John 20:13 (World English Bible) is a small verse with a heavy interior weight. Two angels sit where the body of Jesus had been, and they ask Mary a question that does not feel like information. It feels like an invitation: “Woman, why are you weeping?” In this Formation to Transformation worship devotional, we slow down long enough to let that question do its work.

This episode is about what happens when grief is brought into the light instead of managed, numbed, or rushed. Mary’s answer is unpolished and deeply relational: “They have taken away my Lord, and I don’t know where they have laid him.” She does not say “the body.” She says “my Lord.” Her pain is not only about death. It is the ache of disrupted communion, the feeling of being unmoored when the map no longer matches the ground under your feet.

We also connect this moment to the shepherd thread we have been tracing through Psalm 23 and John 10. Psalm 23 formed a reflex of trust in the valley. John 10 taught us to name thief voices that steal, scatter, and hollow out the inner life. In John 20, Mary is living inside that logic of loss. She cannot see resurrection yet. She only feels absence. And Scripture does not correct her with a speech. It honors her honesty.

This is worship as faithful attention. Sometimes worship is singing with confidence. Sometimes worship is staying close enough to tell the truth. John 20:13 shows a disciple who is near the tomb, honest about disorientation, and still reaching for Jesus, even when she cannot find Him.

And this is where the turn begins. The angels ask the question, not to shame her tears, but to draw her toward what is real inside her. Because the Shepherd is about to do what shepherds do. He is about to speak, and when He speaks, it will be personal.