Why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?

We have been examining the questions God asks throughout Scripture. Again and again, God asks questions whose factual answers seem obvious. This raises an important question for us: why does God ask what He already knows? Are these questions merely rhetorical, or do they have a deeper purpose? Do they change the way we see ourselves, God, and reality itself?

The question we are examining today comes from John’s account of the resurrection.

^{John 20} Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away 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 So Peter went out with the other disciple, and they were going toward the tomb. ⁴ Both of them were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. ⁵ And stooping to look in, he saw the linen cloths lying there, but he did not go in. ⁶ Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen cloths lying there, ⁷ and the face cloth, which had been on Jesus’^[a] head, not lying with the linen cloths but folded up in a place by itself. ⁸ Then the other disciple, who had 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 went back to their homes.

¹¹ But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb, and as she wept she stooped to look into the tomb. ¹² And she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one 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 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,^[b] “Rabboni!” (which means Teacher). ¹⁷ Jesus said to her, “Do not cling to me, for 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 that he had said these things to her.

Jesus had just been resurrected when Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early on Sunday morning. John does not tell us exactly why she went there. In other accounts of the resurrection, we are told that the women went to the tomb to anoint Jesus’ body with spices. In John’s account, however, Jesus’ body had already been prepared with spices by Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus.

So why does Mary go to the tomb? We can only infer her reason. She goes because she misses Jesus. She loves Him, and she is grieving. The tomb is the last place she knows where Jesus had been laid. It is the final location of the One she loved. Drawn by grief and love, she goes to be near Him.

When Mary arrives, she finds that the stone has been taken away from the tomb. She goes back and tells the disciples, and Peter and the other disciple come to see for themselves. They enter the tomb, see the linen wrappings, and then return to their homes, still not fully understanding what had happened.

Mary, however, doesn’t leave and remains outside the tomb, weeping. John does not say that she enters. Instead, he tells us that as she wept, she stooped to look inside. This detail matters. The disciples can enter the tomb, examine what is there, and leave. Mary cannot do that. She remains outside, looking in, because the tomb is still the last place where her relationship with Jesus makes sense. She already believes Jesus has died. But now she is faced with another loss: even His body seems to be gone. The tomb was painful, but at least it was a place where she knew Jesus had been laid. Now even that certainty has been taken from her.

This gives Mary a double blow of grief. She came to mourn the dead Jesus, but now even the object of her mourning seems to have been taken from her. Weeping here is not just a passing sadness or a few quiet tears. The word suggests mourning, lament, and grief that has overtaken her. 

As she weeps, Mary stoops to look into the tomb. There she sees two angels, and they ask her the first question of God: “Woman, why are you weeping?”

Before we consider the question itself, we should pause over the word “Woman.” In modern English, this can sound cold, distant, or even dismissive. But that is not how we should hear it here. The Greek word, gynai, is a direct form of address. It is formal, but not necessarily harsh. Jesus uses the same form elsewhere in John, including when He speaks to His mother at Cana and again at the cross.

On the surface, the answer to the question is quite obvious: Mary is weeping because Jesus has died, and now His body appears to be missing. The question, “Woman, why are you weeping?” is not asking for the obvious emotional cause. The angels are not asking, “Mary, what event made you sad?” The answer to that is already clear. The question is aimed at her interpretation of reality. Mary is weeping because she believes the empty tomb means further loss. To her, the missing body means that death has taken Jesus, and now someone has taken even the body she came to mourn. Her tears are responding to a world in which Jesus is dead, absent, and unreachable. So the deeper question is: Mary, are you sure you understand what you are seeing? What reality are your tears responding to? Why are you mourning in the place where God has just acted?

This does not mean her grief is wrong or foolish. The question is not a rebuke. It is not saying, “Stop crying.” Instead, it is exposing the gap between what Mary thinks has happened and what has actually happened. She sees absence; heaven sees resurrection. She sees the missing body; heaven sees the defeat of death. She sees the tomb as the place where her grief has been disrupted; the angels sit there as witnesses of divine presence, of the reality of God rather than the reality of man. 

