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John 20:1-18 – The Resurrection:  Death Laid Aside, Garden Reopened

TAKING A WALK

I’m not sure how you spent your Saturday. For the most part, it was a lovely day. I went for a long walk in the morning, trying to get my steps in. I’m not sure who came up with the number, but my wife has suggested we’re supposed to get 10,000 steps in a day. 

Jenny and I went for a walk Thursday, and it felt like a long walk. And here’s my disappointing discovery. I ended up with a whopping 3,700 steps, while my wife made 4,400. Same distance!

Anyway, what I like about walking, when I make time for it, is it gives me time to reflect. 

I don’t know how much walking the disciples did on the Saturday after Good Friday. Being the Sabbath, I doubt they did very much. But I assure you, they were in deep thought over the events of the past day. 

In case you aren’t aware, for the Jews, a day runs nightfall to nightfall. When Jesus is arrested on what we would consider Thursday night, that would be the beginning of their Friday.

FRIDAY’S CHAOS

Friday, everything was happening so fast. There was no time to process what took place; what went wrong; what we could have done differently to have prevented all of this? 

In the midst of the chaos, we react. We think we can turn things around by our own efforts, such as Peter drawing the sword and cutting off the ear of Malchus, the high priest’s servant. And a few hours later, it’s all over. There’s nothing you can do. It’s all behind you. 

A LONG SATURDAY

As long as Friday likely was for the disciples, I have to wonder if Saturday seemed far longer and darker.

I can’t imagine that the disciples, who slept so easily in the Garden of Gethsemane when they were supposed to keep watch, found any sleep at all after the fact — unable to shake their shame, their denials, their desertion of their Lord, their utter helplessness, unable to save the One who came to save them. 

They just didn’t yet realize the salvation Jesus had come to bring … at least, not yet. 

Saturday. Long dark Saturday. You reach that point when it’s all over, and you can’t make sense of anything. All seems lost. Where do you even go from here. 

DARKEST HOUR

They had never known a darker hour … and they weren’t the One crucified.

Only in light of this greatest of darknesses do we truly get an accurate sense of the Good News of what Jesus accomplished in our behalf … in his disciples’ behalf. 

As dark and lost and confusing as Saturday may have seemed, it was nothing that a brisk Sunday morning walk — or even jog to an empty tomb — couldn’t clear up.

[READ: John 19:41-20:18]

THEOLOGICAL NARRATIVE

While other women attended Mary Magdalene when she went that morning to the tomb, it’s important that we keep in mind that the Gospel writers aren’t simply recounting the events but are framing the narrative in such a way as to capture profound theological truths, each from a different angle. So, we’ll deal with John’s narrative as given to us, without feeling the need to reconstruct the event with the other 3 Gospels.

DEAD MAN WALKING

John records Mary arriving at the tomb while it was still dark. And that she saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb where Jesus’ body had been laid. So she runs to tell Peter and John, who is described as the other disciple whom Jesus loved. And she says, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.”

Now, if you and I were there, we would have come to the same conclusion. If the body isn’t there, it must be because someone had taken it. Surely a dead man doesn’t get up and walk out on his own.

THE GREAT RACE

So, Peter and John waste no time hopping up from wherever they had been grieving, and they race to the tomb. 

And don’t you love how John so subtly puts in just who it is who won the race. Sorry Peter. I’m just calling it like it was. Of course, that’s not at all what John was doing. John has no desire to draw attention to himself. John had nothing in himself to boast in. In fact, John refuses to even refer to himself by name. 

NO BRAGGING RIGHTS

So, if John’s not subtly inserting his little bragging rights in besting Peter to the tomb, why bring it up? Well, a couple reasons.
John recognized Peter as the senior, as well as the one Jesus had charged with a special position. I think that’s in view here. 

But more so, there’s a progression to what John and Peter witness that would be missing without it.

