Easter with the Women at Jesus’ Empty Tomb: The Four Gospels

Many years, including this year (2026), Passover coincides with the Christian holiday of Easter, which commemorates the death and resurrection of Jesus. The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke place Jesus’ crucifixion on the first night of Passover; the Gospel of John places it on the night before. In all four Gospels, the resurrection is dated to the third day after the crucifixion, namely on the Sunday during Passover.

This is not mere coincidence. Because Christianity began as a Jewish movement, it also retained or absorbed many Jewish ideas, including creating associations among Passover, the messiah, and a future messianic era.^[1] From a Jewish perspective, the connection between Passover and the messianic age is articulated in the Haftarah (prophetic reading) from Isaiah that is recited in the synagogue on the last day of Passover (10:32–12:6), several verses of which express the hope for an ideal future era—a “day”—when:

‏^{ישׁעיה יא:א} וְיָצָא חֹטֶר מִגֵּזַע יִשָׁי וְנֵצֶר מִשָּׁרָשָׁיו יִפְרֶה....

^{Isa 11:1} A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots....

^יא:ו וְגָר זְאֵב עִם כֶּבֶשׂ וְנָמֵר עִם גְּדִי יִרְבָּץ וְעֵגֶל וּכְפִיר וּמְרִיא יַחְדָּו וְנַעַר קָטֹן נֹהֵג בָּם.

^11:6 The wolf shall live with the lamb; the leopard shall lie down with the kid; the calf and the lion will feed together, and a little child shall lead them.^[2]

The connection between Passover and Easter is emphasized by the fact that Greek uses the same term, Pascha (Πάσχα) for both holidays.^[3]

In Judaism, the climax of the Exodus story is the liberation from Egypt. By reading the Haggadah aloud at the seder, we insert ourselves into the story of exodus and experience the redemption along with all who were there, who have lived since, and who will live in the future.^[4] For Christians, the climax of the Gospel story is the resurrection, which became the cornerstone of Christian faith.

Christianity does not have an exact equivalent of the seder or the Haggadah,^[5] but it does have rituals and a script of sorts: the lectionary, which prescribes the readings that are to be read on Sundays and during holidays. The lectionary readings vary from church to church, and, in many cases, from year to year.^[6] In all cases, however, the readings for Easter Sunday include a Gospel account of events after Jesus’ resurrection.

In contrast to the biblical account of the Exodus, which details the steps in the Israelites’ liberation, the Gospels do not describe exactly how and when Jesus was resurrected. Rather, the knowledge of the resurrection is tied to a narrative in which one or more women visit Jesus’ tomb on the third day after his death—Sunday—and find it empty. In three of the Gospels, these disciples later see Jesus himself. But it is the empty tomb that constitutes the first evidence of his resurrection.

The Gospel Stories of Jesus’ Empty Tomb

The general consensus in Gospel studies is that Mark’s gospel was a source for both Luke and Matthew.^[7] Because they present similar accounts, the three are called the Synoptic Gospels, from the Greek συνοπτικός (synoptikós), “viewing all together.” John has often been seen as reflecting a different tradition, but increasingly scholars are arguing for John’s knowledge of one or more of the Synoptics.^[8]

For our purposes, however, it is not necessary to unravel the literary relationships among the Gospels. Although their accounts of the empty tomb share a common structure, the details vary considerably, suggesting that there may not be a direct literary relationship among them for this part of their narratives.

Common Structure

All four accounts are set on Sunday morning, the third day after Jesus’ death; and the location is Jesus’ tomb. The narrative structure has five basic parts.

1. Mary Magdalene, in some cases accompanied by other women, all followers of Jesus, comes to the tomb.

Matthew (28:1) – Mary Magdalene and the “other Mary”

Mark (16:1) – Mary Magdalene and Mary, the mother of James and Salome

Luke (24:10) – Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary, the mother of James, and the other women with them

John (20:1) – Mary Magdalene alone

The presence of Mary Magdalene in all four accounts may reflect historical reminiscence or, at least, a strong common tradition.^[9]

2. Why did the women come?

Matthew (28:1) – The women went to see the tomb.

Mark (16:1) and Luke (24:1) – Both state that the women brought spices with them to the tomb. Mark includes that this was in order to anoint Jesus’ body, which is puzzling, as normally bodies would be anointed before burial only.^[10]

John (20:1, 11) – Mary also seems to have gone to see the tomb; the narrative later describes her as weeping outside of the tomb before she looks inside.

3. Upon arriving at the tomb the women are surprised.

In all four accounts, the stone covering the tomb’s entrance is or was rolled away,^[11] so that the tomb is now open (Matt 28:2; Mark 16:4; Luke 24:2; John 20:1), and the women encounter male strangers instead of Jesus’ body:

Matthew (28:2) – An angel rolls back the stone that covered the tomb and then sits on it.

