Tuesday, March 31, 2013
![open-tomb[1]](https://thenoontimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/open-tomb1.jpg?w=300&h=218)
And he saw and believed . . .
As we continue our journey through a pandemic, we visit Easter Week post reflections from 2013. God guides and protects. Christs visits and heals. The Spirit comforts and abides.
The details that appear so simply in John’s accounting of the open tomb call us into the scene. We are invited to notice small, tangible points that tell the story so well that none have since forgotten it.
Mary of Magdala came to the tomb early in the morning, while it was still dark . . . She must have fretted most of the night, unable to sleep, anxious to return to the place where his body was laid. We follow her down into the abandoned quarry that now serves as a cemetery and we see that the open tomb, the heavy stone moved, no soldiers and no body. Even in the darkness Mary knows that Jesus has gone. She senses, more than sees, that he has gone. But where?
So Peter and the other disciple both ran, but the other disciple ran faster than Peter, and arrived at the tomb first . . . Being younger than Peter, John arrives first on the scene once the women alert them. A thousand possible scenarios surge through his brain. He tries to process them but he lets those thoughts go unprocessed. His only thought is to stand in that tomb to see for himself. Yet he holds back, waiting for the panting Peter who goes into the tomb without pausing. As the light curls across the morning sky Peter and John squint into the darkness, sensing, more than seeing, that Jesus is not there. But if not here, then where?
![Grave Clothes[1]](https://thenoontimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/grave-clothes1.jpg?w=182&h=240)
They saw the burial cloths there, and the cloth that had covered Jesus’ head, not with the burial cloths but rolled up in a separate place . . . This peculiarity does not escape them and they try to make sense of what they see. They quickly speculate a number of reasons for this small detail but they do not want to be drawn away from the bigger question: where has Jesus gone? They sense, more than know, that his message at the Thursday evening supper might just make sense. Is this what Jesus meant when he said those confusing words? If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back again and take you to myself, so that where I am you also may be. Where does Jesus intend to take them? Where are they to meet him so that they might go together?
Then the disciple who had arrived at the tomb first, saw and believed . . . They search one another’s faces then shift their gaze back to the cloths. The winding-sheet folded carefully as if by an attendant, the face cloth neatly rolled nearby. An image of the Christ pausing to lay the rolled cloth aside before he leaves the tomb begins to take shape in the disciple’s mind; slowly a knowing begins to form and John allows himself to smile as his eyes move from face to face, then back to the cloths. Abruptly the first rays of morning light filter into the empty tomb and the apostle is seized by a mixture of joy and fear.
They did not yet understand the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead . . . They know not what is to come. They know not where they will go. They do not know how or when Jesus will return but a truth beings to form within just as the early dawn brings light into the empty quarry cave. Jesus has not died. Jesus lives. Jesus has not abandoned them. Jesus will return.
And in that flash of a moment they see and they believe.
Let us rise up with Easter joy as we examine the story before us. Let us run to tell what we now know. Let us say to anyone who will listen that we too, have seen. And that we too, believe.
For an interesting reflection on the possible significance of the folded cloths, click on the image of the burial cloth above or visit: http://marcohara.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-linen-burial-cloth-of-jesus.html
The Noontimes 