Mary of Magdala stands in the garden where the mournful cypress casts its shadows, and sighs in the freshening breezes over the tombs of the dead. The morning sun breaking over the eastern Olivet has not reached the deep grove where she weeps, and if it had, its rays hold no power that can dispel the gloom of her soul, for she has lost the One in whom her life was centered, and she knows not where to find Him. The disciples, her friends, have homes and duties and distractions, but earth has no comfort for her as she stands beside that sepulcher where all that she loved had lain. Neither can heaven yield her consolation, she feels, for though “angels in white” appear and speak to her, she turns from them as though they were intruders, unable to understand or ease her grief: “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid Him.”

Among the shadows He waits for her, her risen Lord, and when she turns herself back and stands face to face with Him, He speaks to her, asking the cause of her grief. But she supposes Him to be the gardener, and of what use can a gardener be to her? The gardener labors upon beautiful things that grow and shed their sweetness for a day, then die and are forgotten. She seeks not flowers, but “Him,” who can heal the brokenhearted, who Himself is called the “Man of Sorrows.” Marvelous designation for Jehovah’s Fellow!

The gardener may work with sympathy among the graves and endeavor to cover with the beauty of nature the stark nakedness of death, but a flower-strewn grave remains a grave, and the flowers fade in spite of all his labor. Mary does not want a gardener to garnish a grave; she wants Him who breaks the power of death, and casts the light of resurrection upon the gloomy grave!