As in the story of the paralytic at the pool, Mary answers God’s question from within the only reality she knows: “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” The question is not yet enough to overturn Mary’s understanding of reality. When she turns around, she sees Jesus standing there, but she does not recognize Him. Instead, she assumes He is the gardener. Jesus then confronts her with a repetition of the first question, followed by a second one: “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?”

We can assume that the second question is meant to help expose the deeper meaning of the first. Again, we are confronted with a question whose answer seems simple. “Whom are you seeking?” Mary is seeking Jesus. But what kind of Jesus is she seeking? Is she seeking the living Christ, or the dead body of the Jesus she knew? Is she looking for resurrection, or only for the recovery of what she has lost?

Mary is still living within the reality of death. In her mind, the only possible explanation is that the body of Jesus has been physically taken away. Resurrection is not yet a reality she can imagine. So the deeper question is not simply, “Whom are you seeking?” but: Are you seeking a dead man, or the living God? Are you looking for Jesus where death last placed Him, or are you ready to meet Him in a reality you do not yet understand?

I want to pause here so that we consider this story from our angle today. When we hear this story now, we may be tempted to stand on higher moral ground than Mary. We may think, “We are Christians. Our faith rests on the risen Christ. How sad that Mary was still trapped in the reality of death while we live in the light of the resurrection.”

I think that would be a serious mistake. Like Mary, we too are often stuck in the reality of death. We too interpret absence, loss, disappointment, and uncertainty as final. We too look at the empty places in our lives and assume that God is missing. We too look at evil, death, disaster, and destruction and see only the absence of God. So the questions God asks Mary are also addressed to you and me: Why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?

When we see only the absence of God, are we sure we are seeing correctly? Do we really know who God is and how God acts? Who taught us to recognize God only in certain forms and not in others? Where did we get the confidence to decide that God is absent simply because we cannot understand what He is doing?

Are we seeking a God who confirms our understanding of evil, suffering, and loss — or a God who overturns it? Is this why we weep? Not only because of what has happened, but because we cannot yet imagine that God might be present precisely where we see only absence.

Perhaps this story can help us think differently about where God is and how God appears. In Mary’s story, God is not absent. God is standing in front of her, but she mistakes Him for the gardener. We are often warned about false prophets and false gods — about people pretending to speak for God when they do not. But what about the opposite danger? How often do we too mistake God for the gardener, and fail to recognize Him? How often does He meet us through a stranger, a random person, a trusted friend, or even an enemy, while we dismiss the encounter as ordinary because it does not fit our expectation of how God should appear?

Mary’s answer to Jesus is striking because, like the paralytic at the pool, she answers Jesus from within the only reality she knows. She assumes she understands the situation: Jesus is dead, His body has been taken, and the only remaining question is where it has been laid. So she says, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” In other words, she is not asking for resurrection. She is asking for help managing the world of death as she understands it. Like us, she tells God what the problem is, what must have happened, and what solution she needs. But the One standing before her is not there to help her recover a dead body. He is there to overturn the entire reality in which that request makes sense.

“Mary.” Full stop. That is Jesus’ answer to Mary’s ridiculous request. Jesus does not answer Mary’s request on its own terms. He simply calls her by name. We have talked before in this class about names. Our names carry meaning, memory, history, and identity. Whether we like it or not, they shape the way we understand ourselves and the way others come to know us. So when Jesus calls Mary by her name, He is not merely identifying her. He is calling forth her whole person — her life, her history, her relationship with Him, and the journey they have shared.

This is a deeply personal encounter. Mary does not recognize Jesus through argument, explanation, or evidence. She recognizes Him when He calls her by name. This is the kind of knowledge that can only be formed through relationship, through years of walking together, being known, being seen, and being loved. In that single word, Jesus restores the personal bond that Mary thought had been lost.

