John 20:10Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Therefore, rightly not wishing to fall into their hands, they leave the tomb before daylight. It would have been impossible to do this without danger if they had been seen by day, when the sunlight would have exposed them before the eyes of all.

We certainly shall not say that cowardly fear was the cause of such careful flight. Rather, we must have in view the knowledge of what is profitable, which Christ had implanted in the souls of the holy disciples. This did not permit those who were to be luminaries and teachers of the universe to expose themselves recklessly to dangers.

His word had to prove true, which He spoke concerning them to the heavenly Father: "Holy Father, keep them," He says, "in Your name, which You have given Me, that they may be one, even as We are one. While I was with them, I kept them in Your name, which You have given Me; I have guarded them, and none of them is lost except the son of perdition" (Jn 17:11-12).

Thus the disciples flee, thinking that they must wait for the time of open activity. They did this in fulfillment of the Savior's words, for He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, as it is written, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which they had heard from Him. He said that John baptized with water, but they would be baptized with the Holy Spirit after not many days (Acts 1:4-5).

We find this fulfilled on the day of holy Pentecost, when "there appeared to them divided tongues as of fire, and one rested on each of them" (Acts 2:3). Then, passing into a strong and courageous disposition, and putting away human weakness from themselves, they began to oppose the madness of the Jews and to pay no attention to their plots.

Therefore the most wise disciples hid themselves for a beneficial purpose, as I have just said.

In this action we must consider what power of love inflamed this woman's soul. She did not depart from the Lord's tomb even when the disciples had gone away. She seeks Him Whom she did not find.

While seeking, she wept. Inflamed by the fire of her love, she burned with desire for Him Whom she believed had been taken away. Therefore it happened that she alone then saw Him, because she remained to seek Him.

For the strength of a good work consists precisely in perseverance. By the voice of the Truth it is declared: "He who endures to the end will be saved" (Mt 10:22; 24:13).

By the commandment of the Law, the tail of the sacrifice is ordered to be offered (Lev 3:9). The tail is the end of the body. He offers sacrifice well who brings the sacrifice of a good work to the end of proper action.

Therefore Joseph is described among his brothers as having a garment reaching to the heels (Gen 37:3, Vulgate). A garment reaching to the heels is a good work brought to completion.

But Mary, while she was weeping, stooped and looked into the tomb. It is known that she had already seen the tomb empty. She had already announced that the Lord had been taken away.

What then does it mean that she stoops again and again desires to see? For one who loves, it is not enough to look once. The power of love increases the effort of seeking.

Therefore she sought before and did not find. She continued seeking and found. It happened that unsatisfied desires increased, and having increased, they received what they found.

For this reason the Church speaks of the same Bridegroom in the Song of Songs: "On my bed by night I sought Him Whom my soul loves. I sought Him, but found Him not. I will rise now and go about the city, through the streets and squares. I will seek Him Whom my soul loves. I sought Him, but found Him not" (Song 3:1-2).

She doubles the unsuccessful seeking when she says, "I sought Him, but found Him not." Yet because finding is not far away if seeking is not interrupted, she adds: "The watchmen who go about the city found me. Have you seen Him Whom my soul loves? Scarcely had I passed from them when I found Him Whom my soul loves. I held Him and would not let Him go, until I had brought Him into my mother's house and into the chamber of her who conceived me" (Song 3:3-4).

We seek the Beloved on the bed when, in a certain rest of this present life, we are drawn by desire toward our Savior. We seek Him at night because, although the mind keeps vigil in Him, the eye has darkness.

But one who does not find his Beloved must rise and go about the city. That is, he must run through the holy Church with his mind, seeking the elect.

He must be sought in the streets and squares. That is, attention must be given to those walking both the narrow and the broad way, in order to seek His traces, if they can be found.

For there are some, even in worldly life, who possess something worthy of imitation in the practice of virtue.

While seeking, we find the watchmen who guard the city. The holy Fathers, who preserve the condition of the Church, assist our good desires, since they teach us either by word or by writing.

When we have passed a little beyond them, then we find Him Whom we love. For our Redeemer, though according to His humanity He was a man among men, according to His Godhead is above men.

