Chapter 44 John 20:11–18

Literary Context

This pericope is the second of four sections of the final section of the narrative proper, which brings climactic resolution to the Gospel story. The previous pericope (20:1–10) emphasized the fact of the empty tomb and the location of Jesus; in this pericope Jesus makes his first postresurrection appearance, which serves to explain further the reality of his resurrection and the nature of his relationship to his disciples. In this pericope the reader learns how the resurrection conquered the grief of Mary Magdalene and is guided to participate in her growing understanding of new-covenant life in the family of God.

IX. The Resurrection (20:1–31)
1. A. The Empty Tomb (20:1–10)
2. B. The Appearance to Mary Magdalene (20:11–18)
3. C. The Appearance to the Disciples (20:19–23)
4. D. The Appearance to Thomas and the Purpose of the Gospel (20:24–31)

Main Idea

The resurrected Jesus makes the tomb a place of grace not grief, declaring that he has fulfilled the old covenant and established the saving power and presence of the Lord through his death, resurrection, and ascension. The Gardener has returned to reclaim his Garden.

Translation

Structure and Literary Form

This pericope corresponds to the basic story form (see Introduction). The introduction/setting is established in vv. 11–12, explaining the location and people around whom the plot’s conflict will focus. In vv. 13–15 the conflict of the pericope is presented, directed by the twice-asked question to Mary, “Why are you weeping?” (vv. 13, 15). The resolution of the plot is explained in vv. 16–17, with Jesus addressing Mary and giving insight into the full nature of his relationship to the children of God. Finally, in v. 18 the pericope is given a brief but significant conclusion/interpretation.

Exegetical Outline

B. The Appearance to Mary Magdalene (20:11–18)
1. 1. The Throne of Grace (vv. 11–12)
2. 2. “Why Are You Weeping?” (vv. 13–15)
3. 3. The Ascension (vv. 16–17)
4. 4. “I Have Seen the Lord” (v. 18)

Explanation of the Text

20:11 But Mary was standing at the tomb weeping outside. As she was weeping she knelt to look into the tomb (Μαρία δὲ εἱστήκει πρὸς τῷ μνημείῳ ἔξω κλαίουσα. ὡς οὖν ἔκλαιεν παρέκυψεν εἰς τὸ μνημεῖον). The pericope begins directly in front of the tomb, with the “but” (δὲ) contrasting the departure of Peter and the Beloved Disciple with Mary, who remained “at the tomb” (πρὸς τῷ μνημείῳ).1 Like the Beloved Disciple, Mary did not go into the tomb but simply “knelt to look” (παρέκυψεν) inside (see comments on 20:5). The narrator explains that she was standing “outside” (ἔξω) the tomb “weeping.” The twofold depiction of her “weeping” (κλαίουσα; ἔκλαιεν) highlights her state of grief. This is the introduction of Mary’s grief, which both the angels (v. 13) and Jesus (v. 15) will address as they initiate conversation with her. There is no warrant for interpreting the reason she remained outside the tomb or what she observed in the tomb. The narrative is not reconstructing the fullness of the event but directing the reader with interpretive intentionality to aspects of meaning and significance.

20:12 And she saw two angels in white seated, one at the head and one at the feet, where the body of Jesus had been lying (καὶ θεωρεῖ δύο ἀγγέλους ἐν λευκοῖς καθεζομένους, ἕνα πρὸς τῇ κεφαλῇ καὶ ἕνα πρὸς τοῖς ποσίν, ὅπου ἔκειτο τὸ σῶμα τοῦ Ἰησοῦ). Upon kneeling to look into the tomb, the narrator explains that Mary saw two angels dressed in white sitting at the head and foot of the place where Jesus had been lying. This is not the first mention of angels in John (cf. 1:51; 12:29), but it is the only pericope in which angels participate as characters.2 The narrator adds that the angels were dressed “in white” (ἐν λευκοῖς), the common color of attire for angelic beings (cf. Ezek 9:2; Dan 10:5; Acts 1:10; Rev 3:3–4; 4:5) and priests in the Mediterranean religions, including Judaism (cf. Josephus, J.W. 5.229).3 The presence of the angels makes clear that this place, and the body previously lying upon it, is hardly a place left in disarray by grave robbers. In the least the narrator uses the presence of the angels to highlight the sacredness of the site, for their presence where the corpse previously lay implies that God had something to do with it.4