TO SEE OR NOT TO SEE

In verses 5-9, there are four verbs that are each in reference to “seeing”, each one with a slightly different nuance. In the ESV, the first 3 are recorded simply with the words “he saw.” The last, in verse 9, “understand.”

Verse 5. When John arrives at the tomb first, he stoops to look in, and he saw the line cloths lying there, but he did not go in. “He saw” conveys simple observation. (It’s the word βλέπω.) John stooped and he saw; he noticed the linen cloths lying there. 

THEORIZING

Verse 6. Peter, when he arrives, likely more winded than John, doesn’t take time to catch his breath. He immediately goes in. And he saw the linen cloths lying there, and the face cloth, which had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen cloths but folded up in a place by itself.

The verb here is Θεωρέω. It means to gaze upon and contemplate.
It’s where we get our word “theatre.” Another word you can hear is the word “theory,” where one investigates and draws conclusions.
It’s a thoughtful reflection concerning what is observed. 

And O was there lots to reflect upon here.

LINEN GRAVE CLOTHS

There are two major pieces of evidence inside the tomb that Peter’s contemplating. First, the linen cloths. Now, what’s being conveyed by these grave cloths is they are lying where they were. Try to picture this. The linen cloths would have been wrapped around the body. And now, here they are still wrapped, but no body. The grave cloths are lying there as they were, yet there is no corpse inside. They are wrapped around nothing. The body is simply gone. 

The cloths didn’t have to be unwrapped to be removed like with Lazarus, when Jesus says, “Unbind him and let him go.” Whatever is going on here is something entirely different. This being raised from the dead is not the same as those Jesus raised during his earthly ministry. Those all pointed to this — something far more glorious.

CLOSED DOORS

In verse 19, the disciples are found cowering behind locked doors, and yet Jesus comes and stands among them. The doors didn’t need to be opened for him to come in. Why? Because he is the door.

In fact, the reason the stone that sealed the tomb was rolled back was not so Jesus could walk out, but so that the disciples could look in, so they could walk in and see and inspect and believe. 

And yet, there’s more to this stone that has been taken away. The tomb of death is open!

FACE CLOTH

The second major piece of evidence is the face cloth. Unlike the linen grave cloths that couldn’t hold Jesus’ body, so they just fell where they were, the face cloth is folded up. The verb describes a careful wrapping or folding of a cloth. This folding of the face cloth and setting it aside in a place by itself is deliberate. (So much for any theories about grave robbers!)

But there’s something far more significant! The grave cloths that once bound Jesus have been left behind. The folded face cloth proclaims Jesus’ last words from the cross. It is finished!

While it was finished upon the cross Friday, it’s Sunday that reveals what exactly was accomplished.

SEEING CLEARLY: 2020

Verse 8. Then the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed.

What did the disciple see? Not the risen Lord. That comes later. John believed without seeing what many demand — more and more evidence. Of course, no amount of evidence will ever suffice for the skeptic, because evidence isn’t the problem. 

The verb “he saw” — ὁράω — here in verse 8, carries the idea of perceiving, to discern something clearly. In biblical terms it suggests coming to know a thing. 

ACTS 20

It’s used in Acts 4:20. When the religious leaders seek to silence, of all people, Peter and John, from speaking or teaching at all in the name of Jesus, they respond: As for us we cannot stop speaking about what we have seen and heard. That is, we can’t stop speaking about what we have come to know.

REVELATION 1

Similarly, in Revelation 1:7, speaking of the risen Lord Jesus. Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Everyone will see. All will know without doubt. And for many, it will be too late. 

SEEING IS BELIEVING

But when John saw, he believed. John is recorded as the first man in all the world to believe that the crucified Jesus is alive!

Verse 9. For as yet they did not understand the Scripture, that he must rise from the dead. Up to this point, they had not understood. But now, having observed and inspected, they begin to see clearly to where they are now starting to understand. That word “understand” is similar to the verb in verse 8, to see with comprehension. In fact, many suggest it’s an irregular form of the same verb. Regardless, it means to perceive with understanding.

