EXPLANATORY AND CRITICAL NOTES
St. John’s narrative of the Resurrection is not general. He describes how faith in the risen Lord was established in his own case and in the case of the other disciples. But although he does not record all the facts noted in the Synoptic narratives, he incidentally shows that he was aware of them. It is to be remembered that these historical pictures by St. John of the Passion and Resurrection were written for Christians, who were already acquainted with the facts of the Redeemer’s life.
John 20:1-2. The first day of the week, etc.—Of the week (τῶν σαββάτων): σάββατον seems to have signified the whole week, the interval between two Sabbaths (Luke 18:12). Mary Magdalene, etc.—There were others with her, as the Synoptists record (Luke 23:55-56; Luke 24:1, etc.). St. John implies this in John 20:2, We know not, etc. The stone.—St. John does not mention the fact of its having been placed in the opening of the tomb, but here again he implies his knowledge of the fact. Mary thought that the body of Jesus had been removed when she saw that the stone had been rolled away, and ran with troubled heart to tell the disciples, especially Peter and John. This is in agreement with the record of the angelic message in Mark 16:7.
John 20:5-6. Stooping down (παρακύφας).—The word describes, perhaps, both the bending position (bending beside), with the head on a level with the somewhat low opening, and the eager, penetrating gaze into the semi-darkness of the sepulchre. Simon Peter was not content with this, but went in, and, as the word (θεωρεῖ) expresses, looked carefully and observantly at the various details presented to his view.
John 20:7. Napkin.—A sudarium (σουδάριον), tied probably under the chin.
John 20:9. They knew not the Scripture, etc.—Even though Jesus had impressed upon them the truth that He must die and would rise again, apparently the disciples were altogether unprepared, even to the last, for what had occurred on Calvary. Thus the first announcement of the Resurrection seemed to some of them to be “an idle tale” (Luke 24:11).
John 20:11. Mary, etc.—She had returned after telling the disciples about the empty tomb.
John 20:12. Two angels, etc.—Seated as if they had been guarding the body while it rested in the tomb, and had remained to testify that God had given His angels charge concerning His Son’s sacred body, which was not to see corruption (Psalms 16:10; Psalms 91:11). This was a special appearance of the angels to Mary (see Luke 24:4).
John 20:13. She saith unto them, etc.—The one thought occupied her (John 20:2). Now evidently she is alone, as her language shows: I know not, etc.
John 20:14-15. And when she had thus said, etc.—Turning away sorrowfully from contemplating the tomb, her eye rested on another presence. Why did she not recognise who it was? It may be that “her eyes were holden,” as in the case of the two on the way to Emmaus (Luke 24:16; Mark 16:12). Jesus saith, etc.—These are evidently the first words of the risen Lord (Mark 16:9). Whom seekest thou?—A person, not a dead, inanimate form. The gardener.—And therefore a servant of Joseph of Arimathæa, and friendly. She supposes he can throw some light on the mystery; that perhaps, for some good purpose, the body had been removed.
John 20:16. Jesus saith, etc.—Mary seems to have turned again to the sepulchre, for when Jesus spoke she turned herself, and saith unto Him [in Hebrew], Rabbuni (רבּוּבִי).—The phrase in brackets is included in the Greek MSS. The familiar voice addressing her in her own name at once revealed to Mary who it was who spoke. Rabbuni.—My teacher, a term of reverence and respect.
