The grave clothes were lying

After Jesus expired on the cross at 3 p.m. on Friday, a secret admirer named Joseph of Arimathea, a member of the Sanhedrin, a Jewish ruling body, went to Pontius Pilate to gain permission to remove the body of Jesus from the cross. To prepare the body for burial, Joseph enlisted the services of Nicodemus, who brought spices (myrrh and aloes). Spices were used to reduce the stench of death. Then Jesus’ body was wrapped with linen cloths—the spices placed between the folds of linen. Since the sun was near setting and Joseph’s tomb was nearby, Jesus was buried there. A huge stone was rolled over the tomb entrance to prevent access by grave robbers and curiosity seekers.

Jesus’ corpse remained inside Joseph’s tomb during the remaining daylight minutes of Friday evening, all day on Saturday (the Jewish Sabbath), and from around 6 p.m. Saturday evening (Jewish day began) until sunrise Sunday morning. The Jewish day began at sunset—ending and restarting around 6 p.m. Since any part of a day was considered an entire day, Jesus remained in the tomb for three days as He had predicted (Mark 8:31), but early on Sunday morning, He arose from the dead.

Early on that first Sunday morning, near sunrise, while it was yet dark, Mary Magdalene arrived at the tomb and found the heavy stone rolled back. Peering inside, Mary observed that Jesus’ body was missing. Confused and alarmed, she ran to tell Peter and John that Jesus’ body was missing and she didn’t know where it had been taken. The two disciples sped to the tomb as fast as they could run.

John, being younger and faster, outran Peter and arrived first at the tomb. John was hesitant to enter the tomb, but looked inside and saw the burial clothes lying apart from the facial handkerchief. Moments later, the brash Peter arrived and burst through the tomb’s entrance. Peter observed the burial clothes lying inside the tomb and noted that the cloth wrapped about Jesus’ head was folded and lying in a place by itself. Moments later, the once reluctant John entered the tomb. After gazing intently at the burial clothes, the Scripture states that John ‘BELIEVED’ (John 20:8). So, what did John see? Did he see the unassailable, irrefutable evidence that Jesus had risen from the dead? What was it?

Explaining what John saw was Rev. Peter Marshall (1902-1949), the famous Presbyterian minister and former chaplain of the U.S. Senate. He did so in an Easter message. His words follow: “The two disciples saw the linen clothes lying, not unwound or carefully folded, and not thrown aside, but lying on the stone slab ‘IN THE SHAPE OF A BODY.’ The facial napkin had been removed and folded, but the grave clothes were lying there mute, but eloquent evidence that a human organism had exited. The grave clothes lay like the shriveled, cracked shell of a cocoon left behind when the moth emerges and hoists her bright sails into the sunshine…or more accurately, LIKE A GLOVE WHILE ITS FINGERS STILL RETAIN THE SHAPE OF THE HAND.”

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