The detailed focus of this verse, however, is not merely on the presence of the angels or the angels’ attire or even the response of Mary, but on the places where the angels were seated. No specifics are provided about the inside of the tomb; like many first-century tombs there would have been space on a carved stone bench or ledge for the angels to be visibly seated, probably running along the inside wall.5 The narrator does not focus on the kind of bench upon which the angels were seated but on their specific locations on the bench at the “head” (κεφαλῇ) and “feet” (ποσίν) of the place “where the body of Jesus had been lying.” Why does the narrator focus on this particular detail? The majority of interpreters make no mention of the unique location of the angels, or they suggest that the point is simply the fact of the empty tomb.6 However, not only did the previous pericope (20:1–10) already make that declaration, but the miraculous presence of two angels hardly brings focus to the absence of Jesus; indeed, it might even eclipse it if their presence was not serving a different function. A few interpreters suggest that the details provided by the narrator serve a more symbolic function. Augustine, for example, suggests that their position “signified that the gospel of Christ was to be preached from head to foot, from the beginning to the end.”7 Aquinas suggests that two further things are also signified by the two angels: the two testaments and the two natures in Christ.8 But none of these options finds direct support from the narrative’s details.

There is another option that finds sufficient warrant from the narrative. The location of the angels at each end of the place where Jesus had been lying intends to signify the angels at the two ends of the mercy seat on the ark of the covenant. The narrative’s emphatic particularity of the location of the angels in relationship to the place where Jesus had been lying is remarkable in its resemblance to the instructions given to Moses regarding the ark: “Make two cherubim out of hammered gold at the ends of the cover. Make one cherub on one end and the second cherub on the other; make the cherubim of one piece with the cover, at the two ends” (Exod 25:18–19; cf. Exod 37:1–9). The place between the two angels was “the place of propitiation” or “the mercy seat” (ἱλαστήριον in the LXX), the cover of the ark that was associated with the sin offering on the Day of Atonement. It is the place where God authoritatively atones for sins. For this reason Luther’s translation of the term in Exodus 25 is a most fitting description of this place: “The throne of grace” (der Gnadenthron).9 It is important to state that our interpretation is driven by the emphatic particularity of the narrative itself, which like elsewhere in the Gospel creates for the reader an “impression” that qualifies as such by being rooted in the deep structure of the narrative. Such impressions find their impulse from macrothemes in the OT and surface as a demonstrable theme in the Gospel as a whole (see comments on 4:18; see Introduction).

There are numerous verbal and conceptual links that support this interpretation.10 First, there is a spatial relationship between the location of the ark and the body of Jesus. The ark was in the innermost chamber of the tabernacle and separated by a veil (Exod 40:3, 21); Jesus’s body was placed in a burial chamber and separated by a rock and a veil-like “face cloth” (20:7). Second, the occurrence of shared terms like “take/carry” and “put/place/lay” serve to create a conceptual relationship, with the latter having a significant role in the plot of both John 20 (vv. 2, 13, 15; cf. 19:41–42) and Exodus 40 (vv. 2–3, 5–6, 22, 24, 26, 29). Third, both locations/objects involve the use of spices as an act of anointing or consecration: the ark (Exod 30:26) and the body of Jesus (12:3; 19:39). Fourth, just as the Jews with respect to the sanctuary were forbidden to “go in to look at the holy things, even for a minute, or they will die” (Num 4:20), both the Beloved Disciple and Mary Magdalene are hesitant to enter the tomb. In a related manner, just as there is the prohibition not to “touch the holy things or they will die (Num 4:15), so Mary Magdalene will shortly be commanded not to touch Jesus (v. 17). Fifth, there is a conceptual relationship between the ark and the resurrected Christ in that both express the idea of glory. Just as the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle (Exod 40:34–35) and appeared to Moses between the cherubim on the ark (Exod 25:22, 29:43),11 so also is the resurrection one aspect of Christ’s “glorification.” This is most clearly explained by the narrator in 12:16: “At first the disciples did not understand these things, but when Jesus was glorified then they remembered,” which nicely parallels 2:22, which explicitly refers to the resurrection (see comments on 12:16).