Thus, when the watchmen are passed, the Beloved is found. When we perceive that the Prophets and Apostles were beneath Him, then we understand that He Who by nature is God is above men.

Therefore the Unfound is first sought, so that, once found, He may afterward be held more carefully. Holy desires grow through delay. But if they weaken through delay, they were not desires.

He who could belong to the Truth is inflamed by this love. Therefore David says: "My soul thirsts for the mighty, living God. When shall I come and appear before the face of God?" (Ps 41:3).

Therefore he exhorts us, saying: "Seek His face always" (Ps 104:4). Therefore the Prophet says: "With my soul I have desired You in the night, and with my spirit within me I will seek You early. For when Your judgments are on the earth, the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness" (Isa 26:9).

Therefore the Church again says in the Song of Songs: "I am faint with love" (Song 5:8). It is fitting that she who bears in her breast the wound of love from the flame of desire for Him should pass from seeing the Physician to salvation.

Therefore she says again: "My soul failed within me when He spoke" (Song 5:6). For the soul of a man who does not seek the face of his Creator is exceedingly coarse. It therefore remains cold within itself.

But if it has already begun to burn with desire to follow Him Whom it loves, it runs, being melted by the fire of love. Through desire it becomes hungry. Everything that pleased it in the world becomes slight.

Nothing pleases it except the Creator. What formerly delighted the soul afterward becomes exceedingly burdensome to it. Nothing soothes its grief until it beholds Him Whom it desires.

The spirit grieves, and light itself is hateful. By this fire the rust of guilt is consumed in the spirit, and the soul is melted like gold. Through use it had lost its beauty, but through burning it became bright.

Then she now comes with Peter and John, who, on the basis of what they saw, believed and went away marveling. Thus, although twice she came to the tomb with others, and those who came with her believed and were assured, she received no assurance of Christ's Resurrection, as it were, and wept inconsolably.

One may see that something similar also happens with struggles in virtue. For some of those who struggle, grace at once comes to meet them and gives them full assurance in the form of pledges. It lets them taste the promised rewards, as though stretching out a man-loving hand toward them, receiving them, and anointing them for further struggles.

Others it makes wait until the end of their struggle, while certainly preparing crowns for their patience. As one of the God-bearing Fathers said, some receive the sacred rewards before their labors, others during their labors, and still others at their departure from the body.

This happens according to the all-wise divine providence, which orders in many ways all that concerns us. It distributes to each what is fitting and profitable, both in the works of virtue and in the mysteries of the faith.

Therefore, ordering matters wisely and with love for mankind also concerning Mary Magdalene, the Master judged that she should not yet receive assurance of His Resurrection. Through her example He would lead and incline those who came later to patience.

Let us hear what gifts she was counted worthy of afterward for her steadfastness and patient endurance. "As she wept," says the Evangelist, "she stooped into the tomb, and saw two Angels in white sitting, one at the head and one at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain." Her bending down and fixing her eyes on the tomb with deep agitation was a sign of extreme tension of soul.

But first this must be examined. How, while it was still dark, as the Evangelist says above, did she clearly see everything, and each detail? How did she see from outside what was inside the cave?

Then Jesus called her by name, with the former voice familiar to her, intending to make Himself known. With the word "Teacher!" Mary threw herself at Jesus' feet and embraced them, as though never again wishing to be separated from Him. But Jesus told her that she was not seeing Him for the last time. Yet soon He intended to return completely to His Father, and therefore He commands her quickly to announce His Resurrection to the apostles.

"Do not touch Me, for I have not yet ascended to My Father. But go to My brethren and say to them: I am ascending to My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God."

From John's Gospel we see that this took place before all the women returned to the city. It happened because of Mary Magdalene's message, and Peter did not make this journey alone, but with John. Mark, after setting forth the angelic message to the women about the Lord's Resurrection, begins the history of the appearances of the Risen One Himself. First of all, he recounts the Lord's appearance to Mary Magdalene.

Yet he does not describe in detail the circumstances in which this appearance took place. He says only that it was the first appearance, and that the disciples did not believe Mary Magdalene's report.

