Day 113

Luke 24:1–12 (NIV)

¹ On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. ² They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, ³ but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. ⁴ While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. ⁵ In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? ⁶ He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: ⁷ ‘The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’ ” ⁸ Then they remembered his words. ⁹ When they came back from the tomb, they told all these things to the Eleven and to all the others. ¹⁰ It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the others with them who told this to the apostles. ¹¹ But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense. ¹² Peter, however, got up and ran to the tomb. Bending over, he saw the strips of linen lying by themselves, and he went away, wondering to himself what had happened.

Pray for God to show you something to use from the passage

Read the Passage

Who is in the passage?

What action verbs do you see?

What other words stick out in your mind

Questions

Why do they doubt what they hear about Jesus? Why do people doubt Jesus’ resurrection today?

Notes

vs 1 As soon as possible after the Sabbath the women come to finish the job of perfuming the body for its decay. One key to me concerning the truth of the resurrection is who finds the tomb empty. It is the women. If this were a made up account then the men would have been the ones finding the tomb empty. Why? Because the testimony of women was doubted in that day. God choose women to find the grave empty.

vs 2-3 The stone would probably have been able to roll away in a grove cut for it. It would be rounded enough to roll away from the tomb opening with effort. However the woman find the stone already rolled away and the tomb empty!

vs 4 Wondering- where is the body?- have the Jewish leaders taken it away. May be Joseph has done something with the body? Before they could decide what could have happened two angels show up!

vs 5- 8 the fright is not unlike that of how Luke starts (1:12, 30, 2:10) when people also see angels.

The key question is asked - seeking the living among the dead- it is a gentle rebuke of them not remembering or doubting Jesus' words about His resurrection (9:22) He has done what He said he would do! He is risen! Remember how in 18:34 it says the disciples didn't understand what Jesus' meant. Now the women do!

vs 9-11 The women had to be ecstatic with the news and couldn't wait to tell the disciples. But they had to be disappointed in their response. The men simply could not believe the story. They saw Jesus crucified. Someone was playing a cruel joke on the women.

vs 12- Peter, always one to see for himself goes to see. Sure enough the tomb is empty but why? The question for Peter remains unanswered.

Note: Matching the stories of the resurrection. Most differences are surely due to the writer only telling what they need to to prove the points they make. For instance John only mentions Mary Magdelene going to the tomb. But that doesn't mean others were not also there. Luke and John mention two angels, Matthew and Mark only one. But that doesn't exclude another angel. Perhaps Matthew only mentions the one who talks. See the article below for more information.

The story of the resurrection in John is quite exciting and seemingly straightforward. One woman shows up at the tomb, discovers it is open, informs the disciples, who investigate, and then meets first an angel and afterward Jesus. This straightforwardness is true enough so long as we look only at one Gospel. When we examine Matthew 28:1–8 or Mark 16:1–8 or Luke 24:1–10 we discover differing pictures. Can these pictures be put together? If they cannot, what does this mean for the truth of the accounts?

In responding to this issue, it would be helpful to look at the events in the four accounts (see chart).

Event	Mt 28:1–8	Mk 16:1–8	Lu 24:1–10	Jn 20:1–8
When?	at dawn	just after sunrise	very early in the morning	while it was still dark
Who comes first?	Mary Magdelene and the other Mary	Mary Magdelene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome	Mary Magdelene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and others	Mary Magdelene
What do they find?	earthquake with angel who rolls back the stone	stone rolled away	stone rolled away	stone removed from the entrance
Whom do they see?	angel sitting on the stone	young man in white robe, sitting on the right	two men in clothes that gleamed like lightening	no one
What do they do?	ran to tell his disciples	fled from the tomb, afraid to say anything	told what had happened to the Eleven and others	ran to tell Peter and the disciple, the one Jesus loved
What happens next?	Jesus met them		Peter goes to the tomb to investigate	Peter and the other disciple investigate
What is the third scene?	guards report to chief priests and are bribed		story of two disciples on Emmaus road	Mary sees two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been

