Bible Study series: John 20:11-18. She was the first one to see him alive. She evangelized the apostles about the resurrection. Her name appears in all four Gospels, at this crucial time. This indicates she was a valued leader and preacher in the early Jesus Movement.
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For the Greek text, click here:
At that link, I provide a lot more commentary.
In this post, links are provided for further study.
Let’s begin.
Scripture: John 20:11-18
11 Mary was standing before the tomb, outside, weeping. As she was weeping, she stooped into the tomb. 12 And she saw two angels in white sitting, one at the head and one at the feet, where the body of Jesus had been lying. 13 They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I don’t know where they placed him.” 14 When she said these things, she turned around behind and saw Jesus standing and did not know it was Jesus. 15 Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom do you seek?” She, thinking that he was a gardener, said to him, “Sir, if you carried him away, tell me where you have put hm, and I will take him away.” 16 Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned around and said to him in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means “teacher”). 17 Jesus said to her, “Do not keep touching me, for I have not yet ascended to my Father. Go to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am going my Father and your Father and my God and your God.’” 18 Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples: “I have seen the Lord” and that he spoke these things to her. (John 20:11-18)
Comments:
11:
This is one of the best scenes in the entire Gospel. It is filled with seeing and not seeing, understanding and recognizing and not understanding and recognizing.
First, Mary was weeping because she wanted the body of her Lord, to recover it and take it away and give it another burial, but it had gone missing. She got to the tomb early in the morning, hoping for something wonderful, but she could not connect the dots about the missing body and the resurrection. Would we have done better? Perceived things more accurately? I’m not so sure.
12-13:
Second, she wipes her eyes and decided to stoop or behind down to look inside the tomb. It was not empty because God knew she was going to do this, so he sent two angels to meet her where she was. They refer to her respectfully by the word “Woman.” the experts tell us that two thousand years ago, and in that culture, “woman” was not rude. It was equivalent to “madam” or “ma’am” (Mounce, comment on 19:26). Usually, when God or his representatives ask a question to which they already know the answer, it is not a stupid question. They are testing her faith and knowledge. Does she have faith in the words of Jesus predicting his resurrection? Does she still remain an anxious friend there to collect the body? Or is she there to witness a miracle? It looks as though she is there in anxiety and intending merely to collect the body.
Here is a multi-part study of angels in the area of systematic theology, but first, here is a summary list of the basics:
Angels:
(a) Are messengers (in Hebrew mal’ak and in Greek angelos);
(b) Are created spirit beings;
(c) Have a beginning at their creation (not eternal);
(d) Have a beginning, but they are immortal (deathless).
(e) Have moral judgment;
(f) Have a certain measure of free will;
(g) Have high intelligence;
(h) Do not have physical bodies;
(i) But can manifest with immortal bodies before humans;
(j) They can show the emotion of joy.
Angels: Their Duties and Missions
Angels: Their Names and Ranks and Heavenly Existence
Angels: Their Origins, Abilities, and Nature
Klink has a symbolic reading of the two angels on where the head and feet used to be—they symbolize the two cherubim on the ark of the covenant, and the stone slab or bench on which Jesus had lain is the new mercy seat, effecting our redemption (long comment on v. 12). I don’t like super-symbolical readings, personally, but you can certainly run with it.
14-15:
As soon as she said those words, she must have heard or saw something and turned around to look behind her. She got up out of the tomb. She saw Jesus standing there, but she did not recognize him. Did he appear in a different form, or was she kept from recognizing him, as it happened to the disciples on the Road to Emmaus (Luke 24:16)? Surely if she had believed in the resurrection as Martha did, proclaiming him to be the Son of God (11:24-27), then she could have recognized him. But because she was obtuse and in unbelief, she was kept from recognizing him. She thought he was a gardener acting as a kind stranger. Inability to recognize or know is called irony. Job and his friends thought they knew the ways of God, and they did to a certain degree (great poetry!), but when God showed up, he had to set them straight. They did not know as much as they claimed. Mary has a similar predicament, but the ignorance / irony is not harsh or bad; it is sweet and innocent—still fluctuating between hope and despair.
Jesus uses the address “woman, which as noted in v. 13, was a form of respect back in those days, yet we should not miss the distancing effect of the word, because he will soon call her by her name.
She still intends to track down the body, so that it would not remain in a stranger’s custody. Apparently she did not know about Joseph of Arimathea’s and Nicodemus’ concern for the body at the initial burial. If she had known, she would have sought them out. She would have found out that they did not have the body. Where’s the body? The glorified body is standing right in front of her. Irony abounds.
Mounce: “Mary’s inability to recognize the presence of the Lord, though he was right there at that very moment, is illustrative of the common experience of all too many believers in our day. May God open our eyes as he opened the eyes of Elisha’s servant Dothan (2 Ki. 6:17) to see that we have not been abandoned to the enemy but that God surrounds us with his protective love” (comment on v. 14).
16:
Now comes the moving part (at least for me). He calls her by her name: Miriam. This jolts her awake. She turned around. Therefore she must have humbly not been facing him when he asked the “gardener” where the body was. Or she was blinded by her tears. But the mention of her name brought her to her senses.
Mounce: “On hearing her name, Mary suddenly realized that it could be none other than Jesus. She had seen him placed in the tomb as a lifeless corpse. But now he spoke. He was alive! We know from John 10 that when the good shepherd calls his sheep, ‘they know his voice’ (v. 4l cf. vv. 1-18). Mary belonged to his flock” (comment on v. 16).