The cumulative weight of these links strongly suggests that the narrative is fashioning a “deliberate allusion, linking the events described in the Gospel to certain passages of the OT.”12 Just as the Gospel declared Jesus to be the fulfillment of the Jewish feasts (see comments on 10:22), the Passover lamb (see 1:29; 19:31–37) and the manna (see 6:32–35), so here he is declared to be the fulfilling manifestation of the saving power and presence of the Lord. For with this symbolism Jesus is depicted as both the atoning sacrifice of God in the holy of holies and the one who “sits enthroned between the cherubim” (Ps 99:1, emphasis added; cf. 1 Sam 4:4; 2 Sam 6:2; 2 Kgs 19:15; Ps 80:1). The Gospel of John has articulated a full replacement of the temple and its predecessors (Bethel and the Tabernacle) in the person (his body) and work (his death and resurrection) of Jesus. Jesus is not merely analogous to the temple; he is its full replacement (see comments on 2:23). This includes the entire sacrificial system. Jesus is the atonement for the people of God—the world; it is his blood that covers our sins.13 All Christian worship is founded upon his sacrificed “flesh” and empowered by the Spirit (4:23). All of this was being symbolized by the narrative’s emphatic focus on the location of the angels, “building a picture of Jesus in terms of Mosaic categories” in order to depict this place and the person who had occupied it as the saving power and presence of God, with the empty tomb serving as the ark of the new covenant.14

20:13 And 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 placed him” (καὶ λέγουσιν αὐτῇ ἐκεῖνοι, Γύναι, τί κλαίεις; λέγει αὐτοῖς ὅτι Ἦραν τὸν κύριόν μου, καὶ οὐκ οἶδα ποῦ ἔθηκαν αὐτόν). The second section of the pericope (vv. 13–15) presents the conflict of the pericope, uniquely provided by the angel who speaks—only this once in the Gospel—by addressing Mary with a question. No attention is given to what Mary actually understood regarding the presence of the angels, let alone their location. Instead the narrator focuses on the emotional response of Mary to the tomb. The conflict is clear: the throne of grace presented in vv. 11–12 is nothing more to Mary than a cause for grief. The narrative’s threefold depiction of her weeping (vv. 11, 13, 15) and the same twice-asked question of Mary by the angels and Jesus makes clear that Mary’s grief in the context of the throne of grace is the point of contention.

The angels are the first to speak. The third-person plural verb “they said” (λέγουσιν) suggests that they both were speaking, though the narrator may simply be viewing them as a unit, befitting the symbolic “impression” depicted just before. The angels address Mary as “woman” (Γύναι), a term used to address three other women in the Gospel: the mother of Jesus (2:4; 19:26), the Samaritan woman (4:21), and the woman accused of adultery (8:10). Jesus will also address Mary as “woman” (v. 15). The normal use of the term demands that it be seen to function at least minimally as a distancing mechanism, even when a relationship is presumed or respect is maintained (see comments on 2:4). Mary’s grief before the “throne of grace” contextualizes the distancing mechanism of the term. It also puts the angels’ question into context: “Why are you weeping?” (τί κλαίεις;). Grief is distant from grace; it is not a befitting response. The question suggests that Mary does not understand what she has just seen.

Mary answers the question of the angels, repeating almost verbatim what she first announced to the disciples (20:2). Mary’s response makes clear that she is still concerned with the location of Jesus’s body, which as we argued earlier was misguided in its focus on the nature of Jesus’s presence and the meaning of the empty tomb (see comments on 20:2). Quite simply, even with the angels in the cherubim positions on the “throne of grace,” Mary only understands grief. She cannot see how this tomb now symbolizes life not death.

