FROM GRIEF TO GLORY

FROM GRIEF TO GLORY

DAVID JEREMIAH

The Murdered King Returns from the Grave

Matthew 28; Mark 16; Luke 24; John 20–21

The cloth that had covered the face of Jesus was folded and set aside, but the linen strips his body had been bound in remained intact, just the way Joseph and Nicodemus had wrapped them. They retained the shape of a body, but there was nothing inside. The wrappings looked like a vacated insect chrysalis. Jesus had been resurrected right through the cloth; its shape hadn’t even been disturbed.

Seeing the grave cloths in such a condition was all it took for John to believe that Jesus had been raised from the dead. We are not told whether Peter also believed in that moment. But there was no denying that both men had seen an incredible phenomenon, and they hurried back to tell the others what they had seen.

Mary Magdalene, however, did not return with Peter and John. She stood just outside the tomb, weeping. After a while, she stooped and looked into the dark opening. At that moment she received her second shock of the morning. Two dazzling angels sat on the stone shelf where Jesus’ body had lain. They asked her why she was crying. “Because they have taken away my Lord,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him” (John 20:13).