Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been taken away from the entrance. 2 So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said to them, “They’ve taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they’ve put him.”
3 So Peter and the other disciple left and went toward the tomb. 4 The two of them ran together, but the other disciple ran faster than Peter and got to the tomb first. 5 He bent down and looked in and saw the linen cloths lying there, but he didn’t go in. 6 Then Simon Peter came up behind him and went straight into the tomb. He saw the linen cloths lying there, 7 and the face cloth that had been on Jesus’ head — not lying with the linen cloths, but folded up by itself in a separate place.[1] 8 Then the other disciple, the one who had reached the tomb first, also went in. He saw and believed. 9 They still didn’t understand the Scripture that said he had to rise from the dead. 10 Then the disciples went back to their own homes.
11 But Mary stood outside the tomb, crying. As she cried, she bent down to look into the tomb 12 and saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been — one at the head and one at the feet. 13 They said to her, “Woman, why are you crying?”
She said to them, “Because they’ve taken my Lord, and I don’t know where they’ve put him.”
14 After she said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she didn’t realize it was Jesus.
15 Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who are you looking for?”
Thinking he was the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you’ve carried him away, tell me where you’ve put him, and I’ll go get him.”
16 Jesus said to her, “Mary.”
She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”).[2]
17 Jesus said to her, “Don’t hold on to me, because I haven’t gone up to the Father yet. But go to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am going up to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”[3]
18 Mary Magdalene went and told the disciples, “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them what he had said to her.
19 That evening, on that first day of the week, the doors were locked where the disciples were staying, because they were afraid of the Jews. Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.”
20 After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.
21 Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. Just as the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” 22 And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.[4] 23 If you forgive anyone’s sins, they are forgiven. If you hold them back, they are held back.”
24 Now Thomas, one of the Twelve (called the Twin), wasn’t with them when Jesus came.[5] 25 So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!”
But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands, and put my finger into the nail marks, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”
26 Eight days later, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. The doors were locked, but Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” 27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here. Look at my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”
28 Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!”
29 Jesus said to him, “You believe because you’ve seen me? Fortunate are those who haven’t seen and yet have believed.”
30 Jesus did many other signs in front of his disciples that aren’t written down in this book. 31 But these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Anointed One, the Son of God, and so that by believing you may have life in his name.
Notes
Note 1. The Greek word here, soudarion, was a cloth used to cover the face of a corpse. John notes it lay rolled up in its own place, apart from the other wrappings. A popular retelling claims folding a napkin was a cultural signal meaning “I’m coming back,” but there is no evidence for that custom. ↩
Note 2. John hands the reader the Aramaic word and then translates it: “Teacher.” “Rabboni” is a heightened form of the more common “Rabbi,” carrying a sense closer to “my master” or “my great teacher.” ↩
Note 3. The old rendering “Touch me not” misses the Greek. The verb is a present-tense command that assumes an action already underway, so the sense is “stop clinging to me” rather than a warning against contact. ↩
Note 4. The verb translated “breathed on” (enephysēsen) is rare, and it is the same word the Greek Old Testament uses when God breathes life into the first human in Genesis 2:7 and when breath revives the dry bones in Ezekiel 37. ↩
Note 5. “Thomas” comes from the Aramaic word for twin, and the Greek gloss John adds, Didymos, means exactly the same thing — so the name is essentially “Twin the twin.” It reads like a nickname, but no early tradition tells us who his twin actually was. ↩