This post is part of the Holy Week 2013 series.

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I love John’s rendering of the resurrection — the way we get to read about it through the lens of Mary Magdalene’s experience.

We follow her to the tomb “early, while it was still dark” (John 20:1) and then follow her as she runs to get Peter and John to tell them the body of Jesus is gone from the tomb. After Peter and John run to the tomb to confirm it, they return to their homes, but we stay with Mary.

It is Mary who sees the two angels: “Woman, why are you weeping?”
It is Mary who first meets Jesus: “Woman, why are you weeping?”

Then he asks her the same question he asked the guards who arrived to arrest him just days before: “Whom are you seeking?” It’s similar to the very first words John records Jesus speaking earlier in his gospel, after two disciples began to follow him. He turns around and sees them following and says, “What do you seek?” (John 1:37).

Always with the questions, this Jesus.

I love how his questions, simple as they often are, obvious as the forthcoming answers may seem, gives each person the dignity of their response. He wants them to know themselves.

And then he says her name: “Mary!” And she knows him at once.

May you, too, on this Easter day know yourself and whom you seek, as well as the blessed joy of being named by Jesus.