Jesus had been in the public's eye for about 2 1/2 years. He had taught them about God's realm steadily. He had healed many and forgiven people of their failures. He had spoken of true worship and pointed to false and pretentious habits of people who approached God, his father. Finally, he was at the end. He talked to his Twelve closest and hand-selected followers of his death and subsequent awakening and depart to prepare them for those events. He knew how the end would play out.
And so it happened - exactly. The Sandrin hastily tried him. The Roman prelate torturously killed him. Joseph of Arimethea buried him in a tomb he donated. It all happened on a Friday. Saturday must have been a great day of mourning for those who had trusted God that Jesus had been his messiah to deliver them. Their hopes for an earthly realm to defeat the Roman Empire were completely dashed. That Sabbath for Jews who believed that the Son of Man was also the Son of God had to have been a day of great questioning and contemplation. Could they really trust God from this point on? The Pharisaical establishment and the scholars of the Talmud felt a little more secure that day. Jesus was in the tomb where he could not damage God's image any longer.
Sunday morning, slightly before daybreak, the dark of night still shrouded Jerusalem. The Twelve slept, scattered across the city, after a day of pondering the meaning of the life that had been taken, the teaching that Jesus had given, especially of his being the Son of Man, and their next move now that he had died as he had told them again and again over the last six months.
The Twelve were unaware of something happening at the tomb where Nicodemus had buried Jesus and sealed a rock in front of the tomb's entrance. So was Mary of Magdala as she rose at a pre-dawn hour to start her Sunday morning remembering Jesus at his tomb. So was Mary, Jesus' mother, who hoped against hope that Jesus truly did have the power to lay down his life and take it up again.
The guards that had been placed at the tomb's entrance, however, were very aware of the ground shifting beneath their feet at this early hour before Sunday's dawn. The cave containing Jesus' body rumbled, cracked, and rocked, loosening the sealed stone and knocking it to the ground. Jesus, also, was very aware of his time to wake up. He lifted himself from the burial pedestal, removed and folded his face cloth, and left the rest of his burial robes disheveled on the ground. God himself was very, very aware that his son had awakened. He sent his messenger who split the deepest blackness of early morning inside the tomb and in the garden outside its entrance with spectacularly brilliant and dazzling light. The messenger's robe reflected pure white against the dark sky as he showed Jesus Heaven's open arms for him.
Jesus walked from the tomb away from the light out into the garden area that Nicodemus had made as an entryway to the tomb. He saw Mary of Magdala as she scurried up the path toward the tomb.
Verse 1
Τῇ δὲ μιᾷ τῶν σαββάτων Μαρία ἡ Μαγδαληνὴ ἔρχεται πρωῒ σκοτίας ἔτι οὔσης εἰς τὸ μνημεῖον καὶ βλέπει τὸν λίθον ἠρμένον ἐκ τοῦ μνημείου
(On the first day of the week, Mary from Magdala came to the tomb early while it was still dark and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb )
Verse 2
τρέχει οὖν καὶ ἔρχεται πρὸς Σίμωνα Πέτρον καὶ πρὸς τὸν ἄλλον μαθητὴν ὃν ἐφίλει ὁ Ἰησοῦς καὶ λέγει αὐτοῖς· ἦραν τὸν κύριον ἐκ τοῦ μνημείου καὶ οὐκ οἴδαμεν ποῦ ἔθηκαν αὐτόν
(She ran and came to Simon Peter and the other follower that Jesus cared for deeply and told them, "They have removed the Lord from the tomb and we don't know where they have put him.")
Mary wasn't thinking that Jesus was alive, she thought that Jesus' body had been stolen from the tomb. Since the Roman guard wasn't there at the tomb, and it was still before daybreak, she concluded that they were trying to thwart the Jews' attempt to overthrow them. So, she reported to Simon and John her suspicions. John's record isn't clear on whether or not the two were in the same place. Mary might have had to go to two different places. Nonetheless, she reported her conclusion to both of them.