Similar to Job, who asks God why bad things happen to good people, Mary does not receive an answer to her question about where Jesus has been taken. The answer God gives to Job, to Mary, and to all of us is not an explanation, but an unquestionable personal encounter. “Rabboni,” Mary declares. There is no explanation, only mutual recognition.

Once recognition is in place, we are again met with command. There is no more time to remain at the tomb. God’s will is already in motion, and Mary now has a role to play within it. Jesus says to her, “Do not cling to me, for 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.’”

Mary’s encounter with the risen Christ does not end in private consolation. It becomes a calling. She cannot hold on to Jesus as He was before. She is sent to bear witness to who He is now. So Mary Magdalene goes and announces to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord” — and tells them what He had said to her.

What we sometimes miss in stories of encounter with God is that every encounter is also a healing experience, including this one. Mary does not suffer from a physical ailment, but her vision is restored. This matters especially in John’s Gospel, where seeing and blindness, darkness and light, are central to the way John reveals who Jesus is and what He came to do. Mary leaves proclaiming to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord.” This reminds us of the healing Jesus promises: restoring sight to the blind, overturning darkness, and bringing us into the light.

As with Mary, we rarely get the answers we want to our earnest questions to God. Instead, we are met with the living God when we encounter His grace. Grace renders our questions irrelevant. It is a personal encounter and a mutual recognition. Grace calls us by name.

And as with Mary, an encounter with grace is followed by a command. We cannot remain at the tomb forever. We cannot simply hold on to the moment for ourselves. Once Mary recognizes the risen Christ, she is sent: Go and tell the others what you have seen.

For our discussion today, let us sit with the questions God asks Mary, and through her, asks all of us: Why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?

Are we seeking God only in the places where we expected Him to be? Are we willing to recognize Him when He comes to us in a form we did not expect? Are we looking only for answers, or are we willing to be met by the living God?

Anonymous: Michael is becoming a theologian! His essay is deep, thought-provoking, and practical in everybody’s life. Are we seeking the resurrected God, or are we seeking the body? In every case, I think we can see that most of the time we’re seeking physical changes to circumstances in our lives, whether it’s disease or any kind of ailment, any kind of trouble. We want to have the physical proof of having the real thing. We never think of what is not seen beyond the scene—that there is a God, there is a resurrected God. We’re seeking Him. We’re not seeking recovery or a way out of hard circumstances. That’s not what we should be seeking.

So, “Who are you seeking? Why are you weeping? Who are you seeking?” That’s like a tap on the head: Wake up! Think! What is it exactly that you want from this life? And when we get the answer down deep in our hearts, everything else becomes insignificant. When we’re seeking the resurrected God, we’re rewarded by a great sense of wellness, that no matter what we’re going through, it doesn’t matter. It becomes very insignificant. We’re getting something way better than what we wished for ourselves. We’re getting the real thing. Thank you, Lord.

Kiran: Excellent talk, Michael. When you talked about how Jesus was there and Mary thought He was a gardener, and then you asked the question, “How often do we not recognize God?”, I was thinking about it and remembered that Dr. Weaver, a long time ago, did a Sabbath class on Psalm 23. He talked about us as sheep, and the relationship between the shepherd and the sheep being the voice of the shepherd, and our work is to listen to that voice.

I thought, how come this woman couldn’t recognize Jesus visually, but she recognized Him by His voice? Then I realized that she had been in a relationship of grace with Him. That’s why she could hear His voice and recognize the Shepherd, even though she couldn’t visibly recognize Him. Maybe you could expand on this.

Reinhard: I think this was the experience of all the disciples. Just like the other disciples, they were not certain that when Jesus talked about rising in three days, He would actually be resurrected. So, of course, they didn’t expect that Jesus had already come out of the tomb. They didn’t believe what He said, or they didn’t really understand the event that would follow after the burial—that in three days He would come alive. It was the same thing with the other disciples when they came to see the tomb.