20:14 After she said these things, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, and she did not know that he was Jesus (ταῦτα εἰποῦσα ἐστράφη εἰς τὰ ὀπίσω, καὶ θεωρεῖ τὸν Ἰησοῦν ἑστῶτα, καὶ οὐκ ᾔδει ὅτι Ἰησοῦς ἐστιν). Without any further comment the brief dialogue between Mary Magdalene and the two angels in the tomb of Jesus is concluded by the narrator; not another mention is made of it, for the point has been made. Rather, and in dramatic fashion, the narrator focuses on Mary as she “turned around” (ἐστράφη εἰς τὰ ὀπίσω) from the tomb, though what caused the turn is left unexplained (see vv. 15–16).15 The drama climaxes, however, when after turning the narrator describes how Mary “saw Jesus” (θεωρεῖ τὸν Ἰησοῦν). Although translated as a historic present (“saw”), the verbal tense perhaps describes the up close encounter and could be translated as “she is seeing Jesus.” This is the first encounter with the risen Jesus, and yet she “did not know” (οὐκ ᾔδει) that he was Jesus. The irony is stark. The answer to her concern had been before her the whole time, both the throne of grace in the tomb and now the resurrected Lord himself, and yet she cannot “see” him (cf. 20:8).16 At this point the conflict of the pericope reaches its climax.

20:15 Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?” Thinking that he is the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you removed him, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away” (λέγει αὐτῇ Ἰησοῦς, Γύναι, τί κλαίεις; τίνα ζητεῖς; ἐκείνη δοκοῦσα ὅτι ὁ κηπουρός ἐστιν λέγει αὐτῷ, Κύριε, εἰ σὺ ἐβάστασας αὐτόν, εἰπέ μοι ποῦ ἔθηκας αὐτόν, κἀγὼ αὐτὸν ἀρῶ). Jesus addresses Mary Magdalene just as the angels did, not only by using the same distancing term, “woman,” but also by asking the same question regarding her weeping (v. 13). It is best to assume that Jesus’s question is probing the same issue of grief in the context of grace.

Yet Jesus asks a further question: “Whom do you seek?” (τίνα ζητεῖς;). Jesus asked this exact question to the Jewish and Roman authorities coming to arrest him in the garden (see 18:4). This “garden” question, however, is spoken not in the context of betrayal but in the context of the empty tomb. The questions of Jesus in the Gospel are rarely straightforward, for usually they probe more deeply into the true reality of the scene or person (see 5:6). Jesus had asked his disciples almost the same question before (see 1:38), probing their intentions, that is, what they truly desire.17

The narrator provides an important explanation of Mary’s mistaken assumption regarding the identity of Jesus. Mary was “thinking that he was the gardener” (ἐκείνη δοκοῦσα ὅτι ὁ κηπουρός ἐστιν). Mary’s assumption is further expressed when she questions him to see if he is responsible for the missing body of Jesus. Although Mary’s statement to Jesus would have been enough to show that she did not recognize him, certainly the narrator intended to state the assumption for the readers, guiding them to see the beautiful portrait of this Gardener in his Garden. The narrator again shows how another character in the Gospel is speaking so beautifully beyond themselves in spite of their ignorance (cf. 11:49–52). Like the term “garden” (see comments on 18:1), the term “the gardener” (ὁ κηπουρός) makes an intentional “impression” on the reader (see Introduction). The Gospel has so clearly applied a Genesis lens to the story it tells that the reader sees again the “garden” theme developed throughout chapters 18–20 (cf. Gen 2:8–16).18

20:16 Jesus said to her, “Mary.” After turning she said to him in Aramaic, “Rabboni” (which means, Teacher) (λέγει αὐτῇ Ἰησοῦς, Μαρία. στραφεῖσα ἐκείνη λέγει αὐτῷ Ἑβραϊστί, Ραββουνι [ὃ λέγεται Διδάσκαλε]). The resolution to this grief-filled, dramatic encounter between Mary and Jesus takes place when Jesus simply speaks her name. Although it is impossible to know the tone of his voice, the theology of the Gospel as a whole suggests that this voice was both warm and inviting. Immediately Mary responds to his voice, fulfilling what Jesus had promised earlier: “The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name” (10:3; cf. 10:4, 16, 27; 18:37). Mary responds to him using a term in Aramaic, “Rabboni” (Ραββουνι), which the narrator explains means “Teacher” (Διδάσκαλε) in Greek (cf. 1:38). By mentioning the Aramaic, the narrator may simply intend to describe the scene as it really occurred in its original language and not to suggest that this particular Aramaic term bears a different meaning than the seven other occurrences of the related term.19 At this point Mary recognizes the resurrected Jesus. The reader is given no deep insight into the exact nature of her understanding, though both of their responses to come yield some insight.

