Racing to the tomb

On Easter Sunday

Photo by Kenny Eliason on Unsplash

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first (John 20.1-4).

I find this image of Peter and John running towards the tomb of Jesus Christ very striking. They are racing against each other, racing to reach this dark and solemn place.

I remember once reading a nineteenth century eulogy which described the tomb as a ‘granite monster’, a monster that devours us whole, a kind of beast, a destroyer. And there is a sense in which the tomb confronts us in this way—yet here Peter and John are running towards it.

Earlier, Mary Magdalene has shared her fear that someone has stolen Christ’s body. ‘They have taken the Lord out of the tomb,’ she says, ‘and we do not know where they have laid him.’ Very likely Peter and John race through the early morning light spurred on by Mary’s words. They hope to find whoever it was that moved Christ’s body or some important clue. Or perhaps they even remember the very words of Christ himself. His promise that he:

must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again (Mark 8.31).

But there is a sense that Christ is not believed. Peter and John seem to think like Mary that for all of Christ’s spiritual power and insight, he was like any other man—too weak to contend with the granite monster, too weak in the face of death.

John, it says:

‘Reached the tomb first. He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in.’

Why? Why does he pause? Perhaps out of some sense of decorum or confusion or fear of the unknown—he hesitates. Peter, the man of impulse, the man who is quick to speak or draw his sword, he does the opposite. Peter charges in.

Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the cloth that had been on Jesus’s head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed, for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead (Jn 20.6-9).

There are different ways of understanding the epiphany of ‘the other disciple’, that is John, the author of our text. It is interesting how much attention is given to the linen wrappings. John is careful to tell us that the grave clothes are neatly folded and set aside.

Eusebius of Caesarea, a Christian in the fourth century, thought this was an important detail:

‘The cloths lying within seem to me at once to furnish also a proof that the body had not been taken away by people, as Mary supposed. For no one taking away the body would leave the linens, nor would the thief ever have stayed until he had undone the linens and so be caught.’

By noticing the linen and including them in his gospel account, John seems to be telling us what caused him to change his mind about Jesus Christ.

Another important detail is John’s language. He says that when he went in to the tomb, ‘he saw and believed’. In the Greek, the word John uses has special significance elsewhere in his gospel. In chapter 6, Christ himself says: ‘Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life’ (John 6.47). Then in chapter 19, when John describes the crucifixion, including details like the water and blood that flowed from Christ’s side, he adds: ‘He who saw this has testified so that you also may believe. His testimony is true, and he knows that he tells the truth, so that you also may continue to believe.’ (John 19.35). and later in this very chapter, once Christ appears to the disciples, he says to Thomas: “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” (John 20.29). In all of these instances the same verb, πιστεύω, is used. John uses it to describe a genuine faith in Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

Like Saint John, we too reach the tomb of Jesus Christ of breath. We are tired from having run here through the half-light, racing against friends or perhaps even against some religious ideal in our own minds. Yet when we reach the tomb, when we arrive at Easter Day, we hesitate, afraid to go inside, afraid to believe.

Only by stooping to enter, by going into the shade of his tomb, can we see that his body is not here, that his grave clothes are neatly folded, that he is not dead, but he is risen. We see and by this seeing, we believe.