City Life Starter

Written by Scott Fiddler

The Word

 11 But Mary was standing outside the tomb weeping; and so, as she wept, she stooped and looked into the tomb; 

12 and she saw two angels in white sitting, one at the head and one at the feet, where the body of Jesus had been lying.

 13 And they said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “Because they have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid Him.”

 14 When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, and did not know that it was Jesus.

 15 Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?” Supposing Him to be the gardener, she said to Him, “Sir, if you have carried Him away, tell me where you have laid Him, and I will take Him away.”

 16 Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to Him in Hebrew, “Rabboni!” (which means, Teacher).

Exegesis

As a trial lawyer, it is part of my job to work with evidence. Not all evidence is equal though, and so rules have developed over the centuries that govern which evidence is considered reliable enough to be admissible and which is not. 

Hearsay is an out of court statement offered for the truth of the matter asserted. Fed. R. Evid. 801(c). Hearsay presents a special problem for judges and lawyers in the administration of trials because so much of  the evidence the parties would use in a trial consists of statements—whether oral or in the form of documents—spoken or created outside the confines of the actual trial. As a result, exceptions to the rules against hearsay have been recognized over the years—to allow what would otherwise be inadmissible to be admissible at trial.

Exceptions have been recognized to the general rule against hearsay when it has been determined the likely truth of such a statement (its “probative value”) overcomes countervailing concerns about it having not been spoken under oath in the courtroom. One of those exceptions is a statement against interest. A statement against interest is a statement that the person “would have made only if the person believed it to be true because when made, it was so contrary to the declarant’s proprietary and pecuniary interest…” Fed. R. Evid. 804(b)(3)(A). To put it in layman’s terms, the Federal Rules of Evidence recognize that people don’t usually admit things that are against their personal or financial interest unless those things are true.

The Jewish culture of the first century was somewhere between hostile to women and openly misogynistic. For example, women were not allowed to testify in court or engage in commerce in public, had to wear veils in public, were prohibited from speaking with teachers, denied the education provided to men, and were not permitted to participate in public prayer in the Temple. One can see hints of this cultural bias in the gospels where the disciples are shocked that Jesus is talking to a woman at the well in Samaria (John 4:27) or to a Canaanite woman (Matt. 15:22-28).

We have taken this journey through the history of the rules of evidence and Jewish culture to make this point: there is no way if John was making up a story about Jesus’ resurrection that he would have a woman be the first to see Jesus after His resurrection. The story has all the evidentiary indicia of truth.

Application

Now to the moral of the story. When Jesus sees Mary He asks her why she is crying and whom she is seeking. Mary had come to the tomb seeking the dead. She had reason to cry. Seek Him who lives.