The resurrection is actually a central theme of our Christian belief. Paul mentioned in 1 Corinthians 15:14 that if Jesus has not been raised, then our teaching is in vain. So again, as Christians, this is what we have to keep in mind: the resurrection of the dead. Jesus, of course, raised people in the New Testament. We count the daughter of Jairus, the son of the widow, and Lazarus. It’s kind of interesting. We know that Jesus raised these three individuals during His ministry, but I think we never mention that Jesus raised Himself. So this is the fourth resurrection Jesus performed.

Remember, He mentioned that He could lay down His life and He could take it back. In other words, Jesus had the authority to lay down His life, to let that occur, but Jesus also had the authority to raise Himself up. Maybe this is not often preached, but I think this is the fourth resurrection Jesus performed, on Himself, because He had the authority to take His life back.

Again, the theme of resurrection is very important for us as believers, because if Jesus wasn’t raised, our faith is in vain. We have to be grateful that Jesus was raised, and He also performed the resurrection of several people. That is our faith: that someday everybody will be resurrected, and those who are called to live in heaven will be part of this process someday. I think that’s what I can share at this time.

Anonymous: It’s interesting how Jesus sent Mary to tell Peter and John to go ahead and meet with Him in Galilee. He did not mention their names. He did not say to Mary, “Go tell Peter and John.” Whereas when He talked to her, He used this personal endearment—the name “Mary.” “Mary”—that was enough explanation from Jesus. He’s like saying, “Mary, we know each other. We have a relationship.”

Do you want to believe in the body that was resurrected, or do you want to believe in the body that is not resurrected, that you’re seeking after? Or are you seeking Me, the resurrected God? You know, that must have been a very great experience for her, just to hear her name said by the Lord, and to shift her thinking from the body to God, to faith, to believing, which the disciples had a hard time in the beginning doing. They could not believe, even though they had proof. Mary was ready, as soon as she heard her name, to shift her view to God, to the resurrected God, not to the body. That was special for her.

Don: I’m struck by the fact that in our relationship with God, we want to tell God basically what He needs to do for us. It’s striking that we would prefer to have a God that we could control. We don’t really need His help as much as we need His power, meaning we know what needs to be done, and we can ask God to do it for us. We just need His power.

Somehow, we have to harness it on our behalf because of our prayers, because of our piety, because of our study, because of our relationship. We somehow want to control God’s power, and we have a desire to control His power more than we have a desire to know His will for us.

Anonymous: And what transpired after her realization that Jesus is not a body anymore? He’s in heaven. He’s triumphed. That kind of triggered the testimony. Now she believes, and now she wants to tell everyone. She cannot keep it to herself. She’s full of joy and full of understanding, and enlightened to the fact that Jesus is not a body. So she went and told everyone.

That’s exactly what we need to do when we realize the fact that we’re not seeking the body. Jesus’ body is no more on this earth, but His Spirit, His work on our behalf, His glory, His fullness of grace have to be proclaimed, have to be shared, have to be known to the whole world, which is exactly every believer’s experience on this earth. Thank God.

Don: It’s interesting that you mentioned sharing it, because in the Scriptures we see Jesus giving instructions to share the information, and in some of the healings He gives instructions: “Don’t share it. Don’t tell anyone exactly what happened.” I’m wondering—someone should do a study as to why, in some cases, He says to share the information, and in other cases He says don’t share it. Sharon?

Sharon: Just the fact that He chose a woman, to me, is extremely significant as a witness, because women virtually had no power from a legal perspective. Yet in Jesus’ context, the relational perspective was stronger than the legal issues.

The other thing that fascinates me about the question and how Jesus responds is that He basically turns her grief into mission. Acknowledging that she is weeping is a first step, but then commissioning her to go out and do something and make something happen—I think Jesus knows that wallowing in our grief really has no significant merit, even though He would allow us to grieve, and He recognized and affirmed that she was weeping. But then He completely mobilizes her to go out, meanwhile giving her something to help her cathartically address the sadness and turn it into something missional and positive. So thank you, Michael. This is an amazing question for us to grapple with.