Christian faith is never a blind faith. It’s a faith that has looked closely at the evidence, has seen through the lens of the Scriptures to where they now understand and believed.

STOOPING TO SEE

But there’s one more word we need to look at a little more closely in order to better perceive this entire progression. That’s back up in verse 5. It’s the word “stoop.” And stooping to look in. “Look” is implied. The word simply means “to bend beside” or “to stoop to a thing” often with the intention to check something out. 

It’s used to describe an earnest, humble, investigation of a thing. It’s a disposition of humility and reverence. It conveys a desire for understanding and an expectancy to understand.

Speaking of the glories of Christ and the gospel, Peter will later write, these are things into which angels long to look — same word! Literally, these are things into which angels long to stoop. O to stoop and see. 

PRIDE AND UNBELIEF

Loved ones, this is the only posture that will lead to belief.
Because the only thing in the way of belief is not a lack of information. Your friends and family don’t need more details or data. Only one thing stands in the way of belief — pride.

The disciples ran to see. They stooped to look. They inspected the evidence, recalled the words, and believed. 

BELIEVE EVEN NOW

How about you? What about now? Do you believe it now? I’m not talking about some intellectual assent, but a belief to where this one thing changes how you view absolutely everything else!

You still need this! You and I don’t outgrow the need to stoop, inspect, recall, and believe. 

The One who conquers death, what can He not do!!!

LOOKING INTO YOUR OWN GRAVE

The disciples came to check this news out. They stooped to look in. I hope you get that. They stooped to look into a grave — a tomb — in which no one had yet been laid! — in order to check this thing out!

They stooped to look into a grave that should have been theirs — should have been yours — should have been mine. It was like looking into one’s own grave, but someone else took up residency there in your place. 

But the One who took up residency in the tomb that should have been ours — he didn’t stay long! Death was folded up! Laid aside … like grave cloths!
And the disciples believed.

GOING HOME

Verse 10. Then the disciples went back to their homes. Contrary to Mary, who will run as a witness to tell others, the disciples are recorded simply as returning to their homes. 

Now, I’m not about to give the disciples a hard time, as if I would have done differently. Sometimes, I need to go home and be alone and process. I mean, I lose sleep over far lesser things. 

Can you imagine processing this! You thought Saturday kept them from sleep. There’s no way I’m sleeping after this.

SOMETHING TO DEAL WITH

You see, after you stoop and check this thing out — that it was your death Jesus died — you need to deal with it. Whether that means going home to wrestle with what that means. Or perhaps you’re Mary and you’re ready to run. 

Either way, this isn’t something to simply set aside. If the resurrection is true, nothing else is more urgent! You need to deal with this.

MARY MARY

Now we return to Mary — or at least, the narrative does. Mary’s Saturday was just as bleak and dark as the men’s. Put yourself in her place. Luke records her as following Jesus fairly early in his ministry after he had cast seven demons out of her. Imagine her grief, her lostness at his crucifixion which she stood by and witnessed. Now, even the body of her Lord is gone, and she can’t even minister to his dead corpse. 

Two angels and she doesn’t appear to be phased. Her only concern: “Where is the body of my Lord?” And perhaps due to her grief, or perhaps because Jesus was unrecognizable, or maybe a little of both, she mistakes Jesus for the Gardener. 

Recall, the end of chapter 19. The tomb was in a garden.
19:41. Now in the place where Jesus was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid.

CARRIED AWAY

And hear the desperation in her voice. Verse 15. Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away. 

O what she didn’t yet know. No one had carried her Lord away. If anything was carried away, it was the Lord himself who carried it away to the cross and then to the grave. 

This word carried is the same word used in Matthew 8:17, where he quotes Isaiah. Surely he took our infirmities and carried away our diseases. It’s the same word used a chapter earlier. John 19:17. And Jesus went out carrying his own cross.