When we examine these four accounts, we notice some similarities. First, all agree that the events happened around dawn, although they disagree about whether it was already light. Given that the events happened over a period of time, this difference is hardly significant. Second, all agree that Mary Magdalene was at least one of the ones discovering that the body had disappeared. The purposes of the individual narratives seems to determine how many other women are mentioned (with Luke, who has a special interest in women, noting the most women). Third, all agree that the women find an open, corpseless tomb. Matthew seems to imply that they also saw the opening of the tomb, although he may narrate the opening of the tomb as something that happened while the women were traveling and before they arrived at the tomb. None of the other Gospels mentions the guards, so how the tomb gets opened is less of a problem for them. Fourth, all agree that the women saw one or more angels (only Luke has two). However, the angel in John’s account appears to be functioning in a different narrative role than the ones in the other accounts. It is, perhaps, more accurate to say that John does not inform us if Mary saw anyone at the tomb before going to tell the disciples. What the angels say also differs, although in all cases the women are informed that Jesus is not there. In the various accounts they are told not to fear (and that they were afraid anyway), to report to the disciples and to meet Jesus in Galilee. Finally, all agree that the women left the tomb, and three of the four accounts note that they did inform the disciples. (Mark breaks off with verse 8, the longer ending probably not being part of the original text; it is debated whether an original ending of Mark has been lost or whether he intended to break off with the women in fear and the question of whether they would follow Jesus into Galilee hanging in the air.)

Furthermore, two of the accounts agree that the woman or women met Jesus, that they tried to hold on to him, and that he sent them on their way. However, John appears to put this meeting after Peter and the beloved disciple investigate, and Matthew puts it before the women report to the disciples.

What can we conclude from this data? First, it is possible to make this data into a coherent story. If we assume that the pre- or postdawn timing depends on whether one gives the time of the women starting their trip or their arrival at the tomb, if we assume that the earthquake and angelic descent happened before the women arrived at the tomb, if we merge what the angels say into one account, if we assume that the angels moved around, and if we assume that Mary Magdalene remained behind at the tomb while the others went and reported (and thus had a separate meeting with Jesus), one can make a single coherent account out of the various stories. Obviously, if there were two angels, one writer could report only one. Not every writer has to report all of the details another mentions. In other words, these are different stories but not necessarily conflicting stories. All could be true at the same time.

Second, while it is possible to make the data fit into a coherent story, we cannot be sure that we have the right coherent story. We have a jigsaw puzzle of information and cannot be sure that we have all of the pieces. Thus, since the Scripture has not given us a single unified story, we must be careful or else we will end up believing that our reconstruction is the truth. A reconstruction may be the truth or it may distort the truth. Perhaps if we had some other critical pieces of information we would make quite a different reconstruction.

Third, these stories are exactly what one would expect to discover after a significant event like the resurrection. The chancellor of this author’s university died at the end of an address to the student body. Within an hour of the event a sociology professor had his thirty students each write down their own account of what had happened. Each was instructed to write as honest and detailed account as they could, given the limited time of the class period. When the accounts were later compared, there were numerous differences in detail, although all agreed that the chancellor had died at the end of his address. Presumably each Gospel writer had a series of stories about the resurrection to sort through. For example, we know that Matthew knows and values Mark’s account, but in the resurrection story he obviously has some independent information as well. The Evangelists selected and combined data to get the accounts that they give us. But even the beloved disciple in John is not an eyewitness of most of the events, so we are not surprised to find a lot of differences in their reporting what happened.

Finally, when we try to put the stories together, we miss the point of the authors. The church accepted into its canon four separate Gospels, viewing each as inspired by God. It did not put into the canon a harmony of these Gospels (although such existed). The fact is that each writer is trying to bring out his unique perspective and theological insights by the details he includes or leaves out (although, unless Matthew and Luke are differing from Mark, which we know that they knew, we often cannot be sure that the author actually knows a detail and so purposely leaves it out). Matthew wants to underline the miraculous and also explain a rumor that the body of Jesus was stolen. Luke stresses the fulfillment of the words of Jesus and yet the disbelief of the apostles. John, by focusing on a single character and her intimate discussion with Jesus, points out that in the resurrection and ascension of Jesus the promises of John 13–16 are fulfilled. Jesus cannot be held, for it is better for him to go to the one who is not only his Father but is now also our Father. It is when we look at the resurrection through such eyes, informed by the perspective of each Gospel writer, that we see not simply a miracle, nor even the fact of the resurrection, but the message the church has believed that God wanted to communicate in and through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Kaiser, W. C. (1997). Hard sayings of the Bible. Downers Grove, Il: InterVarsity.