John Chapter 20. It’s early Sunday morning. Mary Magdalene and some of her friends wanted to finish the job of anointing Jesus’ body with spices that Joseph & Nicodemus had hurriedly done Friday night. They couldn’t do it on the Sabbath so they got up early Sunday and walked to the tomb.
The women didn’t know how they would be able to move the huge stone that covered the entrance but they trusted God would provide them with help. They didn’t realize that the Jewish religious leaders had gone to Pilate and asked for guards to be put in place at the gravesite. They had heard Jesus speak about rising from the dead and they wanted to make sure His disciples didn’t steal the body to perpetuate a hoax. The guards would surely prevent Mary from going in.
But the ladies did not have to worry about any of that. Vs 1 says when they arrived the stone had already been rolled away. They looked inside the tomb and there was no body. The other gospel accounts tell us an angelic being told them Jesus was no longer there-He had risen from the dead! The women don’t believe this and they hurry back to the disciples and tell them “Someone has taken Jesus’ body and we don’t know where they’ve put it!”
Most of the disciples are afraid to investigate but Peter and John head for the tomb. John outruns Peter and looks in but is afraid to enter. He sees the linens that had been wrapped around Jesus but doesn’t see a body. Peter charges in and looks around. When John follows him in they see all the wrappings, including the head covering, lying neatly folded.
At that moment it hits them. John says in vs 8 that he saw and he believed.
This was not a mass burial site. This tomb had never been used before. Jesus was the only body that had been placed there. These wrappings had to be His because no other bodies had ever been in there. And Jesus is no longer there.
So finally it all comes together for Peter and John. Jesus had told them many times what was going to happen.
“I am going to be handed over to the authorities. I’m going to be killed. Then I’m going to rise from the dead.”
They had heard it but it didn’t make sense. But now they have seen it and John says “I believe”.
So they now believe Jesus is alive. But where is He? We’ll find that out tomorrow.
