I Am the Resurrection and the Life

Meditations for Seeking the Life in Christ

The Gospel of John 

October 8, 2024

I Am the Resurrection and the Life

Then the disciple who had reached the tomb first also went in, and he saw and believed— for until then they still hadn’t understood the Scriptures that said Jesus must rise from the dead.

John  20:8-9

John is still supplying important details. First, there is Mary Magdalene. She is only mentioned three times in John’s Gospel. She is identified as being at the foot of the cross (John 19:25), and in today’s passage, she is the first person to discover the empty tomb. In the following passage, she was the first person to see the risen Lord. John tells us a woman was the first to speak with our Risen Savior. I suspect John would be just a bit incredulous that the twenty-first century church still struggles over the role of women in church leadership.

In the previous passage, we learned that “Following Jewish burial custom, (Joseph and Nicodemus) wrapped Jesus’ body with the spices in long sheets of linen cloth” (John 19:40). In today’s passage, we learn that Jesus’ tomb was empty except for the “linen wrappings lying there, while the cloth that had covered Jesus’ head was folded up and lying apart from the other wrappings” (John 20:6-7). John follows this with an autobiographical statement, “Then the disciple who had reached the tomb first also went in, and he saw and believed” (John 20:8). What did John believe, and how did the linen cloths factor in his leap of faith?

First, if someone was going to steal Jesus’ body, I doubt they would have taken the time to unwrap all the linen cloths before moving the body. Secondly, I suspect John immediately thought of the scene recorded in John 11:43-44, “Then Jesus shouted, “Lazarus, come out!” And the dead man came out, his hands and feet bound in graveclothes, his face wrapped in a headcloth. Jesus told them, “Unwrap him and let him go!” I suspect John also remembered the words of Jesus, “I am the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25a).

My Takeaway: And I suspect John may have been the first person to say,

He is Risen!

He is Risen indeed!

Sē’lah                                                                                         

My book on prayer,

First Think, Then Pray

is now available on Amazon Kindle.

 

(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

 

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life.  The meditations are published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/ and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com.

 

Copyright © 2024 by Alex M. Knight

 

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.