(John 20:11-18; Mark 16:9-11; Matt. 28:9-10).

After the Apostles Peter and John left the tomb, only Mary Magdalene remained there, perhaps having come with them or immediately after them. Her soul was in turmoil, and she wept, considering the body of the Lord stolen. Weeping, she bent down to the opening of the tomb and saw there two angels sitting on the bed on which the bodies of the dead were laid in the tomb caves. Sorrow for the Lord was so great that it drowned out all other feelings, and therefore Magdalene, apparently, was not even particularly shocked by this appearance of the Angels, and to their question, of course, with a desire to console her: "Woman! Why are you weeping?" she easily, as if speaking to earthly creatures, touchingly expresses her sorrow in the same words as before to the Apostles Peter and John: "They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid Him." Having said this, she turned back, perhaps by chance, in a confusion of feelings, or perhaps by an instinctive inner feeling, and saw Jesus, but did not recognize Him. She did not recognize Him, probably because He appeared "in a different way" than later to the Emmaus travelers, in a "humble and ordinary" form (St. John Chrysostom), which is why she took Him for a gardener. Or perhaps she did not recognize him because her eyes were filled with tears, she was overwhelmed with grief and did not expect to see the Lord alive. At first she did not recognize Him even by His voice, when He asked her: "Woman! Why are you crying? Taking Him for a gardener, which is quite natural, for who should be so early in the garden if not a gardener, she says to Him: "Lord," in the sense of "master," "if you have carried Him away, tell me where you have laid Him, and I will take Him," without even thinking whether she, a weak woman, will be able to lift Him up.

Then the Lord revealed Himself to her, pronouncing her name, apparently in a special, well-known and long-familiar intonation of voice: "Mary?" Having turned" — this shows that after her words to the imaginary gardener, she again turned her eyes to the tomb — "She said to Him, 'Rabbi! — which means: "Teacher!" and at the same time, apparently, in indescribable joy, she fell at the feet of the Lord, wishing to cling to them, to touch them, perhaps in order to make sure that she was seeing the real living Jesus, and not a ghost. The Lord forbade her to do this, saying: "Do not touch Me, for I have not yet ascended to My Father; but go to my brethren and say to them, I ascend to my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God." "Believe not your senses, but My word," as the Lord would say to her. The meaning of this prohibition is also that the Lord wanted to say to Mary: "Leave Me, for you cannot be with Me always, do not hold Me, but go and preach My resurrection, but now I must no longer remain with you, but ascend to the Heavenly Father." A good explanation of the meaning of this prohibition to touch the Lord is found in the morning sticheron of the 8th tone: "Yet the earthly woman is wise: by the same she is sent not to touch Christ."

"Mary Magdalene goes and declares to the disciples that she has seen the Lord, and that He has told her this" – comparing these words with the narration of St. Matthew, we must assume that on the way Mary Magdalene met "another Mary", and the Lord appeared to both of them together again (the second apparition), "He says, Rejoice!" calling them "My brethren," and announcing to them His resurrection, repeating what the Angel had said before: "Let them go into Galilee." Touching is the designation "brethren" given by the resurrected Lord, the already glorified Messiah, who is ready to go to the Father, to His disciples—He is not ashamed to call them as He later emphasized in his Epistle to the Hebrews 2:11-12 ap. Paul.

St. Mark says that the myrrh-bearing women were attacked by such trembling and horror, of course, reverent, that they "said nothing to anyone." This must be understood in the sense that on the way, when they fled, they did not say anything to anyone about what they saw and heard. The fact that when they came home they told the Apostles about everything, is further narrated by the Evangelist Mark himself (Mark 16:8 and 6:10) and other Evangelists (Luke 24:9).

According to the Gospel legends, the first appearance of the Lord after the resurrection was as if to Mary Magdalene (Mark 16:9-10). But the Holy Church has preserved from ancient times the tradition that before Mary Magdalene, the resurrected Lord appeared to His Most-Pure Mother, which is quite natural and understandable. In Jerusalem, in the Church of the Resurrection, they still indicate the place of the appearance of the resurrected Savior of His Most-Pure Mother not far from the Edicule. Tradition, sanctified by centuries, cannot but be based on a real fact. And if the Gospels say nothing about this, it is because the Gospels do not record much at all, as St. John testifies (21:25; 20:30-31). It must be assumed that the Most-Pure Mother of God Herself, in Her humility, was not pleased that the cherished mysteries of Her life should be divulged, and that is why very little is said about Her in the Gospels, except for the most necessary facts directly related to the life of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. The Evangelists, apparently, did not want to mention the Most Holy Theotokos at all as a witness to the truth of the event of the Resurrection of Christ, because the testimony of the mother could not be accepted with confidence by doubters (see the synaxarion on the Sunday of Pascha). The Evangelists say that the stories of the myrrh-bearing women about what they saw and heard at the tomb and about the appearance to them of the risen Lord Himself seemed empty to them, they did not believe them (Luke 24:11). If even the apostles did not believe the myrrh-bearing women, then could outsiders believe the testimony of the Mother?

