He Saw and Believed: The Disciples Run to the Empty Tomb

PRAYER OF EASTER CONSECRATION

Praise be to you, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!
In your great mercy you have given us new birth into a living hope
     through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead! (1 Pet. 1:3)

I receive your Holy Spirit, the Resurrection-Spirit-of-life within me,
     and I attune myself to your work of awakening hearts, including my own,
     to experience your transforming love.

In Jesus’s name I come, amen.

John 20:2–8

So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!”

So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. Then Simon Peter came along behind him and went straight into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, as well as the cloth that had been wrapped around Jesus’ head. The cloth was still lying in its place, separate from the linen. Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed.

CONSIDER THIS

In the beginning verses of John 20, everyone is running.

It seems that resurrection, the truest meaning of awakening, has a way of getting people moving.

Peter and “the one Jesus loved” (the way John will name himself in the Gospel) are running.

They’ve received Easter news, and they must see for themselves.

Then, in one of what might be considered the funniest literary moments in the Gospels, the writer of the Gospel, John, proceeds to make what initially seems like an unimportant point.

1. He and Peter began running at the same time (v. 3)
2. He outran Peter (v. 4)
3. Peter came along behind him (v. 6)
4. He had reached the tomb first (v. 8)

We may one day know why John wrote the story this way, but for now we can laugh at the humor of it all.

John is faster.

He got there first.

But let’s note this before we go on: arriving first was important to the disciple Jesus loved.

In heaven, I want to be the first to run to Jesus! No one has ever loved me like he has. I want to be the first!

In v. 8, we come to the point of our story.

“He [the one Jesus loved] saw and believed.”

From bewilderment to belief—that is the route Jesus takes us to experience the resurrection life he offers.

Take a moment to remember the hour you first believed the resurrection was true. (Does a verse from “Amazing Grace” come to mind as you read that sentence?)

Can you bring that sense of awe, desire, love, overwhelming thankfulness and trust, into this moment once again?

John’s heart, so attuned to Jesus’s love for him, was a ready receptor for belief in the impossible.

New Testament scholar N. T. Wright puts it this way:

Then comes the moment. The younger man, the beloved disciple, goes into the tomb after Peter. And the idea they had to that point about what must have happened—someone taking the body away, but unwrapping it first—looks stupid and irrelevant. Something quite new surges up in the young disciple, a wild delight at God’s creative power. He remembers the moment ever afterwards. A different sensation. A bit like falling in love; a bit like sunrise; a bit like the sound of rain after a long drought. A bit like faith (N. T. Wright, John for Everyone, Part 2, p. 141–42).

John was quick to believe, because love had paved the way.

To experience the love of God for one’s soul is not an optional addition to an otherwise cerebral or intellectual life of faith. It is absolutely essential we experience the love of God for us—and it is the inheritance of the saints to know it like Paul did, and so many of our sisters and brothers throughout history.

Hear these words from Romans 8:38–39:

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Rom. 8:38–39)

And these from Galatians 2:20:

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Gal. 2:20)

The path from bewilderment to belief is paved by love, and the love of God delivered to us by the resurrected Lord is in you and with you right now as your Easter inheritance.

THE PRAYER

Risen Lord of the Beloved Heart, we want to be quick to believe, slow to doubt, quick to trust, and slow to despair. By the Spirit of resurrection within us, your Spirit Lord Jesus, call us from our grave clothes into fullness of trust in this one life you give us to live. In Jesus’s name, amen.

THE QUESTIONS

In what ways did the love of God for you pave the way for you to believe him and trust him in circumstances beyond your control? What could you do as the Easter season begins to nurture your awareness of his love for you?

For the Awakening,
Dan Wilt

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