John 20:17. Touch Me not (μή μου ἅπτου, cling to Me not).—Mary had to unlearn much in her conceptions of Christ, and He begins now to lead her to higher knowledge. He did not mean to repel the mere touch (for see John 20:27), but to teach Mary that she must have different conceptions now of her divine Master and Lord. She must not cling to His mere outward presence (2 Corinthians 5:16-17). She must seek to rise to that communion of the new creature with the risen Lord which would be enjoyed in highest measure when He had ascended to the Father, according to His promise (John 14:23). But even now she must seek chiefly for this blessed communion. Then Christ gives her to do something that is far more glorious than any mere external clinging to Him. He gave her a commission to perform for Him—Go to My brethren (Mark 16:7; Matthew 28:10). Through His redeeming work His true disciples have become joint heirs with Him in the heavenly inheritance. They are no longer slaves, or even friends—they are brethren in the Lord (Acts 1:15-16; Hebrews 2:10-17). I am ascending.—The process of ascension, so to speak, had begun; the delay of its final step was for the disciples’ sake. My Father, whose Son I am by essential nature; your Father through redeeming grace (see Westcott, in loc.). My God He says as the incarnate Son.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— John 20:1-18
John 20:1-10. The resurrection of the Redeemer.—How long and cold soever the winter may be it cannot prevent the advent of spring. Its storms may be fierce and terrible. It might seem sometimes as if nature could not live under their fury. But they pass at last; and then even under the calm of the last chilling frosts men are sensible of the coming change, when the ice-bound waters and the hardened ground will be freed from the power of winter, when the hidden plants will begin to come to light, and the life of nature awaking from wintry sleep will pulsate in all her animated realms. In this part of Gospel history we see the beginning of a new and better period for humanity. The winter of humanity had passed away, the dark time of alienation between God and men, when storms of wrath were dreaded. But now there was “peace on earth.” The storm had expended its worst fury on Him who lay in Joseph’s tomb. The wintry time that had begun in Eden was about to break in joy-giving spring in that garden near Calvary.
I. The place and time of the Resurrection.—
1. The Sabbath dawned peacefully on the garden where was Joseph’s tomb, and the place was still and peaceful during the Sabbath hours, save that a Roman guard appeared to set a seal on the stone which had been rolled to the opening of the sepulchre (Matthew 27:62-66).
2. In the evening perhaps their vigilance was redoubled; and the silent night passed on, until when the morning watch drew near a portent occurred. The firm earth quaked, the sealed stone was rolled away by invisible power from the opening of the tomb, and a heavenly watcher appeared before whom the Roman guard quailed and fled to the city (Matthew 28:2-4).
3. It was in the night when the Saviour rose, before the dawn of morning; and with His rising dawned a new and brighter day for the human race, the beginning of a glad new year of salvation and grace to men. In this history of the Resurrection it does appear as if there were a harmony between the natural and spiritual worlds. When Jesus died the sun was darkened, nature put on a funeral pall. But when Jesus rose the dawn was near to breaking, and soon the sun would herald the advent of a new day. It was fitting that the light of humanity should thus usher in the new spiritual day.
4. The place of resurrection then was Joseph’s tomb, the time the last watch just before the dawn. “There where the noble seed had been laid with reverent sorrow (Psalms 126) it sprang up to sudden verdure and fruitfulness.” In that place round which tears of sorrow had been wept in the night joy came with the resurrection morning. There where the hopes of ardent disciples had been buried they were awakened to perpetual bloom.
5. He who rested in that tomb saw no corruption. The tomb itself had hitherto been untenanted; and He who now rested in it for a season could not be holden by the bands of death. The heavy stone could not impede His passage. He who voluntarily laid down His life had power to take it again (John 10:18). He died freely, willingly; but because He the innocent died for the guilty vicariously death had no power over Him. Therefore His spirit returned from its sojourn in paradise. Unmarked by human eye did the divine Father’s power awake the Son from His sleep, and the Son resumed His life again (Romans 8:11; Ephesians 1:20; Acts 2:24; Romans 1:4; Romans 6:4) in order to appear in His glorified body, freed from the bounds of space and time, to testify to His disciples that He had really risen again, ere He entered on His full glory in the presence of the Father.
