Was Mary Magdalene full of joy or in tears when she met the risen Jesus?

Matthew’s joy and John’s tears belong to different moments, and on the harmony followed in these answers to different scenes. Mary Magdalene came to the tomb with the other women, but when she saw the stone moved she ran back to tell Peter and John (John 20:1–2). The other women went in, heard the angel’s message and hurried away “with fear and great joy” (Matthew 28:8). That joy was theirs, and it came from the angel’s news. Mary had not heard that news. When she came back to the tomb after Peter and John, she stood outside weeping, because she still thought the body had been taken away (John 20:11–13). Her tears turned to joy the moment Jesus called her by name, and she went to the disciples to tell them “that she had seen the Lord” (John 20:16–18).

Even if Mary had still been with the group Matthew describes, the order of feelings would be the same in both Gospels: grief before she knew that he had risen, joy afterwards. Matthew’s women are glad after the angel has spoken; John’s Mary weeps before she has heard any message and rejoices once she knows him. A woman who weeps at a tomb and later runs with great joy to tell the news has not been described in two contradictory ways.

One meeting told twice

Some harmonists think Matthew 28:8–10 and John 20:11–17 describe the same meeting, which Matthew tells briefly as an appearance to the women. On that view Matthew sums up the women’s feelings as they left the tomb, and John gives the fuller story of Mary’s tears turning to joy.