Commentary on John 20:1-18

In our often fast-paced contemporary world, Easter Vigil is a countercultural celebration that invites us to slow down and do what is so difficult for many of us: wait. Smartphones and social media have trained our brains to seek the instant gratification of scrolling quickly to the next post or making an impulsive purchase. We often lack the patience to carefully read an entire news article and instead seek just the headlines or latest sound bite. When binge-watching a series becomes boring, we can instantly stream a different story.

Easter Vigil presents a powerful challenge to our “highlight reel” mentality, calling us to journey patiently through God’s ongoing story of dedication to a broken world. It’s a long service that leads us to the resurrection of Jesus, but not before meditating on many Scriptures that attest to both the reality of suffering and God’s long-standing faithfulness to deliver from evil. It compels us to dwell with Jesus in the tomb as we simultaneously await his victory over death. Easter Vigil brings us into the fundamental tension that characterizes Christian life: the reality that Jesus’s death and resurrection have already freed us from sin and death for new life, but we still live in anticipation of the fullness of this resurrection life.

John 20:1–18 draws us into this tension. Yes, it ends with the glorious revelation that the crucified Jesus has been resurrected. But it takes its time getting to this conclusion, leading us first on a winding journey of uncertainty and grief.

The text begins in the pre-dawn darkness with Mary Magdalene venturing alone to Jesus’s tomb. Unlike the other New Testament Gospels, John gives no indication of why she makes this journey. She has only previously appeared in John as a witness to Jesus’s crucifixion (19:25) and has no reason to expect to find anything other than Jesus’s sealed tomb. When she arrives to unexpectedly find the stone removed from the tomb’s opening, she does not go inside but rather tells Peter and the beloved disciple that someone has taken the Lord Jesus from the tomb (20:1–2). The scene is shrouded in mystery when Mary abruptly drops out of it for eight verses.

In the meantime, Peter and the beloved disciple run to the tomb to investigate Mary’s report (verses 3–10). The detailed nature of John’s account—including the race between these two disciples to reach the tomb—contributes to the suspense of the story. Once both disciples reach the tomb and actually enter it, they find Jesus’s body missing but the cloths that had wrapped it still in the tomb. This sight leads at least the beloved disciple to “believe”—presumably, that Jesus had risen from the dead, but the text is not explicit (verse 8). In any case, these disciples do not yet understand how Scripture points to this event (verse 9). Their resurrection faith is still forming when they decide to go home (verse 10).

One of this passage’s many ambiguities is why Mary is subsequently said to be weeping outside Jesus’s tomb (verse 11), when the other disciples have already discovered Jesus’s grave cloths inside and at least one of them has come to believe. Didn’t Peter and the beloved disciple tell Mary about their life-changing experience? Was her grief too strong to hear this news? Like a long Easter Vigil, John’s Gospel lets us linger in the sacred space between mortality and resurrection life, refusing to give easy answers or fast-forward to a happy ending.

Instead, the text draws us into Mary’s grief. It’s the grief we will all know at some point of losing a loved one and not finding immediate consolation or the answers we often seek. When Mary finally looks into the tomb, surprisingly, she sees something the other disciples did not in that very same place: two angels (verse 12). For reasons unknown, Mary alone is granted this encounter with divine messengers. Unlike in other Gospels, the angels do not tell Mary that Jesus has risen and thereby resolve her crisis.

Instead, the drama continues and Mary witnesses something else the other disciples did not: the risen Jesus himself (verse 14). But even this sight does not bring Mary to resurrection faith, as she initially mistakes Jesus for the gardener (verse 15). She only recognizes the resurrected Jesus when she hears him address her by name (verse 16). It is this personal encounter that leads Mary to faith in Jesus as her risen Lord. Jesus’s calling of Mary’s name is also a call to vocation, as he commissions her to announce his impending ascension to others. Mary’s declaration, “I have seen the Lord,” is both the basis of her own faith and her gospel witness to others (verse 18).

This text provides a wealth of insights for preaching and teaching, including by the way it is structured. The slow build-up to the eventual recognition of the resurrected Jesus reflects how growing in Christian faith and discipleship is a process that can have various twists and turns. Moments of disorientation, grief, and joy can all be acknowledged as part of the journey. The beloved disciple coming to faith before fully grasping the Scriptures reminds us that belief and questions about faith can coexist. We all need to continually nourish our faith by Scripture study and gathering around the gospel proclamation that unites even strangers as siblings in Christ (verses 17–18).  

John 20 also reminds us that the gospel reaches people in different ways. Seeing the empty tomb led the beloved disciple to believe (verse 8). Mary needed to hear Jesus address her. The church does well to engage multiple senses and learning styles in its preaching and other ministry activities. Mary’s seemingly unnoticed presence outside the tomb calls us to be attentive to those who live just beyond the doors of our homes or the church building who need the hope of resurrection life. We are called to enter uncomfortable places of grief and loneliness with our neighbors and share tables of mutual blessing with new friends.  

And the text calls us to a patient faith that perseveres when facing uncertainty and retains hope of new life amid ongoing forces of death. The church shares Mary’s vocation to boldly witness to the Living Lord’s presence in our world—even when we can’t perceive it, and especially where it seems impossible.