It may be significant that according to the narrator, Mary is again described as “turning” (στραφεῖσα). If Mary had already turned away from the angels and toward Jesus in v. 14 (denoted by the same verb), why would the narrator explain that she had to turn back toward Jesus when he spoke to her? Had she not just been in conversation with him, supposing him to be the gardener (v. 15)? Did she look back again to the tomb, to the angels? The long history of explanations suggests that the statement is at least awkward, if not out of place.20 While it might be safest to make nothing of this detail, the emphasis on “turning” in the Gospel and this pericope is suggestive (see comments on 1:38).

This would not be the first time the Gospel has spoken through the apparently normal circumstances to something other (e.g., the “baptism” of Jesus in 3:22; “this feast” in 7:10). The double turning perhaps depicts how Mary was turning between the angels in the tomb and the Lord and misunderstanding them both. Ironically, her misunderstanding was blinding her to see what she “saw” as she stood at the tomb that Sunday morning.21 For at that moment, as she turned back and forth, she was speaking with two unique conversation partners, both of whom represented the presence of God: the ark of the new covenant and the resurrected Lord.

The portrait painted by the narrative’s repeated reference to “turning” can be explained this way. On one side of Mary the physical position of the angels declared in Mosaic categories that Jesus’s body was offered as a sacrifice for others, and the tomb in which the angels were sitting likewise announced that God is accessed through this death. On the other side of Mary, the physical presence of Jesus declared that the resurrection proves that he was not taken by the authority of others but was given for others by his own authority (10:18). And unlike the angels, it is important that Jesus stands outside the tomb because his intercession on behalf of his sheep is not accomplished by his death alone but also by his newness of life. While the “lifting up” or “exaltation” of Jesus certainly includes the irony of the cross, it is not entirely defined by humiliation but also by his “glorification,” the “hour” when the Son of Man enacts and receives all the authority assigned to him by the Father (cf. Acts 2:33, 36). It was this that Mary stood between at the tomb: the declaration of the resurrected Lord outside the tomb and the declaration of the sacrificial Christ in the tomb. In that moment Mary could declare like David: “Before a word is on my tongue you, LORD, know it completely. You hem me in behind and before. . . . Where can I go from your Spirit?” (Ps 139:4–7).

20:17 Jesus said to her, “Do not touch 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, and to my God and your God’ ” (λέγει αὐτῇ Ἰησοῦς, Μή μου ἅπτου, οὔπω γὰρ ἀναβέβηκα πρὸς τὸν πατέρα· πορεύου δὲ πρὸς τοὺς ἀδελφούς μου καὶ εἰπὲ αὐτοῖς, Ἀναβαίνω πρὸς τὸν πατέρα μου καὶ πατέρα ὑμῶν καὶ θεόν μου καὶ θεὸν ὑμῶν). It is not an exaggeration to claim that this verse “belongs to a handful of the most difficult passages in the New Testament.”22 There are several issues that compound the difficulty that must be addressed in turn. Since the pericope thus far has been concerned with the physical location/presence of Jesus, we should assume that Jesus’s statement here is intended to address that issue.

Although the narrator does not give much detail about the actual encounter between Mary and Jesus, his command to her “do not touch me” (Μή μου ἅπτου) causes some to suggest that Mary had grabbed or reached for him in some manner. However, while the negated present imperative can function as a progressive and serve to stop an action already in progress (“Stop touching me”), it can also function as a customary and have the force of a general precept (“Do not touch me”).23 Since the “action may or may not have already begun,” it is ultimately context and not verbal tense that determines the force of the present imperative.24 Interpreters debate whether Mary is grasping Jesus and therefore told to stop doing so (progressive) or Jesus is simply giving a general prohibition that addesses Mary’s preoccupation with the physical body of Jesus (customary). The former (the progressive interpretation) has been the preferred view of the twentieth century in the translations and commentaries. This interpretation finds support by the fact that in just a few verses Jesus will command Thomas to touch him (20:27). It is also supported by the Gospel of Matthew where the women at the tomb (including Mary Magdalene) upon meeting the resurrected Lord “grasped him by the feet and worshipped him” (Matt 28:9; cf. Luke 24:5).25 For this reason, it is argued, Jesus’s command must be specific to Mary and her theologically inappropriate grasping at Jesus. Yet such an interpretation requires the interpreter to infer that Mary was at that moment touching him, perhaps grasping at his feet. And the narrative’s silence should at least caution us about reconstructing the actions of Mary, especially when those actions will be used to determine or explain the force of the prohibition. If Mary was grasping Jesus, why would the narrative not have described her action in that way, like the other Mary in 11:2?

