Tuesday | Week 15

At the end of John’s Gospel, we encounter the impossible becoming possible: Jesus, who was killed, has been raised. But he has not simply been brought back to life (compare to Lazarus, John 11); Jesus has been made new. He is the first of the promise that God has made to all creation.

In John 20, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb of Jesus while it was still dark on the first day of the week. Readers of the Bible might pick up on this language about the first day: it echoes Genesis 1. John 20 begins by bringing readers into the first day of the new creation. A new day has dawned; all things have become new.

Mary Magdalene is the first person to discover the empty tomb. She runs to Peter and the disciple whom Jesus loved and informs them of Jesus’ absence. Once they too see the empty tomb, they return home, pondering what has happened. Mary, however, remains behind.

As she lingers at the empty tomb, weeping, Jesus appears to her. The narrator tells us that she mistook him for a gardener. This is fitting: we might be reminded again here of Genesis, when Adam and Eve were the first gardeners. Jesus, the new Adam, is mistaken for a gardener.

Having encountered Jesus, Mary returns to tell the others: “I have seen the Lord!” (v.18). The first person to “share the good news,” the first apostle (a word that literally means “messenger”), is a woman. In the ancient society, and often even in ours, women are not given place to speak, much less to preach the good news. Yet for Jesus in John 20, Mary seemed more than qualified.

Intriguing for understanding what life was like for Jesus after the resurrection, and therefore what life might be like for us after all are resurrected, is that Jesus is present with her in a real sense. He is not some floating spirit or ghost; he’s a real person. He is really alive. The church has adamantly argued, many at the cost of their lives, that the Christian message is this: Christ has died, Christ has risen. Christ is truly alive. The hope we have now is that this same Christ, the one whom Mary encountered, is still alive, still present with us.