II. The Resurrection revived the dead hopes of the disciples.—
1. How graphic are the Gospel narratives of the resurrection of Jesus! Ere the dawn of the morning of the first day of the week, ere the light of the stars had faded, the little company of women who had lingered by the cross, and had seen where the Lord’s body had been laid, might have been seen approaching the sepulchre. They had perplexedly asked each other who should remove the heavy stone from the tomb’s mouth. But as they drew near even in the dim twilight they saw that the stone had been rolled away.
2. In haste one of the company, Mary Magdalene, ran to tell the disciples who were evidently closest to Jesus—Peter and John. The Gospel graphically depicts the excitement and amazement with which the news filled the disciples, and thus indirectly their failure in faith and hope. But now with hope reviving in their beating hearts, as the sayings and promises of Jesus began to crowd in again on the memory, they both ran in haste toward the garden sepulchre.
3. John being younger, ran in advance, more quickly than Peter, and reached the sepulchre first: in his agitation, and with feelings of awe and perhaps fear, he did not enter the tomb, yet looking in saw the linen cloths, which had wrapped the body, lying apart. But when Peter came, with characteristic impulse he entered the tomb, followed by John. And what they saw showed that the body had not been taken away to be interred elsewhere—that whatever had been done, had been done in orderly fashion. And when John saw he believed. A light clearer than that of morning was shed on Scripture and the sayings of Jesus which hitherto had been dark to them. But what they now saw revived their faith and hope.
III. The Resurrection has brought hope to humanity.—
1. It has brought the hope of reconciliation and peace with God. That for which men longed in all the ages is given at the empty tomb of Jesus to them that believe. Acceptance with God and peace and joy in His service were the ends aimed at in all the religions, the rites and sacrifices, of the past. And these ends were fully attained only when the cry “It is finished” rang from the cross on Calvary. But it could only be known that this was so, and that the great expiatory sacrifice of Jesus was accepted, when He was “declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead” (Romans 1:4).
2. And from this follows the foundation of a second great hope—the hope of immortality—not only a pale, shadowy existence for the spirit beyond the sphere of this life, but for all those united to Christ in His death, so that they die unto sin—the hope of a blessed life for the whole man. They look for the appearing of the Saviour, who at His coming shall speak, and the dead shall hear (John 5:25), and shall change the body of their humiliation, that it may be conformed unto the body of His glory, etc. (Philippians 3:21).
3. These blessed hopes form a spring of Christian endeavour which has brought blessing to all men. Animated by it, men and women have laboured for the unseen and eternal, and have raised life higher, made it more unworldly and self-sacrificing, because they have “set their affections on things above,” etc. (Colossians 3:1, etc.). And it has become a source of living spiritual energy, inspiring men to nobler effort in the service of God and man.
Lesson.—The first day of the week was the day of Christ’s resurrection, i.e. on the same day on which Creation was begun was the restitution of the fallen world begun, and hope given to men of a new and higher life. “He died for all, that they which live,” etc. “Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation,” etc. (2 Corinthians 5:15; 2 Corinthians 5:17). “We are buried with Him by baptism unto His death, that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4). Has the winter of the old life passed away, with its storms of passion, its coldness of alienation, its fruitlessness in good? And has the new eternal year begun to move in all the nature, to bourgeon and shoot forth with promise of fruit to God? This can come only through Christ. “God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with Him” (1 Thessalonians 5:9-10).
“Can all the wiles of art, the grasp of power,
Snatch the rich relics of a well-spent hour?
These, when the trembling spirit wings his flight,
Pour round his path a stream of living light,
And gild those pure and perfect realms of rest,
Where virtue triumphs, and her sons are blest.”—Rogers.
John 20:1-8. Easter.—It is the festival of Easter we celebrate. Our Christian festivals are more than simple festivals of remembrance. The facts and marvels of redemption on which they are founded have an eternal significance, a perpetual influence. Those facts and wonders we live over with each other; they pass before our eyes; they impress their influence upon us. To-day we gather together at the grave in Joseph’s garden, and keep Easter with each other. We consider:—
I. The sympathy which it awakens.—
1. Its impression was felt in the dominion of death, whose gates were burst asunder, and whose prince was bound and led captive.
