Evidence of Christ's Resurrection
Watching a TV show one night, there was an interesting point brought up about one of the details involving Christ's resurrection.
In John chapter 20, Mary Magdalene finds the stone removed from the tomb. She then tells Peter and John that the Lord's body is missing from the tomb. Peter and John run to the tomb. John gets there first, looks in and sees the linen cloth lying there, but does not go in. Then Peter arrives and goes inside. He also noticed the cloth lying there, while the swath that covered Jesus' head was rolled up into a bundle and lying to the side. Then John went in too, and saw, and believed (that He had risen). Up until then, they didn't fully understand that Jesus was to rise to life again.
Looking into the empty tomb and seeing linen cloth lying on the slab could mean anything. Did somebody cut the wrap off and remove the body? And if someone did remove the body, why would they bother to take the time to remove the wrap? The question is, what did John see that immediately told him that Christ had risen?
For an answer we go to John 19:38-42. Joseph of Arimathea got permission to take the body of Jesus down from the cross, and put Him in an unused tomb. Together with Nicodemus, both disciples of Christ, they brought Jesus to the tomb along with 100 pounds of embalming ointment made from myrrh and aloes. The two men wrapped Jesus' body in a long linen cloth saturated with the embalming ointment, as it was the Jewish custom for burial. They wrapped each limb separately, but not the head, as the Jewish custom is not to wrap the head (as is the Egyptian custom), but to lay a swath of cloth over the head. This mixture of myrrh and aloes dries into a shellac-like substance, and the linen wrap becomes stiff. After three days in the tomb, the 100 pounds of embalming ointment hardened the linen wrap around Jesus' body.
When John looked into the tomb and saw this hardened linen wrap, it was not cut up in pieces or unraveled. It would be impossible to unravel in its hardened state, without breaking. What he saw was a cocoon of linen, shaped like a man's body, but with nothing inside. Christ had risen right through the hardened linen bandages, and left the bandages intact in the shape of His body, with the head cloth rolled up in a bundle.
You can imagine the amazement of Peter and John seeing hardened strips of linen wrap shaped like Jesus' body, completely intact, but with nothing inside. They knew that the only way that something like that could happen would be through a miraculous event. Perhaps this is what prompted John to write, in John 20:8-9, that he saw and believed.
Note: If Peter and John had seen the linen wrap cut up in pieces, torn, broken, damaged, or in any state other than a cocoon-like undamaged state, than the possibility would exist, that someone cut and tore the wrap and stole the body. But the fact they believed immediately that He had risen, indicates to us that the condition of the wrap was intact.
By George Konig
www.konig.org
April 26, 2003
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