John 20:13-16, Why Are You Weeping?

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 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.” 16 Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned and said to him in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means Teacher).

Mary, in her sorrow, is having trouble with recognition. She does not recognize who the two heavenly visitors are who ask why she is crying. She answers, “They have taken away my Lord.” She does not say his body but her Lord. In a sense, Jesus is alive to her, but then why, the angels ask, is she weeping? This is not a day for weeping but celebrating! Mary is looking for a corpse. Jesus will soon make himself known to her in a victorious resurrection body.

Then Jesus asks her the same question. She fails to recognize him as well, mistaking him for the gardener. In reading the resurrection accounts, no one immediately recognizes Jesus in his resurrection body. Why is this? John Milne writes, “Jesus has not just been resuscitated, like Lazarus. He has passed through death and is now part of a new order in the glory of the Father’s presence. Accordingly, his appearing ‘different’ in some indefinable sense is entirely as might have been expected.” Yet when Mary hears his voice, she knows exactly who he is. Jesus knows the name of his sheep (Mary) and his sheep then know his (Jesus’) voice. Mary calls him “my dear teacher.” She will come to discover he is so much more.

Almighty God, who through your only-begotten Son Jesus Christ overcame death and opened to us the gate of everlasting life: Grant that we, who celebrate with joy the day of the Lord’s resurrection, may be raised from the death of sin by your life-giving Spirit; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

The Book of Common Prayer, p. 222