Donald: Well, I just think another aspect of this is that it’s also quite a week when these people who were as close to Christ as anybody on this earth were totally confused. They didn’t know what was going to happen next, and it was right in front of them. So I guess it’s somewhat reassuring to me that here we are, so many years later, and now we have the Scriptures to be able to read and try to make sense of it, when those who were present at that very moment didn’t really know what was going to transpire next.

It is very reassuring that she recognized His voice, but she didn’t go to the grave thinking that she would hear Him speak. Initially, it just seems hard to believe that those who were very close to Christ during these very last hours, and had been told what was potentially going to happen, didn’t get it right at all. And what are the chances of us getting it right? Yes, we can read about this carefully, but do we have it right?

I think we know that He is our Savior, and we have an understanding as to how we think life will play out and what eternity will be like, and the transition between this life and the next. But can we be that confident? Should we be that confident? What should we be confident of? I think that’s pretty simple. That’s not a complex question. When you put other things with it, though, it seems like chances are we could have things not quite lined up the way we think they are, or should be, or will be.

Anonymous: Who can remind me of the miracle that Jesus performed and asked the patient not to tell anyone?

Donald: Healing a man with leprosy: “See that you tell no one,” Matthew 8:4. And then He also said, when raising Jairus’s daughter from the dead, Jesus commanded them strictly that no one should know.

C-J: Was that at the beginning of His ministry, where He started to perform these miracles, or was it because He was performing the miracles outside of His own—the Jews? You know, that He was now moving out into the secular world and performing them?

Donald: I don’t know. It’s pretty early on—Matthew 8, Matthew 9. But Matthew actually says it quite frequently. According to AI, it’s at least five times.

C-J: And yet, if you consider the centurion, the officer—his daughter was dying, and he asked Jesus. Jesus said, “Oh, I’ll come right with you,” and then he said, “No, not necessary. I tell my soldiers to go do something, and they do it. I trust that You can do the same.” I thought that was pretty remarkable because, one, he’s a Roman centurion, and two, because he saw Jesus as more than his equal. He could not heal his daughter, but he had authority.

Donald: It’s speculating here that part of the reason why Jesus didn’t want people to know was that He couldn’t enter the town without being overwhelmed. It’s pretty tough to create a miracle and then not have masses turn out.

Anonymous: I’m going to research those miracles and see, in each one, what the events were and how they went. Off the top of my head, I assume—it could be wrong—that the times Jesus asks people not to tell, it could be that we are not equipped with the real thing, with the real experience, to have any good effect on the listeners. So what’s the use? Just to say, “This is what happened to me”—you’re not going to have any influence on your listeners.

That’s part of my own experience. Before my experience with this cancer, I used to say, “What’s the use? Even if I tell people, I’m not good in English and I’m not going to risk it. Who’s going to listen anyway?” But when I experienced the real thing, it’s kind of like nobody can stop me. I want to tell everyone where this power came upon me. I don’t know where this good language comes from—you know, I’m just sarcastically talking about my good English, which is not—but I can see a difference now. I don’t forget the words. It just flows.

Don: The woman at the well went back to the village to tell everyone what was going on. Whether Jesus instructed her to do that or whether she did that on her own, I think, is the question. But again, in some cases it seems like telling has merit and is part of the mission that Sharon referred to, and sometimes it’s a question of not telling. It’s a fascinating question. I don’t know the answer to it.

C-J: In the Pentecostal experience of ministry, there is healing, and people will come, one, to see it, and two, to want it in terms of the power—to have that conduit. Some, maybe, because of the relationship they desire with God, but some because of just having that kind of influence. You know, a pastor can get caught up in, “I did this,” instead of, “The Lord used me as an instrument,” and being very humble about it.

