THE GOSPEL OF JOHN

The Resurrection of Jesus

John 20:1-18

INTRODUCTION (A Recap of the Burial) John 19:38-42

Before we look at the story of the empty tomb, we need to look once more at the episode of Jesus’ burial. As sundown was approaching, Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus with Pilate’s permission take down Jesus’ body from the cross and prepare it for burial. After wrapping His body with linen cloths and anointing with powdered spices, they place it in a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid. More specifically they laid Jesus’ body in a tomb Joseph had prepared for himself. Joseph and Nicodemus along with others knew exactly where Jesus had been buried. Moreover, since Jesus was buried alone in this tomb, there was no chance that His body would be mistaken for another. (All these little details are important because later they serve as pieces of evidence for the resurrection of Jesus.)

Finally, we need to be impressed with the actions of Joseph and Nicodemus. What they were doing could have destroyed them economically and socially, even physically. What they were doing could have been construed by both the Jewish religious leaders and the Romans as an act of treason. By asking permission to bury Jesus, they were aligning themselves with Jesus and were risking being associated with His "crime." They probably had no idea that Pilate himself had been reluctant to crucify Jesus. They were taking a huge gamble in burying Jesus.

To their credit though, their devotion to Jesus outweighed their fear of the consequences of their actions. Nicodemus earlier had come to Jesus at night (3:2; 19:39) most likely out of fear of being associated with Jesus. Joseph according to John, although a follower of Jesus, was nevertheless a secret follower of Jesus. Now from their perspective with everything to lose and nothing to gain, Joseph and Nicodemus come out of the darkness and publicly proclaim by their actions their devotion and commitment to Jesus. Jesus’ prediction is already coming true: “If I be lifted up, I will draw all men to Myself” (John 12:32).

THE EMPTY TOMB (JOHN 20:1-18)

Peter and the Beloved Disciple (John 20:1-10)

It is now early Sunday morning. Although the Passover was concluded Saturday evening at sundown, the darkness prevented the women from visiting the tomb. Now that the sun is finally rising Mary Magdalene along with some other women go to the tomb to anoint Jesus’ body (the plural “we” in v.2 shows that more than Mary Magdalene visited the tomb). (Some wonder why the body would need to be anointed after the previous lavish anointing by Nicodemus and Joseph; however, it is quite probable that the previous anointing was a rush job and that the men had been unable to finish it. It may be though that the women just wanted to add their own touch because of their devotion to Christ. During times of grieving, illogical actions make logical sense.)

When Mary and the other women arrive at the tomb, they see the stone already taken away. Because of what she says later (“They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb”), it is natural to suppose that the women looked into the tomb and saw that it was empty. Mary immediately runs and informs Peter and the beloved disciple (John) of this. They in turn run immediately to the tomb. Although the 2 men start out together, the beloved disciple outruns Peter and arrives at the tomb first. (Some claim that love made him swifter.)

John the beloved disciple reaches the tomb first. The tomb most likely was cut out of the side of a hill. You entered first an antechamber and then into an inner room with shelves cut into the rock to support the corpses. In front of the entrance to the tomb would have been a narrow trough whose lowest point would have been right in front of the entrance. In the trough would have been a rather sizable stone at least 3-4 feet in diameter and 9"-1 ft. deep. Because the trough sloped downwards from both ends, it would have been easy to roll the stone in front of the door but difficult to roll it away from the door.

When the beloved disciple enters the tomb, he sees the linen cloths laying on the shelf with the head bandage rolled up in a place by itself. Apparently morning light is streaming into the inner room illumining the cloths because the beloved disciple does not enter the tomb. Apparently he has just poked his head in to check out the scene.

When Peter arrives, he has no qualms about entering the tomb. He plunges right in and sees the cloths and head bandages. At this point the beloved disciple enters. When he sees it up close, he “believes,” that is, he understands that Jesus has risen from the dead. Peter though apparently just sees the cloths and assumes like Mary that Jesus’ body has been stolen. (The kidnapping of corpses may seem strange to us; however, it was such a problem in the first century that the emperor Claudius issued an imperial edict making grave robbery a capital crime.)