When the narrative wants the reader to infer something only implied by the context, it usually leaves a statement that rests somewhat awkwardly in the immediate context (see 3:22; 7:10; cf. “turning in v. 16). But this is not awkward in this kind of way. It is quite reasonable to assume that Mary would have wanted to hold on to Jesus, and there would be nothing shocking if Jesus asked her to let go so as to send her to announce his presence to the rest of the disciples. No, the awkwardness only exists if she was not touching him at that time and grasping him uncontrollably. The awkwardness occurs when the statement is isolated from Mary’s actions and speaking in a general way. For by such a statement Jesus would be addressing not primarily her action but his—not her physicality but his.26 “The command does indeed warn Mary off from the embrace that might accompany a greeting, but its strangeness should be underlined rather than modified.”27

There is good reason therefore to assume that the customary force of the prohibition is intended in the command of Jesus. In fact, a general prohibition would fit nicely with this pericope’s focus (and all of ch. 20) on the physical location and nature of Jesus. It is also important to note that in this statement the prohibition of Jesus “is strictly preliminary to the main thing Jesus wants to say” to Mary and to the rest of his disciples.28 The issue then is not whether he can or should be touched; Jesus is simply not concerned with Mary’s approach toward him at this moment. Rather, Jesus is concerned that Mary—and every other disciple—comes to understood how he is to be approached from this moment onward. The function of the command is to call attention to the unique state that now exists between Mary and the resurrected Lord.29

The resurrection appearance to Mary has been guiding the reader to ask the more appropriate question regarding the location of Jesus: Where is the Lord encountered? That is, in what way is Jesus (i.e., his person and presence) now to be accessed differently? For this reason Jesus’s opening command does not prohibit Mary from touching him at that moment but guides her to see that her intense search for the location of his physical body had been misguided. What needs to stop is not a particular act of touching but a misplaced reliance on the physical presence of Jesus. The body of Jesus and his location need to be redefined in light of his death, resurrection, and ascension as well as the coming of the Spirit/Paraclete. This is why the touching of Jesus by Thomas is not in contradiction at all with this prohibition, for the narrative is also interested in addressing a further question: How is the Lord encountered? That is, the Gospel is intent on serving as a witness to the reader of the reality of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.30 The Christian faith is faith in the living Lord, who returned to the Father after his earthly ministry (per the Thomas account), and who is now encountered in and by the Spirit (per the Mary account). It is no wonder that the narrative places between Jesus’s appearances to Mary (20:11–18) and Thomas (20:24–31) the giving of the Holy Spirit (20:19–23).31

Ultimately, the Gospel of John answers the “where” of Jesus not primarily by referring to his spatial or geographic location but by describing his mission from the Father. Jesus was in the bosom of the Father (1:18), and he was sent into the world to create the children of God for the Father (1:12–13). He will then depart to resume again the glory that properly belongs to him in the presence of God (17:5), thus facilitating for his disciples, the children of God, the full manifestation of his presence through the Spirit, the second Paraclete.32 So where, then, is Jesus present? Jesus is present in the church! For the church is “God’s temple,” and “God’s Spirit dwells in your midst” (1 Cor 3:16).33

Jesus follows his prohibition with an important and related statement: “For I have not yet ascended to the Father” (οὔπω γὰρ ἀναβέβηκα πρὸς τὸν πατέρα). The conjunction “for” (γὰρ) is functioning causally, expressing the basis of ground for the prohibition. The ground or reason why Jesus creates a separation between his physical presence and Mary is because he has not yet “ascended” (ἀναβέβηκα) to the Father. The “hour” about which Jesus spoke (see 2:4) does not merely refer to his death and resurrection but also to his “ascension” and the sending and permanent “dwelling” of the Spirit (14:16). For Jesus to be fully “present” with his disciples, he must depart from them and return to “the Father.” Jesus’s statement here is anticipated in his farewell discourse (see 13:1, 3; 14:12, 28; 16:5, 7, 10, 17, 27–28; 17:11, 13, 21–26; cf. 6:62). By these words Jesus explains that his relationship to his disciples is intended to extend well beyond his physical bodily presence. For by his ascent to the Father, Jesus will eliminate entirely spatial and temporal separation, opening the way for the reciprocal indwelling in and by the Spirit.