Mark (16:5) – A young man is sitting on the bench where Jesus had been lying.

Luke (24:4) – Two men “in dazzling clothes” stand in the tomb.

John (20:12) – Two angels dressed in white are sitting on the bench where Jesus had been lying.

4. The strangers speak with the women.

Matthew (28:5–6), Mark (16:6), and Luke (24:5–8), the Synoptic gospels – The stranger(s) reassure the women by informing or reminding them that Jesus has been raised from the dead.

John (20:13) – The angels ask Mary Magdalene why she is weeping.

Though Mary’s weeping recalls the ancient practice of ritualized wailing by mourning women,^[12] the question from the angels (and later from the Risen Jesus; John 20:15) suggests that her behavior is unusual. And indeed, Mary is weeping for a specific reason: the emptiness of the tomb and the possibility that Jesus’ body has been removed (20:13b; 15b).

John’s account includes a vignette in which Mary Magdalene, distraught, runs to tell the disciples that the tomb is empty. Peter and another disciple race to the tomb to see for themselves, and then they leave again, while Mary stays on to weep (20:2–11).

5. The women are told to spread the news that Jesus lives to the disciples.

Matthew (28:7) and Mark (16:7) – The angel or young man instructs the women to do so.

Luke (24:9) – The women do this of their own accord.

John (20:17) – Jesus himself sends Mary to tell the disciples.

After this point, the stories diverge significantly. Both Matthew and Luke turn their attention away from the women and back to the disciples and other male characters.

What Happens Next in Matthew and Luke

In Matthew, the women encounter the Risen Jesus as they are on their way to the disciples (28:9). Matthew then offers a short anecdote in which the chief priests plan to bribe the soldiers guarding the tomb to declare that the disciples have stolen Jesus’ body. The narrator informs us that “this story is still told among the Judeans to this day” (v. 15). Then the disciples meet up with Jesus on a mountain in the Galilee and he commissions them to “make disciples of all nations” (v. 19).

Luke describes how the women tell the eleven disciples (minus Judas), but the disciples do not believe them until Peter peers into the tomb and sees the linen clothes in which Jesus’ body had been wrapped (24:9–12). Luke follows with another narrative in which the disciples tell a stranger—Jesus in disguise—about what the women had seen at the tomb early that morning. Jesus then reveals himself to them, and, eventually, rises up to heaven in their presence (vv. 13–50).

John: Jesus and Mary Magdalene as the Lovers in the Song of Songs

In John, Mary Magdalene remains in the spotlight of the empty tomb story. Peter and the “other disciple” race to see the tomb, but after they depart, Mary stays to weep alone (v. 11). Throughout the story, Mary Magdalene and Jesus are symbolically depicted as the lovers of the Song of Songs.^[13] Peering inside the tomb, she sees the two angels, who ask why she is weeping (20:12). Mary responds:

^{John 20:13} “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.”[14]

Mary’s search for the body of Jesus echoes how the lover sought (בקש) her beloved in the Song:^[15]

‏^{שׁיר השׁירים ג:א} עַל מִשְׁכָּבִי בַּלֵּילוֹת בִּקַּשְׁתִּי אֵת שֶׁאָהֲבָה נַפְשִׁי בִּקַּשְׁתִּיו וְלֹא מְצָאתִיו. ^ג:ב אָקוּמָה נָּא וַאֲסוֹבְבָה בָעִיר בַּשְּׁוָקִים וּבָרְחֹבוֹת אֲבַקְשָׁה אֵת שֶׁאָהֲבָה נַפְשִׁי בִּקַּשְׁתִּיו וְלֹא מְצָאתִיו.

^{Song 3:1} Upon my bed at night I sought him whom my soul loves; I sought him but found him not; I called him, but he gave no answer. ^3:2 “I will rise now and go about the city, in the streets and in the squares; I will seek him whom my soul loves.” I sought him but found him not.

The Gospel writer knew the Song in its Greek version and paralleled its language at several points. For example, the verb ζητέω (zeteo), “to seek,” which appears four times in the Song of Songs (3:1–2), is central to the scene in which Jesus and Mary meet in the garden (see John 20:15, below).^[16]

Other parallels include the use of the verb παρακύπτω (parakupto) to mean “peering in”—when the beloved peers through his lover’s windows (Song 2:9) and when one of the disciples peers into Jesus’ empty tomb (John 20:5). Both texts also emphasize spices—perfuming the bodies of both lovers (Song 1:12; 3:6; 4:6,10; 5:1, 13) and anointing Jesus’ body for burial (John 19:39).