2. Participation in it extends to heaven. All good spirits praise God the Lord, offer to the victor their reverence, and receive their commission for the Easter proclamation which went forth from the grave of the risen One, by the mouth of the angel, and has re-echoed down the centuries.
3. The participation in it extends to earth. Earth and sun take part in the victory of Easter. Men and women come together to the open grave. Wounded consciences and sick souls are healed. Easter songs of triumph are sung of the riven bonds of the tomb and of the opened heaven.
II. The special facts which it emphasises.—
1. An Easter Church is there, the empty tomb, this place of a mighty victory, this birthplace of all light, which lights up the darkness of life, this place of refuge of those forsaken, this field of victory of those who strive, this workroom of eternal life, this lofty choir of the worshipping Church, where all Christian worship took its beginning—this Easter Church, which has been the foundation of all other Easter Churches.
2. An Easter preacher is there—the Easter sermon is entrusted to one of the blessed spirits who ever stand before God’s face.
3. The Easter sermon has as its purport, “Fear not,” etc. It brings comfort; it awakens repentance; for it commands not to seek the living among the dead. It tells of victory; sin, death, the grave, are conquered. It demands faith: He is not here. The women must first believe, then they will behold. Thus too with us.
III. The impression which it leaves.—“The disciples again departed,” etc. Our hearts also sometimes fluctuate between fear and joy, between doubt and faith, until they become joyful Easter hearts.—Appuhn, in J. L. Sommer’s “Evang. Per.”
John 20:9. Grounds of belief in the resurrection of the Lord.—The lines of proof of this great fact may be briefly pointed out as follows:—
I. The confident declaration of the apostles that Jesus had risen from the dead shortly after His crucifixion.—They were not expecting that this would occur. The disciples seemed to be about to disperse, thinking their beautiful dream was over. When the women related the vision of their risen Lord, their words seemed to the disciples to be “idle tales,” vain imaginations. Two of the company even, disbelieving the vision, and with hope extinguished, were travelling sadly toward their distant home. But if this were their attitude on the third day after the Crucifixion, how quickly was it changed. In little more than a month’s time we find those desponding, doubting disciples proclaiming boldly, in the midst of adversaries, all too willing to overthrow them, that Jesus had risen from the dead. The enemies of the apostles, not being able to confute their assertions, tried to put them to silence by persecution and imprisonment. But the disciples only persisted more earnestly in their proclamation. Strangely enough, one of the most bigoted of their persecutors (one called Saul of Tarsus) himself became convinced, and preached fervently that doctrine, for holding which he had persecuted the apostles. And it is in the history of his life, and in his Epistles, that this fact is most prominently dwelt upon. Even the most rationalistic and sceptical of modern critics allow that the great Epistles of St. Paul and the Book of Acts were products of the apostolic age, and authentic; so that these facts are admitted beyond doubt. How then can this fact be accounted for, unless by admitting that it occurred as narrated in the Book of Acts and Paul’s Epistles? The adversaries of the apostle Paul—even the Judaisers—never called this fact in question. On the contrary St. Paul uses it—uses the fact that the risen Christ had appeared to him—as a proof of his apostleship, to show that he was really the called of God. Had the resurrection of Jesus, then, not been a fact, nothing would have been easier than to disprove it. But the Jews at Jerusalem could not do so. And such men as Gamaliel, who would not stoop to subterfuge and lying, saw that it was the part of wisdom to let these men alone, at all events.
II. The very day on which we meet for worship is an ever-standing proof of this great truth.—What except the occurrence of some such outstanding event would have led men, trained as strict Jews, and who at first did not believe that Jesus had risen, to have changed a custom and tradition bound up with the very existence of their religion? And yet practically they changed the day of rest, meeting together (excepting when in Jewish communities, and then on both days) on the first day of the week instead of the seventh. Why, unless in memory of this event, and because on that day Jesus first appeared to them when He had risen from the dead? In the same way the Church festival of Easter—the only one that can claim a high antiquity, leading up to apostolic times (although the name Easter in the north indicates that the Church united it with the ancient Teutonic springtide festival)—shows from collateral history that the fact of Christ’s resurrection was universally believed in the Church during the apostolic age.