And then even Moses coming down off the mountain, covering his face so that they didn’t see the Shekinah glory—depending on how you might think about that, it was too bright, or over time it faded. But interfacing with God at that level is—I would think—a tremendous responsibility. And Jesus being the source could have been quite dangerous for Him in terms of how the Pharisees were used to having full authority over the text and proximity to the Holy of Holies.

Michael: Something I didn’t mention is that when first the angel asked the question and then Jesus asked the question, they said, “Woman.” It wasn’t “Mary.” “Why are you weeping?” I don’t know if there is something to that. Calling her by her name came later, after the question. So I wonder if that’s part of the importance of grappling with these questions, because if He had identified her before, she would have known who she was talking with. But instead, they kept it without identifying her, and only later, after hearing her responses, did Jesus call her by name. I don’t know if that’s part of the process of undergoing the questions of God.

Anonymous: I believe so, because the term “woman” is general. I mean, He’s not really addressing her as a special person to Him. When He says, “Woman,” that’s very general. Whether she or anybody else was looking for their Master’s body, you would say, “Woman,” or “Ma’am, why are you weeping?” That’s on the surface. But when He called her by her name, now she’s full of attention. Now she wants to know, “Who is this guy calling my name?” So the difference is general and special. When she didn’t get it when He talked generally, she got it when He called her name. It’s a common term—woman, ma’am—nothing special about it.

David: On that issue of the secrecy, of Jesus telling people not to spill the beans: Unless the reason for that was, as Donald seemed to suggest, a parochial reason, then there seems to be a paradox in that Jesus told people not to give certain secrets away, yet we then we plaster it all over the Bible and send the Bible out to billions of people.

It seems to me that Michael’s interpretation of the passage he read reflects Ecclesiastes’ teaching that this mortal reality “under the sun” really doesn’t matter; that there is another, immortal reality that we should turn to when we have spiritual questions, or we seek spiritual solace. That is the message I’m getting out of this passage, which I think fits in with Michael’s interpretation of it.

Anonymous: A couple of days ago, I was thinking of the miracle of Jesus taking the blind man aside, away from the other people, and spitting in his eyes and asking him, “What do you see?” He said, “People like trees.” If you don’t see the reality in your experience, then what is there to share? You’ve got to see well before you go and share. Maybe that’s why Jesus asked some not to share, because our seeing, our viewing of reality, is distorted. We’re seeing people like trees.

Don: That goes along with Michael’s essay today, that Mary was dealing with her reality, and it just wasn’t the true reality that Jesus was dealing in.

Reinhard: To go back again to the theme of the resurrection: I know Paul also mentioned in 1 Corinthians that the crucified Jesus is the power of God. And after Jesus ascended to heaven, when there was a meeting in Jerusalem and 3,000 people converted to follow Jesus during Peter’s speech, the key was that people understood Jesus’ mission, and the resurrection was the main theme. I think that’s the important message to people.

Just like for us today, resurrection actually is the key to our Christian belief: that someday resurrection will take place. So the message of resurrection has been ringing throughout the world from Jesus’ time until now. That’s the key to our belief, that resurrection will take place someday for all of us. Either we are going to go through judgment or we are going to be redeemed. I think that’s our hope someday. So through this resurrection, that big, big event will take place someday.

Donald: The crowds could misunderstand what kind of Messiah He was. Many expected a political or military deliverer. After Jesus fed the 5,000, the crowd intended to take Him by force to make Him king. Jesus came first as a Savior, a suffering Savior, not as an earthly revolutionary. Publicity could interfere with His ministry. The proper time had not come, and He did not want miracles turned into spectacles. His identity could only be understood through the cross and resurrection. So I think all those are things that we probably touched upon here this morning, but I think that’s a pretty conclusive list.

Don: I want to thank you for your beautiful essay and the very provocative questions that it raised.

Michael: Thank you, everyone, for your comments.

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