After Peter and John had gone home to ponder what they had seen, Mary Magdalene returned to the garden where Jesus had been buried.
Mary was standing outside the tomb weeping. As she wept, she stooped down and looked into the tomb. She saw two men in white, one at the head and the other at the foot of where Jesus had been laid.
Mary entered the tomb and asked the men dressed in white linen, who were angels, to tell her where they had taken the body of Jesus.
Just them Mary saw someone she did not recognize at first outside the tomb. Mary went out the tomb and asked the man to tell her where they had taken the body of Jesus.
Jesus then came up to Mary and said to her,
“Woman, why are you weeping?”
Mary did not recognize Him because of her sorrow. She thought He was the gardener. She said,
‘They have taken away my Lord and I do not know where they have laid him.’
She then turned back to Jesus and saw Him plainly and recognized Him. She said in Hebrew,
‘Rabboni (Teacher).’
Mary then held on to Jesus who said to her,
“You must not touch me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go to my brothers and tell them I am ascending to my Father and your Father, and my God and your God.”
The first fruits wave offering always took place on the day after the first weekly Sabbath that took place after Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. The wave offering took place in the temple at exactly 9am in the morning.
This is when Jesus would ascend to His father in Heaven with the first fruits of those who had been raised from the dead and were wandering around the streets of Jerusalem after the earthquake had opened the tombs.
Mary Magdalene went and told some of the disciples,
‘I have seen the Lord, he is alive. They did not believe her.’
Mary was the first follower to see the resurrected Jesus.
Later Jesus appeared to another group of women followers, the ones who had come to anoint the body of Jesus and had seen the angels inside the tomb and were told to tell the disciples.
Jesus appeared to them as they were on the way to tell the disciples what the angels had told them. This must have been after 9am as Jesus allowed them to take hold of His feet and worship Him.
Jesus said to them,
“Do not fear, go tell my brothers who are going to Galilee that they will soon see me.”
The women who had seen Jesus alive were Mary Magdalene, and Joanna, and Mary the mother of James and the other women who were with them. They told the disciples, but they did not believe. The disciples thought it was idle talk.
