1 Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came early to the tomb, while it was still dark, and saw the stone already taken away from the tomb. 2 So she ran and came to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and said to them, "They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid Him."
Why does John leave out so much of the narrative from the other Gospels? John only mentions Mary Magdalene coming to the tomb. Matthew says the other Mary also came (Matt 28:1). Matthew also includes the earthquake and an angel who rolled back the tomb stone and sat on it. He tells the two women that Jesus is risen and to tell the other disciples. Indeed, as they go Jesus meets them on the way and reinforces the angel’s message.
Mark 16:1 names the other Mary as James’ mother. He also includes a third woman, Salome. They discuss who will roll the stone away from the tomb for them. There is another reason to believe that Jesus didn’t sneak out of the tomb. If three women couldn’t roll the stone away, how could a weakened-almost-dead Jesus? These women are also directed by an angel to tell the disciples, but he is inside the tomb when they see him. Unlike the other narratives, the women don’t tell anyone because they are afraid. The verses of Mark 16:9-20 are not considered reliable by many because they aren’t in the earliest manuscripts. But verses 9 and 10 says that Mary Magdeline did tell the disciples.
Luke 24:1-11 starts out saying they went to the tomb early in the morning. “They” refers to the women who witnessed the crucifixion and are named later as Mary Magdeline, Mary the mother of James, Joanna, and other women. The stone was already moved when they arrived and went into the tomb. Apparently, they looked around and didn’t see Jesus or anyone else when two angels appeared to them. (It must have been getting a bit crowed with at least five women and two angels there.) They didn’t receive any instructions, just a reminder that Jesus predicted all this. They also returned to tell the disciples, who didn’t believe them.
Now that I’ve summarized all the differences in this first encounter with the empty tomb, I can only say that John may have wanted to focus primarily on Mary Magdeline as she later encounters Jesus after Peter and John leave. It could be that he knew quite well all the details and being the last to write didn’t see any need to clarify the timing and details.
Skeptics and those who vehemently oppose Christianity point to these discrepancies and claim that the resurrection was made up. They claim the Bible is full of errors and not trustworthy as a result. If you want to take that route and listen to them it can certainly shake your faith. However, each of the Gospel writers included only what they believed to be relevant to reach their specific audiences as led by the Holy Spirit. None of them were eyewitness of what happened when the women arrived. All they had to write had to come from what these women told them. What is important from a legal standpoint is that they are all slightly different, and they should be. If they had presented a united verbatim account, it would have smacked of a conspiracy. You may ask, why didn’t the Holy Spirit make sure the Gospel writers all said the same thing? He could have, but you also have to ask why there are four Gospels, each with different detail as well as some almost exact details? Again, the answer goes back to the Holy Spirit using human beings, their memories, and their witnessing ability. The Holy Spirit determined who the audiences would be by selecting these men to write the Gospels. He determined what was important for each and that is what is important for us to remember.
What can we learn from all these different accounts. One primary fact is clear. Jesus wasn’t in the tomb. He was risen. If you don’t believe that then you really aren’t a Chrisitan.
3 So Peter and the other disciple went forth, and they were going to the tomb. 4 The two were running together; and the other disciple ran ahead faster than Peter and came to the tomb first; 5 and stooping and looking in, he saw the linen wrappings lying there; but he did not go in. 6 And so Simon Peter also came, following him, and entered the tomb; and he saw the linen wrappings lying there, 7 and the face-cloth which had been on His head, not lying with the linen wrappings, but rolled up in a place by itself.
I really like the reality of what happening here. John is clearly the younger of the two and he outruns Peter. They have just heard that Jesus is not in the tomb and maybe they were so dazed by this that they didn’t hear Mary say that one or two angels told her that Jesus was raised. Luke 24:11says they thought the women were not believable. Yet here they are running to the tomb. John just stops at the entrance. What he sees stops him in his tracks. The linen wrappings are lying there.
What does it mean that the cloths were lying there. Wiersbe concludes that they didn’t show any sign of a crime and that they would have been like a collapsed cocoon with no body inside.[1] Other commentaries agree and considering the way a body was wrapped for burial, it would certainly prove that the body hadn’t been stolen. In haste to move the body, thieves would not have taken the time to unwrap the body with seventy-five pounds of sticky spices imbedded between the wraps. This would also lead to the conclusion that the wrappings were empty.
John observed in the dark interior of the tomb what he may have thought to be Jesus’ body and that is why he stopped. But Peter, being impulsive, ran in for a closer look. Peter observed that the head cloth was by itself and rolled up. Other versions say it was folded up. Now who would take the time to fold or roll up the head cloth? Certainly not thieves. Besides, why wouldn’t they take the head cloth along with the body and the wrappings?
Another difference between the burial accounts in the other Gospels is that Joseph of Arimathea wrapped Jesus in a shroud. However, Luke 24:12 agrees with John that Peter saw the linen cloths by themselves. So, it may be that after wrapping Jesus’ body in strips, Joseph used a shroud for the whole body. But there is no mention of what happened to the shroud as neither John or Peter saw it.
This is all eyewitness evidence that Jesus was not stolen by some disciple unknown to the eleven and certainly unknown to Peter and John. If they knew where Jesus was, they wouldn’t have run to the tomb. They reported what they saw. While people may have not counted the women as credible witnesses, they couldn’t say the same for John and Peter.
8 So the other disciple who had first come to the tomb then also entered, and he saw and believed. 9 For as yet they did not understand the Scripture, that He must rise again from the dead. 10 So the disciples went away again to their own homes.
Now we get down to the real application of this passage. We can talk about the differences of the Gospels, we can talk about what the grave cloths mean or not mean. We can even talk about the Shourd of Turin and whether it is the shroud missing from the tomb or not. But the bottom line is what John said when he went into the tomb and clearly saw what Peter described. He believed.
They saw the evidence and believed what about Jesus? That he was moved and wasn’t there or that he was risen? Surely, they believed he had risen. But they didn’t understand that this was predicted by the Scriptures. We are often in the same boat. We believe what we have heard or read in the Bible, but we don’t necessarily associate it with the rest of Scripture. When we restrict our faith to being only a “New Testament person,” it gives us only a partial understanding of the riches that are provided for us in the Bible. People who claim to be a New Testament person say that all they need is Jesus. While that is important and necessary for salvation, they often end up simply going to their own homes like Peter and John did. There is something very hollow and empty about a belief that doesn’t understand the Scriptures and the glory of all that God did in the past to bring history to this pivotal hour in time and space when God in the flesh came to the earth, was crucified for our sins and was raised again providing proof of his plan for our redemption. All this was decreed by God in the past and so his decree came about (Acts 2:23).
Luke 24:13-34 is the account of Jesus meeting two disciples on the road to Emmaus after his resurrection. He explained to them from the Scriptures, that means our Old Testament, that this all had to take place. Knowing Jesus outside of the context of the Old Testament is only a partial knowledge of our Lord. Seek to know the fullness of Jesus in all the Scriptures.
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