Why did John believe and yet Peter think that the body had been stolen? Some claim that the fact that the cloths were still there convinced John that resurrection and not grave robbery had occurred. If somebody was going to steal a corpse they were not going to strip it of its cloths first because that would have required too much time and second because as unseemly as grave robbery is, hauling around a naked corpse is even more distasteful. Second, some feel that the position of the cloths and the head bandage pointed towards a resurrection. They claim that the cloths were arranged in such a manner that Jesus’ resurrected body simply passed through the cloths and that the cloths simply collapsed. Although these may have played a factor in John realizing that resurrection had taken place, the main reason is that his deep love for Jesus is what gave him the ability to have the insight he possessed into the ways and character of Jesus (see John 14:21). Because John loved Jesus more than any of the other disciples, he apprehended more and quicker than the others. He was not the leader of the apostolic band; that honor fell to Peter; however, he was the most insightful.

This may seem strange to us; however, in the Fourth Gospel, John is never called the smarter disciple, only the beloved disciple. Moreover, his Gospel attests to the truth of the insight he had into the Person of Jesus. Matthew, Mark. and Luke are great; however, John soars. It ranks along with Romans, Ephesians, and Hebrews as the pinnacle of NT understanding and insight. He simply goes places Matthew, Mark, and Luke don't go.

Moreover, the fact that John had greater insight into Jesus because of his deeper love for Christ should also encourage and challenge us. Not everybody can be smart; however, anybody can love. If we truly want to grow in our understanding of Jesus, we just need to love Him more and more.

John then issues a disclaimer. Although the OT prophesied that the Messiah would suffer a humiliating death and then undergo resurrection, no one up to that point in time had understood the OT this way. From birth they had been taught that the Messiah would destroy Israel's enemies and then usher in the resurrection. Never did they think that the Messiah would suffer "defeat." They had not concocted a story about Jesus rising from the dead based on the OT prophesies about the Messiah’s suffering and resurrection. It was not until after Jesus’ sufferings and resurrection that they understood these prophesies applied to the Messiah Jesus. What convinced them of the resurrection? The resurrection itself. The 2 disciples then return to their own homes.

Mary Magdalene (John 20:11-18)

In the meantime Mary Magdalene has returned to the tomb with no intention of returning back to Jerusalem until she has recovered Jesus’ body. She is grieving over this last indignity bestowed upon Jesus. She probably was angry at the Jewish religious leaders thinking that they had done this dastardly deed: “No, they were not content with killing Him. Now they have to desecrate His grave and body as well.”

As she is grieving, she looks into the tomb and beholds 2 angels in white sitting at both ends of the shelf upon which the body had lain (one at the head and one at the feet). Now apparently these angels were not in raiment of lightning; they most likely appeared as ordinary people. Otherwise, Mary would have responded differently to them. (The fact that angels are there shows that although the body has been taken, it has been taken by heaven.) The angels ask her why she is weeping. She replies that she is weeping because they (the Jewish religious leaders?) have taken away Jesus’ body.

Without further discussion with the angels, Mary turns and sees Jesus standing near her. Now she does not recognize Him as Jesus but thinks instead that He is the gardener. Supposed Him to be the gardener, she hopes that He might know where Jesus’ body has been put because either He knew who took the body or He had relocated the body Himself. When Jesus asks her why she is weeping and whom she is seeking, she replies that she is weeping because “they” have taken away the body and she does not know where it is.

When Jesus calls her, “Mary,” she immediately recognizes that He is Jesus. She turns and says to Him in Hebrew, “Rabboni,” which means “teacher” or “master.” Apparently Mary then turns and grabs hold of Jesus. Jesus commands her to stop touching or holding onto Him because He has not yet ascended to His Father. Instead she is to go to the disciples and tell them: “I ascend to My Father and your Father; My God and your God.” Mary rushes to the disciples, telling them: “I have seen the Lord!”

Several questions confront us here. First, why did Mary recognize Jesus only after He called her by her name? Why didn’t she recognize Him simply by His voice earlier? This episode illustrates what Jesus said regarding the Noble Shepherd and the sheep: “He puts forth His own, and the sheep follow Him because they know His voice” (John 10: ) and “My sheep hear My voice” (10:27). The true believer knows when Jesus is speaking to him. Most of the time we delight whenever we hear His voice because He speaks His words of love to us. At other times we dread to hear His voice because He asks of us things we had hoped He would never ask. Nevertheless, if we are honest with ourselves, we know when He is speaking. If we can’t recognize His voice, then we are on a level lower than dumb sheep (which I think would be absurd).

