The presence of angels was a trifle to Mary, who had only one thought--the absence of her Lord. Surely that touch in her unmoved answer, as if speaking to men, is beyond the reach of art. She says 'My Lord' now, and 'I know not,' but otherwise repeats her former words, unmoved by any hope caught from John. Her clinging love needed more than an empty grave and folded clothes arid waiting angels to stay its tears, and she turned indifferently and wearily away from the interruption of the question to plunge again into her sorrow. Chrysostom suggests that she 'turned herself' because she saw in the angels' looks that they saw Christ suddenly appearing behind her; but the preceding explanation seems better. Her not knowing Jesus might be accounted for by her absorbing grief. One who looked at white-robed angels, and saw nothing extraordinary, would give but a careless glance at the approaching figure, and might well fail to recognise Him. But probably, as in the case of the two travellers to Emmaus, her 'eyes were holden,' and the cause of non-recognition was not so much a change in Jesus as an operation on her. Be that as it may, it is noteworthy that His voice, which was immediately to reveal Him, at first suggested nothing to her; and even His gentle question, with the significant addition to the angels' words, in 'Whom seekest thou?' which indicated His knowledge that her tears fell for some person dear and lost, only made her think of Him as being 'the gardener,' and therefore probably concerned in the removal of the body. If He were so, He would be friendly; and so she ventured her pathetic petition, which does not name Jesus (so full is her mind of the One, that she thinks everybody must know whom she means), and which so overrated her own strength in saying, 'I will take Him away,' The first words of the risen Christ are on His lips yet to all sad hearts. He seeks our confidences, and would have us tell Him the occasions of our tears. He would have us recognise that all our griefs and all our desires point to one Person--Himself--as the one real Object of our 'seeking,' whom finding, we need weep no more. Verse 16 tells us that Mary turned herself to see Him when He next spoke, so that, at the close of her first answer to Him, she must have once more resumed her gaze into the tomb, as if she despaired of the newcomer giving the help she had asked.