Read John 20:1-2

1. What details stick out to you in these verses?
2. What do we know about Mary Magdalene from the Gospels?
3. Why did she go to the tomb that morning?
4. Why do you think John mentions that this took place on the first day of the week, while it was still dark?
5. What do you think this day would have been like for Mary?

Read John 20:3-10

1. Why does John tell us about the burial linens? What would their presence have signified about what happened to Jesus' body?
2. In verse 8, John says he "believed." What do you think he believed? (John 14:29 may help.) How is this different from believing in the resurrection — and why is that distinction worth noticing?

Read John 20:11-18

1. What do you think this encounter would have been like for Mary? How does sitting with that help you grasp the hope offered through Jesus' resurrection?
2. Why do you think Jesus tells her not to "hold on to him" in verse 17?
3. Why do you think John tells us that Mary mistook Jesus for the gardener?
4. Throughout his Gospel, John has been drawing a deliberate connection between Jesus and the creation story. He opens with the words "In the beginning" (1:1), echoing Genesis 1:1. He tells us Jesus is the Word through whom all things were made (1:2-3). Jesus' miracles show him restoring creation — as in the healing of the blind man in John 9. Then, on the sixth day of the week, Jesus says "It is finished" from the cross (19:30) — and rests in the tomb on the seventh day — before rising on "the first day of the week" (20:1). He rises in a garden, and is even mistaken for a gardener (20:15). With all of that in mind: What do you think John is showing us about Jesus? And how does that speak to the real pains and losses we carry?