John 20:14-15

Jesus appears to Mary: V. 14. And when she had thus said, she turned herself back, and saw Jesus standing, and knew not that it was Jesus. V. 15. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? Whom seekest thou? She, supposing Him to be the gardener, saith unto Him, Sir, if Thou have borne Him hence, tell me where Thou hast laid Him, and I will take Him away.

While Mary was still in the midst of her bitter complaint to the angels, she may have heard some noise behind her, a footstep or a rustling, which caused her to turn around quickly. She noticed that there was a man standing there, but somehow she did not associate this man with her Lord.

It was not merely that her eyes were dim with tears, but that Jesus now appeared in a form from which all lowliness had vanished, and which was also glorified, spiritualized. As Jesus chose, He could make Himself visible and invisible, be present now in one place, now in another; He could either assume the old familiar aspect in which His disciples knew Him or He could appear before them as a stranger whom they in no way associated with their former Master. So it was in this instance. Even His voice He had changed (we infer -- ed.).

His sympathetic question, therefore, couched in the same words as that of the angels, only causes a new outburst of resentment and grief.

She took Jesus for the gardener, the man that certainly should know something about the disappearance of her Lord. If he was responsible for the removal of the body, he was to give her the necessary information at once, in order that she might go and carry Him away. The idea may have struck Mary that the gardener had seen fit to take the body to some other grave nearby, because this tomb was to be used for another body.

Note the love of Mary: Weak woman that she is, she will undertake single-handed to carry the body of her beloved Lord away.