so that
when she sees the gardener she says, "Sir, if thou hast borne _Him_
hence." What need to say who? Can any one be thinking of any other but
of Him who engrosses her thought?

In all this we have the picture of a real and profound grief, and
therefore of a real and profound love. We see in Mary the kind of
affection which a knowledge of Jesus was fitted to kindle. And to Mary
our Lord remembered His promise: "He that loveth Me shall be loved of
My Father, and I will love him and will manifest Myself to him." None is
so unable as He to leave any who love Him without any response to their
expressions of affection. He could not coldly look on while this woman
was eagerly seeking Him; and it is as impossible that He should hide
Himself now from any who seek Him with as true a heart. Sometimes it
would seem as if real thirst for God were not at once allayed, as if
many were allowed to spend the best part of their days in seeking; but
this does not invalidate the promise, "He that seeketh, findeth." For as
Christ is again and again removed from the view of men, and as He is
allowed to become a remote and shadowy figure, He can be restored to a
living and visible influence in the world only by this man and that man
becoming sensible of the great loss we sustain by His absence, and
working his own way to a clear apprehension of His continued life. No
experience which an honest man has in his search for the truth is
worthless; it is the solid foundation of his own permanent belief and
connection with the truth, and it is useful to other men.

Mary standing without at the sepulchre weeping is a concrete
representation of a not uncommon state of mind. She stands wondering why
she was ever so foolish, so heartless, as to leave the tomb at all--why
she had allowed it to be possible to become separated from the Lord. She
looks despairingly at the empty grave-clothes which so lately had held
all that was dear to her in the world. She might, she thinks, had she
been present, have prevented the tomb from being emptied, but now it is
empty she cannot fill it again. It is thus that those who have been
careless about maintaining communion with Christ reproach themselves
when they find He is gone. The ordinances, the prayers, the quiet hours
of contemplation, that once were filled with Him are now, like the linen
clothes and the napkin, empty, cold, pale forms, remembrances of His
presence that make His absence all the more painful.