After replying to the angels, Mary turns herself about, and sees a person standing near, whom, from his being present there, she takes to be the keeper of the garden. He too inquires, why she weeps. Her reply is the same as before; except that she, not unnaturally, supposes him to have been engaged in removing the body, which she desires to recover. He simply utters in reply, in well-known tones, the name Mary! and the whole truth flashes upon her soul; doubt is dispelled, and faith triumphs. She exclaims: “Rabboni!” as much as to say, “My dearest Master!” and apparently, like the other women,[316] falls at his feet in order to embrace and worship him. This Jesus forbids her to do, in these remarkable words: “Touch me not: for I am not yet ascended to my Father. But go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God;” v. 17.
There remains to be considered the circumstance, that Mark, in v. 9, seems to represent this appearance of Jesus at the sepulchre to Mary Magdalene, as his first appearance: “Now, being risen early the first of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene.” In attempting to harmonize this with Matthew's account of our Lord's appearance to the other women on their return from the sepulchre, several methods have been adopted; but the most to the purpose is the view which regards the word first, in Mark v. 9, as put not absolutely, but relatively. That is to say, Mark narrates three, and only three, appearances of our Lord; of these three, that to Mary Magdalene takes place first, and that to the assembled disciples the same evening occurs last, v. 14. A similar example occurs in 1 Cor. 15: 5-8, where Paul enumerates those to whom the Lord showed himself after his resurrection, viz. to Peter, to the twelve, to five hundred brethren, to James, to all the apostles, and last of all to Paul also. Now had Paul written here, as with strict propriety he might have done, “he was seen first of Cephas,” assuredly no one would ever have understood him as intending to assert that the appearance to Peter was the first absolutely; that is, as implying that Jesus was seen of Peter before he appeared to Mary Magdalene and the other women. In like manner when John declares (21: 14) that Jesus showed himself to his disciples by the lake of Galilee for the third time after he was risen from the dead; this is said relatively to the two previous appearances to the assembled apostles; and does by no means exclude the four still earlier appearances, viz. to Peter, to the two at Emmaus, to Mary Magdalene, and to the other women,—one of which John himself relates in full.
In this way the old difficulty in the case before us disappears; and the complex and cumbrous machinery of earlier commentators becomes superfluous.
After her interview with Jesus, Mary Magdalene returns to the city, and tells the disciples that she had seen the Lord and that he had spoken these things unto her. According to Mark (vs. 10, 11), the disciples were “mourning and weeping;” and when the heard that Jesus was alive and had been seen of her, they believed not.
§ 5. Jesus appears to two disciples on the way to Emmaus. Also to Peter.
Luke 24: 13-35. Mark 16: 12, 13. 1 Cor. 15: 5.
This appearance on the way to Emmaus is related in full only by Luke. Mark merely notes the fact; while the other two Evangelists and Paul (1 Cor. 15: 5) make no mention of it.
On the afternoon of the same day on which our Lord arose, two of his disciples, one of them named Cleopas, were on their way on foot to a village called Emmaus, sixty stadia or seven and a half Roman miles distant from Jerusalem,—a walk of some two or two [pg 503] and a half hours. They had heard and credited the tidings brought by the women, and also by Peter and John, that the sepulchre was open and empty; and that the women had also seen a vision of angels, who said that Jesus was alive. They had most probably likewise heard the reports of Mary Magdalene and the other women, that Jesus himself had appeared to them; but these they did not regard, and do not mention them (v. 24); because they, like the other disciples, had looked upon them “as idle tales, and they believed them not;” v. 11. As they went, they were sad, and talked together of all these things which had happened. After some time Jesus himself drew near and went with them. But they knew him not. Mark says he was in another form; Luke affirms that “their eyes were holden, that they should not know him;” v. 16. Was there in this anything miraculous? The “another form” of Mark, Doddridge explains by “a different habit from what he ordinarily wore.” His garments, of course, were not his former ones; and this was probably one reason why Mary Magdalene had before taken him for the keeper of the garden.[317] It may be, too, that these two disciples had not been intimately acquainted with the Lord. He had arrived at Jerusalem only six days before his crucifixion; and these might possibly have been recent converts, who had not before seen him. To such, the change of garments, and the unexpectedness of the meeting, would render a recognition more difficult; nor could it be regarded as surprising, that under such circumstances they should not know him. Still, all this is hypothesis; and the averment of Luke, that “their eyes were holden,” and the manner of our Lord's parting from them afterwards, seem more naturally to imply that the idea of a supernatural agency, affecting not Jesus himself, but the eyes or minds of the two disciples, was in the mind of the sacred writer.
Jesus inquires the cause of their sadness; chides them for their slowness of heart to believe what the prophets had spoken; and then proceeds to expound unto them “in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.” They feel the power of his words; and their hearts burn within them. By this time they drew nigh to the village whither they went; it was toward evening, and the day was far spent. Their journey was ended; and Jesus was about to depart from them. In accordance with oriental hospitality they constrained him to remain with them. He consents; and as he sat at meat with them, he took bread, and blessed and brake, and gave unto them. At this time, and in connection with this act, their eyes were opened; they knew him; and he vanished away from them. Here too the question is raised, whether the language necessarily implies anything miraculous? Our English translators have rendered this passage in the margin, “he ceased to be seen of them;” and have referred to Luke 4: 30, and John 8: 59, as illustrating this idea. They might also have referred to Acts 8: 39. Still, the language is doubtless such as the sacred writers would most naturally have employed in order directly to express the idea of supernatural agency.
Full of wonder and joy, the two disciples set off the same hour and return to Jerusalem. They find the eleven and other disciples assembled; and as they enter, they are met with the joyful exclamation: “The Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared unto Simon;” v. 34. They then rehearse what had happened to themselves; but, according to Mark, the rest believed them not. As in the case of the women, so here, there would seem to have been something in the position or character of these two disciples, which led the others to give less credit to their testimony, than to that of Peter, one of the leading apostles.