John’s Two Angels and the Song’s Sentinels

Mary’s comment to the angels that she does not know where Jesus’ body is recalls the lover in the Song’s query of her city’s sentinels:

^{שׁיר השׁירים ג:ג} מְצָאוּנִי הַשֹּׁמְרִים הַסֹּבְבִים בָּעִיר אֵת שֶׁאָהֲבָה נַפְשִׁי רְאִיתֶם.

^{Song 3:3} The sentinels found me, as they went about in the city. “Have you seen him whom my soul loves?”

Turning from the angels, Mary encounters Jesus, though she does not immediately recognize him:

^{John 20:14} When she had said this [to the angels], she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus.^[17]

Likewise, in the Song, the lover finds her beloved soon after leaving the sentinels:

^{שׁיר השׁירים ג:ד} כִּמְעַט שֶׁעָבַרְתִּי מֵהֶם עַד שֶׁמָּצָאתִי אֵת שֶׁאָהֲבָה נַפְשִׁי...

^{Song 3:4a} Scarcely had I passed them, when I found him whom my soul loves.

Jesus, like the angels, asks Mary why she is weeping, but he also asks whom she seeks:

^{John 20:15} Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom do you seek (ζητέω)?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.”^[18]

Mary only realizes that her search is over when Jesus calls her by name:

^{John 20:16} Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher).^[19]

Mary wishes to hold Jesus tight, like the lover in the Song, who declares that she will not let him go until she brings him into her mother’s house:

^{שׁיר השׁירים ג:ד} ...אֲחַזְתִּיו וְלֹא אַרְפֶּנּוּ עַד שֶׁהֲבֵיאתִיו אֶל בֵּית אִמִּי וְאֶל חֶדֶר הוֹרָתִי.

^{Song 3:4b} I held him and would not let him go until I brought him into my mother’s house and into the chamber of her that conceived me.

Jesus, however, does not allow it. Rather, Mary must allow him to return to his father’s abode:

^{John 20:17} Jesus said to her, “Do not touch me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”^[20]

The story in John also has numerous linguistic and narrative allusions to the Garden of Eden story (Gen 2). Jesus calls Mary “woman” (John 20:14), just as the first man called his mate (Gen 2:23), and then he calls her by name (John 20:16), as Adam did the first woman (Gen 3:20). Jesus’ directive that Mary not hold onto him (John 20:17) also challenges the physical basis of the male-female relationship:

^{בראשׁית ב:כד} עַל כֵּן יַעֲזָב אִישׁ אֶת אָבִיו וְאֶת אִמּוֹ וְדָבַק בְּאִשְׁתּוֹ וְהָיוּ לְבָשָׂר אֶחָד.

^{Gen 2:24} Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.^[21]

Although different Greek words are used in each case, this echo draws attention to the sexual potential of an encounter between a man and woman in a garden.

What Was Jesus and Mary’s Relationship?

Were Jesus and Mary lovers in the romantic sense? God only knows. The chapter itself cuts off such speculation by having Jesus rebuff her embrace, but some in the early church were curious about this possibility and let their imaginations run wild.^[22] However we might imagine the backstory, the passage eloquently depicts the love that Mary (here understood as the narrative character, not the historical personage) had for Jesus—whether spiritual, romantic, or a combination of the two.

It also, however, captures the emotional turmoil of grief. Mary’s joy at finding Jesus alive speaks to the depth of her despair after his death. If you have ever lost a loved one, you too may have experienced, as I have done, both the sense of loss and the feeling that somehow our loved one is still with us. Their voice, their intonation, their very presence remains real for us despite our rational knowledge that they are now gone.

The story of the empty tomb concludes with Mary following Jesus’ command:

^{John 20:18} Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”; and she told them that he had said these things to her.^[23]

Only then does John turn its attention away from Mary, offering an account of Jesus’ appearances to the disciples, beginning with a scene in which Jesus miraculously appears in a locked room where the disciples were hiding from the Jews, shows them his wounds, breathes the holy spirit upon them, and empowers them to forgive or retain sins (see Excursus 1, below).

Mark: The Women Leave Us with a Cliffhanger

Finally, we turn to Mark, which differs from the other three canonical Gospels because its narrative ends with a cliffhanger at the empty tomb. Mary Magdalene and Mary, the mother of James and Salome, enter the tomb to anoint Jesus’ body, and they are alarmed to find instead a young man sitting there.^[24]

^{Mark 16:6} But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. ^16:7 But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.”^[25]

Despite his clear instructions to share the news of Jesus resurrection with the disciples and Peter, the women remain silent, too afraid to speak:

^{Mark 16:8} So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.^[26]

This ending is stunning for two reasons. First, it highlights the role of the women, whose awed and fearful response emphasizes the emotional impact of this moment. This impact gets lost in the longer endings of Matthew and Luke.

Second, it raises a question: If the women, whom Mark portrays as the sole witnesses to the empty tomb, “said nothing to anyone,” how did the story get told and written down? In the manner of a postmodern novel it leaves us with a delicious paradox that accentuates the awe that left these women tongue-tied.