III. The promises that Jesus in His own words, as recorded in the Gospels, made dependent on His resurrection have all been fulfilled.—He promised that after His death His disciples should see Him for a little while, and that then He should go to the Father; that He would send them the Holy Spirit to be their comforter and guide. The books granted by all to be contemporary with the apostles tell how these promises were fulfilled. The divine Spirit did descend on them—at all events after the crucifixion and ascension we find the apostles animated with a new spiritual life. They were invested with spiritual power, and gifted with various tongues. All this was in accordance with Christ’s promise that He would send them power from on high. In a few years His words were literally fulfilled. The apostles and their followers became His witnesses in Jerusalem, Judæa, etc. Conquests of the gospel in the present day also, in accordance with Christ’s promises and predictions, lend additional force to the argument. They are proofs before our own eyes of the working of the Spirit of our risen Lord. When we see men of idolatrous and barbarous nations rising through the gospel to a higher life, when we see individuals who had been living for self and in sin become changed in character and life by this gospel, we see there an evidence that “Christ hath risen from the dead” and is “alive for evermore.”
IV. The number and character of the witnesses to the resurrection.—St. Paul truly said to King Agrippa that “these things were not done in a corner.” First, the pious women and the disciples saw Him; then the “five hundred brethren at once,” and the whole Church at Jerusalem to the number of one hundred and twenty, many of whom also would be witnesses of His ascension. It would be a circumstance almost, if not wholly miraculous, if it could be proved that such numbers of people could be self-deceived—especially as the number contained many of known probity and intelligence. No doubt the number included more than one man of the stamp of Thomas. The whole mental and moral position also of a man like St. Paul forbids the supposition of self-deception. Were the disciples and their followers deceivers then? If so, to what end? See in 2 Corinthians 11 a sketch of the manner of life of those early preachers of the cross—a life of hardship, etc. Truly St. Paul might say, “If in this life only,” etc. (1 Corinthians 15:19). Their character also, and the lofty morality and spirituality of the doctrines they proclaimed, exclude all idea of wilful deception so far as they are concerned. One of the leading rationalistic theological thinkers of Germany (De Wette), after a long life spent in the investigation of the New Testament in a keen, critical spirit, came at last to the conclusion that, although the manner of the resurrection may be a mystery, yet the fact is one that cannot be overturned any more than any other firmly established historical fact.
John 20:11-18. Mary Magdalene at the tomb of Jesus.—Mary Magdalene! Hers becomes a deeply interesting figure in these closing scenes. She is the last at the cross, the first at the tomb. And there are few passages in the gospel narrative more really beautiful than that which is before us. There are those, of course, who feel conscientiously and solemnly bound to accept tradition. And tradition mixes up Mary of Magdala with “the woman which was a sinner,” who anointed the Saviour’s feet in the house of Simon the Pharisee (Luke 7:36-50). But if we take simply what Scripture says to us, and let tradition shift for itself—as probably some of us are quite prepared to do—then we are bound to hold that these two women are perfectly distinct and different persons.
