11 Mary stood crying outside the tomb. While she was still crying, she bent over and looked in the tomb 12 and saw two angels there dressed in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been, one at the head and the other at the feet. 13 “Woman, why are you crying?” they asked her.
She answered, “They have taken my Lord away, and I do not know where they have put him!”
14 Then she turned around and saw Jesus standing there; but she did not know that it was Jesus. 15 “Woman, why are you crying?” Jesus asked her. “Who is it that you are looking for?”
She thought he was the gardener, so she said to him, “If you took him away, sir, tell me where you have put him, and I will go and get him.”
16 Jesus said to her, “Mary!”
She turned toward him and said in Hebrew, “Rabboni!” (This means “Teacher.”)
17 “Do not hold on to me,” Jesus told her, “because I have not yet gone back up to the Father. But go to my brothers and tell them that I am returning to him who is my Father and their Father, my God and their God.”
18 So Mary Magdalene went and told the disciples that she had seen the Lord and related to them what he had told her.
Read John 20:11-18 in context and/or in other translations on BibleGateway.com!
During Jesus’ conversation with Mary Magdalene, He tells her something that is fascinating, and it challenges how we understand one of Jesus’ earlier conversations. If Jesus ever contradicted Himself, this might be the place to focus our attention on.
In the conversation, immediately after Mary recognizes that the gardener really is Jesus, in my mind’s eye, she gives Him a big hug and this is a hug that she never wants to end. She had lost Jesus once in her mind, and she doesn’t want to let that happen again.
But Jesus’ response is perplexing. “‘Do not hold on to me,’ Jesus told her, ‘because I have not yet gone back up to the Father.’” (v. 17a)
On one hand, Jesus’ response sounds a little cruel. “Don’t hold onto me” is like saying “don’t touch me”, and this is uncharacteristic of Jesus, but how Jesus follows up this statement is even more perplexing. The reason Jesus gives is because He has not yet gone back up to the Father.
But then where was Jesus while He was dead – and more importantly, what happened to the thief on the cross who Jesus promised immediate eternal life “with Him”. Later on in the New Testament, we read that Jesus witnessed to spirits while in the tomb (1 Peter 3:18-22).
Some commentators point to the paradise Jesus promised being connected with “Abraham’s Bosom”, and Jesus first went there before going to the place of torment (using the Rich Man and Lazarus parable as a literal framework), but this idea breaks down when we read that the tree of life is in paradise (Revelation 2:7) and that the tree of life is in the presence of God’s throne (Revelation 22:2, 14, 19). Jesus simply cannot tell Mary that He didn’t return to the Father if He took the thief on the cross with Him to paradise when He died – because the tree of life is in paradise and that is also in the presence of His Father.
However, the hinge word in Jesus’ promise to the thief is the word “today”. Most translators punctuate this word as tying into the fulfillment of the promise; but by translating Jesus’ words in this way, these translators turn Jesus’ words to Mary in the garden into a lie when we look closer at the scriptures describing paradise.
Instead, if the word “today” is instead attached to the time Jesus gave the promise, then everything is smoothed out, because the thief is promised eternal life, Jesus is able to witness to spirits in the tomb (something I probably will never fully grasp what Peter is describing), and Jesus’ conversation with Mary gives context for the future fulfillment of the promise He gives to all His followers of a future with God.
This conversation in the garden may challenge our thinking regarding what happened on crucifixion weekend, but when we look closely at what the gospel writers and disciples describe, we can be more certain and assured of the future resurrected life with Jesus in paradise, eating from the tree of life, while spending time with God the Father by the sea of glass.
This thought was inspired by studying the Walking With Jesus “Reflective Bible Study” package. To discover insights like this in your own study time, click here and give Reflective Bible Study a try today!
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