The Gospel According to John (American Standard Version, 1901) · 34 of 37 · tr. American Standard Version (1901)
19:36-20:16
[19:36] For these things came to pass, that the scripture might be fulfilled, A bone of him shall not be broken.
[19:37] And again another scripture saith, They shall look on him whom they pierced.
[19:38] And after these things Joseph of Arimathaea, being a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, asked of Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus: and Pilate gave him leave. He came therefore, and took away his body.
[19:39] And there came also Nicodemus, he who at the first came to him by night, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds.
[19:40] So they took the body of Jesus, and bound it in linen cloths with the spices, as the custom of the Jews is to bury.
[19:41] Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new tomb wherein was never man yet laid.
[19:42] There then because of the Jews’ Preparation (for the tomb was nigh at hand) they laid Jesus.
[20:1] Now on the first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, while it was yet dark, unto the tomb, and seeth the stone taken away from the tomb.
[20:2] She runneth therefore, and cometh to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and saith unto them, They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we know not where they have laid him.
[20:3] Peter therefore went forth, and the other disciple, and they went toward the tomb.
[20:4] And they ran both together: and the other disciple outran Peter, and came first to the tomb;
[20:5] and stooping and looking in, he seeth the linen cloths lying; yet entered he not in.
[20:6] Simon Peter therefore also cometh, following him, and entered into the tomb; and he beholdeth the linen cloths lying,
[20:7] and the napkin, that was upon his head, not lying with the linen cloths, but rolled up in a place by itself.
[20:8] Then entered in therefore the other disciple also, who came first to the tomb, and he saw, and believed.
[20:9] For as yet they knew not the scripture, that he must rise again from the dead.
[20:10] So the disciples went away again unto their own home.
[20:11] But Mary was standing without at the tomb weeping: so, as she wept, she stooped and looked into the tomb;
[20:12] and she beholdeth two angels in white sitting, one at the head, and one at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain.
[20:13] And they say unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? She saith unto them, Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him.
[20:14] When she had thus said, she turned herself back, and beholdeth Jesus standing, and knew not that it was Jesus.
[20:15] Jesus saith unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? whom seekest thou? She, supposing him to be the gardener, saith unto him, Sir, if thou hast borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away.
[20:16] Jesus saith unto her, Mary. She turneth herself, and saith unto him in Hebrew, Rabboni; which is to say, Teacher.
The supreme God's radical concealment beyond ordinary knowledge or perception; the Hidden Father.
The risen Jesus is concealed in an unrecognized form—Mary supposes him to be the gardener—and is only revealed when he speaks her name, enacting a pattern of divine concealment and selective self-disclosure.
Pronoia — the doctrine that the divine actively orders the unfolding of the cosmos and human affairs toward intelligible ends, against pure chance or blind necessity.
The opening verses explicitly frame the crucifixion events as divinely orchestrated fulfillment of scripture ('that the scripture might be fulfilled'), asserting that the divine actively orders human affairs toward intelligible ends.
The doctrine that the divine or a spiritual principle takes on a specific, bounded material or bodily form — descending from an unconditioned state into individual, corporeal existence — as a discrete act rather than a diffuse pervading presence. The Christian Word made flesh, the Hindu avatara, the Egyptian pharaoh as living Horus, the Vajrayana tulku. Distinct from divine_immanence (the general claim that the divine pervades all of creation diffusely, not a specific embodiment-event) and separation_from_source (the felt exile FROM origin, the opposite motion) in describing a specific, individuated descent INTO a particular body or form.
The passage narrates the post-resurrection re-embodiment of Jesus in a specific, bounded bodily form that can be mistaken for a gardener, making the divine's descent into corporeal existence the structural premise of the encounter.
A non-physical dimension of reality, interpenetrating the physical world, populated by forces, beings, and forms ordinarily imperceptible to physical senses and instruments, that can affect embodied life without being seen — Dion Fortune's 'mind-side of nature,' the astral plane of Western esotericism broadly construed. Distinct from astral_light (a specific transmitting medium or fluid operating within this realm, not the realm itself), pleroma (the divine fullness at the summit of a cosmic hierarchy, not a parallel plane coextensive with ordinary life), and animism (particular indwelling spirits bound to specific natural objects, not the general unseen dimension itself).
Two angels in white are described as sitting in the tomb, one at the head and one at the feet, representing non-physical beings interpenetrating the physical space.
The felt condition of exile from one's divine origin — Rumi's reed flute torn from its bed, Plotinus's 'we have forgotten,' the Gnostic forgetfulness; the affective wound that complements return_to_source and gives the return its motive.
Mary's weeping and despair at the empty tomb—'they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him'—expresses a felt condition of loss and absence from the one who is her source of meaning.