Since the ascension (and the subsequent giving of the indwelling Spirit) completes Jesus’s work, he now turns to Mary and gives her a work to do. Jesus commands Mary to go and share this announcement with the other disciples. Interestingly, Jesus refers to the disciples as “my brothers” (τοὺς ἀδελφούς μου), with the masculine plural noun serving to denote inclusively both male and female disciples (“my brothers and sisters”).34 This is the first time in the Gospel that “brothers (and sisters)” is used for the disciples (cf. 21:23); the term had previously been used only for biological kin. Its occurrence here, therefore, is telling. Something has changed. For as Jesus explains, Mary is to announce to them that “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God.” While maintaining a distinction between the Father’s relationship to the unique Son and the Father’s relationship to his other sons and daughters, this statement brings the children of God in proper relation to God the Father through God the Son. Jesus’s words here are the fulfillment of 1:12–13. The ascension not only finalizes and substantiates Jesus’s role as the unique Son but fully enables the disciples to receive in their persons the promised sonship (14:1–4, 12, 20–28; 16:5–23, 28). Mary is not merely announcing the resurrection of Jesus but also his impending ascension, which means she is declaring the fulfillment of all the things Jesus taught. It is the inauguration and reality of the gospel of Jesus Christ!35

20:18 Mary Magdalene went to the disciples announcing, “I have seen the Lord,” and that he had said these things to her (ἔρχεται Μαρία ἡ Μαγδαληνὴ ἀγγέλλουσα τοῖς μαθηταῖς ὅτι Ἑώρακα τὸν κύριον, καὶ ταῦτα εἶπεν αὐτῇ). The pericope concludes with Mary’s obedient response to Jesus’s command. She left the resurrected Lord and went to the disciples to announce what she saw and what Jesus said to her. Mary has had a remarkable role in “the hour” of Jesus: she was near the cross at his death (19:25), she was the first to discover the empty tomb (20:1), and she was the first to see and talk with the resurrected Jesus (vv. 14–17). Here she is given the commission to make this important announcement to the disciples. Several interpreters have suggested that Mary’s unique position and role has her serving as “an apostle to the apostles.”36 For this reason it is argued that Mary’s testimony “deserves to be called apostolic.”37 If anything, however, Mary should be viewed no differently than John the Baptist, both of whom were sent by God and therefore function as part of his self-witness (see comments on 3:29–30, 32). Just as the Baptist preceded the start of Jesus’s public ministry and heralded his arrival in the flesh (cf. 1:6–8), so also Mary preceded the conclusion of Jesus’s public ministry and heralded his arrival in and by the Spirit (cf. 14:16).

Theology in Application

The tomb is empty, but where is the Lord? In this pericope the reader follows Mary Magdalene’s journey from a place of grief to the “throne of grace” as she encounters Jesus. Standing between the angelic tomb-throne and the resurrected Lord, Mary becomes a witness to the new reality of God’s presence and the necessity of the ascension. In this pericope the narrative guides the readers to understand their new relationship to God through Christ (and in the Spirit) and exhorts them to embrace the Father in the fullness of his presence.

Grief versus Grace

This pericope offers a beautiful contrast between Mary’s grief outside the tomb and the grace declared inside it. The narrative’s threefold depiction of her “weeping” (vv. 11, 13, 15) and the same twice-asked question of Mary by both the angels and Jesus make clear that Mary’s grief in the context of the “throne of grace” is an issue of misunderstanding. To Mary, the empty tomb was cause for grief; the reader, however, was guided to see that it was the exact opposite. The tomb is a symbolic declaration of the victory of God over the power of sin and death. The Gospel shows how Jesus overturns grief with grace, established and declared specifically by his death and resurrection.