Verse 3
Ἐξῆλθεν οὖν ὁ Πέτρος καὶ ὁ ἄλλος μαθητὴς καὶ ἤρχοντο εἰς τὸ μνημεῖον
(So Peter and the other follower left to go to the tomb.)
Verse 4
ἔτρεχον δὲ οἱ δύο ὁμοῦ· καὶ ὁ ἄλλος μαθητὴς προέδραμεν τάχιον τοῦ Πέτρου καὶ ἦλθεν πρῶτος εἰς τὸ μνημεῖον
(The two ran together, but the other follower outran Peter and arrived first at the tomb.)
Verse 5
καὶ παρακύψας βλέπει κείμενα τὰ ὀθόνια, οὐ μέντοι εἰσῆλθεν
(He stooped at the entrance, glanced around, and saw linen burial strips lying on the ground. But he didn't enter the tomb.)
Verse 6
ἔρχεται οὖν καὶ Σίμων Πέτρος ἀκολουθῶν αὐτῷ καὶ εἰσῆλθεν εἰς τὸ μνημεῖον, καὶ θεωρεῖ τὰ ὀθόνια κείμενα
(Simon Peter had been behind John, but he entered the tomb and saw the linen burial strips lying on the ground)
Verse 7
καὶ τὸ σουδάριον, ὃ ἦν ἐπὶ τῆς κεφαλῆς αὐτοῦ, οὐ μετὰ τῶν ὀθονίων κείμενον ἀλλὰ χωρὶς ἐντετυλιγμένον εἰς ἕνα τόπον
(and the cloth used to wipe Jesus' face and then left on it to cover it was not lying on the ground with the linen burial strips but was rolled up and put in a separate place.)
Verse 8
τότε οὖν εἰσῆλθεν καὶ ὁ ἄλλος μαθητὴς ὁ ἐλθὼν πρῶτος εἰς τὸ μνημεῖον καὶ εἶδεν καὶ ἐπίστευσεν
(Then the other follower who had come first to the tomb, went in. He looked around and knew and believed.)
From Friday when Jesus died until this moment before daybreak, the followers of Jesus hadn't fully understood the events that had taken place. But when the two closest followers looked around the tomb, they immediately put two and two together. For John in particular, he looked around, saw the burial clothes that had been shed or rolled up, and believed. I would assume the same thing happened for Simon The Rock. Jesus had told them he would wake up on the third day. Now they saw for themselves before anyone else had been told and before the Romans could send reinforcements for the guards who had been there at the actual time of Jesus' rising. Amazement, relief, belief were all rolled into that ecstatic moment of realization.
Don Francisco has composed a beautiful song from Simon's point of view about this very day, this very act, this very emotional experience.
Simon and John left and went their own ways after they realized what had happened. Mary of Magdala, however, didn't. She had followed Simon and John, perhaps running to keep up with them. She hadn't gone in the tomb while they were in there, but had stayed outside the tomb, crying about what had happened to Jesus. She really didn't need one more thing to cry about. After Simon and John had left, she stooped to enter the tomb. She, however, saw something quite different from Simon and John. She saw two messengers in white robes sitting on the head and foot of the burial pedestal. They asked her one question, "Why are you mourning?"
But Mary didn't get it. She answered them by saying someone had taken her Lord and she didn't know where they had put him. Maybe Mary couldn't see through her tears, or maybe she had kept her head lowered, but she couldn't see that the messengers were dressed alike and were not Romans, not even Jewish Sanhedrin guards. She simply assumed they were there as the day was dawning to guard against people entering the tomb. She turned to go.
Evidently, Jesus, who had not been noticed on the fringe of the garden in front of the tomb, had seen Mary walk into the tomb, so he met her at the entrance as she was coming out. Jesus asked Mary the same question as the messengers, "Why are you mourning?" and added, "Who are you looking for?" Mary still didn't get it because she wasn't expecting it. She either couldn't see through her tears still or she kept her head lowered. She assumed the gardener was speaking to her. Given her conclusion about Jesus' body being taken somewhere else, she thought he probably had been paid to move it, so she asked him where he had taken it.
