September 7
________________________________________JESUS ROSE FROM THE DEAD
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.” 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. 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. – John 20:1-10
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When Mary Magdalene came to visit the tomb of her Master on that first day of the week after Jesus was crucified, she was shocked to find that the stone had already been taken away from the tomb. The Gospel of John and archaeology support the interpretation that the tomb of Jesus would have been sealed with a cork-shaped blocking stone. In Mark 16:4 it says that “the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away.” Even a passage in the apocryphal Gospel of Peter states that Pilate sent Petronius the Centurion with soldiers and they rolled there a great stone and laid it against the entrance to the sepulcher. Naturally, when Mary saw that the stones have been moved, she assumed that the soldiers have taken Jesus’ body away. So, she ran to the disciples to announce what she saw and they didn’t believe her. They had to see for themselves so they ran to the tomb to check whether Mary was right. When they saw the linen wrappings all empty, they finally believed. It is interesting to see from this account that the disciples and Mary forgot what Jesus told them about Him rising from the dead. Their limited minds didn’t fathom what Jesus has foretold before He was crucified. We also often times forget the promises and words of Jesus to us through Scriptures.
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REFLECTION
• Why do you think the disciples didn’t believe Mary’s report of Jesus’ body missing?
• Why did they have to see with their own eyes that Jesus’ body wasn’t there?