I. Mary’s love to the Redeemer.—Mary of Magdala was healed by our Lord of a terrible mental or spiritual malady, but Scripture nowhere tells us she had been—in the sense in which the word is evidently applied to the other woman—“a sinner.” Surely there is a wide difference! Some of us may have dear friends who were for a time Asylum patients, or who once wildly raved and struggled in fever-delirium, but we don’t think or speak of them as having been (in that particular sense of the word) sinners! Tradition is not infallible. It may have erred in this, as in other things. And it is certainly far more pleasant to look at the picture which Scripture holds up to us—that of a woman (there is at least some shadow of reason for believing, a lady, of good worldly position) to whom, in God’s providence, life for long years had been very burdensome and bitter. Happy they who have never chanced to know how sore such an affliction is. No wonder, when that woman came back—“herself” again—to happy life, that she bore deep reverence and solemn tender love within her heart to Him whose word and touch had dispelled the dark cloud, and brought gladsome light once more into the Magdala home. And who can doubt that He whose word restored and blessed that woman’s mind, did even likewise for that woman’s soul! that the richer, higher blessings of spiritual life and health were bestowed by the Saviour’s hand. Thus rescued, and thus blessed, the remainder of that woman’s life was nobly, solemnly, tenderly, anxiously devoted to the Saviour’s cause. That was the ship that held her heart within it. No love was ever given to the cause of Christ more pure and true than that of Mary’s heart. And (excepting that of the virgin mother’s, and, it may be, that of Mary of Bethany) no heart was more sorely pierced at Calvary than the heart of Mary of Magdala.
II. Mary at the empty tomb.—How beautifully lifelike is the story of her coming thus to the empty tomb! It is the very picture (in little homely touches that tell) of a bewildered, distracted woman. She has come in the early morning, and found the door stone removed. She has rushed to summon Peter and John. They have come, and gone in, and found that the body was away; and the poor helpless men turn homeward broken-hearted. She cannot leave the place. She is in a state in which she knows not what she does, and, in some interval in her bursts of grief, she bends down and abstractedly gazes into the tomb. The angels speak to her, and her mind is so distraite, so bewildered with grief, she answers them quite simply as though she spoke to two mortals like herself. Oh! the tone of distracted grief that rings in that cry, “They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid Him!” She turns wildly round while she says it, as though looking everywhere for that which she had lost. The Lord Himself—within a few feet of her—speaks, echoes the angels’ question, “Why weepest thou?” and adds the still more home question, “Whom seekest thou?” And still Mary, too completely grief-stricken and grief bewildered to recognise the supernatural, answers as though to a common man—the man in charge of the ground—surely he may know something. “Sir! if thou hast borne Him hence!” etc.
III. Rabboni.—Who has not often tried to think of the tone in which that one word “Mary” was spoken? True, her own name was uttered, but there was more than that. We all know how tones live in memory, and that “Mary” probably called back to her the time when its utterance brought her spirit out from demon-darkness into light and peace. “Mary”—its utterance brought back later days of holy teaching. It brought back the Teacher, the Saviour, the Lord Himself! and then Mary flung herself at the Saviour’s feet with that first glad resurrection cry that issued from the Church on earth—“Rabboni!” Who can think of the tone in which that was uttered!—Rev. Thomas Hardy.
