J C Ryle
The interview between the Lord Jesus and Mary Magdalene immediately after His resurrection, described in these verses, is a narrative unique to John’s Gospel. No other Gospel-writer has been inspired to record it. Of all the accounts of the appearances of our Lord, after He rose from the dead, none perhaps is so touching as this. He that can read this simple story, without a deep interest, must have a very cold and unfeeling heart.
Taken, with editing, from Expository Thoughts on John, vol 3. Here are some of Ryle’s general comments on John 20:11-18.
1. Those who love Christ most diligently and perseveringly are those who receive most privileges from Him.
It is a touching fact, and one to be carefully noted, that Mary Magdalene would not leave the sepulchre, when Peter and John went away to their own home. Love to her gracious Master would not let her leave the place where He had been laid. Where He was now she could not tell. What had become of Him she did not know.
But love made her linger about the empty tomb, where Joseph and Nicodemus had recently laid Him. Love made her honour the last place where His precious body had been seen by mortal eyes. And her love reaped a rich reward. She saw the angels whom Peter and John had never observed. She actually heard them speak and had soothing words addressed to her. She was the first to see the Lord after He rose from the dead, the first to hear His voice, the first to hold conversation with Him. Can anyone doubt that this was written for our learning? Wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world, this little incident testifies that those who honour Christ will be honoured by Christ.
As it was in that morning, so will it be as long as the Church stands. The great principle contained in the passage before us will hold good until the Lord comes again. All believers have not the same degree of faith or hope or knowledge or courage or wisdom, and it is vain to expect it. But it is a certain fact that those who love Christ most fervently, and cleave to Him most closely, will always enjoy most communion with Him and feel most of the witness of the Spirit in their hearts. It is precisely those who wait on the Lord, in the spirit of Mary Magdalene, to whom the Lord will reveal Himself most fully and make them know and feel more than others. To know Christ is good; but to know that we know Him is far better.
2. The fears and sorrows of believers are often quite needless.
We are told that Mary stood at the sepulchre weeping and wept as if nothing could comfort her. She wept when the angels spoke to her: “Woman, why weepest thou?” She was still weeping when the Lord spoke to her: “Woman, why weepest thou?” And the burden of her complaint was always the same: “They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid Him”. Yet all this time her risen Master was close to her, with “body, flesh, and bones, and all things pertaining to the perfection of man’s nature”. Her tears were needless. Her anxiety was unnecessary. Like Hagar in the wilderness, she had a well of water by her side, but she did not have eyes to see it.
What thoughtful Christian can fail to see that we have here a faithful picture of many a believer’s experience? How often we are anxious when there is no just cause for anxiety! How often we mourn over the absence of things which in reality are within our grasp, and even at our right hand! Two-thirds of the things we fear in life never happen at all, and two-thirds of the tears we shed are thrown away, shed in vain. Let us pray for more faith and patience and allow more time for the full development of God’s purposes. Let us believe that things are often working together for our peace and joy which seem at one time to contain nothing but bitterness and sorrow.
Old Jacob said at one time in his life: “All these things are against me” (Gen 42:36); yet he lived to see Joseph again, rich and prosperous, and to thank God for all that had happened. If Mary had found the seal of the tomb unbroken, and her Master’s body lying cold within, she might well have wept. The very absence of the body which made her weep was a token for good and a cause of joy for herself and for mankind.
Article 4 of the Thirty-Nine Articles.