The Grace and Power of Jesus Demonstrated in the Greatest Event in History — the Resurrection, Part 1 (Just Jesus Evangelistic Campaign, Day 326)


TEXT: John 20:1-10:










10 Then the disciples went away again unto their own home.






The first day of the week after Jesus was crucified found Mary Magdalene on her way to Jesus’ tomb. The other Gospels tell us that other women were with her. They intended to apply further burial spices and ointment to the body of Jesus. They wanted to do this to honor Jesus themselves as well as because Nicodemus and Joseph had carried out the burial hastily. They loved Jesus and wanted to make sure that His body was treated with every vestige of respect that was within their means.

However, when the women arrived at the tomb, they found that it was empty. Mary Magdalene ran to find Peter and John and told them, “They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid him.” She thought that Jesus’ body had been stolen. After the events of that weekend, this would have been utterly heartbreaking to these women as well as to the disciples.

Hearing this news, Peter and John ran to the tomb. John thought it important to inform us that he outraced Peter and arrived at the tomb first. When he got there, he did not go into the tomb, but he ‘stooped down, looked in, and saw the linen clothes lying.’ The Greek word describing John’s action means to contemplate, observe, or scrutinize. John looked into the tomb and paused to think about what he saw. Peter, on the other hand, rushed into the tomb first and then stopped to look. He, too, saw the linen clothes lying there, “and the napkin that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself.”

Notice how John takes pains to describe Jesus burial garments. When a person was buried, the Jews wrapped the body in several layers of linen; between each layer, they mixed ointment, spices, and aloes. The mixture would have crusted together, and, combined with the layered linens, would serve as a sort of soft cocoon for the dead body. John and Peter clearly saw that the cocoon was in order, but that Jesus’ body was missing. They could tell that this was no grave robbery. No robber would have gone through the intricate process of carefully removing the grave clothes to get at the body. William Barclay said, “The whole point of the description is that the grave-clothes did not look as if they had been put off or taken off; they were lying there in their regular folds as if the body of Jesus had simply evaporated out of them.”

What did the disciples make of their conclusion? John writes that after he followed Peter into the tomb, “he saw, and believed.” John believed, based on this evidence alone, that Jesus had risen from the dead. However, he notes that neither he nor Peter were familiar with the Scriptures that indicated that Jesus was going to rise from the dead. John, who has emphasized throughout his retelling of the Passion that he was an eyewitness to these events, believed that Jesus was risen from the dead simply because of what he saw with his own eyes. What did he see? He saw a stone rolled away. He saw an empty tomb. He saw grave clothes that held no body. That was enough for John to believe that Jesus was alive again.

Robert L. Fletcher wrote:

At the grave where Christ lay sleeping,
In the arms of death’s embrace,
Roman guards their watch were keeping,
As the night wore on apace;
Where in majesty descending,
Came an angel from the throne,
At the tomb of Jesus bending,
Rolled away the ponderous stone.

Lo! the grave is rent asunder,
And the watchers are as dead;
Heaven and earth beheld, in wonder,
Death in chains a captive led:
Angels, robed in white, are saying,
He is risen, He is not here:
Christ, the call to life obeying,
Thrills the world with hope and cheer.

Re-ascend, O King victorious,
Take again Thy royal throne;
There in Heaven to rule all glorious,
Till the earth becomes Thine own:
Foes may hate Thee, they can never
Overthrow Thy righteous sway;
Thine shall be the kingdom ever,
In the realms of perfect day.

Jesus’ resurrection from the dead is the undeniable evidence that death and Hell had no hold on Him. And, because He rose from the dead, death and Hell do not have to have a hold on you. If you believe in Him like John did and place your faith and trust in Him for salvation, you, too, will be raised from death to eternal life with God. Here is how you can place your faith and trust in Him today.










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