John 20,21

Rambling thoughts and digressions from Pete Connolly relating to chapters 20 and 21 from the Gospel of John.

All thoughts and statements in this posting are mine, and I am solely responsible for any errors. If anything incorrect or unbiblical is found in here, please let me know and I'll correct it.

John 19 ends with the phrase "they laid Jesus there.". He had suffered for our sins, and he had died on the cross for us. If the Gospel of John was a summer blockbuster movie, that would have been a three-tissue moment for the ladies (and probably for several gentlemen as well). And if the story of the Jesus ended there, he would have been remembered (if at all) as a rather nice man who liked people. A sort of Mother Teresa with a longer beard. But it wasn't the end.
John 20:2 (KJV) 2 Then she runneth, and cometh to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple, whom Jesus loved, and saith unto them, They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid him. [1] Jesus had risen! He had defeated death!

Jesus' resurrection is such an important aspect of the Bible that it sometimes seems to become the target of attacks by people who want to discredit God's story. I know, because years ago I was one of those people. I was searching for something, anything, to believe in. I was happy with this person called God, who controlled everything, and I wanted to go to Him wholesale; I didn't want any priests in the way talking to me about purgatory and insisting that I tell them my sins (I was Catholic; I've got all the stories...). This person called Jesus? Nice guy, nice clothes, liked children, and could knock up a good table and chairs. But God? No... two different people. After some gentle enouragement from my best friend, I accepted that God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit were one, that Jesus was God, and that He alone could save me. At that point, the Bible became a totally different book to me; it was like layers of complexity were revealed to me that had previously been hidden. It was like peeling an onion (complete with the tears).

Anyway, back to the resurrection. How could people attack the story of the resurrection?

1. Perhaps they got lost. The two Mary's went to the wrong tomb, saw that it was empty, and ran back to tell everyone? Silly women, just panicking...

This is easily refuted. Firstly, they were there at the correct tomb. Although John doesn't say that Mary had been to the tomb before she found it empty, Matthew 27:61 (NIV)[2] says "Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were sitting there opposite the tomb". It was one of the most catastrophic and memorable days of her life; she had seen her Lord die on the cross. She wasn't going to forget where she was. And anyway, there were two unconscious Roman soldiers lying on the ground next to the tomb (Matt 28:4 - The guards were so afraid of him (the angel of the Lord) that they shook and became like dead men.) - a bit of a clue that the two Marys were in the right place.

2. Perhaps the Chief Priests took the body away before Jesus' followers could get to it?

They may have considered this to stop His followers from venerating His remains; but if they did, then after they saw all the fuss about Jesus being resurrected, all they'd have to do is present the body from whereever they'd put it. They didn't - and couldn't - do that, because they didn't have the body. Indeed, as Matt 27:63-64[1] says, "Sir, we remember that that deceiver said, while he was yet alive, After three days I will rise again. ⁶⁴ Command therefore that the sepulchre be made sure until the third day, lest his disciples come by night, and steal him away, and say unto the people, He is risen from the dead: so the last error shall be worse than the first. ⁶⁵ Pilate said unto them, Ye have a watch: go your way, make it as sure as ye can. ⁶⁶ So they went, and made the sepulchre sure, sealing the stone, and setting a watch."

The Pharisees were already scared about a resurrection story, so they asked the Romans to place a guard on the place. They weren't going to be the ones to start such a story!

3. Perhaps the Romans took the body?

They had no reason to. All they wanted to do was keep the peace and get home to Rome after their stint in Jerusalem was done (for Roman soldiers, Jerusalem was the equivalent of the Eastern Front for German soldiers, and a posting there was often used as a punishment). The last thing they (and Pilate) wanted to do was stir up the local Jews into a factional war.

4. Perhaps the disciples took the body?

And Peter said, "Come on, chaps, let's take the body of Jesus, hide it, and tell everyone that he rose from the dead".

Preposterous! and no, it's not in any translation of the bible. Followers of Christ prided themselves on telling the truth (ok, not Judas, or Peter denying Jesus three times... but they're exceptions...). Firstly, if that had happened, one of the disciples would have told someone else before they died - it's human nature to want to pass on a juicy bit of gossip like that. Secondly, most of the disciples died for their faith; who would want to die for a lie?

The resurrection changed the disciples. Peter changed from a weak, fickle person to a strong leader of the church; that change would not have happened had his faith not been galvanised by seeing Jesus after he rose from the dead.

5. Perhaps Jesus rose from the dead?

We know this to be true. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15:4-6 (NLT)


4 He was buried, and he was raised from the dead on the third day, just as the Scriptures said. 5 He was seen by Peter and then by the Twelve. 6 After that, he was seen by more than 500 of his followers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died.

So Paul was writing about the truth of the resurrection less than 50 years after it happened. If anybody argued that Jesus wasn't resurrected, Paul could give them a few names of people to talk to. Again, if it was all fake, one of those 500 people would have told the truth. In fact, they all told the truth; Jesus was risen.

And we haven't even got into John 21 yet! We'll look at that in depth over the weekend. Now back to our regularly scheduled programming....


[1] The Holy Bible : King James Version. electronic ed. of the 1769 edition of the 1611 Authorized Version. Bellingham WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1995.

[2] The Holy Bible : New International Version NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan.

[3] The Holy Bible : New Living Translation. 2nd ed. Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale House Publishers, 2004