Conclusion of Jesus Is Alive!

Mary Magdalene, who remains behind at the tomb, is overcome by grief. Where could Jesus be? Stooping forward to look into the tomb, she sees the two angels in white, who have reappeared! One is sitting at the head and the other at the foot of where Jesus' body had been lying. "Woman, why are you weeping?" They ask. "They have taken my Lord away," Mary answers, "and I do not know where they have laid him." Then she turns around and sees someone who repeats the question: "Woman, why are you weeping?" And this one also asks: "Whom are you looking for?"

Imagining this person to be the caretaker of the garden in which the tomb is situated, she says to him: "Sir, if you have carried him off, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away." "Mary!" The person says. And immediately she knows, by the familiar way he speaks to her, that it is Jesus. "Rab-bo'ni!" (meaning "Teacher!") She exclaims. And with unbound joy, she grabs hold of him. But Jesus says: "Stop clinging to me. For I have not yet ascended to the Father. But be on your way to my brothers and say to them, 'I am ascending to my Father and your Father and to my God and your God.' "

Mary now runs to where the apostles and fellow disciples have gathered. She adds her account to the report that the other women have already given about seeing the resurrected Jesus. Yet, these men, who did not believe the first women apparently do not believe Mary either. Matthew 28:3-15; Mark 16:5-8; Luke 24:4-12; John 20:2-18.

Next time: Further Appearances

The Greatest Man Who Ever Lived, 1991