Because of our familiarity with the resurrection of Jesus and its central importance to our faith, as we read the resurrection accounts we tend to focus only on the happy ending and forget that the disciples’ understanding of the resurrection happened in stages and was not what they were expecting at all. Although the tomb was discovered to be empty early Sunday morning, and the women who came to complete their burial custom for His body even had angelic visions saying He had risen from the dead, Jesus didn’t appear to them until later that day, so they were left in the meantime to wonder what had really happened to His corpse. Like a dream upon waking, the singular nature of the visions quickly gave way to the more rational conclusion that someone must have removed His body from the tomb. For they had no concept yet of the actual resurrection body to which He had been raised as the first-born from the dead, supposing it must be like Lazarus’ whom He had resuscitated from the dead, but who was not resurrected. And there was also the guard at the tomb, so even if life had somehow been restored to His mangled corpse, still He could only have fallen again into the hands of His enemies. Hence, the empty tomb alone that was discovered first did not immediately equate for them into what we now understand about His resurrection from the dead never to die again, or that He was really even alive. Further, when Jesus did appear to them, it was only by faith that they eventually came to recognize that it was really Him, for His natural body sown in death had been raised a spiritual body (cf. 1Co 15:44), that although very real and as much Him as before His death, was yet different and as much more than His previous body as a butterfly that has emerged from the chrysalis of a lowly worm. The real Jesus is spiritual, and although fully capable of manifesting Himself to us physically, who He is spiritually transcends time and space with all of its physical limitations. Hence, after Jesus called her by name and Mary Magdalene recognized Him for who He was and laid hold of His physical body as if to never let Him go, He told her to stop clinging to Him in that limited sense, for He would yet ascend to the Father and send the Paraclete, God’s Holy Spirit, through Whom she, and all others, could know Him more fully as He is, and cling to Him forever; see Joh 7:39, 16:7.
In this regard, what did Jesus tell Mary to do? See Joh 20:17. What else did Jesus tell Mary to tell His brethren as part of that same conversation? See Mat 28:10; cf. Mar 16:7. Is it likely that there was more to their conversation than these two things, but only these were recorded for us—and John’s decades later after Matthew’s—according to the purpose of the author? What does this remind us about there being many things not recorded in Scripture that we perhaps wish we could know to better understand, but that what has been recorded for us is sufficient and was done so in order that we too might come to know Him spiritually, that through His Spirit we might not be lacking in anything to know Him as He is? Cf. Deut 29:29, Joh 4:14, 14:26, 16:13, 20:30-31, 21:25, Rom 15:4, Jam 1:4-5, 1Jo 2:27.
In addition to telling Mary to tell His disciples to go to Galilee where they would see Him so as to firmly establish the fact of His resurrection, the other thing Scripture records that Jesus spoke about very first after His resurrection was His ascension; what does this, and that He mentions it twice in Joh 20:17, indicate about its significance? What is that significance? See Mar 16:19, Joh 6:62, 13:1,3, 16:28, Act 2:33-35, 5:31, Rom 8:34, Eph 1:18-23, Col 3:1-4, Heb 6:19-20, 7:25, 8:1-2, 9:24, 1Pe 3:22. How much more effective for establishing His kingdom on earth is Jesus’ spiritual ministry at the right hand of the Father interceding for us as a priest and pouring forth the Spirit of His relationship with the Father upon all who would enter into Their communion, than His physical ministry in the flesh upon the earth that was limited by time and space? Cf. Joh 7:38-39, 14:16-23, 16:7. What is the nature of His relationship with the Father that was woven into the fabric of Their Creation, that was severed with man by Adam’s disobedience in the Garden, but that was restored through Jesus’ ministry that culminated in His death upon the cross to those who would enter into that relationship? See Mat 26:39, Joh 4:34, 5:30, 6:38, 8:28-29, 15:10; cf. Gen 1:26-27, 1Co 11:2-3, Eph 5:22-28,32-33. See also Mat 8:8-10 which teaches us that the glad submission of the Son to the loving authority of the Father is the essence of great faith, the great faith that results in true salvation. Hence, the reason wives are to subject themselves to their husbands in everything, as to the Lord, is because the Church is to subject itself to her Husband, Christ, in all things, for He is her Lord, even as Christ subjected Himself to the Father in everything as His Lord—even unto death, trusting His loving authority as an example that He would follow for His Church and that men must follow for their wives.