The Ark of the New Covenant

The narrative offers a powerful counter to Mary’s grief at the tomb with the symbolic “impression” of the ark of the covenant from the OT (Exod 25:18–19) created by the specific placement of the angels at the head and feet of the place where the body of Jesus had been lying. Without even speaking, the angels’ carefully described positions declare that Jesus is the fulfillment and replacement of Judaism. Even more, their presence declares that Jesus is the full manifestation of the saving power and presence of the Lord. The irony of ironies is that this tomb has become the new holy of holies, for with this symbolism Jesus is depicted as both the atoning sacrifice of God and the one who “sits enthroned between the cherubim” (Ps 99:1; emphasis added). Rather than being empty, the tomb serves as the ark of the new covenant, “the throne of grace.” Golden angels were not capable of adorning this holy of holies; this place of atonement required angels not made by human hands (cf. Acts 17:24–25). The words of the prologue regarding Christ have now been made even more concrete: Jesus is “grace in place of grace” (1:16).

The Ascension

The Gospel of John makes a significant contribution to the church’s understanding of the ascension. It was Irenaeus who suggested that the ascension marks the completion of the divine act of creating humanity in the image of God. Through his own U-shaped history (descent from above and incarnation, baptism, death, resurrection, and ascension), Jesus recapitulates the entire experience of fallen humanity and restores the gift of the Spirit (Irenaeus, Haer. 3.24.1).38 The Heidelberg Catechism (Question 49) suggests three benefits that we receive from the ascension that are worthy to note. First, it declares that the resurrected Lord is also our advocate in heaven in the presence of the Father. Second, it declares that we have our own flesh (i.e., proof of a physical, bodily resurrection) in heaven as a sure pledge that Christ our head will also take us, his members, up to himself. Third, it declares that he sends his Spirit to us on earth as a corresponding pledge, a promise and guarantee of our inheritance. This pericope and the pericope to follow (20:19–23) fully support this list of benefits, declaring the impending finality of Christ’s work and preparing for the arrival of the Spirit.

The Gardener in his Garden

The pericope develops further the Gospel’s symbolic depiction of this garden as “the garden,” most notably this time with the presence of “the gardener” (see v. 15) in the garden. The garden is the place where the world betrayed God, making a garden a fitting place for his final betrayal and also a fitting place for it to be overturned. The narrator reveals Mary’s mistaken assumption primarily to reveal what God—not Mary—had in mind. “The cross to be in Paradise, as the tree of life from which the first man had been raised from the dust as the primordial King, now the second Man, also raised from the dust in resurrection, took up his rightful place in the garden . . . tilling the soil and caring for Eden from which the first Man had been banished.”39 For Jesus had fulfilled in his person the demands of God and therefore had become the second Adam, the Gardner assigned by God (see Gen 2:15), here standing in his “garden” on the first day of the “week” (cf. 20:1). In the second Garden, the Gardener himself came to tend his (new) creation (Gen 2:15; Rev 21–22).

The Woman in the Garden

It is common for interpreters to highlight the significance of Mary, a woman, serving as the first witness of the resurrected Lord and thereafter the first messenger of the fact of the resurrection (v. 18). Without limiting the significance of the Gospel’s intention to highlight the role of women in the earliest moments of Christianity, it is also important to note another likely comparison between the characters in the first and second gardens. In the first garden a woman was asked a question that would soon reveal that the questioner intended to become the source of grief (Gen 3:1), but in the second garden a woman is asked a question that would soon reveal that the questioner had already become the source of grace. The serpent promised that the first woman would be like God, whereas Jesus announces that the second woman would be with God. The difference is stark, for the actions in the second garden return the creation to the intended state of the first garden.40 The concern of early Christianity (cf. Matt 28:1–8; Mark 16:9–11; Luke 24:1–10) to connect the garden of Easter with a woman may have less to do with gender in the first century and more to do with gender in the first garden, the garden of Eden. In this way Jesus fulfills and repairs the fall of his creation in every way. Even the serpent has been silenced and his grief-inducing question has been replaced with a grace-filled response of the true Gardener!

Children of the Father

The Gospel began with the promise that God the Son would unite the children of God to God the Father in a manner that would be entirely “from God” (1:12–13). In this pericope, that promise is fulfilled. For the first time the fatherhood of God is applied to the disciples and kinship language is required between the disciples. Just as the disciples now relate to God more fully in the Spirit, so they also relate now more fully to one another as “brothers and sisters” in the church. This pericope explains that the true Judge and King (5:22–29) has declared the church to be “adopted children by grace,” the newly created family of God.41