They, hearing that He is alive and had appeared to Mary, did not believe.
The disciples’ unbelief shows that the news of the resurrection was not something easily accepted by them or something they had already expected. They were not quick to believe simply because they wanted to see the Lord alive. Grief, fear, and the weight of what had happened had closed their hearts, and Mary’s testimony at first seemed unbelievable to them. This is, on the one hand, a rebuke of their slow faith, and on the other hand also a strong witness to the truthfulness of the resurrection account: the disciples had not invented that news, because at first they themselves believed it with difficulty. Christ’s resurrection was such a great and unexpected reality that the grace of God had to open their hearts to receive it, and then to become witnesses of that same truth.