It is also fitting, in light of the theme of the “messianic secret,” which is woven through the entire Gospel.^[27] According to Mark, Jesus made a point of telling the people whom he healed or whose demons he exorcised not to tell others about what he had done, but these people were invariably incapable of keeping the secret. For example, after Jesus heals a leper, he warns him to keep silent:

^{Mark 1:44} He said to him, “See that you say nothing to anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded as a testimony to them.”^[28]

The man, however, spreads the news far and wide:

^{Mark 1:45} But he went out and began to proclaim it freely and to spread the word, so that Jesus could no longer go into a town openly but stayed out in the country, and people came to him from every quarter.^[29]

Yet, at the end of the Gospel, when Jesus has died and been resurrected and it is now possible—in fact, essential—to spread the word, the women remain silent.

The ending may delight us from a literary perspective, and most scholars consider it to be the original ending to the Gospel, but it apparently troubled the ancient scribes who copied the text. The extant manuscripts preserve two alternate endings, and modern translations typically present both alternatives in succession (see Excursus 2).

Experiencing the Empty Tomb

Mainline Catholic and Protestant churches generally read either John (20:1–9 or 20:1–18) or Matthew (28:1–10) on Easter Sunday. On Sundays during the Easter season Luke (24:13–35) and/or Mark (16:1–8) may also be read. I would suggest, however, that the Gospels of Mark and John are more effective at mediating the experience of the resurrection than are the Gospels of Matthew and Luke.

Whereas Matthew and Luke bury the women’s visit to the empty tomb in longer narratives about the activity of men and angels, Mark and John give the women their due by drawing out the emotional tenor of their experiences. The women’s awe in Mark ties their tongues, just at the moment when it is finally possible—and necessary—to reveal all. Ending on this fearsome moment allows us to imagine what it would be like to discover that a person whose death and burial we witnessed (cf. Mark 15:40) has disappeared from the tomb. Is it possible that he yet lives, as the white-clad young man had assured them (16:5)?

The appearance of the Risen Jesus to Mary Magdalene in the garden in John (ch. 20) opens a window into the power of love between friends and provides a model for the love that many Christians feel for Christ. The fact that she is chosen to be the “apostle to the apostles” elevates her, and Christian women, to the status of a disciple who can be a conduit of revelation to others.

Just as the Passover Haggadah allow seder participants not only to put themselves in the shoes of the Israelites who left Egypt, those who attend Easter services and hear the Gospel readings experience vicariously and viscerally the women’s fear, awe and amazement as they find the tomb empty and begin to understand its significance.

Excursus 1

Doubting Thomas at the Ending of John

In the Gospel of John, after Jesus appears to the disciples, a disciple who had been absent returns. Thomas—known in Christian tradition as “Doubting Thomas”—refuses to believe what the other disciples tell him, and insists on seeing and touching the wounds himself. Jesus then appears to him and invites him to do just that. Whether Thomas touches him we are not told, but Thomas responds with a confession of Jesus as “My Lord and my God!” (20:28). Jesus then chastises him:

^{John 20:29} “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”^[30]

In this short narrative, John casts a side glance at the audience outside the Gospel, that is, those who hear or read it, all of whom are “those who have not seen” and who therefore must rely on the testimony of others. The final two verses of the chapter constitute the Gospel’s statement of purpose; it envisages itself as the medium through which its audience will witness the signs or miracles that Jesus performed and therefore, so the narrator hopes, also come to believe:

^{John 20:30} Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book. ^20:31 But these are written so that you may continue to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.^[31]

A sort of epilogue then describes a further appearance to the disciples, as they are fishing by the Sea of Tiberias (ch. 21).

Excursus 2

New Endings for the Gospel of Mark

In the Gospel of Mark, some manuscripts follow the statement in the original ending that the women were too afraid to speak (16:8) with an addition to the verse (which the NRSVue presents under the heading “The Intermediate Ending of Mark”) that solves the problem of how the word of Jesus’ resurrection spread:

And all that had been commanded them they told briefly to those around Peter. And afterward Jesus himself sent out through them, from east to west, the sacred and imperishable proclamation of eternal salvation.^[32]

Other manuscripts follow verse 8, with or without the “intermediate ending,” with twelve additional verses (which the NRSVue titles “The Long Ending of Mark”) that recount various scenes with the Risen Jesus:

• an appearance to Mary Magdalene alone (vv. 9–11);
• an appearance to two other disciples (12–13);
• a commission to the eleven disciples as a group (14–18);
• and finally Jesus’ ascension:

^{Mark 16:19} So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God. ^19:20 And they went out and proclaimed the good news everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by the signs that accompanied it.^[33]