Why Jesus Appeared to Mary First

"Woman, why are you weeping? Who are you looking for?" - Jn 20:15 Mary stood outside the tomb weeping. As she wept, she stooped and looked in. She saw two angels in white- one at the head, one at the feet where His body had lain. They asked her, "Woman, why are you weeping?" "Because they've taken away my Lord, and I don't know where they've laid Him." She said this, turned- and saw Jesus standing, though she didn't know it was Him. Here's the detail we miss unless we slow the moment down: The angels asked her, "Why are you weeping?" They asked to draw out her grief, not to resolve it. Jesus then asks the same question- but for a different reason. "Woman, why are you weeping? Who are you looking for?" She thought He was the gardener. "Sir, if You've carried Him away, tell me where You laid Him, and I will take Him." Jesus said, "Mary." She turned- and suddenly she saw Him. "Rabboni." When I read this story, I wonder: why did Jesus first appear to a woman? And why Mary? And why in a garden? The answer is stunning- because it ties together two gardens: one in Genesis, one in John's gospel. (Gen 3; Jn 19:41) And this is where the story turns. In the first garden, the woman, Eve, believed the lie and stepped into sin, and Adam followed her into it- and through his sin death entered the world. (Rom 5:12-19) In the second garden, a woman-Mary-hears her name, and the Second Adam-Jesus- breaks the curse of sin and death and brings eternal life. (1 Cor 15:45-49) You may not know this about Jesus: He rose as the Second Adam, and in that garden the circle completed- the curse witnessed by Eve in Eden was broken before Mary in a garden outside Jerusalem. And this is why He appeared to her first. Because the story that began with a woman and a garden is healed before a woman in a garden. .