ILLUSTRATIONS
John 20:1. The Lord’s day a memorial of the Resurrection.—Well might that day, which carried with it a remembrance of that great deliverance from the Egyptian servitude, resign all the sanctity and solemnity due unto it, when the morning once appeared upon which a far greater redemption was confirmed. One day of seven was set apart by God in imitation of His rest upon the creation of the world, and that seventh day, which was sanctified to the Jews, was reckoned in relation to their deliverance from Egypt. At the second delivery of the law we find this particular cause assigned, “Remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and by a stretched-out arm; therefore the Lord thy God commandeth thee to keep the Sabbath day.” Now this could not be any special reason why the Jews should observe a seventh day; first, because in reference to their redemption the number of seven had no more relation than any other number; secondly, because the reason of a seventh day was before rendered in the body of the commandment itself. There was, therefore, a double reason rendered by God why the Jews should keep that Sabbath which they did: one special as to a seventh day, to show they worshipped that God who was the creator of the world; the other individual as to that seventh day, to signify their deliverance from the Egyptian bondage, from which that seventh day was dated. Seeing, then, upon the resurrection of our Saviour a greater deliverance and far more plenteous redemption was wrought than that of Egypt, and therefore a greater observance was due unto it than to that, the individual determination of the day did pass upon a stronger reason to another day, always to be repeated by a seventhly return upon the reference to the creation. As there was a change in the year at the coming out of Egypt, by the command of God,—“This month,” the month Abib, shall be “unto you the beginning of months, it shall be the first month of the year to you,”—so at this time of a more eminent deliverance a change was wrought in the hebdomadal or weekly account, and the first day is made the seventh, or the seventh after that first is sanctified. The first day, because on that Christ rose from the dead; and the seventh day from that first for ever, because He who rose upon that day was the same God who created the world, and rested on the seventh day: “For by Him were all things created,” etc. (Colossians 1:16). This day did the apostles from the beginning most religiously observe by their meeting together for holy purposes and to perform religious duties. The first observation was performed providentially, rather by the design of God than by any such inclination or intention of their own; for “the same day,” saith the Evangelist, that is, the day on which Christ rose from the dead, “at evening, being the first day of the week, the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews.” The second observation was performed voluntarily, for “after eight days again His disciples were within, and Thomas with them”: the first day of the week, when Christ rose, by the Providence of God the disciples were together, but Thomas was absent; upon the first day of the next week they were all met together again in expectation of our Saviour, and Thomas with them.… From this resurrection of our Saviour, and the constant practice of the apostles, this first day of the week came to have the name of the “Lord’s day,” and is so called by St. John, who says of himself in the Revelation, “I was in the spirit on the Lord’s day.” And thus the observation of that day which the Jews did sanctify ceased, and was buried with our Saviour; and in the stead of it the religious observation of that day on which the Son of God rose from the dead, by the constant practice of the blessed apostles, was transmitted to the Church of God, and so continued in all ages.—Bishop Pearson.
John 20:1-8. The meaning of the Resurrection for Christ’s people.—The risen life had its clearly defined obligations no less than its glorious privileges. Those who had in very deed shared in Christ’s resurrection-life should seek things above the level of that tomb which, with Him, and through Him, they had left behind. A consideration this, sufficiently practical, and peculiarly suited to the Paschal season. Brighter far than any other days in the Christian year for the living members of God’s redeemed family are the forty days through which we now are passing. At the thought of the divine Saviour’s triumph over death, the Christian heart swells with a joy, nay, almost with a chastened pride. In the realm of spiritual life, Easter feelings seem to correspond to that union of deep thankfulness and of triumphant exultation with which an Englishman, at any rate of the last generation was wont to hail the anniversary of Waterloo. “The Lord hath risen indeed, and hath appeared unto Simon” (Luke 24:34). He has risen, and we Christians have a share in His resurrection. “This is the day,” etc. (Psalms 118:24).… But high spirits are not without their attendant dangers; and it is never so necessary to insist upon the practical aspects of a truth, as when we are being carried along by the full tide of buoyant feeling which has been stimulated by dwelling on it. “Risen with Christ.” Observe the relation in which the miraculous, external, historical fact, that Jesus Christ our Lord rose from the dead, is made to stand to the practical spiritual Christian life. In the earliest teaching of the apostles the Resurrection prominently dominates over all other Christian doctrines. That which chiefly gives it this early prominence is manifestly its evidential value. With the apostles, especially in the Pentecostal period, Christ’s resurrection is the palmary proof, the invincible assertion of the truth of Christianity. The story how Jesus, after being crucified and buried, rose in triumphant life from His grave, provokes, as Jewish multitudes listen to it, a sense of wondering awe. It rouses the attention even of the most indifferent; and the interest thus created is deepened by reflection; in the event, it is deepened and consolidated into a defined conviction of the truth of the religion of Jesus Christ. The Resurrection is thus the usual, the effective weapon, by which the apostles force their way through the dense obstructive blocks of Jewish or heathen thought around them.—H. P. Liddon.