Early on Resurrection Sunday, “there yet being darkness”, Mary Magdalene and another Mary, the mother of James and Joseph, arrived at the tomb and discovered it empty. An angel in a vision told them Jesus had risen from the dead (Mat 28;1-8), but like a dream it quickly gave way to the only thing that they could understand in their own minds must have happened—that someone had removed His body (Joh 20:2). For if He had really been raised from the dead, wouldn’t His body be there, just like it was with Lazarus? While the other Mary went to tell others and perhaps met up with a group of other women whom they had arranged to meet at the tomb (Luk 24:1-10), Mary Magdalene ran to tell Peter and John what they had discovered. When the other women arrived with the spices to complete the burial custom for Jesus’ body (since it was but hastily interred Thursday evening by Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus), they too had a vision, but of two angels, announcing the resurrection. They then left to inform others, so that news of the empty tomb quickly spread to Jesus’ disciples, though none at that time had yet seen the risen Savior. After this Peter and John arrived at the tomb. John reached the tomb before Peter, but paused to enter, perhaps fearing the ritual defilement, or the official seal that the Jewish authorities had posted. However, after Peter impulsively rushed right in, John followed to discover the empty grave wrappings, but no angels. Especially puzzling was the empty face cloth, still rolled up as if upon His head, but in a place by itself separate from the other grave cloths. Although the significance of the separated face-cloth eluded the other gospel writers, decades later towards the end of his life John perhaps came to understand it as a sign of Christ’s divine nature as the only begotten Son of God, separate from that of other men and His body the Church, and so recorded it in his account.
What does John say was his response upon entering the tomb and discovering the empty grave wrappings? See Joh 20:8. What does the context of the next verse in Joh 20:9 indicate about what it means that he saw the empty wrappings and believed? Think: how was what he discovered in the tomb very different from the way that Lazarus had been raised from the dead, which he also recorded? See Joh 11:44 and note also that rise again in Joh 20:9 translates a different Greek word from that used for the resuscitations of Jairus’ daughter (Mat 9:25), the widow of Nain’s son (Luk 7:14), and Lazarus (Joh 12:1). The word used for the latter is ἐγείρω, typically translated as raised or raised up. But here, rise again translates ἀνίστημι, from which the noun ἀνάστασις was formed to mean resurrection to distinguish the resurrection from the dead to an immortal, glorified, resurrection body never to die again, of which Jesus’ was the first, from a raising from the dead that merely returned mortal life to a corpse. See also Mar 9:9-10 as well as Luk 18:32-34 which also highlight the disciples’ inability to understand that when Jesus predicted he would rise again (ἀνίστημι), He was talking about more than just being raised (ἐγείρω) from the dead. Hence, at that moment when he had entered the tomb and saw the empty grave clothes, although John could not yet have understood the full nature of Christ’s resurrection in contrast to simply being raised from the dead as was Lazarus, he did believe Jesus’ words that He would be raised from the dead and that true to His word that was exactly what had happened, though in a manner different from anything anyone, including John, had ever experienced or could imagine. Is it possible that in a similar way, as God’s revelation of Himself and His plan of salvation continue to unfold with things new to us, that we will discover things in hindsight that make perfect sense, but that at present we simply don’t and perhaps can’t understand, even though we grapple with them and perhaps have a small inkling, such as the events surrounding Christ’s second coming? See Isa 42:9, 43:19-20, 48:6, 1Pe 1:10-12; cf. Rom 16:25-26, Eph 3:4-6, Col 1:25-26. What should this realization remind us about the importance of both humble faith and faithful diligence in doing our best to understand what we can from what has been revealed in order that when the new things God reveals come to pass we may recognize them for what they are and not be deceived by the many darknesses of the world, the flesh and the devil that would otherwise prevent us from seeing that which is brand new? See 1Pe 1:3-8,13-16, 2Pe 1:19.
As Jesus’ body was gone without a trace and it wasn’t at all obvious what had happened to it, what does John say they did then? See Joh 20:10. What does the NAS mean that they went to their own homes? Recall that the disciples were from Galilee and just visiting Jerusalem for the Passover. Note also that homes is not actually found in the Greek, which states more literally that they went to their own (αὐτοὺς), meaning “to where they were staying” (NIV) or “to their own friends” (Youngs literal translation).