“Woman,” he said, “why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?” Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”
Jesus inquires into why Mary is weeping and whom she is seeking. Note that Jesus says “whom” and not “what.” This would have started Mary into thinking along the correct lines. She had been seeking a corpse but she should have been seeking a living Person.
For some reason, Mary took Him to be the gardener. Perhaps it was because nobody but a gardener would be in the garden that early in the morning? If he were a gardener, he probably would have been working for Joseph who owned the tomb and probably the garden in which it was located. Mary is grasping at straws to find where the body of Jesus is and asks the supposed gardener if he has moved Him, but she doesn’t say whose body it is that has been moved. She is presupposing a knowledge of the circumstances by the gardener, but that is undoubtedly a result of her grief making it difficult for her to think clearly. That grief, coupled with her great love for Jesus, clouded her ability for rational thought and she announces that if she finds the body she will carry it away herself, which would have been quite a trick. Notice also that she repeats the word “Him,” showing exactly what filled her thoughts to the exclusion of everything else.