HE KNOWS MY NAME

And with a mention of her name, her eyes are opened. Verse 16. Jesus said to her, “Mary.” 

O the power of a name — of being known — that the Lord of all creation knows your name. Isn’t that what Samuel read for us in John 10. He calls his sheep by name! And they listen to him and follow him, for they know his voice! Jesus knew Mary’s name — knew in the intimate sense of the word — because he knew Mary. 

And Mary knew her Lord’s voice. So she turns and says to him “Rabboni!” (which means Teacher).

DOES JESUS KNOW YOURS?

Does Jesus know your name? I’ll tell you how you can know whether or not Jesus knows your name like he does Mary’s. Do you know his voice? Do you listen to his voice? And listening to his voice, do you follow him?

WOMAN

It’s significant that Jesus first appears to a woman … a particular woman … a woman who had been oppressed — who as recorded elsewhere, she was oppressed by no less than seven demons, expressing the fullness of her oppression — a woman who had known great shame … and great sin — a woman much like the one who was deceived by the serpent. 

A NEW GARDENER

It’s not accidental that John records Jesus being mistaken for the Gardener. He was. It’s one of the ways the Gospel portrays Jesus as the New Adam who was charged with keeping the Garden. But where Adam failed to guard the Garden, Jesus did not. 

Why was Mary weeping in the Garden? Because of what it cost this Greater Adam to cast out the Serpent. 

DEFENDING THE GARDEN

Instead of defending the Garden, and his Bride, the first Adam gave in and listened to the voice of his wife instead of the voice of God.
Adam and his wife were exiled from the Garden …
… with Cherubim and a flaming sword guarding the way back in.

To defeat the Serpent, Jesus would have to endure, not simply physical death, but all that the tomb represented. The tomb that was in the midst of the Garden, was the tomb that represented the greatest of exiles —exile from the sweet communion the eternal Son had always enjoyed with his Father. 

This was the cup Jesus would have to drink. This was the cup that Jesus didn’t want to drink. Indeed, it was the cup that Jesus couldn’t want to drink. That’s what the cross was! That’s what the tomb represented.

THE TOMB OF EXILE

19:41. Now in the place where Jesus was crucified was a Garden, and in the Garden a New Tomb in which no one had yet been laid.

Recall, on the day you eat you shall surely die! But Adam and Eve weren’t buried in the Garden the day they ate. Instead, they were clothed and sent away outside the Garden. 

Rather than Adam and Eve dying that day, another died in their place — an innocent substitute in order to cover them.

MORE THAN FORGIVENESS

But, it’s not enough for Jesus to pay for our sins as our substitute if we are still left outside the Garden away from the presence of the Lord.

It took Jesus entering the Garden Thursday night, condemned on the cross Friday, and enduring the greatest of exiles Saturday.

Friday was the work … Saturday the wait … but Sunday reveals what was actually accomplished. 

DO YOU SEE IT?

Recall, the disciples still hadn’t understood what this rising from the dead was about. But once John saw it, he saw it. And he wants us to see it with him. 

That’s why he records the details as he does, from the grave cloths to the folded up face covering to the stone taken away to the two angels to the Gardener. Death has been laid aside, the Garden reopened.

If you didn’t notice, the two angels, the cherubim, weren’t waving a flaming sword!

SO YOU MAY BELIEVE

Once you see it, it becomes clear. But let me ask. Do you see it? Have you stooped to look. Have you inspected the evidence John has laid out for us? 

These things, John says, are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the risen Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name — resurrection life in his name. 

GOOD FRIDAY PSALMS

We looked at quite a few Psalms on Good Friday. We also had to leave a lot of Psalms out. One important Psalm that captures both what happened on Good Friday and what it accomplished Resurrection Sunday is the Psalm we opened with for our call to worship. Psalm 118.

Psalm 118

Open to me the gates of righteousness, that I may enter through them and give thanks to the Lord. This is the gate of the Lord; the righteous shall enter through it. I thank you that you have answered me and have become my salvation. The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This is the Lord’s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes. This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.