On the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene comes to the tomb and sees that the stone has been rolled away from the tomb. The thought arises in her that the body of her beloved Teacher and Lord had no rest even in the tomb, but had been carried away. With this sorrowful thought in her soul, she runs quickly to Peter and John, without having examined the tomb.

On the way she may have met her companions, who likewise were going to the Lord's tomb, and told them her sad supposition. Of course, she thought that after examining the tomb her companions had reached the same conclusion about the Lord's body. Therefore, when she came to the apostles, she said in the name of all the women: "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid Him."

Peter and John rose and hurriedly ran with Mary to the tomb. The young John ran faster than Peter and reached the tomb first. He did not, however, enter the tomb, but only bent down to see its interior. Therefore he could make out only the linen cloths lying in the tomb.

When Peter came up, with his usual impetuosity he immediately entered the tomb. John entered after him. And behold, they saw that the linen cloths with which Jesus' body had been wrapped, and the napkin that had been on His head, lay carefully folded in their places. Their order and condition clearly showed that there had been no theft of Jesus' body.

This, however, produced a different effect on Peter and John. The latter saw and believed (Jn 20:8), while the former only marveled within himself at what had happened (Lk 24:12). Having examined the Lord's tomb, Peter and John returned again to their own.

The undoubted conviction that the Lord is alive and has risen from the dead takes possession of their soul and fills it with joy. "And he saw and believed," John the Theologian says of himself.

Yet he undoubtedly acknowledges the same feeling in Peter. He presents himself only as a witness that, in all the circumstances of this event, one could not fail to come to faith in the Lord's Resurrection. Perhaps he even implies that faith had already flared up earlier in Peter's soul, since Peter entered the tomb before him.

That John is speaking of faith kindled in both hearts is clear from the following verse. There he says of both: "For as yet they did not know the Scripture, that He must rise from the dead."

Having received in their soul the conviction that the Lord is alive, and that what He Himself had told them had been fulfilled, the disciples' thoughts turn to the Law of Moses and the prophetic books. They seek the connection between the words of revelation and the events taking place.

Only then does the meaning of the words of the Psalm begin to become clear to them: Ps 15:10, "You will not leave My soul in Hades, nor will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption."

Only then do they remember many other prophecies. Among them is Isaiah chapter 53, which portrays with such clarity the Lord's sufferings, death, and burial, and ends with a cry of joy and victory.

They also remember the victorious cry of Hosea, Hos 13:14: "O death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?"

Yet full understanding of the prophecies was given to the Apostles only later. Then the Lord granted them the Holy Spirit and opened their mind to understand the Scriptures: Jn 20:22; Lk 24:45.

Therefore John the Theologian says, conscious of man's powerlessness to understand the Scriptures by himself: "For as yet they did not know the Scripture, that He must rise from the dead."

Only the Lord Himself, after appearing to the disciples, fully disclosed to them the meaning of the whole chain of prophecies. These announced God's providence for the salvation of man on earth.

Therefore, when Peter and John stand in the tomb, their souls are filled with faith and burn with love. Yet they do not yet possess the knowledge that the Lord will give them by the Holy Spirit.

John the Theologian notes this condition of their soul and mind. By this he shows how the Lord gradually enlightened them and opened the eyes of their understanding. Thus He made them worthy preachers of the Gospel and shepherds of Christ's flock.

"Then the disciples went back to their own homes," says John, "marveling at what had happened," as Luke adds in Lk 24:12, speaking of Peter alone.

Meanwhile Mary Magdalene had run after the disciples when they ran to the tomb. But she remained outside the tomb while Peter and John were inside it.

Peter and John certainly go back in order to tell the Theotokos what they had seen and felt. They also wished to gather all the other Apostles together, so that they might wait for the Lord in reverence.

For this reason we see the Apostles and the other believers, Lk 24:33, "and those who were with them," gathered together on the evening of that day.

Meanwhile Mary Magdalene, in deep sorrow, could not tear herself away from the tomb. She stands near the tomb and weeps bitter tears.