Not Missing

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF JOHN

NOT MISSING

 John 20:1-9

20:1 Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. 2 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!" 3 So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. 4 Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5 He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. 6 Then Simon Peter, who was behind him, arrived and went into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, 7 as well as the burial cloth that had been around Jesus' head. The cloth was folded up by itself, separate from the linen. 8 Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. 9(They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.)

NIV

Although we know all this from having known the end of the story, having known Jesus was resurrected from the dead and being the firstborn of many who would be resurrected from the dead, John and Peter were not yet fully comprehending the completeness of the situation. We are told what John saw, but we are not told what John believed. He saw the fact that the grave linens were folded up and the napkin of burial cloth that was covering Jesus’s head was folded up separate. He saw that the body of Jesus was no longer in the tomb that he had been laid in. They may not have understood how or who rolled away the stone. But we do not know what they believed. It does not appear they understood that Jesus was alive, they just believe his body was no longer in the grave. How many times did Jesus tell them he would rise from the dead? He may not have said it that plainly, but he sure made so many references to this moment they should have put two and two together and realized that he was no longer dead, but he had risen. They will eventually see him, and truly believe he is the Son of God. They will hear Thomas declare that he is his Lord and his God. They will know without a doubt that Jesus is divine, and they will see him float up into the air, something no one has ever done before. Well, that is not exactly true, for Elisha watched Elijah fly away up into the air on a fiery chariot. In Fact, Elisha heard Elijah cry out, My Father! My Father!, as he was taken up in a whirlwind. It is plain Elijah saw God. Elisha testified to this. John, in his gospel, is also testifying that he saw Christ, the Son of the Living God. They will believe everything, although, at this point in time, we are not sure what they believed. However, it does give us the opportunity to affirm that we believe. We have never seen what they have. We have never walked physically with Jesus. We have never heard his voice, his teachings from his lips. We have not seen him heal all those people and even bring Lazarus back from the dead. But we do have the testimony, the eye witness accounts of those who did see and hear it all. We do not have to run to the grave, for we know Jesus is not there, he is alive. Although they went to the grave to see what happened to Jesus, we do not have to go to the grave, for we know he has risen and the grave is empty. We too know that although our body may spend a moment in time in the grave, it too will be empty for we will rise again. We are convinced that as Jesus was resurrected so will we because we are in Christ and he is in us. We also know that although his body was in the tomb for three days, he was not. As to his location, they may be some dispute. Some believe he went to hell to preach to the dead. Others believe he did not go to hell but was with God during those three days. Where was Lazarus for those four days he was in a tomb? The thinking of the Jews in those days was that the spirit of a body remained hanging around for three days after death, just in case, then on the fourth day left and the body began to decay. That is why Mary told Jesus the body of her brother must smell by now. So if we followed that Jewish thinking, the spirit of Jesus did not go anywhere because he was only in the tomb three days, and his body did not see decay. No one really knows the truth of that matter, but we do know is that Jesus was alive before the foundation of the earth, he is alive now, and he will be alive forever. At that time John and Peter might have thought Jesus was missing, but he is not missing, he is alive.