THE GATE

Just what is this gate of the Lord that the righteous shall enter through? It’s Jesus himself. John 10, Jesus declares, I am the gate of the sheep. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. (John 10:9)
Or John 14 — I AM THE WAY!!!

CURTAIN OPENED

It is through Jesus Christ, and only through him, that any of us have access to God, because Jesus and Jesus alone has opened the Gate. 

It was not some temple curtain that needed to be torn for us to enter the most holy place of God’s presence. Our sin needed to be dealt with decisively, which took place in Christ on the cross, when the curtain of his flesh was torn open for us. 

As Hebrews says: We have confidence to enter the holy places only by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh. (Hebrews 10:19-20)

THE DAY THE LORD HAS MADE

But opening this curtain would require the rejection of this precious Cornerstone, the Son of God himself, upon whom all of creation is founded. 

As dark as Good Friday was, we rightly call it good. This is the daythat the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. (Psalm 118:24). We don’t rejoice in Jesus’ suffering, or his shame, or his rejection; we rejoice in him bearing the suffering, shame, rejection and all the rest in our place! 

CLEAVING OF THE BRIDE

While Sunday came, and it was no doubt the most glorious day to date, it anticipates an even better day to come.

Verse 17. Jesus said to Mary, “Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father, but go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”

When Jesus called Mary’s name and she finally recognized him, I imagine she immediately embraced him. I don’t think what Jesus is saying here is “Mary, back off.” No. This takes us back to Genesis again. The time for the Bridegroom to cleave to the Bride is not yet. Something far greater awaits! — The consummation!

Mary, this consummation awaits you. It awaits my disciples. And loved ones, if you’re in Christ, it awaits you!

MARY’S BOAST

Well, Mary got her steps in that day. Multiple trips to the tomb and to the disciples. But where the men ran ahead and were the first to enter the tomb and believe, Mary has her own little boast. And what a glorious boast she is granted. Brothers! I have seen Jesus!

THE NEED TO SEE JESUS

I don’t know how you read your Bible, but I know how many do. Many read it as a book of life lessons. So, what they share from it is rarely more than pragmatic applications. Not Mary. She runs to announce the risen Lord. She runs to tell people about Jesus.

Loved ones. We need to see Jesus — what he accomplished, his victory over death and the grave — his victory over the serpent — his victory over sin — his reopening the Garden so that we now have access to God as our Father. This is the good news that we need to announce to one another again and again. 

APPLICATION

Far more than three steps to being a better spouse — or understanding your child’s love language — or how to deal with anxiety or depression — we need to see Jesus. This isn’t simply the main thing — it is the thing we should be most concerned about as a church. Everything else flows from this. 

If you’re a believer, you need to see Jesus, this risen Lord, this grand Gardener, now as much as ever. We never graduate from this. This is the One we’re hoping to spend eternity with. And yet, how often we get caught up in far lesser things, when we’re presented with this Pearl of Great Price worth selling and casting off everything else for.

CONCLUSION

But you’ll never give your life to Him and for Him so long as you simply peer in from the outside. You need to stoop — enter — examine — what Jesus accomplished in your behalf. 

O HOW LOW

And get this: You and I can never stoop lower than the One who stooped to save us — stooping from the heights of heaven to the depths of another man’s tomb — even the depths of hell itself, exiled from God and all His goodness, in order to open the way for you and I to come near.

If Jesus stooped so low to offer you this salvation, o how great must be the pride that refuses to stoop to honestly investigate the evidence.

But for those who have stooped, the sorrow of Saturday has become the greatest of joys Sunday. As one of our hymns so perfectly captured it: Rise my soul the Lord has risen, come behold the empty grave. See the place where darkness laid him. Sing for only hope remains. 

That’s what the resurrection offers. Hope! And it’s a sure hope that awaits an even greater consummation.

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