She replies with the title Rabboni, which the Shorter Lexicon says is a heightened form of Rabbi, both meaning “my Master,” and which John translates for his Greek audience. The sound of her name prompts her to recognition. She escapes from her irony, form her obtuseness, her unbelief.
17:
Jesus says not to touch him, while he invites Thomas to touch him. How doe we reconcile the two accounts? Here the verb “touch” could be translated as “touch,” “take hold of,” or “cling to.” It is also in the present tense imperative (command), which indicates that she was clinging to him. Novakovic says (pp. 295-96) that the choice of translation boils down to the context. Most translations go with the latter two. Whichever translation one chooses, it reveals deep devotion and even relief. He is indeed alive!
Klink points out that the angels must be inside the tomb because they do not impact Mary as Jesus does, who must be outside the tomb to show his resurrection to her (comment on v. 16). And you can certainly accept his interpretation if you wish.
She should not cling to him because he has not yet ascended to his Father. Why? Bruce suggests that he will still be available to her when she goes and tells his baffled disciples. So she should not clutch him now. Bruce further says that this ascension may not refer to the big one in Acts 1:9, when the clouds enveloped him. This brought to an end the series of resurrection appearance now underway and throughout this chapter and Chapter 21. There is a new phase of relationship, and she was clinging to the old way. She can show her devotion to him in the new way—glorifying him and knowing him through being a branch in the vine (John 15). Bruce further adds: “There is the further implication that Mary, like his other followers, would have to get used to a new situation in which it would no longer be possible to him and touch him as formerly” (comment on vv. 17-18).
After a long and excellent (as usual) discussion by Carson, he suggests this paraphrase to catch the wording and the context (I omit most of his parenthetical comments:
“Stop touching me [or holding on to me] for I have not yet ascended to my Father [I am not in my ascended state] … so you do not have to hang on to me as if I were about to disappear permanently. This is a time for joy and sharing the good news, not for clutching me as if I were some jealously guarded private dream-come-true. Stop clinging to me, but go and tell my disciples that I am in the process of ascending to my Father and your Father (p. 644)
It’s a huge paraphrase, but it seems perfect for the context.
Morris paraphrases the meaning: “Stop clinging to me. There is no need for this, for I am not yet at the point of permanent ascension. You will have opportunity of seeing me” (comment on v. 17).
Jesus’s message to her was to go and tell his brothers, his disciples, the message that a new order to knowledge of God is now shifted and at work. Jesus is now introducing his Father and God to them. Bruce is particularly enlightening here, as well. Matt. 28:19 also says to go and tell his brothers, which refers to the eleven disciples. So this coincidence indicates a reliable gospel tradition. Next, Ps. 22:22 says that “I will tell your name to my brothers” (ESV). Ruth 1:16 says, “Your people will be my people, and your God my God” (ESV). With his OT background, Bruce writes: “So, when Jesus goes on to speak of ‘my Father and your Father’ and your God and my God,’ he not merely distinguishes himself from them with regard to their respective relationship to God, by the same token he links them with himself. … ‘I am ascending to my Father who is also yours, to my God who is also yours’ –so we may understand the force of his words. This message, then was taken to the disciples by Mary” … (comment on vv. 17-18).
Bruce’s explanation is relational. Let’s explore the issue of “my God” in light of systematic theology. What does this mean to Jesus’s deity? Does it mean that he is inferior in his being or nature or essence? No, it means he is submissive in his role and function. He is also identifying with them. He is the way to Father and God. A new way of salvation and knowledge of God has been opened up and forged, a new trail, a new path. In light of this new relationship, he calls his disciples “brothers” which Mounce calls “a new and affectionate title for the disciples” (comment on v. 17).
18:
Miriam (so says the Greek) or Mary goes and announces to the disciples that she has seen the Lord. The Synoptics say that women (plural) do this. John excludes them for his own purposes.
Remember the equation at vv. 1-2:
Differences ≠ contradictions.
John’s silence about the other women, and the Synoptics speaking of them, cannot be a contradiction because words cannot contradict silence. Included data points cannot contradict omitted data points. These are differences. That is it.
“announcing” is a big deal. It is more than just whispering and muttering and even just telling or speaking. It is a proclamation and announcement. She is doing the work of an evangelist. She (and the other women) are the bridge between the resurrection and the disciples who will go on to lead the new community.
“I have seen”: this verb is also used by Paul when he said, “Have I not seen Jesus our Lord?” (1 Cor. 9:1). This verb is found in many verses about the Lord appearing to the disciples: 1 Cor. 15:5, 6, 7, 8. It is also used when Jesus appeared to Paul: Acts 9:17, 27; 22:14, 15, 18; 26:16 (three times). John says in his first epistle that what “we have seen” (with our eyes) three times in 1:1, 2, 3. Therefore, Mary Magdalene has a special privilege and honor to see Jesus, who commissioned her to announce the resurrection to the eleven. This commission was significant, particularly when women’s testimony was inadmissible in Jewish courts (Carson, p. 636, cites this source: Mishnah Rosh ha-Shannah 1.8).
GrowApp for John 20:11-18
1. At her most desperate point, while she was weeping, Mary Magdalene recognized Jesus when he said her name. How did you recognize him at your lowest moment?
2.. How did he speak to your heart?
RELATED
14. Similarities among John’s Gospel and the Synoptic Gospels
12. Eyewitness Testimony in John’s Gospel
4. Church Fathers and John’s Gospel
3. Archaeology and John’s Gospel
SOURCES
For the bibliography, click on this link and scroll down to the very bottom:
Dr. Jim's Essential Bible Teaching 