The second issue we need to address concerns why Jesus commanded Mary to stop touching Him. This seems to contradict Jesus’ later command to Thomas: “Reach here your finger and see My hands; reach here your hand and put it into My side.” Two different situations though are going on in these 2 episodes. In the second episode Jesus is proving to Thomas that He is no ghost but that He has risen from the dead. In the first episode Mary seems to be thinking that Jesus has returned just like He had said He would and that things now were going to return to normal. Although in a real sense Jesus has returned, He has not quite finished His return. He is en route to the Father being in the process of ascending to the right hand of the Father. Only at that point will Jesus return to the disciples in the way He promised in John 14: ; He will return to them by means of His Spirit. Mary should not cling to the old forms and ways of being with Jesus; she needs to prepare herself for the new way of being with Him by means of His Spirit.

The third issue concerns Jesus’ statement: “My Father and your Father; My God and your God.” What we are seeing here is one of the results of Jesus’ resurrection: our becoming the children of God. Because of Jesus’ resurrection and ascension, He is finally fulfilling His role as Messiah, He is now giving out the Spirit to His followers. When the Spirit of Jesus the Son enters us, we become as much God’s sons and daughters as Jesus is. We have not yet experienced fully what that all means; however, when Christ returns, we will be exactly like Him the Son.

Some claim that although Jesus says that His resurrection results in our becoming children of God, there still exists a radical distinction between our sonship and our sonship. For example, they claim that Jesus is distinguishing between Himself and us when He calls God not “our God and our Father” but “My God and your God, My Father and your Father.” This is probably not what Jesus means here. An illustration of what Jesus means is probably found in the Book of Ruth when Ruth tells Naomi, “Your people shall be my people, and your God my God” (Ruth ). Jesus is not distinguishing between His relationship and our relationship with the Father; He is showing how they are one and the same. Because the Spirit of God's Son lives in us, we are now as much God's children as Jesus is.

Being God’s child gives me all the dignity that goes along with being His child. I have experienced what it is like to be the child of someone considered important. From the early 70’s until the mid 80’s my dad served as Vice President of what was then the world’s largest food retailer, Safeway Food Stores. I know what it is like to enter an establishment and everyone be so kind and gracious to you because of who your father is. When I was 18, I applied for a position at a Safeway Store in Austin. I didn't want to tell them who I was; however, in the course of my interview the store manager jokingly asked me if I was related to the VP of the company since I had the same name as him. When I told him that the VP happened to be my dad, he about choked. He processed that application so quickly it made my head spin. Not only that but I also got the highest pay that position had to offer.

Well, as great an honor though it is to be the son of Carey Ford, Jr., it does not begin to compare with the honor we have as children of the God of the universe. We are sons and daughters of the King of the Universe. Although the world does not recognize who we are, we should not be surprised because it did not even recognize Jesus as God's Son (1 John 3: ). We rank only beneath God Himself in the ranking within the universe. Angels who are mightier and more glorious than we are nothing less than ministers God sends out to serve US! That is wondrous indeed. We should never forget who we are; rather, we should act in accordance with who we are and with the great dignity God has bestowed upon us by making us His children.

EVIDENCE FOR THE RESURRECTION

Most of the time when you discuss the resurrection of Jesus, you need to present evidence for His resurrection. The first piece of evidence is the empty tomb. Now the empty tomb does not prove that Jesus rose from the dead; His body could have been stolen by thieves. Yet if the tomb was not empty and if Jesus’ body were still in the tomb, then Jesus did not experience resurrection in the way the Bible speaks of resurrection. The Bible does not speak of soul resurrection but of bodily resurrection. Moreover, if the tomb had not been empty, then all the religious leaders would have had to do was to retrieve the body from the tomb and show everybody that Jesus had in fact not risen.