I don't know if Jesus bent over and looked into Mary's face or said Mary's name in an intonation that he had used with her before he had died. Maybe just hearing her name called by someone that she thought was an impersonal, unknown gardener caught her attention. But she looked up finally, or cleared her tears away because she recognized the familiar voice calling her name.
Verse 16
λέγει αὐτῇ Ἰησοῦς· Μαριάμ. στραφεῖσα ἐκείνη λέγει αὐτῷ Ἑβραϊστί· ραββουνι, ὃ λέγεται διδάσκαλε
(Jesus said to her, "Mary." She turned around. "Rabbouni" she said in Hebrew, that is to say, "My dear, dear teacher!")
Verse 17
λέγει αὐτῇ Ἰησοῦς· μή μου ἅπτου, οὔπω γὰρ ἀναβέβηκα πρὸς τὸν πατέρα· πορεύου δὲ πρὸς τοὺς ἀδελφούς μου καὶ εἰπὲ αὐτοῖς· ἀναβαίνω πρὸς τὸν πατέρα μου καὶ πατέρα ὑμῶν καὶ θεόν μου καὶ θεὸν ὑμῶν
(Jesus told her, "Don't embrace me! I haven't gone to my father yet. But, go to my brothers and tell them that I am going on to my father and your father, my God and your God.")
Two morsels provide flavor from this portion of John. John went into the tomb and εἶδεν καὶ ἐπίστευσεν (He looked around and knew and believed). If I think about that, I find myself in John's shoes. He had been with Jesus and had been told of the events that had occurred ahead of time just as I have been raised to read the New Testament and follow it. But, I learn the hard way. I have to look around and see. εἶδεν means both to see and to know, sometimes to know because you see. Oh, John had been told, as have I. But, it took seeing/knowing, then the scene dawned on him. Oh yes, then he understood what life was. I know I have been guilty of not seeing past what my eyes take in in the world around me. I have been taught there is an afterlife. But Jesus didn't have merely afterlife in mind when he spoke of giving believers their lives. Death was merely a sleep event between lying down in this life and getting up in the next life. I have had difficulty really understanding, though, because like John, I have had to see the robes on the ground, then I knew... then I believed.
Mary, too, was in despair even after seeing messengers from Heaven inside the tomb. She didn't look up or see through her tears to know she was actually talking to someone have had woken up until Jesus bent to look her in the face and call her name, then she reached to embrace him, calling him by her familiar name, "ραββουνι." It was her personalized name for him, the equivalent of using the pronoun my. And it was a show of great, great respect that the simpler term "Rabbi" didn't carry, the equivalent of adding dear, dear to the term . It took seeing him, then finally, Mary understood what life was. I am the same way. I have heard people's words telling me what has happened and have still not realized what exactly happened. I needed Jesus to appear to me and call my name. So he did, and then I knew... then I believed.
Today, daybreak, Sunday morning... it happened... and I understand now what life is... robes on the ground... a familiar voice calling my name... I believe.
[The Greek text used is the Nestle-Aland 28th edition.]
[Songs used are Sunday's on the Way by Carman, He's Alive by Don Francisco, and Forever by Kari Jobe.]
[Introductory art, Resurrection, by Nathan Greene retrieved from
http://www.ebay.com/itm/HD-Print-Portrait-Oil-Painting-Wall-Decor-Art-on-Canvas-Jesus-Christ-01-24x36/252260029537?_trksid=p2141725.c100337.m3725&_trkparms=aid%3D777000%26algo%3DABA.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20141212152338%26meid%3D0c34f7e3dcdb4078aea1115da303a9cf%26pid%3D100337%26rk%3D1%26rkt%3D1%26sd%3D221844504821]
[Translations from Greek are my own.]
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