy. Matthew 28:9 says they, “took hold of his feet and worshiped him.”
These are strange words of Jesus. Why would Jesus tell Mary not to cling to him? Was there something about his glorified but not yet ascended body that he didn’t want tarnished by a sinful human being so that it would interfere with his ascension? Going down a path like that could end up in all sorts of heresy. No, I think there is a better reason. Mary was not present with the disciples in the upper room. She didn’t hear Jesus talking about sending the Holy Spirit as I mentioned above. If she would cling to the physical Jesus, she would not know the ascended Jesus and the Holy Spirit who was to come. Besides, she would see him again as he spent forty days appearing to the disciples and teaching them (Acts 1:3).
This is a message for all of us. We can’t make our faith all about Jesus in the flesh as Paul puts it in 2 Corinthians 5:16. We can’t regard him as the world does and those who search for the “Historical Jesus.” Mary had to let go of here earthly relationship with Jesus so that she could embrace and be “in Jesus” through the Holy Spirit.
Mary also had a job to do. She was the first to see Jesus and she was the one who was to tell the disciples. But what Jesus tells her to say raises questions as well. Did Jesus mean that some time between his talking with Mary and his first appearance to the men, he ascended to the Father? Where was Jesus between this encounter with Mary and the other women and the evening when he appeared to the disciples in their locked room? We know he spent some of the time talking to two disciples on the road to Emaus. However, there is a lot of time unaccounted for. In addition, the disciples are told to go to Galilee and meet Jesus there. In the next chapter, Jesus arrives while they are fishing. It appears that Jesus was moving freely between the physical dimensions and the spiritual realm. His new body allowed him to appear and disappear from the physical dimension. Indeed, if he were in the spiritual realm for any amount of time, he would have by necessity be in the presence of the Father. Perhaps, what Jesus said implies that after his resurrection, he was still in the physical world and had not yet made any of these transitions between realms. After leaving Mary and the others, it is possible that he took his first journey into the spiritual realm to present himself to the Father.
If this is correct, then his ascension in Acts 1:9-10 was different only in the fact that he would not be returning to the earth until he comes back in judgment. It was his final journey.
18 Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”—and that he had said these things to her.
Mary is faithful to declare to Jesus’ disciples the message he gave her. We’ve already seen that they didn’t believe her. So what do they do? They lock themselves in a house and, I imagine they fret. They don’t believe Mary, they are afraid of the Jewish leaders, they don’t have a leader who they thought was going to conquer Rome. I can’t imagine a sorrier bunch of guys.
19 On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” 20 When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. 21 Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.”
And here comes Jesus into the midst of the sorry losers (or so they may have thought of themselves). So, did Jesus walk through the locked doors or did the doors unlock themselves like Peter’s escape from prison (Acts 12:6-11). There is just too much speculation by some people who can’t seem to get their heads around the fact that Jesus has a body that is just one hundred percent different from the one that was crucified. I hear preachers trying to minimize the difference emphasizing the fact that Jesus’ body is still human and therefore restricted physically as if he hadn’t ever been resurrected. Get over it, people! This is the resurrected Jesus with a body that Paul describes:
42 So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. 43 It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. 44 It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. (1 Cor 15:42-44 emphasis mine)
Paul is talking about our bodies in this passage, but shouldn’t it apply even more to our Lord Jesus’ resurrected body? His body went into the tomb as a physical body but when it came out it was a spiritual body. It was no longer restricted to the physical realm and the laws of physics, chemistry, and biology which bind our bodies to this earth.
However, that doesn’t mean his body must be like a ghost. The spiritual body is so much more than we can imagine, but it still can be manifested in the normal physical appearance that Jesus had before his death. For some reason, and this likely to remind us, his body retained the physical marks of his crucifixion, at least his pierced hands and side. The only reason was to prove to the disciples that this person standing before them was indeed Jesus.
Jesus gives them his shalom. He speaks peace to them. After a terrifying couple of day, they needed to hear that more than anything. They needed to hear it from Jesus first of all because they had abandoned him. Peter had denied him. They didn’t hear condemnation from Jesus but peace.
Then he renews the original plan. He lets them know that the overall plan hasn’t changed. They are still going to be sent to preach the gospel, just as he had told them before, he is sending them. This is good news but also scary news.
22 And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.”
This is one of those controversial verses that plague people who want to tie up everything in nice packages without any conflict with other verses in the Bible. It involves when the Holy Spirit was given and the doctrine that priests have the right to absolve sins or withhold absolution.
Jesus clearly tells the disciples in the room that by breathing on them, they are to receive the Holy Spirit. Does this mean that they are now born again, that the Holy Spirit is now permanently living in them? Perhaps it does. The problem is that we don’t see any true difference in them, and Thomas was not with them, so must he be left out? Then in the next chapter, several of the disciples including Thomas apparently haven’t embraced Jesus’ words to be sent. They go fishing. It isn’t until Pentecost that we see the Holy Spirit empowering and directing the disciples. Some people see this as what happens when a person is saved and then later is baptized with the Holy Spirit and empowered for ministry.
Some simply look at this episode as a foreshadowing or a promise of what will occur at Pentecost.[1] If we take Jesus’ instruction that he had to go away or the Holy Spirit would not come (John 16:7), as meaning his final ascension into heaven then, then Jesus breathing on them is a reminder that the Holy Spirit is yet to come as he later explains in Acts 1:5, “For John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.” Yet others take this to emphasize that the baptism of the Holy Spirit it a second blessing that more or less completes a Christian’s experience of salvation.
But this verse is also in context with Jesus telling the disciples what appears to be the ability to forgive sins or prevent the forgiveness of sins. When stated in this way, Jesus would be giving them the authority that the teachers of the Law clearly attributed only to God (Mark 2:6-10). Of course, this is precisely what the Catholic Church teaches. Those ordained by Jesus when he gave them the Holy Spirit have the authority to forgive sins (what about Thomas). This authority is then passed down to the current Roman and Greek Catholic clergy though there is confusion among some Greek Orthodox as some clearly agree with the Romans and others do not.[2]
Regardless of what the Catholics say, Protestants are mostly in consensus agreeing that the meaning of this is that as we preach the gospel, we can assuredly tell people that their sins are forgiven when they turn to Jesus Christ. If they reject Jesus Christ, we can just as assuredly tell them that their sins are not forgiven. Even then, the condition is that they must be truly repentant and have been called to salvation before the foundations of the earth. We don’t know their hearts or their true conviction, but we do know and stand on the Word of God that through Jesus Christ they may have forgiveness.
[1] Albert Barnes, ed. Robert Frew “John 20:22,” (Seattle, WA: Biblesoft, 2005).
[2] Yes, Orthodox priest have the authority to forgive sins. https://www.orthodoxchurchamerica.com/do-orthodox-priests-forgive-sins
No, there are some Orthodox who do not hold to this. https://stmaryomaha.com/confession/
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