Earlier we said that the location of Jesus’ tomb was important. If Jesus had been thrown into some nondescript grave, then the Jews could have simply said that the disciples were mistaken about the location of Jesus’ burial and that He had indeed not risen from the dead. The fact though that Jesus was buried in Joseph of Arimathea’s tomb means that the disciples knew exactly where Jesus had been buried. They had gone to the right tomb; no mistake was made.

The second major piece of evidence which points to Jesus’ resurrection is the eyewitness testimony of those who claimed they saw Jesus after He had risen from the dead. Paul in 1 Cor. 15: gives the official list of those eyewitnesses: Peter, the eleven disciples, 500 brethren at one time, James who was Jesus’ half-brother, all the apostles, and finally Paul. What is amazing is that there is absolutely no record of any of these witnesses breaking ranks and claiming that they had lied, that they had actually met the resurrected Lord. At great cost to themselves, to their dying days they kept on professing that they had met the risen Lord and that He had changed their lives.

Many of them suffered horribly because of their claim that Jesus had risen from the dead. Because of Paul’s faithfulness to the risen Lord, he said in 2 Cor. 11: that he had been beaten 3x with rods, stoned once, shipwrecked 3x, spent a day and night in the deep, etc. In defense of his claim that Jesus had really risen from the dead, Paul says that if Christ indeed has not been risen, then he and other Christians who have suffered for this claim are of all men most to be pitied (1 Cor. 15: ).

The fact that the NT claims that the first witnesses of the resurrection were women points to the truth of the resurrection. If the NT writers had been falsifying these stories, they would have claimed that men were the ones to witness the resurrected Lord because the testimony of women in that first century was considered unreliable. Notice that Paul does not mention any women because he is only giving an official list and is not telling the story of the resurrection. The early Gospel writers though faced a dilemma: if they were going to make the accounts historically accurate, they were going to have to mention the women no matter how much it might discredit their story. Now they could have related the story of the resurrection and omit mention of the women thereby making it more palatable to the first-century world, but to do so would have make their accounts historically unreliable. They opted for the latter even though it to some degree hurt their cause; however, we now see it actually helped it.

The subsequent actions of the Jewish religious leaders argues for the truthfulness of this claim. If Jesus had not been risen, then they would have sent out search parties to retrieve the body. Instead, since they could not produce a body, they resorted to pressuring the early Christians to quit proclaiming this truth. That latter action is more consonant with a resurrection event.

The existence of the church which claims it was created out of the resurrection supports the claim that the resurrection occurred. Many times when we think of the church, we think of a bunch of hypocrites. I can safely say though that for the past 2000 years the church has been the most dynamic, creative force in the world. Hospitals were begun by Christians because they believed in care for the human body (this care itself being based upon the fact that the body will experience resurrection). The great art and literature of the past 2000 years have been inspired by the church. The great educational institutions throughout the West started out to train people how to learn more and more about the Bible. The caring ministries of our own church (ESL, benevolence ministries, After School Club, etc.) all make wonderful impacts upon our community. If the resurrection of Christ did not create the church, then you need to come up with another explanation of what created it.

The fact that millions today claim they meet Jesus on a daily basis supports the truth of the resurrection. We not only meet Him, we meet the Father on the basis of our relationship with Jesus. We can testify that we pray to the Father on the basis of our relationship with the risen Jesus and that the Father grants us our requests. If we were wrong in praying to the Father on the basis of our relationship with Jesus, then it would be both illogical and immoral for the Father to grant us our requests on the basis of our relationship with Jesus.

Probably the most compelling fact is that the lives of untold millions have been changed after they met Jesus when nothing else could help them. Bill Gaither put it like this: "Broken lives He has mended, those from prison He's set free" (The King is Coming). I shudder to think where I would be if Jesus had not touched me life when I was 20 years old. This goes not only for me but also for millions who can say the same.

Finally, the fact that God through His nature each year testifies to the reality of resurrection in the dying and rebirth of nature at wintertime and springtime supports our claims for the resurrection. As C. S. Lewis said, "If the resurrection is true, then it is THE pivotal event in history. It is not just an event but THE EVENT. God then would be a dying-and-rising kind of God. It would then only make sense that if this dying-and-rising kind of God created nature, then He would create it in accordance with who He was. It is only logical that He would build into nature then the principle of dying and rebirth to prepare us for THE great dying and resurrection of God Himself in Jesus.