John 20; Running, Seeing and Believing I

"Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. 2 So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, ‘They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.’ 3 Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went towards the tomb. 4 The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5 He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. 6 Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, 7 and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. 8 Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; 9 for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. 10 Then the disciples returned to their homes. 11 But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; 12 and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other 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.’ 14 When she had said this, she turned round and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. 15 Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping? For whom are you looking?’ 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 Hebrew,‘Rabbouni!’ (which means Teacher). 17 Jesus said to her, ‘Do not hold on to me, because 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.” ’ 18 Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord’; and she told them that he had said these things to her."

Introduction

Our appreciation of this familiar passage is enhanced if we compare it with Luke's account, which I wrote about here. The characters are similar but not precisely the same; the confusion is similar but not identical; the result is slightly different. Neverthless, the major point of my Luke essay, that Easter faith is not something fully formed in an instant on that first Easter, is amply confirmed in this story. To use the words of commentator Raymond Brown, S.J., what characterizes this passage is a "prolonged recognition" of the risen Christ by Mary.

And Mary's delayed or prolonged recognition is not unique in John's telling of the Gospel. Doubting Thomas don't recognize Jesus until he saw the wounds on Jesus' body, even though he had accompanied Jesus for quite some time (20:24ff.). Then in ch. 21, when the disciples go fishing, they don't recognize Jesus for quite a while, until he tells them where to cast their nets for a catch. These stories illustrate that it is through the Word of Jesus (Jesus calls Mary by her name in 20:16) and the Lord's Supper that Jesus becomes revealed to the disciples. Thus, even though the empty tomb is the sine qua non for Christian faith, it is the Word and Sacrament that the Fourth Gospel emphasizes as foundational for disciples.

This Easter-morn story can be broken up into three "sub-stories": (1) Mary's Misconstrual of the Empty Tomb (vv. 1-2); (2) The Disciples' Visit to the Tomb (vv. 3-10); and (3) Jesus' Encounter with Mary (vv. 11-18).

I. Mary at the Tomb (vv. 1-2)

The atmosphere is tense and abrupt. Everyone seems to be running, even though we are in crepuscular gloom, or, to coin a phrase, the eotudinal eeriness. Mary arrives at the tomb, sees the stone removed (it is not "rolled away" as other Gospels have it), and then runs to the disciples. The two disciples, upon hearing the news, run to the tomb. You often don't make your best decisions when you are "on the run," but here the urgency of the news is such that no other form of movement is appropriate. The text doesn't say why Mary Magdalene comes to the tomb; Luke's Gospel had Mary come to the tomb to anoint the body of Jesus or just to spread perfume around the tomb. But there she is, still before dawn, at the tomb.

She sees the stone taken away (the verb for the stone's removal and the removal of Jesus' body in v. 2 are the same). What is significant about these verses is what she infers from seeing the stone removed. She completely misconstrues the reality of what she sees. We don't know, in fact, what she sees other than the fact that the tomb was no longer covered. But her mind quickly leaps to a conclusion--that someone has removed the body of Jesus. But this is only one of four possible ways to explain the open tomb. Here are three others: (1) The tomb was open and Jesus body still lay inside; (2) The tomb was open and Jesus had risen from the dead; (3) The tomb was open and Jesus had come back to life a la Lazarus, whose story Mary Magdalene had no doubt heard. Thus, she leaped to a conclusion without checking things out.

But think of it from Mary's perspective. She perhaps shouldn't even have been there at all. When she saw the stone was no longer covering the tomb she feared the worst. She had to get out of there. She is like the person who wanders to a place she shouldn't be, comes across a crime scene and then, in terror and haste, has to get out of there. So, she runs to the disciples. We not only sympathize with Mary's predicament but we might also not be wrong to rush to our own theological conclusion: that true faith often begins with misconstrual and partial answers.

The next essay completes these thoughts.

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