Bribery of the Coffin Guard

(Matthew 28:I-15).

"Some of the guards" who fled from the Lord's sepulchre, probably the rulers, as those responsible for leaving the place of the guard, reported everything that had happened to the chief priests. It was them, and not Pilate, for they were appointed by their order, and not by the order of the procurator himself. The chief priests gathered the Sanhedrin and decided to bribe the soldiers to slander the truth of Christ's Resurrection. "They bought His blood," says St. Chrysostom, "when He was alive, and after His crucifixion and resurrection they again try to undermine the truth of the resurrection with money." "Say that His disciples came by night and stole Him while we slept," they taught the soldiers to say. "Their words are absolutely incredible and had no plausibility," St. Chrysostom argues: "How did His disciples, these poor and simple people, who did not even dare to show themselves, steal Him? And wasn't there a seal on the coffin? Was not that place surrounded on all sides by so many guards, soldiers, and ordinary Jews? … And why should they steal? Is it in order to invent the doctrine of the resurrection? But how would it occur to people who wanted to live in the unknown to invent something like this? And how did they roll away the sealed stone? How did you hide from such a multitude? And what good would it have been to them if Jesus Christ had not been resurrected?" All interpreters of the Gospel rightly note that all the undertakings of the Sanhedrin, to preserve the Most Pure Body of the Lord in the grave, as firmly as possible, were invented and carried out as if on purpose in order to assert with all historical clarity the authenticity of the event that the members of the Sanhedrin wanted to obscure and present as false. After all, the theft of the dead was completely unheard of among the Jews, who were afraid to defile themselves by touching a dead body (Num. 19:11-12).

Как могло случиться, что воины заснули столь глубоким сном именно тогда, когда ожидалась кража — на третий день? А сон их должен был быть необыкновенно глубок, если они не слышали даже, как отваливался громадный камень от дверей гроба, если бы они даже решились заснуть, что совершенно непохоже на римских воинов, то, конечно, легли бы перед самым входом так, что невозможно было бы отвалить камень, не задавив их. Самое невероятное то, что напуганные и разбежавшиеся ученики могли бы решиться на такую бессмысленную кражу, от которой им не было бы ровно никакой пользы, а громадная опасность очевидна. Удивительно и то, что воины могли распускать такую весть сами о себе, не вызывая недоумения у слушавших их, почему они не были наказаны за такую служебную провинность? Этот вымысел злобных иудеев, упорно, несмотря на очевидность, не желавших веровать в истину воскресенья Христова, только подтверждает эту великую истину христианства.

Явление Господа ученикам на пути в Эммаус

(Луки 24:13-35 и Марка 16:12).

Об этом подробно рассказывает один Евангелист Лука, по преданию, бывший одним из этих двух учеников. Другим был Клеопа, вероятно, родственник Богоматери. Оба они были из числа 70-ти учеников Христовых. Кратко упоминает об этом явлении Господа и св. Марк (16:12). Даже сама необыкновенная живость описания этого события и полнота изображения его со всеми внутренними переживаниями показывает, что одним из двух участников его был, несомненно, сам Лука, по обычаю священных писателей, не называющий себя по имени. Ученики направлялись в селение Эммаус, находившееся в расстоянии 60-ти стадий, то есть 10-12 верстах, от Иерусалима к западу по дороге в Иоппию. При медленной ходьбе, с которой они шли туда, на покрытие этого пути могло потребоваться около 3-х часов, а при поспешном возвращении назад они могли затратить на это часа полтора-два. Это было в «тот же день»,  то есть в день самого воскресения Христова. Они шли медленно, рассуждая между собой о всех печальных событиях, связанных с последними днями земной жизни Господа, которые тяжестью легли на их души, а также, как это видно из дальнейшего (ст. 22-23), и о событиях этого дня, которые, видимо, не смогли утвердить в них веру в истину воскресения Христова, ибо они шли печальными. На пути Сам Господь присоединился к ним в виде спутника, направляющегося той же дорогой. «Но глаза их были удержаны, так что они не узнали Его».

Св. Марк объясняет, что Господь явился им «иным образом», то есть в ином виде, а поэтому они Его не узнали. Сделал Господь это намеренно, ибо Ему неугодно было, чтобы они сразу узнали Его. Сделал Он это для того, чтобы преподать им необходимое в их душевном состоянии наставление.